Posted:
January 22, 2013
By Paul Doell
Legislative Director
One unavoidable truth about the maritime industry is that, without exception, seagoing jobs under the American flag in deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters trades are dependent entirely upon U.S. law and federal policy.
For example, coastal containerships, petroleum product tankers and tug-barges, the entire U.S. Great Lakes fleet and every inland and harbor tug, towboat and barge nationwide are sustained by the Jones Act, which restricts domestic waterborne commerce to merchant vessels owned, built, flagged and crewed in the United States. Members of American Maritime Officers hold many of the Jones Act jobs these vessels provide.
Jobs on U.S.-flagged heavy-lift ships that carry project cargoes overseas and on containerships and bulk carriers that deliver food aid to parched or impoverished countries - jobs dominated by AMO - exist only because of cargo preference laws that set aside specific amounts of government-financed exports and imports for privately owned and operated U.S.-flagged merchant vessels.
That 60 U.S.-flagged merchant ships continue to serve commercial international trade and employ U.S. merchant mariners - including AMO members on 15 vessels - is a testament to the Maritime Security Program, which resulted from the Maritime Security Act of 1996.
AMO has largest stake
As the nation's largest union of merchant marine officers, American Maritime Officers clearly has the most at stake in the unending, industry-wide political imperative to keep the Jones Act intact, to maintain the MSP and lock in its required funding each year at the authorized level, and to ward off efforts to undermine cargo preference in principle and in practice.
But AMO also has a commanding role among U.S. maritime interests in this common effort, taking the lead on Capitol Hill to promote the U.S. merchant fleet in all domestic and international maritime markets. Our union achieved this distinction through sound use of the traditionally strong American Maritime Officers Voluntary Political Action Fund over many years, the early strategic decisions to operate independently and to focus only on maritime policy in Congress, and the ability of the AMO Washington staff since the mid-1950s to make a clear, credible case for the U.S. fleet.
The AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund - registered with the Federal Elections Commission and managed in full compliance with all applicable federal laws - is used exclusively to support the re-election campaigns of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who understand and appreciate the value of the U.S. merchant fleet to the U.S. economy and to national security. The fund covers no AMO salaries, no meals and no business expenses incurred by AMO officials or employees.
Disbursements from the fund are not based on party affiliation, political ideology or a candidate's views on issues unrelated to maritime policy. The only criteria guiding application of the fund are the candidate's commitments to the U.S. merchant fleet and to American merchant mariners. We do our best to keep lawmakers at work when they do their best to keep the seagoing AMO membership at work.
PAF linked to legislative gains
During the 112th Congress, the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund figured prominently in some significant legislative gains:
Emerging threats to AMO security
Hours into the 113th Congress in January, a Western state U.S. Senator tried but failed to link an open-ended Jones Act waiver to federal disaster relief legislation - and we expect the Jones Act to remain in immediate focus over the next several months.
At this writing, we were awaiting two imminent and important reports - one from the Government Accountability Office, which is studying the Jones Act's economic impact on the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and one from the International Trade Commission, which often identifies the Jones Act as an obstacle to service imports.
These reports could inspire legislation to amend or repeal the Jones Act, and they could encourage Jones Act critics in the public and private sectors in Alaska, Hawaii and Guam.
We were also bracing for a new round of service trade negotiations under World Trade Organization rules. Since the ascent of the WTO and General Agreement on Trade in Services in 1993, this forum has provided Japan, the European Union and many other countries the opportunity to challenge not only the Jones Act, but also the body of cargo preference laws, the Maritime Security Program and a law reserving Alaskan North Slope crude oil exports for U.S.-flagged tankers.
These challenges were unsuccessful each time. But, in a startling move that defied its own sovereign principles, the U.S. in 1993 tied the Jones Act inexplicably to a WTO "standstill" rule under which the law's jurisdiction cannot expand - an action that continues to haunt the U.S. maritime industry. As always in trade talks, the conceivable consequences this time could be Jones Act revision or repeal and U.S. concessions on cargo preference.
Unfinished business
Our union's legislative staff remains attuned to unfinished business - a practical way to restore the 75-percent U.S.-flag PL-480 cargo preference level, an end to the discriminatory double taxation of imported cargoes transshipped by water within the U.S. under current application of the Harbor Maintenance Tax and the use of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for its intended purpose (channel and port maintenance and dredging) on all coasts, including the Great Lakes.
