[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 77 (Monday, May 9, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S2375]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Nomination of Ann Claire Phillips

  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support the nomination of RADM Ann Phillips to be Administrator of the 
Maritime Administration.
  Rear Admiral Phillips served in the U.S. Navy for 31 years, served in 
Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and held leadership 
positions such as the Director of Surface Warfare for the Chief of 
Naval Operations. Most recently, she served as special assistant to 
former Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam, where she focused on coastal 
adaptation and protection.
  This nomination is so important to our maritime industry, especially 
as we are facing unprecedented challenges in the maritime supply chain. 
The Maritime Administration is responsible for supporting America's 
maritime transportation industry, including supporting the health of 
the U.S. merchant marine fleet, investing in port infrastructure, 
supporting American shipyards, and growing and training the maritime 
workforce.
  Never before have maritime and shipping issues been more important to 
the health of our economy and consumers. Our ports are handling record 
amounts of cargo as COVID-19 has caused consumers to shift their 
spending habits to e-commerce. The arrival of these imports has led to 
record volumes at our U.S. ports.
  In 2021, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach moved 10 million 
containers for the first time ever. In my State, the State of 
Washington, the Northwest Seaport Alliance saw a 15-percent increase in 
container volumes over the last year. So this unprecedented volume 
continues to cause massive challenges of ships backed up offshore and 
vessels anchoring or loitering in waiting areas near the Ports of L.A. 
and Long Beach. Twenty-two percent of sales have been lost by 
agricultural exports due to transportation delays and cancelations, 
with products like potatoes, milk, wheat, and seafood that are 
literally rotting on our port docks.
  My colleagues and I have been working hard to pass the Ocean Shipping 
Reform Act. And we did that out of the Senate, and now, obviously, our 
colleagues in the House--we have different bills--hopefully, will 
either resolve this in USICA or, with the passage of one of these 
bills, with the Senate bill maybe being passed by the House.
  But the Federal Maritime Commission needs tools to crack down on bad 
actors in the shipping industry and reduce costs facing consumers. Our 
bill that passed in March that, as I said, we are working to reconcile, 
we believe needs to become law as soon as possible.
  But the bill is only a piece of the supply chain challenge. We need 
to make serious investments in our port infrastructure to handle the 
increasing capacity and get goods moving, and MARAD is charged with 
overseeing the Port Infrastructure Development Program, the primary 
grant program used to invest in our ports and help move our products. 
That is why it is so important to have this position.
  President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law included 2.25 billion 
MARAD port infrastructure development dollars for the next 5 years. I 
want to thank my colleague Senator Wicker for working with us on this--
this is such critical infrastructure investment--and all my colleagues 
who supported those programs. This huge economic opportunity and the 
volume of our trade needs the infrastructure at our ports to continue 
to increase.
  We need Rear Admiral Phillips confirmed to make sure those dollars 
get out the door and get them to our ports now. We need the leadership 
of this organization to improve the resiliency of our ports, which are 
vulnerable to climate change and extreme storms. And we need Rear 
Admiral Phillips' experience in coastal resiliency as we have charged 
MARAD with building a maritime industry for the future that makes sure 
that we are looking at shore power issues and operating on cleaner 
fuels.
  And we need Rear Admiral Phillips' experience in the Navy that will 
bring the expertise to the workforce mission. MARAD is tasked with 
ensuring that the United States has a strong merchant marine workforce 
to support the U.S. Sealift Program. The events in Ukraine have shown 
us that we must deal with the shortage of merchant mariners. It is 
estimated that we are over 1,800 merchant marine officers short of the 
need in case of a conflict. With the rise of China and the ongoing 
conflict in Ukraine, we cannot take another minute for granted for the 
need for U.S.-flagged ships and U.S. mariners to support the logistics 
of the U.S. military. I know the Presiding Officer knows this very 
well.
  In addition to strengthening our workforce, we need to invest in our 
shipyards, maintain our national defense needs as well as strengthen 
the U.S. flag fleet. This means investing in modern shipyards and 
identifying incentives to build new generations of U.S.-flagged ships.
  These U.S. merchant mariners are also vital to the maritime industry. 
My State and various States face a workforce shortage and many of our 
other maritime sectors also. We need to skill and train a workforce for 
tomorrow.
  Maritime jobs are good, family wage jobs, but we need to have a 
talented workforce that is inclusive, and we need to have an inclusive 
environment and work with the Coast Guard and the maritime industry to 
address issues of sexual assault and harassment to keep people safe in 
the workplace at sea.
  Rear Admiral Phillips is the right person for this job to help the 
industry, the maritime unions, the shipping companies, and the Coast 
Guard to foster change. She has been a trailblazer in her career 
because she has been the first woman to command a destroyer squadron, 
the first woman Director of Surface Warfare, and now the first woman 
Maritime Administrator.
  I urge my colleagues to support her nomination.