Key Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Bill Clears Senate, Heads for President’s Desk

Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2012 (H.R. 2838) Sent to the President

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Release:

Washington, DC – A bill to institute common sense reforms for the U.S. Coast Guard, reduce regulatory burdens on small business, and uphold the Coast Guard’s ability to carry out its missions unanimously passed the Senate Wednesday, clearing the House-passed bill for the President’s signature.

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2012 (H.R. 2838) was first introduced in the House by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John L. Mica (R-FL) and Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ). The original bill initially passed the House in November 2011, while the Senate subsequently revised the bill in September 2012. Last week, the House approved a compromise measure resolving differences between the earlier bills. The Senate’s action yesterday on the compromise enables the bill to now go to the President.

“The Coast Guard is our nation’s first line of defense for maritime safety and security,” Mica said. “This bill provides the Coast Guard with the resources to continue to improve the ships, aircraft and communications systems they need to do their jobs. That is little enough reward for the service’s daily efforts to protect our shores from drug and migrant smugglers and potential terrorist threats, and to keep the vessels plying our waterways and their crews safe from harm.

“This bill also reduces regulatory burdens on fishermen, small businesses, and port workers, and follows up on Committee Republicans’ 2010 ‘Sitting on Our Assets’ report by requiring a decision to either reactivate or decommission the Coast Guard’s currently sidelined heavy icebreaker,” Mica said.

The two-year Coast Guard bill lengthens the list of important infrastructure bills to head to the President’s desk this Congress. Under Mica’s leadership of the Transportation Committee over the past 24 months, a new multi-year bill to improve the nation’s highways, bridges and transit systems; a long-delayed measure to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration’s programs; and a bill to improve pipeline transportation safety programs have all become law.

“This bill reverses the irresponsible cuts to the Coast Guard proposed by the Obama Administration,” LoBiondo said. “The President proposed to slash the service’s acquisition budget by nearly 20 percent, reduce the number of servicemembers by over a 1,000, close seasonal air facilities, and take recently upgraded helicopters out of service. The President’s budget request would have only worsend the Coast Guard’s growing mission performance gaps, increase acquisition delays, drive up the costs of new assets, and deny our servicemembers the critical resources needed to perform their duties. This bill provides sufficient funding to ensure these cuts do not happen and provide the service what it needs to successfully conduct its missions.”

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2012 authorizes $8.6 billion in fiscal year 2013 and $8.7 billion in fiscal year 2014 for the activities of the Coast Guard.

The bill includes provisions that will give the Coast Guard, its servicemembers and dependents greater parity with their counterparts in the other Armed Services. The bill further aligns Coast Guard’s authorities with those granted to the Department of Defense.

H.R. 2838 also enhances operations while reducing costs by reforming and improving Coast Guard administration and eliminating obsolete authorities. The bill recognizes the current budget environment and saves taxpayer dollars without impacting the service’s critical missions.

Furthermore, the bill encourages job growth in the maritime sector by reducing regulatory burdens on small businesses. The regulatory relief provided by this bill includes eliminating the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) requirement for maritime workers to make multiple trips to a Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) enrollment center to receive the TWIC ID card; extending deadlines for compliance with new Coast Guard regulations on fishing vessels to ensure the service can enforce them fairly and properly; and extending the duration of medical certificates so mariners can continue to work while the Coast Guard reduces its backlog of applications.

H.R. 2838 also extends for an additional year the current moratorium for fishing vessels and small commercial vessels’ compliance with tangled and bureaucratic EPA regulations governing vessel incidental discharges, such as rain water runoff and air conditioner condensate.

Finally, the bill enhances the security of U.S. vessels and crew transiting high risk waters, reauthorizes the national security aspects of the Maritime Administration for fiscal year 2013, and makes several important improvements to NOAA’s marine debris program.

Via U.S. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee