Save Our Ships Act
Download PDFSponsored by
Rep. Norcross, Donald [D-NJ-1]
ID: N000188
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Invalid Date
Introduced
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
Committee Review
Floor Action
Passed Senate
House Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, brought to you by the esteemed members of Congress. The "Save Our Ships Act" - because what America really needs is more taxpayer-funded nostalgia for its military-industrial complex.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's stated purpose is to establish a grant program to conserve and preserve historic military ships and submarines, ensuring their continued availability for public education and inspiration. How quaint. In reality, this bill is a thinly veiled attempt to funnel more money into the pockets of special interest groups and pork-barrel projects.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill creates a new grant program within the Department of the Interior, which will be administered by the Secretary in consultation with the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense. The program will provide funding for the physical preservation of historic military vessels, as well as education and workforce development programs related to military maritime careers.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved: private nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, and of course, the defense industry. These entities will be eligible to receive grants under the program, which is expected to cost $5 million annually. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that several of the bill's sponsors have received significant campaign contributions from defense contractors.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic case of "legislative lip service." It sounds good on paper, but in reality, it will do little to address the actual needs of historic military vessels or promote meaningful education and workforce development. Instead, it will serve as a vehicle for politicians to grandstand about their commitment to preserving America's military heritage while lining the pockets of their donors.
The real disease here is not the lack of funding for historic ships, but rather the chronic case of corruption and cronyism that infects our legislative process. This bill is just another symptom of a system that prioritizes special interests over the public good.
Diagnosis: Terminal stupidity, with a side of corruption and greed. Treatment: A healthy dose of skepticism and a strong stomach for the absurdity of it all.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Norcross, Donald [D-NJ-1]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No organization contributions found
No committee contributions found
Donor Network - Rep. Norcross, Donald [D-NJ-1]
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 17 nodes and 20 connections
Total contributions: $67,300
Top Donors - Rep. Norcross, Donald [D-NJ-1]
Showing top 16 donors by contribution amount
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 156 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise New Policies The Coast Guard’s mission set should be scaled down to match congressio- nal budgeting in the long term, with any increased funding going to acquisitions based on an updated Fleet Mix Analysis. The current shipbuilding plan is insuf- ficient based on USCG analysis, and the necessary numbers of planned Offshore Patrol Cutters and National Security Cutters are not supported by congressional budgets. The Coast Guard should be required to submit to Congress a long-range shipbuilding plan modeled on the Navy’s 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan. Ideally this should become part of the Navy plan in a new comprehensive naval long-range shipbuilding plan to ensure better coherency in the services’ requirements. Outside of home waters, and following the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, the Coast Guard should prioritize limited resources to the nation’s expansive Pacific waters to counter growing Chinese influence and encroachment. Expansion of facilities in American Samoa and basing of cutters there is one clear step in this direction and should be accelerated; looking to free association states (Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands) for enhanced and persistent presence, assuming adequate congressional funding, is another such step. The Secretary of the Navy should convene a naval board to review and reset requirements for Coast Guard wartime mission support. To inform and validate these updated requirements, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Coast Guard Commandant should execute dedicated annual joint wartime drills focused on USCG’s wartime missions in the Pacific (the money for these activities should be allocated from DOD). An interagency maritime coordination office focused on developing and overseeing comprehensive efforts to advance the nation’s mari- time interests and increase its military and commercial competitiveness should be established. Given the USCG’s history of underfunded missions, if the Coast Guard is to con- tinue to maintain the Arctic mission, money to do so adequately will be required over and above current funding levels. Consideration should be given to shifting the Arctic mission to the Navy. Either way, the Arctic mission should be closely coordinated with our Canadian, Danish, and other allies. Personnel USCG is facing recruitment challenges similar to those faced by the military services. The Administration should stop the messaging on wokeness and diversity and focus instead on attracting the best talent for USCG. Simultaneously, consis- tent with the Department of Defense, USCG should also make a serious effort to re-vet any promotions and hiring that occurred on the Biden Administration’s watch while also re-onboarding any USCG personnel who were dismissed from service for refusing to take the COVID-19 “vaccine,” with time in service credited
Introduction
— 156 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise New Policies The Coast Guard’s mission set should be scaled down to match congressio- nal budgeting in the long term, with any increased funding going to acquisitions based on an updated Fleet Mix Analysis. The current shipbuilding plan is insuf- ficient based on USCG analysis, and the necessary numbers of planned Offshore Patrol Cutters and National Security Cutters are not supported by congressional budgets. The Coast Guard should be required to submit to Congress a long-range shipbuilding plan modeled on the Navy’s 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan. Ideally this should become part of the Navy plan in a new comprehensive naval long-range shipbuilding plan to ensure better coherency in the services’ requirements. Outside of home waters, and following the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, the Coast Guard should prioritize limited resources to the nation’s expansive Pacific waters to counter growing Chinese influence and encroachment. Expansion of facilities in American Samoa and basing of cutters there is one clear step in this direction and should be accelerated; looking to free association states (Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands) for enhanced and persistent presence, assuming adequate congressional funding, is another such step. The Secretary of the Navy should convene a naval board to review and reset requirements for Coast Guard wartime mission support. To inform