EBELING CALLS FOR “NEW AND BOLD MARITIME POLICY” FOR U.S. FLAG SHIPPING
EBELING CALLS FOR “NEW AND BOLD MARITIME POLICY” FOR U.S. FLAG SHIPPING
Raymond P. Ebeling, chairman and president of American Roll-On-Roll-Off Carriers, said the United States needs to develop “a new and bold maritime policy, which provides comprehensive and competitive, promotional, regulatory and tax policy.”
“We have reached the point where extending this, amending that, and hanging in there will not work,” Ebeling told military and industry officials at the National Defense Transportation Association ceremony in Pentagon City, Va. Thursday, where he was awared for his service to the industry. “The U.S.-flag liner shipping industry presently faces a clear-cut sunset scenario, and the sun is sinking fast.”
Ebeling emphasized the need for the industry and government to pay attention to the Maritime Security Program and its sunset effective August 2005. “Absent a new, comprehensive, long-term MSP program finalized within the next two years, what’s left of the U.S. flag international liner fleet will likely disappear,” he said.
He also warned about the mandatory build U.S. provision of the Jones Act, and how U.S. shipyards charge triple for what it costs to build ships abroad.
“Although it is a clear lesson of history that to be a great trading nation one must also be a maritime power, it has become fashionable to consider this out-of-date in the future global economy,” Ebeling said. “However, we should also consider that, after a decade of rapid growth, eleven of the top twenty carriers in the world are now owned by Asian interests, while there are zero U.S. owners in the group.”
“It has also been a fact of history, and a pillar of traditional U.S. maritime policy, that the U.S. merchant marine functions as the military’s fourth arm of defense when called, but this has also been challenged lately,” he said. “How comfortable will we be with the alternative of total reliance on the international charter market controlled by foreign flag carriers?”