Take his voyage into the treacherous crosswinds of the maritime industry. If there’s any part of the federal government that needs to be reinvented, the sprawling apparatus that oversees the shipping industry is it. “The structure of maritime policy was developed in the mid-1930s in preparation for war,” notes Washington lawyer Gerald Seifert. There’s a Maritime Administration, which hands out subsidies and manages a reserve fleet for wartime; a Federal Maritime Commission to regulate international service; the coast guard, responsible for safety and navigation, and bureaucrats tucked away in places like the Agriculture Department and the Agency for International Development, who make sure that most government cargo sails on U.S.-flag ships. Bolstering these bureaucracies are congressional subcommittees that fix such details as how much food aid should sail from the Great Lakes rather than from the Gulf Coast ports–a matter of considerable interest to folks in Duluth, Minn. And behind the committees is big money Although fewer than 10,000 Americans work aboard the 348 active U. S.-flag oceangoing vessels, their unions contributed at least $2.3 million to last year’s federal election campaigns, cementing the status quo.
Flying the flag is expensive. Giving U.S.flag vessels the first shot at government cargo costs Uncle Sam roughly $600 million a year. U.S. ships will get up to $87.95 a ton to carry food aid to Russia, while foreign ships haul identical loads for as little as $21.95. Operating subsidies cost U.S. taxpayers $215 million last year-more than $100,000 for every shipboard slot preserved. Those privileges don’t come free. To hoist the Stars and Stripes, a shipping line must hire American seamen and build its vessels in high-cost U.S. shipyards. In theory, that preserves maritime jobs. But not in reality. just check out the cruise lines that sail to Alaska from Vancouver, British Columbia. By making their voyages international, they can use ships and crews of any nationality. That creates no billets for U.S. sailors, and it means less dock work in Seattle. Says Edward Emmett of the National Industrial Transportation League, shipper group: “Nobody can look at the existing system and say that it’s working.”
Gore’s assault on government waste wa expected to tackle this maritime mishmash. Gore named a task force whose member had no ties to the shipping industry, and it draft report in July urged a revolution: no more subsidies; no reserved government cargo; no more antitrust exemption letting cartels set international rates. For good measure, it called for an end to the Jone Act, which allows only U.S.-flag ships t run between U.S. ports. “What is left of the U.S. maritime industry stands as a st reminder of how protectionist economic regulatory policies by our government lite ally razed the economic underpinnings o our once mighty and proud merchant marine fleet,” the task force warned.
But none of those scrub the–barnacles recommendations made it into the plan for “reinventing government’ that Gore and Clinton released on Sept. 7 After a well-timed leak set off protests from unions, shipping lines and Congress, shipping deregulation sank out of sight. In it place, Gore recommended Washington’s standard solution to touchy problems: appoint a commission and study the problem. Even that may not float, since the force that deep-sixed the Gore panel’s early draft oppose a new commission–unless it’ lodged in the industry-friendly Maritime Administration. Unions object to discussing anything that could eliminate shipboard jobs for their members. Carriers fear the banning cartels would drive down international rates, and they don’t want foreigner horning in on domestic routes. “I don’t think you need a commission,” says Mark Aron of CSX Corp., which owns Sea-Land Service, major shipping line. “The main issue is, do you want a U.S. flag? If you do, you have to have some subsidies.”
Without subsidies, Sea-Land and its main competitors will soon place some of their ships under foreign flags. in effect, they would run three separate fleets: one with foreign crews–and foreign-built ships–for international trade; a U.S.-flag international fleet to carry government cargo, and a domestic fleet to serve places like Alaska and Puerto Rico. It’s an arrangement that borders on the bizarre. Then again, if government policy weren’t bizarre, it wouldn’t need to be reinvented.
