Sponsors (15)
Introduced April 30, 2025 by Mark Edward Kelly · Last progress April 30, 2025
The bill aggressively invests federal resources to rebuild U.S. shipbuilding, ports, and the maritime workforce and to strengthen sealift and supply‑chain resilience—but does so by prioritizing domestic industry through funding, mandates, and designations that will raise taxpayer costs, likely increase shipping prices, and create regulatory and international friction.
Millions of American workers and coastal communities benefit from rebuilding U.S. shipbuilding and maritime careers—creating manufacturing, shipyard, port, and mariner jobs across the country.
U.S. national security and supply-chain resilience improve by strengthening strategic sealift, prioritizing U.S.-flagged fleets, and integrating maritime readiness into national freight and defense planning.
Provides stable, dedicated funding and financing tools (trust fund, appropriations, loan and capital funds) to support maritime programs, ship construction, repair, and modernization over the coming decade.
Taxpayers face substantially higher federal spending and new recurring costs (appropriations, trust funds, loan capital) that could reduce fiscal flexibility and crowd out other priorities.
Importers, exporters, and consumers could face higher shipping and goods prices because of cargo‑preference rules, Buy‑America/domestic-content mandates, penalty taxes, and incentives favoring U.S. vessels and yards.
The bill's protectionist measures and explicit focus on countries of concern risk provoking trade frictions and heightening geopolitical tensions, which could disrupt commerce and complicate international relations.
Based on analysis of 24 sections of legislative text.
Builds a national maritime strategy: creates a White House maritime office and trust fund, boosts shipbuilding finance, modernizes USMMA, strengthens sealift, and phases U.S.-built vessel rules for crude exports.
Establishes a broad national maritime strategy to rebuild U.S. shipbuilding, expand a U.S.-documented commercial fleet, strengthen strategic sealift, and grow the mariner workforce. It creates a White House Office of the Maritime Security Advisor and Maritime Security Board, a Maritime Security Trust Fund, new shipbuilding finance programs and incentives, education and loan-forgiveness benefits for merchant mariners, modernization funding and a 10-year campus plan for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, research and incubator funding, and phased U.S.-built vessel requirements for crude oil exports. Implements agency coordination, exercises, reporting requirements, and timelines (many actions required within 60–180 days). Provides multi-year funding authorities and program design changes to prioritize domestic construction, workforce development, infrastructure readiness, and strategic resilience versus foreign competitors.