America at Sea: Voices That Matter continues with Clay Wirsing, founder of U.S. Maritime Action. Clay started his career as a welding engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding. He answers the same three questions we ask everyone, from the shipyard floor up.
New to the SHIPS for America Act? Clay gets into the details, so you may want to start with our plain-English primer.
[PASTE THE X POST LINK HERE ON ITS OWN LINE]
Join the conversation. Reply to the post above on X and tell us what’s working, what’s in the way, and what you’d fix first.
What we heard
What’s working: momentum. Clay sees real energy behind the SHIPS for America Act and more public attention to maritime policy than ever. He calls it “an overwhelmingly positive bill for the maritime industry.”
What’s in the way: shipyard capacity. Clay walks through three parts of the bill and asks whether our yards can deliver. The cargo rules for government cargo, imports from China and LNG exports would each call for more U.S. ships than today’s yards can build quickly. The yards that build commercial ships produce about five ships a year at peak, many are tied up with government work, and there’s already a shortage of welders and other tradesmen.
“I like the initiative behind this. I think it’s just getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.” — Clay Wirsing
What he’d fix first: start with what we know how to build. Begin with standard tankers, container ships and bulk carriers, including bulk carriers to secure supply chains like rare earth elements, before moving to complex LNG carriers. Phase the government cargo requirement in, at something like 75 to 90 percent, as the fleet grows.
The long view. China revisits its maritime policy every five to ten years. The United States hasn’t made a major update since the Merchant Marine Act of 1970. “It’s long overdue,” Clay says, and the work shouldn’t stop with one bill.
The three questions
1. What’s working right now that we should do more of?
2. What’s the biggest barrier to rebuilding America at sea?
3. If you could fix one thing first, what would it be?
Transcript
Lightly edited for readability.
Bill Cullifer: Bill Cullifer here with Americans for a Stronger Navy. Welcome back to America at Sea: Voices That Matter. Today we hear from Clay Wirsing, founder of U.S. Maritime Action in San Diego. He started his career on the shipyard floor in Newport News, Virginia. Same three questions as everyone: what’s working, what’s in the way, and what he’d like to fix first. Clay, over to you.
Introduction
Clay Wirsing: My name is Clay Wirsing. I started off as a welding engineer back in 2017 at Newport News Shipbuilding. At the time I really didn’t have any idea what the global situation was with shipbuilding or maritime. And I can remember about a year after I started, some high-level officials from the Navy came in and talked to us about speeding up the pace of our shipyard in order to compete with China. That was kind of my first introduction to how far we’ve fallen behind as a maritime nation, especially in shipbuilding.
Unfortunately, not a lot has changed since then in terms of actual shipbuilding capacity, but we do now see a ton of momentum, which has been great to see, with the SHIPS for America Act, and a lot more public recognition of what’s going on. And so I just want to continue to contribute to that, and hope to see more people join the movement and let our politicians know that maritime is an important space for both our economy and national defense, and we need to have the right laws and policies that allow us to succeed in that domain.
What’s working right now that we should do more of?
I love the momentum that’s being built up behind the SHIPS for America Act. It’s great to see that there’s a lot of attention to our maritime policy and laws, and that’s becoming more recognized by the public. And I think we need to just continue to join that discussion and get as many people involved, to let our politicians know that maritime policy is an important part of our country.
The SHIPS for America Act is an overwhelmingly positive bill for the maritime industry. I think there are some little tweaks that I would urge our politicians to consider, to better suit the needs of our maritime industry and also have realistic policy.
What’s the biggest barrier to rebuilding America at sea?
In section 412 of the bill, there is a mandate for 100% U.S. government cargo preference going to U.S.-flag ships. I think this is a great initiative, but we might be a little bit ahead of ourselves just because of the small size of the U.S. fleet. If we increase this more modestly, to something like 75% or even 90%, then it does give us a little bit of flexibility when we don’t have U.S. ships available to take our government cargoes. And I think that’s something we could revisit down the line. Assuming our fleet does grow, we will be able to have 100% government cargo preference in the future.
Section 415 mandates that within 15 years, 10% of all cargo imported from China to the U.S. will be carried on U.S.-flagged vessels. Currently there are about a million TEU, twenty-foot equivalent containers, shipped from China to the U.S. each year. We’re only carrying about 2 to 3% of that trade currently, and that’s all through Matson’s CLX line. So to carry 10% of that trade, I think we’re looking at either 10 very large ships or around 50 container ships. And the shipyards we have doing commercial work right now aren’t really large enough to build these huge container ships. It’ll basically lead to a point where we need to build a lot of ships in a very short amount of time, which I don’t think is realistic. Again, I like the initiative behind this. I think it’s just getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.
Another section that might be problematic is section 420, which requires that 15% of total seaborne LNG exports be carried on U.S.-flag vessels by 2043. This is going to require somewhere between 15 and 25 LNG ships, depending on their size. LNG ships these days are quite large. They’re actually much bigger than the ships currently built at General Dynamics NASSCO or Hanwha Philly Shipyard, and those shipyards are building about five ships per year in total at their peak capacity. We currently see a lot of these shipyards tied up with government contracts, so I don’t think there’s a lot of capacity to take on LNG work. On top of that, LNG vessels are pretty complex to build, especially their containment tanks. And we already have shortages of welders and other tradesmen, which will make it difficult to build these in a cost- and time-effective manner.
If you could fix one thing first, what would it be?
I think it would be better to start off with a more reasonable ship type, things that we’ve already built: standard oil tankers, container ships, or maybe even a simple ship type like bulk carriers to secure our rare earth elements or other parts of our supply chain, rather than going straight for the complex LNG vessels. Again, I like the sentiment behind this. I just think we’re not quite where we need to be with yard capacity to pull off some of the shipbuilding requirements laid out in this bill.
A lot of countries, especially China, are revisiting their maritime policy every five years, maybe a decade or so. The U.S. hasn’t really had a major effort in revisiting or revising its policy since the Merchant Marine Act of 1970. So it’s long overdue. I hope to see some bills like the SHIPS for America Act come through and pass in Congress, and then, not only that, but as we continue to move forward as a nation, that we continually revisit these issues and make sure that our maritime laws and policies are appropriate for the conditions we face in our current period.
While we argue, China plans. It’s time we started building.
Americans for a Stronger Navy is a nonpartisan not for proft organization. America at Sea is educational and does not urge support for or opposition to any legislation. Views expressed by guests are their own.