Posted:
September 24, 2009
Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee James Oberstar (D-MN) yesterday introduced a bill to authorize appropriations for the Coast Guard for fiscal year 2010. The legislation, co-sponsored by Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), contains a number of provisions affecting merchant mariners.
Among other items, the bill would if enacted:
T&I Chairman introduces Coast Guard Authorization Act
Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee James Oberstar (D-MN) yesterday introduced a bill to authorize appropriations for the Coast Guard for fiscal year 2010. The legislation, co-sponsored by Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), contains a number of provisions affecting merchant mariners.
Among other items, the bill would if enacted:
- Require the Coast Guard to submit within 270 days a plan by which mariners can apply for a Merchant Mariner Credential by mail, provided they have already applied for or obtained a Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC).
- Authorize $153 million for the design, acquisition and construction of a combined buoy tender/icebreaker for use on the Great Lakes.
- Create a loan program to encourage students to become merchant mariners. Participating educational institutions “may include…commercial training institutions and nonprofit training institutions.” The bill also instructs the Coast Guard to “identify potential projects to address merchant mariner recruitment.”
- Create a Merchant Mariner Medical Advisory Committee, comprised of healthcare professionals and professional mariners. Advisory Committee members would receive no compensation for their participation.
- Reduce vulnerability for owners, operators and mariners involved in pirate attack by instructing the Coast Guard not to hold these individuals liable for the use of force against any person participating in an act of piracy.
- Authorize officers and members of the Coast Guard to enforce the coastwise trade laws, which restrict the movement of goods between points governed by the laws to Jones Act-qualified vessels.