[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5488 Introduced in House (IH)]







106th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5488

  To strengthen the National Defense Features program, and for other 
                               purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 18, 2000

    Mr. Frelinghuysen (for himself and Mr. Weldon of Pennsylvania) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                   Transportation and Infrastructure

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To strengthen the National Defense Features program, and for other 
                               purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``National Defense Features Program 
Enhancement Act of 2000''.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS CONCERNING NATIONAL DEFENSE FEATURES 
              PROGRAM.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The National Defense Features program, which is funded 
        from the National Defense Sealift Fund established by section 
        2218 of title 10, United States Code, is a constituent element 
        of the defense policy of the United States intended to provide 
        essential sealift capacity in emergencies, strengthen the 
        national shipbuilding base, and maintain a resource of highly 
        trained merchant seamen.
            (2) Implementation of the National Defense Features program 
        would provide significant benefits both for the United States 
        and for allied nations during military contingencies.
            (3) For the United States and nations allied with the 
        United States to realize these benefits, it is essential that 
        vessels built under that program enjoy commercial opportunities 
        in peacetime on trade routes between the United States and 
        allied nations and that those vessels not be excluded from such 
        opportunities through restrictive trade practices.
            (4) The failure of vessels built, or to be built, under the 
        National Defense Features program to obtain employment as 
        common carriers or contract carriers in the particular sector 
        of any trade route in the foreign commerce of the United States 
        for which they are designed to operate, together with long-term 
        domination of that sector of the trade route by citizens of an 
        allied nation, evidences the existence of restrictive trade 
        practices.

SEC. 3. ACTION TO PROMOTE NATIONAL DEFENSE FEATURES PROGRAM.

    In any case in which the Federal Maritime Commission finds the 
existence of the conditions specified in section 2(4) to prove the 
existence of restrictive trade practices, it shall take action to 
counteract such practices, utilizing all remedies available under 
section 10002(e)(1) of the Foreign Shipping Practices Act of 1988 (46 
U.S.C. App. 1710a).
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