{"id":36065,"date":"2020-01-22T18:31:12","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T18:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/01\/22\/congress-should-fund-new-not-used-sealift-vessels-former-maritime-administration-officials-say\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:58:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:58:00","slug":"congress-should-fund-new-not-used-sealift-vessels-former-maritime-administration-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2020\/01\/22\/congress-should-fund-new-not-used-sealift-vessels-former-maritime-administration-officials-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress should fund new, not used sealift vessels, say former Maritime Administration officials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHIGTON \u2014 Five former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/naval\/2018\/10\/10\/youre-on-your-own-us-sealift-cant-count-on-us-navy-escorts-in-the-next-big-war-forcing-changes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Maritime Administration<\/a> officials have called on Congress to fund the construction of new sealift vessels instead of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/naval\/2019\/01\/16\/facing-a-sealift-capacity-collapse-the-navy-hones-in-on-a-strategy-for-new-auxiliary-ships\/\" target=\"_blank\">pushing the plan to buy and convert used ships <\/a>on the open market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a letter to the chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, officials from both Republican and Democrat administrations said replacing the nation\u2019s organic surge sealift fleet, which has an average hull life of 44 years, is essential to maintaining the ability to send troops and materiel overseas on short notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The letter, signed by former MARAD Administrator Clyde Hart, as well as four other former MARAD attorneys and policy chiefs, called for Congress to build new ships to spur shipbuilding in the United States and to cut down on maintenance hassles that could spell delays in a crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2018\/11\/12\/us-army-warns-of-crippling-sealift-shortfalls-during-wartime\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1_cover_larter-story.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">US Army warns of crippling sealift shortfalls during wartime<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The U.S. Army is troubled by a looming sealift shortfall that will create \u201cunacceptable risk in force projection\u201d within the next five years if the Navy doesn\u2019t act quickly.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFirst, the new ships would be immediately operational,\u201d the letter said, \u201cand the Maritime Administration won\u2019t have to spend precious time finding long-obsolete parts, therein delay surge capacity. Second, building ships in the United States creates jobs, spurs spending and strengthens the U.S. shipbuilding industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The letter comes in the wake of findings from last year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/naval\/2019\/09\/17\/the-us-military-has-triggered-a-massive-surge-of-its-wartime-sealift-ships\/\" target=_blank>turbo activation<\/a> that only about 40 percent of the sealift fleet would be ready to surge in a crisis, and that the force would be \u201cchallenged to be immediately ready for a large-scale inter-theater force deployment,\u201d which is its entire raison d\u2019etre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sealift fleet is composed of 26 Military Sealift Command pre-positioning ships, 46 ships in the Ready Reserve Force and 15 command-owned roll-on\/roll-off surge force ships. Many of the roll-on\/roll-off ships are steam-operated, and the obsolete equipment is causing significant personnel issues in the pool of qualified civilian mariners needed to operate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The White House\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/naval\/2019\/12\/24\/white-house-poised-to-blow-up-us-navys-plans-to-recapitalize-its-aging-sealift-ships\/\" target=\"_blank\">Office of Management and Budget<\/a> favors a \u201cbuy used\u201d policy for the sealift fleet, which is rapidly aging out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Army in 2018 sent a warning to the House Armed Services Committee in an information paper regarding the nation\u2019s surge sealift capacity \u2014 which would be responsible for transporting up to 90 percent of Army and Marine Corps equipment in the event of a major war. The Army said the capacity would fall below its requirement by 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWithout proactive recapitalization of the Organic Surge Sealift Fleet, the Army will face unacceptable risk in force projection capability beginning in 2024,\u201d the document said, adding that the advanced age of the current fleet adds further risk to the equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBy 2034, 70% of the organic fleet will be over 60 years old \u2014 well past its economic useful life; further degrading the Army\u2019s ability to deploy forces,\u201d the document read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Maritime Administration officials say buying used ships is the wrong way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":77723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[44,8,160,16,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3361],"class_list":["post-36065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-congress","category-daily-news-roundup","category-naval","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GC6FAF5VZJGKHIO2PYLFOW2NCI","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2020\/01\/22\/congress-should-fund-new-not-used-sealift-vessels-former-maritime-administration-officials-say\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Congress should fund new, not used sealift vessels, say former Maritime Administration officials - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Maritime Administration officials say buying used ships is the wrong way to go.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Congress should fund new, not used sealift vessels, say former Maritime Administration officials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Maritime Administration officials say buying used ships is the wrong way to go.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2020\/01\/22\/congress-should-fund-new-not-used-sealift-vessels-former-maritime-administration-officials-say\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Defense News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-01-22T18:31:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T22:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David B. 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