Posted:
April 20, 2012
AMO Legislative Director Paul Doell sent the following letter to the editor of the Washington Post in response to the newspaper's recent editorial questioning reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and recommending repeal of the requirement that all Ex-Im cargoes be delivered in U.S.-flagged merchant ships. This letter followed one to the Washington Post a week earlier by AMO National President Tom Bethel.
As a spokesman for licensed civilian U.S. merchant marine officers, I am compelled to note the sound national security policy behind the requirement that cargoes financed by the Export-Import Bank "travel on U.S.-flagged ships" ("Impasse Over the Ex-Im," April 9).
This requirement helps ensure that the United States has the privately owned and operated cargo ships and skilled citizen seafarers it needs to supply its troops overseas during defense emergencies. For example, U.S. merchant ships drawn from the private sector - including vessels that carry Ex-Im cargoes -delivered 90 percent of the supplies, tanks, vehicles and outsized equipment used by U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq since 2001.
Cargo preference for U.S.-flagged and crewed merchant vessels in Ex-Im transactions is consistent with the official, longstanding U.S. policy of primary reliance on the commercial U.S. merchant fleet for strategic sealift and other military support services. This policy was reaffirmed most recently in a national security directive signed by President George W. Bush.
Your readers should know in this difficult budget climate that, absent this sensible policy, the Department of Defense would have to spend at least $13 billion to build or buy the sealift capacity the U.S. merchant fleet represents.
Ex-Im cargo preference: a 'sound national security policy'
AMO Legislative Director Paul Doell sent the following letter to the editor of the Washington Post in response to the newspaper's recent editorial questioning reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and recommending repeal of the requirement that all Ex-Im cargoes be delivered in U.S.-flagged merchant ships. This letter followed one to the Washington Post a week earlier by AMO National President Tom Bethel.
As a spokesman for licensed civilian U.S. merchant marine officers, I am compelled to note the sound national security policy behind the requirement that cargoes financed by the Export-Import Bank "travel on U.S.-flagged ships" ("Impasse Over the Ex-Im," April 9).
This requirement helps ensure that the United States has the privately owned and operated cargo ships and skilled citizen seafarers it needs to supply its troops overseas during defense emergencies. For example, U.S. merchant ships drawn from the private sector - including vessels that carry Ex-Im cargoes -delivered 90 percent of the supplies, tanks, vehicles and outsized equipment used by U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq since 2001.
Cargo preference for U.S.-flagged and crewed merchant vessels in Ex-Im transactions is consistent with the official, longstanding U.S. policy of primary reliance on the commercial U.S. merchant fleet for strategic sealift and other military support services. This policy was reaffirmed most recently in a national security directive signed by President George W. Bush.
Your readers should know in this difficult budget climate that, absent this sensible policy, the Department of Defense would have to spend at least $13 billion to build or buy the sealift capacity the U.S. merchant fleet represents.