REBUILD THE UNITED STATES!

NATIONAL SECURITY MULTI-MISSION VESSEL (PHOTO: U.S. MARITIME ADMINISTRATION) BY STAS MARGARONIS, RBTUS In a far-ranging interview, Rear Admiral Ann C. Phillips, US Navy (Ret.), who was sworn in as the 20th Administrator for the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD), discussed challenges facing U.S. shipbuilding, mariner safety, maritime commerce and U.S. naval leadership...

PHOTO: PORT OF LOS ANGELES By Stas Margaronis The Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union announced a tentative agreement on a new six-year contract covering workers at all 29 West Coast ports on June 14th. The parties gave credit “to the assistance from (Acting) U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su” who was dispatched by President Biden to the San Francisco...

Photo OffshoreWind California   By Stas Margaronis At the Pacific Offshore Wind Summit that took place in Sacramento California on May 8-10th, some panelists and attendees expressed concerns about the threat to fishing and whales caused by the construction of offshore wind farms. The threat has been widely alleged by fishing, environmental and special interest groups opposing Atlantic Coast wind...

Photo: Port of Long Beach BY STAS MARGARONIS On May 10th, the Pacific Offshore Wind Summit, hosted by Offshore Wind California, heard  federal, state and industry leaders urge California to move with speed and scale to make offshore wind a reality. The steps include transmission, port upgrades, procuring at scale, expediting permits, establishing a supply chain, creating workforce training and...

“Today, I’m thankful to live a high-carbon lifestyle and wish the rest of the world could too. Energy poverty = poverty. #decarbonization is dangerous and deadly.”---Tweet from Jason Issac, Texas Public Policy Foundation executive and director of the Life:Powered Initiative,  Thanksgiving Day, 2022 By Kevin Policarpo Helping Fishermen Oppose Offshore Wind Some fishing industry opponents of...

Photo: Matson By Stas Margaronis The United States needs a national maritime strategy to identify commercial, shipbuilding, manpower and military sealift shortfalls as well as solutions, according to officials from the Transportation Institute and the Navy League of the United States. Sara Fuentes, Vice President of Government Affairs, Transportation Institute and Jonathan Kaskin, National Vice...

Photo: U.S. Navy “I’m not hating on DDGs (Destroyer, Guided Missile) – my only point was that last year Congress added a third and the reason we didn’t budget for three is, again, we don’t see the yards being able to produce three a year. We don’t see them being able to produce two a year. And that’s just data. It’s not what we wish to be true. But everybody’s struggling with skilled labor....

U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ship “Not too many years ago, we had five times as many contractors and there was more competition and there was more creativity… As these larger guys kept buying the smaller guys coming up with the ideas, and then encapsulate them and restructure, it’s taken a lot of the innovation out.” --- Ken Calvert (R-Ca) Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.  ...

The 960 TEU military sealift container ship proposed for construction at Bender Shipbuilding & Repair IN THIS REPORT: THE PROBLEM ADMIRAL WARNS OF SEALIFT SHORTFALLS A NEW STRATEGY FOR U.S. SHIPBUILDING 2001 PROPOSAL TO U.S. AIR FORCE U.S. NAVY INSISTS ON OUTSOURCING SEALIFT SHIPS MEETING WITH ADMIRAL BREWER SUSTAINS MSC REJECTION MAERSK LINE LIMITED REFLAGS FOREIGN BUILT SHIPS FOR U.S....

"A recent study on military readiness found that 75 percent of U.S. citizens between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have inadequate levels of education." ---U.S. Education Reform and National Security BY KEVIN POLICARPO, RBTUS As the U.S. confronts economic inequalities in an increasingly...