The Foreign Dredge Act of 1906 is a

United States federal statute An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called private laws), or to the general public ( public laws). For a bill to become an act, the text must pass through both house ...

that requires

dredges Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

operating in US waters to be built in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, and to be owned and chartered by

US citizens Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constitu ...

. Dredges violating the act are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the US government.

Origin

The original intention of the law was to protect and foster America's shipbuilding industry to enable it to compete with established foreign shipbuilders. A dredging project to repair the town of Galveston, TX, after the

1900 Galveston hurricane The 1900 Galveston hurricane, also known as the Great Galveston hurricane and the Galveston Flood, and known regionally as the Great Storm of 1900 or the 1900 Storm, is the deadliest natural disaster in United States history and the third-de ...

raised concerns that sand exported on foreign-owned barges might be taken out of the country, effectively stealing US soil, which provided the initial motivation for the bill that would become the Foreign Dredge Act. A more central motivation emerged, which was to protect the US shipbuilding industry from foreign competition.

Current impact and criticism

Two countries, the United States and China, prohibit foreign dredging, and 15% of countries surveyed by the Transportation Institute have restrictions on dredging. The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

and Government Accountability Office state that lack of dredging capacity and high costs are the cause of a 15-year delay in dredging the 10 most important US ports to accommodate post- Panamax depths. The

Heritage Foundation The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is primarily geared toward public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the preside ...

and

Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Ind ...

claim that the Foreign Dredge Act is anti-competitive, and that it impairs America's ability to expand its ports by limiting its supply of dredging ships. Gregory Tosi argues that, for example, the Port of Corpus Christi loses $50 billion of oil exports per year due to a lack of dredging capacity to improve the port. 90% of global dredging contracts are currently won by one of four Belgian and Dutch dredging companies

Jan De Nul Jan De Nul Group is a Belgian family-owned company, with the financial headquarters in Luxembourg, that provides services relating to the construction and maintenance of maritime infrastructure on an international basis. Its main focus is dredging ...

Van Oord Royal Van Oord is a Dutch maritime contracting company that specializes in dredging, land reclamation and constructing man made islands. Royal Van Oord has undertaken many projects throughout the world, including land reclamation, dredging and beac ...

Boskalis Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. is a Dutch dredging and heavylift company that provides services relating to the construction and maintenance of maritime infrastructure internationally. The company has one of the world's largest dredging fleets, ...

, and

DEME In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and ear ...

, which are generally ineligible to compete for US contracts.

Proposed legislative changes

Senator

Mike Lee Michael Shumway Lee (born June 4, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Utah, a seat he has held since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. Lee began his career as a clerk for the U ...

has proposed the DEEP Act, which would repeal the Foreign Dredge Act and create a new nationwide permitting process to expedite dredging permittin

He has also introduced more constrained versions of the bill, the Port Modernization and Supply Chain Protection Act, that would repeal the Foreign Dredge Act's

cabotage Cabotage () is the transport of goods or passengers between two places in the same country. It originally applied to shipping along coastal routes, port to port, but now applies to aviation, railways, and road transport as well. Cabotage rights ar ...

requirements, allowing international dredges to operate in the USA. The SHIP IT Act, introduced by Congresswoman

Michelle Fischbach Michelle Louise Helene Fischbach (; born November 3, 1965) is an American attorney and politician who is the U.S. representative from Minnesota's 7th congressional district. The district, which is very rural, is Minnesota's largest congressiona ...

and Congressman

Byron Donalds Byron Lowell Donalds (born October 28, 1978) is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. representative for Florida's 19th congressional district since 2021. His district serves most of the heart of Southwest Florida, including ...

would allow vessels from

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

member countries to engage in dredging in the United States; the

notes that "Four of the largest dredging companies in the world are located in NATO members, with each possessing more hopper dredges than the entire U.S. dredging fleet ''combined''." Lee has introduced a bill with similar purposes in the Senate, the Allied Partnership and Port Modernization Act.

References

United States federal admiralty and maritime legislation Dredging 1906 in American law {{port-stub