and validate these updated requirements, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Coast Guard Commandant should execute dedicated annual joint wartime drills focused on USCG’s wartime missions in the Pacific (the money for these activities should be allocated from DOD). An interagency maritime coordination office focused on developing and overseeing comprehensive efforts to advance the nation’s mari- time interests and increase its military and commercial competitiveness should be established. Given the USCG’s history of underfunded missions, if the Coast Guard is to con- tinue to maintain the Arctic mission, money to do so adequately will be required over and above current funding levels. Consideration should be given to shifting the Arctic mission to the Navy. Either way, the Arctic mission should be closely coordinated with our Canadian, Danish, and other allies. Personnel USCG is facing recruitment challenges similar to those faced by the military services. The Administration should stop the messaging on wokeness and diversity and focus instead on attracting the best talent for USCG. Simultaneously, consis- tent with the Department of Defense, USCG should also make a serious effort to re-vet any promotions and hiring that occurred on the Biden Administration’s watch while also re-onboarding any USCG personnel who were dismissed from service for refusing to take the COVID-19 “vaccine,” with time in service credited — 157 — Department of Homeland Security to such returnees. These two steps could be foundational for any improvements in the recruiting process. U.S. SECRET SERVICE (USSS) Needed Reforms The U.S. Secret Service must be the world’s best protective agency. Currently, the agency is distracted by its dual mission of protection and financial investigations. The result has been a long series of high-profile embarrassments and security fail- ures, perhaps most notably its allowing of then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to be inside the Democratic National Committee office on January 6, 2021, while a pipe bomb was outside. Despite the great size and scope of the January 6 inves- tigation, this high-profile incident of danger to a protectee remains unresolved. The failures of the USSS protective mission are too numerous to list here. A December 2015 bipartisan report from the House Oversight Committee listed dozens of such incidents as well as needed recommendations for reform.14 This chapter adopts those findings and recommendations in whole, especially the finding that USSS’s dual-mission structure detracts from the agency’s protective capabilities. At the time of that report, USSS agents spent only one-third of their work hours on protection-related activities as opposed to investigative activities. USSS was established initially to investigate counterfeit currency, but its mission has evolved over the decades to prioritize electronic financial crimes. For example, as this chap- ter was being written, all 15 of the USSS’s most wanted individuals were wanted for financial crimes, many of them international in nature. Notably, the last head of the agency left not for a protection-related job, but to be the Chief Security Officer of social media company SnapChat. This is a pattern that has developed over the years, with agents seeking to burnish their online financial crimes credentials to secure corporate security jobs. Coupled with some of the lowest morale in the federal government, the agency has completely lost sight of the primacy of its protective mission. New Policies USSS should transfer to the Department of Justice and Department of the Treasury all investigations that are not related to its protective function. It should begin the logistical operation of closing all field offices throughout the country and internationally to the extent they are not taken over by Treasury or Justice. USSS agents stationed outside of Washington, D.C., should be transferred to work in Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices where they would continue to be the “boots on the ground” to follow up on threat reports throughout the country and liaise with local law enforcement for visits by protectees.
Introduction
— 638 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise and purpose, and therefore its funding priorities, are not well understood and his- torically have been minimalized in planning and budgeting. MARAD, including its subordinate Service Academy (the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy) should be transferred to the Department of Defense (if the Coast Guard is located there because DHS has been eliminated) or to the Department of Home- land Security. In this way, the two agencies charged with oversight and regulation of the Maritime sector—MARAD and the United States Coast Guard—would be aligned under the same department where operational efficiencies could be real- ized more easily. Serious consideration should be given to repealing or substantially reforming the Jones Act,16 which would require legislation. The economic costs of the Jones Act, which is notionally in place to promote a robust Merchant Marine, vastly exceed its effect on the supply of domestic ships. For instance, no liquified natural gas (LNG) can be shipped from Alaska to the lower 48 states because there are no U.S.-flagged ships that carry LNG. If there are genuine concerns about U.S. fleet capacity in the absence of the Jones Act, it would be possible to do so through an expansion of the Defense Reserve Fleet. Another DHS agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is a frequent user of MARAD Ready Reserve Force shipping during disaster assistance missions. Transferring MARAD to DHS would make coordination and requisition of those vessels a smoother and more rapid process. DHS has responsibility for reviewing and approving Jones Act waivers. This process first requires a market survey of available shipping tonnage that is completed by MARAD. The processing of Jones Act waiver requests would be streamlined if both agencies were in the same department. Finally, DHS as a department is experienced in administering and budgeting for the operation of an existing federal service academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, which is similar to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in size. There would be increased efficiencies and better alignment of the missions of these two institutions if they were under one single department that has equity in the industries served by these academies. CONCLUSION Americans need more abundant and affordable transportation. They need more affordable and safer cars as well as physical aspects of transportation such as roads, bridges, airports, ports, and rail lines. The Department of Transportation should be evaluating which aspects of transportation are contributing to the economic competitiveness of the United States and the well-being of Americans—and that therefore should continue to be funded. All too often, DOT’s mission is described as reducing the number of trips, using less fuel, and raising the costs of travel to Americans through increased use of — 639 — Department of Transportation renewables. These goals are not compatible with what should be DOT’s purpose: to make travel easier and less expensive. That is what the American people want, and that is what DOT should provide. AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume, but Steven Bradbury, David Ditch, and Robert Poole deserve special mention. The author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.