‘Sea Blindness’ And The Inland Waterways
In this issue, veteran maritime and tax attorney Jim Kearns highlights some features of the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security (SHIPS) for America Act, a version of which we also wrote about in October. We were pleased to see that two of its sponsors, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) included the inland waterways and inland shipyards in the bill’s proposals. A new version will likely be re-introduced in the next Congress and has a lot of high-powered supporters from both parties.
Public interest in merchant marine policy has increased since the logistics snarls of the COVID-19 era. It is now benefitting from a burst of attention due to China’s rapid build-up of its shipbuilding sector.
The bottom line is that markets can’t address the issue of building and bolstering a strong merchant marine—and they never could. That’s because the “demand” for this public good comes from the government and citizens of a maritime state. Shippers don’t care what flag their container vessel flies if they can get a good rate. Their cargo will flow to the cheapest, most reliable and most secure carrier regardless of flag or where the vessel was built.
But shippers do care if sea lanes are protected, and for that you need navies—and a coherent naval policy. To support a navy, we need to support a civilian merchant marine, including civilian shipyards and their workforces. Recent articles in the Wall Street Journal point out that no maritime nation has ever supported a strong navy without also supporting its merchant marine.
The neglect that merchant marine policy has suffered from—what one maritime policy advocate calls chronic “sea blindness”—may be, we hope, coming to an end. It’s great to attend to the blue-water merchant marine and coastal shipbuilding capabilities. We’re all for that, but it would be a pity if “river blindness” took its place in Washington. We hope policymakers remember that no merchant marine revival can take place without including the rivers and waterways. The United States has more internal waterways than the rest of the world combined; the Mississippi-Ohio river system alone accounts for 15,500 miles. Geo-strategists like Peter Zeihan, author of The Accidental Superpower, even credit our waterway system with playing a big part in the global dominance of the United States. We need to ensure that the inland waterways sector continues to be part of ongoing conversations around rebuilding our merchant marine infrastructure.
