MARAD issues shipyard grant program funding; approves new vessels
The US Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced that it has issued a notice of a funding opportunity from America’s small shipyard grant program.
By Michael McGrady, Maritime Direct Americas Correspondent
MARAD, an agency within the US Department of Transportation, announced on January 20, 2021, that they have made available $19.6 million in federal grants for the country’s small shipyard grant program. These investments support efficiency improvements and modernization that allow shipyards across to the country to actively and more effectively engage in the global marketplace.
“America’s shipyards are a vital foundation for both our national security and our Nation’s economy. US-Flag commercial vessels—built and maintained right here in the US—carry not only military equipment and supplies, but many carry commercial goods in both contiguous and non-contiguous trade,” said Doug Burnett, MARAD’s Chief Counsel who is the acting administrator, in a statement.
The Transportation Department’s Small Shipyard Grant Program has awarded over $243 million through 268 grants. The grant program is said to support a variety of projects that improve capital improvements and “equipment upgrades that foster ship construction, repair, and reconfiguration in small shipyards across the United States.”
MARAD also announced on January 19, 2021, that it has authorized the construction of two new National Security Multi-Mission Vessels (NSMV), which will replace training vessels that are aging at universities like the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine, and the Texas A&M University-Galveston Maritime Academy in Galveston, Texas.
“The NSMV is part of a strategy to bolster maritime education, revitalize US shipbuilding, and provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the US maritime industry,” Burnett added in that press release. “America must be a maritime nation if it is to continue to lead the world in this century.”
The NSMV program vessels will feature numerous instructional spaces for training crew for up to 600 cadets in a “first-rate maritime academic environment at sea.” State maritime academies, the agency notes, graduate 70 percent of all new merchant mariners to keep things moving.
