Supporting Domestic Shipbuilding and Offshore Wind Industry

Floor Speech

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Mr. AUCHINCLOSS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to a provision in the Coast Guard reauthorization that would decimate the offshore wind industry and prevent the United States from reaching President Biden's clean energy goals.

If passed, all offshore wind installation vessels will be required to be U.S.-flagged and crewed, but there aren't any existing vessels that meet these requirements. We must support our domestic shipbuilding and mariner capacity, but this provision would constrict offshore wind construction in the short term and would sacrifice union jobs and energy independence in the long term.

We will not reach the President's goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 if this provision passes, and halting offshore wind production would jeopardize the creation of up to 83,000 domestic jobs by 2030.

In committee, I offered a solution that would ensure offshore wind can thrive in the short term and create a pathway to more American offshore wind jobs. A prevailing wage requirement ensures that American mariners are not being passed up for jobs that we have the ships and workforce to perform ourselves.

I support the intent of the crewing requirement language and am eager to support the development of our domestic shipbuilding and crewing capacity, but I cannot support the Coast Guard reauthorization with this language included.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Larsen for his commitment to working to resolve this issue, but I urge my colleagues to oppose this language in any legislative vehicle.

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