The collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge presents challenges for cleanup and construction crews who rely on dredging vessels to complete their work. That’s partly because of the Foreign Dredge Act, a 1906 law that prohibits foreign-made dredging vessels. Congress is now introducing a measure to revise parts of that law, although previous attempts to do so have failed.
Straight Arrow News contributor Adrienne Lawrence says the Foreign Dredge Act has only worked to protect inferior U.S. dredging vessels against their superior European counterparts while also driving up prices. She recommends revising or repealing the law.
The Foreign Dredge Act, which was passed, mind you, more than a century ago, forbids dredges built in foreign countries from operating in the U.S. Dredges are those huge vessels that remove debris from waterways [and] dredges also help build the waterways. So basically, a dredge is what is needed right now to remove the Key Bridge and that huge cargo vessel from the Baltimore river. But under the act, a foreign-built dredge is subject to immediate forfeiture, which means we are left with only American-built dredges.
Now, why is that a problem, you may ask? Well, as you may imagine, because the Foreign Dredge Act shields American companies from international competition when it comes to dredges, the U.S. fleet of dredges are substandard, and that’s putting it nicely.
The U.S. has 16 vessels, compared to 87 in Europe. A recent study from Tulane University found that the combined capacity of the U.S. fleet is less than a single EU dredging vessel. Translation: All the dredges in the United States put together couldn’t do what just one dredge in Europe could do. In fact, the largest U.S. dredge has a capacity that would rank only 31st in Europe. Our dredges aren’t only small, with little capacity, and they are few, mind you, but they’re also old. The Army Corps of Engineers still uses dredges built during World War II. That means U.S. dredges are fewer, smaller, slower, and less efficient than their foreign counterparts.