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Foreign Dredge Act of 1906

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United States federal statute
Foreign Dredge Act of 1906
Great Seal of the United States
Long titleAn Act concerning foreign-built dredges.
Enacted bythe 59th United States Congress
EffectiveMay 28, 1906
Citations
Public lawPub. L. 59–185
Statutes at Large34 Stat. 204
Legislative history
  • Introduced in the House as H.R. 395 by Charles H. Grosvenor (R‑OH) on December 4, 1905
  • Committee consideration by Merchant Marine and Fisheries
  • Passed the House on February 23, 1906 (unanimous)
  • Passed the Senate on April 28, 1906 (unanimous)
  • Reported by the joint conference committee on May 11, 1906; agreed to by the Senate on May 11, 1906 (unanimous) and by the House on May 17, 1906 (unanimous)
  • Signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on May 28, 1906

The Foreign Dredge Act of 1906 is a United States federal statute that requires dredges operating in US waters to be built in the United States, and to be owned and chartered by US citizens. Dredges violating the act are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the US government.

Origin

The original intention of the law was to protect and foster America's shipbuilding industry to enable it to compete with established foreign shipbuilders. A dredging project to repair the town of Galveston, TX, after the 1900 Galveston hurricane raised concerns that sand exported on foreign-owned barges might be taken out of the country, effectively stealing US soil, which provided the initial motivation for the bill that would become the Foreign Dredge Act. A more central motivation emerged, which was to protect the US shipbuilding industry from foreign competition.

Current impact and criticism

Two countries, the United States and China, prohibit foreign dredging, and 15% of countries surveyed by the Transportation Institute have restrictions on dredging. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Government Accountability Office state that lack of dredging capacity and high costs are the cause of a 15-year delay in dredging the 10 most important US ports to accommodate post-Panamax depths. The Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute claim that the Foreign Dredge Act is anti-competitive, and that it impairs America's ability to expand its ports by limiting its supply of dredging ships. Gregory Tosi argues that, for example, the Port of Corpus Christi loses $50 billion of oil exports per year due to a lack of dredging capacity to improve the port.

90% of global dredging contracts are currently won by one of four Belgian and Dutch dredging companies Jan De Nul, Van Oord, Boskalis, and DEME, which are generally ineligible to compete for US contracts.

Proposed legislative changes

Senator Mike Lee has proposed the DEEP Act, which would repeal the Foreign Dredge Act and create a new nationwide permitting process to expedite dredging permitting. He has also introduced more constrained versions of the bill, the Port Modernization and Supply Chain Protection Act, that would repeal the Foreign Dredge Act's cabotage requirements, allowing international dredges to operate in the USA.

The SHIP IT Act, introduced by Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach and Congressman Byron Donalds would allow vessels from NATO member countries to engage in dredging in the United States; the Cato Institute notes that "Four of the largest dredging companies in the world are located in NATO members, with each possessing more hopper dredgers than the entire U.S. dredging fleet combined." Lee has introduced a bill with similar purposes in the Senate, the Allied Partnership and Port Modernization Act.

References

  1. "46 USC 55109: Dredging". US Code. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  2. McLernon, Nancy. "Protecting U.S. Dredgers Kills Jobs". The Wall Street Journal.
  3. Alloway, Tracy; Weisenthal, Joe. "Transcript: The 1906 Dredging Law That May Be Holding Back the U.S. Economy". Bloomberg Quint. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
  4. ^ Grabow, Colin; Manak, Inu (June 2020). The Case Against The Jones Act. Cato Institute. ISBN 9781948647991.
  5. Loris, Nicolas. "This 113-Year-Old Law Is Hurting American Ports". Heritage.org. The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  6. ^ Grabow, Colin (2022-04-29). "To New Critics of the Foreign Dredge Act: Welcome Aboard!". Cato.org. Cato Institute. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  7. Tosi, Gregory (2021-03-19). "How to Make US Ports Competitive Again | RealClearPolicy". www.realclearpolicy.com. Retrieved 2022-05-06.
  8. "Sen. Lee Introduces Four Dredging Bills". Mike Lee: US Senator for Utah. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
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