China passed a law on Friday that for the first time explicitly allows its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels, a move that could make the contested waters around China more choppy.China has maritime sovereignty disputes with Japan in the East China Sea and with several Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea.
In early October, Waterways Council, Inc. (WCI) reported in its newsletter Capitol Currents that the future of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2020 hung in the balance, with many unknowns for its chances of being signed into law during the Lame Duck session of Congress that just concluded in late December.
The U.S. Senate on Friday passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2021, a massive $741 billion defense bill setting policy for the Pentagon. Importantly for the U.S. offshore and maritime industries, the bill includes an amendment ensuring full enforcement of the Jones Act and other federal laws in offshore wind development.
In response to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the Congressional Research Service released a report that stated global economic growth has declined by 3% to 6% in 2020 with a partial recovery predicted for 2021. Also, the GDP of the U.S. has fallen by 5% in the first quarter 2020.
Waterways Council, Inc. (WCI) is the national public policy organization that advocates for a modern, efficient inland waterways system. Abiding by our mission has meant success over our 17-year history. In 2020, WCI’s top priority is to conform the cost-share for Inland Waterways Trust Fund (IWTF)-financed construction projects to require 25% of the project cost be derived from the IWTF and the
As the nation continues to be impacted by COVID-19, there are silver linings to the crisis: family time and togetherness, gratitude for what we had before it was taken away, and a chance to seek opportunities to be better and more productive.As funding bills related to the COVID-19 crisis move forward, there may be an opportunity for the nation to better itself by modernizing its infrastructure.
While facing the same challenging market conditions as offshore vessel owners and service companies worldwide, Norway’s Island Offshore recently broke free from the enforced conservatism of the E&P sector, by adding not just a new ship to its fleet, but one that re-writes the rulebook in capabilities, technology and despite its size and power, environmental credentials.
What might not be so obvious in this COVID-19 environment, which we have grown to associate with shortages, is that counterintuitively there are issues beginning to appear dealing with the opposite situation. The Journal of Commerce has reported that “[t]he container shipping industry is marshaling a response to signs of a building import backlog as some retailers and manufacturers fail to pick
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday officials will have a better idea this week of the total cost of a coronavirus aid package, but predicted it will likely be "significant but not huge."Mnuchin told "Fox News Sunday" he also planned to talk to lawmakers about critical aid to airlines, as well as the hotel and cruise ship industries.
The Congress worked hard and most importantly together at the end of the recently-concluded First Session in December to finalize and pass Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 appropriations that included the Energy & Water Development (E&WD) Appropriations bill that funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) work on the nations’ waterways.
It is often difficult to push through the federal government morass to focus on the issues that actually matter to the inland operator. While 2020 inevitably will be a contentious year in American politics, it is critical to stay focused on the items that will have direct impact on the U.S. maritime industry.
The Houston Ship Channel reopened on Tuesday morning after a seven-hour closure to raise a fishing vessel that sank in mid-January near the waterway's entrance in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Houston ship pilots association.The ship channel, a 53-mile waterway connecting the busiest U.S. petrochemical port with the Gulf of Mexico, reopened at 10:15 a.m.