In addition, AMO will work to secure full funding of the Maritime Security Program at the authorized level of $186 million in fiscal 2013 and adequate funding of the always-vulnerable PL-480 food aid export program in an unusually complicated and volatile budget climate. March could bring an unprecedented convergence of spending cuts as part of a deal between the administration and Congress to raise the debt ceiling, automatic additional across-the-board budget reductions under "sequestration," the lapse of the continuing resolution funding current federal government operations and the President's budget blueprint.
Be part of the process
Meanwhile, we welcome your support, and we encourage each of you to participate in the political process. Call, write or email the U.S. Representative of your Congressional District and your U.S. Senators. Let them know about your work and why it matters. Tell them of your part in domestic and overseas trade, your military support service in strategic sealift operations, and your immediate assistance in response to natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and the devastating earthquake in Haiti. And, as AMO National President Tom Bethel has said many times, join us in Washington if your travel plans bring you to the capital - make our rounds with us and lend your professional perspective to the discussion.
We ask as well that you support the American Maritime Officers Voluntary Political Action Fund to the greatest possible extent so that we can sustain the proven, productive relationships we have on both sides of the Congressional aisle and continue to do the day-to-day work that is so critical to long-term job and benefit security for all seagoing AMO members.
If you have questions about specific issues or specific lawmakers or about the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund, please feel free to call me at the Washington office at 202-479-1166 or on my cell at 954-882-4297. I can also be reached by .
AMO Voluntary PAF critical to job, benefit security
By Paul Doell
Legislative Director
One unavoidable truth about the maritime industry is that, without exception, seagoing jobs under the American flag in deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters trades are dependent entirely upon U.S. law and federal policy.
For example, coastal containerships, petroleum product tankers and tug-barges, the entire U.S. Great Lakes fleet and every inland and harbor tug, towboat and barge nationwide are sustained by the Jones Act, which restricts domestic waterborne commerce to merchant vessels owned, built, flagged and crewed in the United States. Members of American Maritime Officers hold many of the Jones Act jobs these vessels provide.
| 'We do our best to keep lawmakers at work when they do their best to keep the seagoing AMO membership at work.' |
Jobs on U.S.-flagged heavy-lift ships that carry project cargoes overseas and on containerships and bulk carriers that deliver food aid to parched or impoverished countries - jobs dominated by AMO - exist only because of cargo preference laws that set aside specific amounts of government-financed exports and imports for privately owned and operated U.S.-flagged merchant vessels.
That 60 U.S.-flagged merchant ships continue to serve commercial international trade and employ U.S. merchant mariners - including AMO members on 15 vessels - is a testament to the Maritime Security Program, which resulted from the Maritime Security Act of 1996.
AMO has largest stake
As the nation's largest union of merchant marine officers, American Maritime Officers clearly has the most at stake in the unending, industry-wide political imperative to keep the Jones Act intact, to maintain the MSP and lock in its required funding each year at the authorized level, and to ward off efforts to undermine cargo preference in principle and in practice.
But AMO also has a commanding role among U.S. maritime interests in this common effort, taking the lead on Capitol Hill to promote the U.S. merchant fleet in all domestic and international maritime markets. Our union achieved this distinction through sound use of the traditionally strong American Maritime Officers Voluntary Political Action Fund over many years, the early strategic decisions to operate independently and to focus only on maritime policy in Congress, and the ability of the AMO Washington staff since the mid-1950s to make a clear, credible case for the U.S. fleet.
The AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund - registered with the Federal Elections Commission and managed in full compliance with all applicable federal laws - is used exclusively to support the re-election campaigns of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate who understand and appreciate the value of the U.S. merchant fleet to the U.S. economy and to national security. The fund covers no AMO salaries, no meals and no business expenses incurred by AMO officials or employees.
Disbursements from the fund are not based on party affiliation, political ideology or a candidate's views on issues unrelated to maritime policy. The only criteria guiding application of the fund are the candidate's commitments to the U.S. merchant fleet and to American merchant mariners. We do our best to keep lawmakers at work when they do their best to keep the seagoing AMO membership at work.
PAF linked to legislative gains
During the 112th Congress, the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund figured prominently in some significant legislative gains:
- The Jones Act remained in full force and effect.
- The bipartisan leadership of the House Armed Services Committee went on record in support of the Jones Act as a national security asset.
