Document MG3y9BDdMrozZd63Qeoy8y5vz

B0M24567 S6J S.L.C. 7 1 ing 230 times more shipbuilding capacity than the 2 United States. 3 (11) With just 12,000 United States merchant 4 mariners operating oceangoing vessels, the United 5 States may not have a sufficient number of mariners 6 to fully power the strategic sealift vessels necessary 7 in a future prolonged conflict. 8 (12) The American Civil Society of Engineers 9 assesses that the United States has a national main- 10 tenance backlog amounting to $125,000,000,000 for 11 bridges, $163,000,000,000 for ports, and 12 $6,800,000,000 for inland waterways. 13 (13) The maritime industry is inherently inter- 14 national. Eighty percent of United States goods are 15 imported by sea, of which 98 percent come into the 16 United States on foreign documented vessels. Only 2 17 percent of such goods come into the United States 18 on vessels of the United States, leaving the United 19 States economy disproportionately dependent on 20 oceangoing trade controlled by often adversarial for- 21 eign nations. The Nation's ability to provide services 22 in both international and interstate commerce is 23 critical to national and economic defense. 24 (14) Since November 2023, vessels engaged in 25 international commerce have been threatened by the OST-2025-1200 Page 00378 Sierra Club v. Dept. of Transp. - 3:25-cv-06221 SC_EVERSPLIT0012059