REMARKS AS PREPARED BY

MARITIME ADMINISTRATOR REAR ADM. (RET) ANN PHILLIPS

AT Floating Offshore Wind Summit

INTRODUCTION 

Thank you, Secretary Granholm, for your leadership and for the opportunity to join you today.  

The work of the Biden-Harris Administration to support offshore wind is a whole-of-government effort involving many departments and agencies.  The Maritime Administration and the Department of Transportation are fully committed to this effort, and today, I will talk about how we are supporting the construction of vessels to service the offshore wind industry and investing in new infrastructure at ports. 

TITLE XI 

 Let me talk first about our support for vessel construction.  

As you know, having the right vessels is key to building and servicing offshore wind farm facilities.  Many types of vessels are required—and to move cargo between two points in the United States, these vessels must be compliant with the Jones Act. 

The Jones Act is a cornerstone of U.S. maritime policy—and as the President’s Executive Order on Made in America affirms, it is a “make it in America” policy on our waterways. 

MARAD helps operators build vessels through our Federal Ship Financing Program, commonly called “Title XI” because of its location in the Merchant Marine Act of 1936.  Title XI provides full faith and credit guarantees to promote the growth and modernization of the U.S. merchant marine and U.S. shipyards.   

The Title XI program has the ability to provide guaranteed loans for longer terms, higher loan-to-value amounts, and lower interest rates than are typically available through private lenders—and this program is available to help finance new construction or refinance vessels that are already constructed. 

Since 1993, Title XI has provided $9.3 billion in loan guarantees.  

In 2019, the Title XI statute was amended to give MARAD the authority to designate “Vessels of National Interest.”  This designation enables us to prioritize and expedite specific applications. 

I recently designated the vessels that service offshore wind farm facilities as Vessels of National Interest—and these are the first vessels to be designated under this authority.   

Several American shipyards have already secured contracts to build vessels to service offshore wind development—and we have had a surge in expressions of interest in the Title XI program since we announced the national interest designation for offshore wind vessels. 

PORT INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM 

Now let me talk about the work the Biden-Harris Administration is doing to support the development of the port infrastructure needed to enable the development of offshore wind facilities.   

Thanks to the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, over the next five years, the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) administered by MARAD will invest $2.25 billion to strengthen ports all across the nation, including ports that will serve the offshore wind industry. 

On February 23, 2022, Secretary Buttigieg announced the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the first round of PIDP grants funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.   

This NOFO was released just three months after the law was enacted—ensuring that we could begin to get money out the door and to work in our ports as quickly as possible. 

The first round of PIDP funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law totaled $450 million—an investment that was the largest single investment in the program ever. 

And an additional $234 million dollars was provided for the PIDP program in Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations, bringing the total amount of funding available last year to more than $680 million. 

AWARDS TO WIND PORTS 

This year, we have XXX to award, and applications will be due on XXX 

We encourage stakeholders who are interested in a Title XI loan guarantee or a PIDP to be touch with MARAD to learn how to access these programs. 

CLOSING 

We at the Maritime Administration and throughout the Department of Transportation are working closely with our partners through the government to make sure we have the vessels and the port capacity to build our offshore wind industry. 

We urge you to be in touch with MARAD whenever we can be of assistance!

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