- Eight separate farm budget bill amendments intended to weaken or eliminate the PL-480 food aid export program - which generates cargoes for U.S. merchant ship operators - were defeated on the House floor by wide bipartisan margins.
- The Export-Import Bank of the United States was reauthorized for three years, with the U.S.-flag cargo preference requirement intact.
- A U.S. Coast Guard budget authorization bill amendment that would have allowed foreign-flagged cruise vessels to operate directly between islands in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was dropped from the legislation during bipartisan House-Senate conference.
- The President in December 2012 signed the USCG bill into law. The measure makes it more difficult to obtain administrative waivers of the Jones Act, covers the cost of providing private armed security for U.S.-flagged vessels operating in waters prone to piracy, eliminates the need for more than one trip to a Transportation Security Administration outpost to obtain a Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) and relieves some of the regulatory strain associated with obtaining merchant mariner medical clearances from the Coast Guard.
- In the closing hours of the 112th Congress in January 2013, the President signed into law a fiscal 2013 defense budget authorization bill that included extension of the Maritime Security Program at 60 ships through 2025, with corresponding authorization of a specific MSP funding schedule through the renewal period.
Emerging threats to AMO security
Hours into the 113th Congress in January, a Western state U.S. Senator tried but failed to link an open-ended Jones Act waiver to federal disaster relief legislation - and we expect the Jones Act to remain in immediate focus over the next several months.
At this writing, we were awaiting two imminent and important reports - one from the Government Accountability Office, which is studying the Jones Act's economic impact on the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and one from the International Trade Commission, which often identifies the Jones Act as an obstacle to service imports.
These reports could inspire legislation to amend or repeal the Jones Act, and they could encourage Jones Act critics in the public and private sectors in Alaska, Hawaii and Guam.
We were also bracing for a new round of service trade negotiations under World Trade Organization rules. Since the ascent of the WTO and General Agreement on Trade in Services in 1993, this forum has provided Japan, the European Union and many other countries the opportunity to challenge not only the Jones Act, but also the body of cargo preference laws, the Maritime Security Program and a law reserving Alaskan North Slope crude oil exports for U.S.-flagged tankers.
These challenges were unsuccessful each time. But, in a startling move that defied its own sovereign principles, the U.S. in 1993 tied the Jones Act inexplicably to a WTO "standstill" rule under which the law's jurisdiction cannot expand - an action that continues to haunt the U.S. maritime industry. As always in trade talks, the conceivable consequences this time could be Jones Act revision or repeal and U.S. concessions on cargo preference.
Unfinished business
Our union's legislative staff remains attuned to unfinished business - a practical way to restore the 75-percent U.S.-flag PL-480 cargo preference level, an end to the discriminatory double taxation of imported cargoes transshipped by water within the U.S. under current application of the Harbor Maintenance Tax and the use of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for its intended purpose (channel and port maintenance and dredging) on all coasts, including the Great Lakes.
In addition, AMO will work to secure full funding of the Maritime Security Program at the authorized level of $186 million in fiscal 2013 and adequate funding of the always-vulnerable PL-480 food aid export program in an unusually complicated and volatile budget climate. March could bring an unprecedented convergence of spending cuts as part of a deal between the administration and Congress to raise the debt ceiling, automatic additional across-the-board budget reductions under "sequestration," the lapse of the continuing resolution funding current federal government operations and the President's budget blueprint.
Be part of the process
Meanwhile, we welcome your support, and we encourage each of you to participate in the political process. Call, write or email the U.S. Representative of your Congressional District and your U.S. Senators. Let them know about your work and why it matters. Tell them of your part in domestic and overseas trade, your military support service in strategic sealift operations, and your immediate assistance in response to natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and the devastating earthquake in Haiti. And, as AMO National President Tom Bethel has said many times, join us in Washington if your travel plans bring you to the capital - make our rounds with us and lend your professional perspective to the discussion.
We ask as well that you support the American Maritime Officers Voluntary Political Action Fund to the greatest possible extent so that we can sustain the proven, productive relationships we have on both sides of the Congressional aisle and continue to do the day-to-day work that is so critical to long-term job and benefit security for all seagoing AMO members.
If you have questions about specific issues or specific lawmakers or about the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund, please feel free to call me at the Washington office at 202-479-1166 or on my cell at 954-882-4297. I can also be reached by .