To members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives –

We are writing to you to seek your support for S 1511, the “Ships TO be Recycled In the States” (STORIS) Act, sponsored by Senators David Vitter and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Companion legislation is being sponsored in the House by Congressman Garret Graves of Louisiana.   

The STORIS Act restores funding for maritime heritage organizations across the U.S. These organizations receive funding from a variety of sources including the National Maritime Heritage Grant program. Under current arrangements, the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) and the National Park Service jointly manage the program. These government grants are funded by revenues generated from the sale of excess government vessels to domestic ship recyclers. From 2005 to the present, in excess of $75 million has been collected. As initially intended, 25 percent – more than $17 million – was to go into the competitive grant program.

In 2009, Congress, pursuant to a MARAD request, amended the National Maritime Heritage Act. The language allowed MARAD to use the full 25 percent, including funds collected prior to enactment of the 2009 law, exclusively for “the preservation and presentation to the public of maritime heritage property of the Maritime Administration.” Since then, the maritime heritage community has sought restoration of these funds, currently $17,248,512.50 of the $68,994,050 collected through FY 2014. This year, on April 27, MARAD announced that it was sharing $2.7 million – just a small fraction of that funding – in a grant program with the NPS.

MARAD has not sought input from the maritime heritage community stakeholders on the agency program, and to date, has not apparently expended any of the funds. Instead, the money has languished at MARAD while U.S. maritime museums are struggling to find financing. The STORIS Act restores funding, as originally intended by Congress, for the maritime museums. 

Senators Vitter and Cassidy, with Congressman Graves, named this legislation after the former Coast Guard Cutter STORIS (WMEC-38). After a stellar and historic career spanning 64 years and five months, the Coast Guard spent an estimated $300,000 keeping STORIS in museum hold status for six years as a MARAD custody ship in California after her February 2007 decommissioning. A veteran of World War II and the first U.S.-flagged vessel to circumnavigate North America by sailing through the Northwest Passage, STORIS was listed in late 2012 on the National Register of Historic Places, recognized as a nationally significant property deserving of historic preservation. Despite these distinctions and her excellent physical condition, the General Services Administration sold STORIS in June 2013 for just over $70,000 to an individual who scrapped the vessel in Ensenada, Mexico. It is bad enough that STORIS did not become a museum, but other American museums were harmed because they were not eligible to receive proceeds generated by the sale of the ship through GSA.  

We are appalled by what happened to STORIS. Two nonprofit  organizations wanted to turn her into a museum and the federal government didn't help them. Tragically, the government then allowed STORIS to leave the country to be destroyed. The sale of the ship was a violation of 40 USC 548, with GSA selling the ship instead of MARAD. Allowing the export of the ship to Mexico violated Section 3502 of the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act of 2009.

The STORIS Act calls for changes that mandate transparency in MARAD’s operations and mandates a GAO audit, particularly of the ship recycling program. There are serious questions about how the Maritime Administration has been operating in terms of its disposal of obsolete government vessels. Information received through the Freedom of Information Act from MARAD show that MARAD officials expressed skepticism that STORIS was free of PCBs prior to her departure, yet they still released the ship for export to Mexico. That MARAD did not step up to assume its proper role as the rightful agency to handle STORIS’ disposition while allowing the ship to be exported in violation of federal law in collusion with other federal agencies (USCG, GSA, EPA) raises serious questions about these administrators. There have also been irregularities with MARAD awarding government vessels to ship recycling facilities that did not submit the highest bids. The sums of money involved are in the hundreds of thousands per ship and this is not “best value” or in the best interests for U.S. taxpayers.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned