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SCA Weekly Report | November 29 - December 3, 2021
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Registration Now Open: 2022 SCA Winter Meeting
February 2-3, 2022
The Biltmore Hotel
Coral Gables, FL
The 2022 SCA Winter Membership Meeting will be held in-person on February 2-3, 2022.The cost to attend the meeting is $550.
SCA Board and Committee Meetings will be held on Wednesday, February 2, 2022 and SCA Staff Reports, the Guest Speaker Panel Sessions, and golf tournament will be held on Thursday, February 3, 2022.
The cost to play in the golf tournament is $200 and the cost to rent clubs for the golf tournament is an additional $80.
Confirmed Speakers for the Panel Sessions include:
Government Shipbuilding Panel
- Rusty Murdaugh, President, Austal USA
- Richard Hunt, President, Fincantieri Marinette Marine
- Ben Bordelon, President & CEO, Bollinger Shipyards
- Joey D’Isernia, President, Eastern Shipbuilding Group
- Eric Crooker, Vice President of Contracts & Pricing, Ingalls Shipbuilding
Commercial Shipbuilding Panel
- Garrett Rice, President, Master Boat Builders
- Gavin Higgins, CEO, Nichols Brothers Boat Builders
- Chris Allard, CEO, Metal Shark
- Lee Stokes, Chief Operating Officer, Alabama Shipyard
Vessel Owner & Operator Panel
- Richard Balzano, CEO and Executive Director, Dredging Contractors of America
- Fred Paup, Chairman of the Board & EVP, Manson Construction Co.
- Jeff Dixon, President, TOTE Services
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SCA has secured a room block at The Biltmore Hotel for the Winter Meeting. The rate for the room block is $379/ night.
To book a hotel room under the SCA rate, please click HERE.
You will also need to enter the group code on the hotel reservation landing page. The group code is: 6899
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Congress Averts Shutdown
Congress voted Thursday night to fund the federal government through Feb. 18 using a stopgap continuing resolution that averts a government shutdown.
The federal government had already been operating on a CR which began Oct. 1.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) warned lawmakers that Congress continues to inch closer toward a full-year CR that would reduce defense spending by $37 billion below the level being proposed by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
NDAA Stalls in Senate
Senators remain at an impasse over the annual defense authorization bill, with Democrats arguing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is blocking the legislative process over his insistence on the inclusion of an amendment that would violate the U.S. Constitution.
Rubio’s amendment would ban U.S. imports from China's Xinjiang region, citing forced labor imposed on the Uyghur population by the Communist government in Beijing. Human rights organizations believe about 1 million of China’s Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority, have been sent to internment camps.
But Rubio’s amendment has triggered a “blue slip” issue with the House Ways and Means Committee, meaning it would involve raising new revenue. According to the U.S. Constitution, all revenue-related legislation must begin in the House.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged Rubio to work with the House Ways and Means Committee to restructure his amendment and laid responsibility for the delayed bill at Rubio’s feet.
The $778 billion defense authorization bill, which has been signed into law for 60 consecutive years, has been mired in partisan gridlock since Monday when Republicans set up a blockade against it, alleging they had been shut out of the amendment process.
But now Democrats and Republicans, meanwhile, say they have crafted a bipartisan deal to consider at least 24 separate amendments and begin to advance the bill for a final vote. Rubio said he wants his amendment included in the deal.
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Biden to Nominate LaPlante for DOD Acquisition Chief
President Biden intends to nominate former Air Force acquisition chief Bill LaPlante to be under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. LaPlante is a former senior vice president at MITRE. In September 2020, LaPlante became the new president and CEO of The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, MA. He served as the Air Force acquisition chief from February 2014 to November 2015.
Pentagon Plans to Release Scoping Guides for CMMC Assessments and New Model in December
The Defense Department is working on several pieces of documentation to support the revamp of its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, including scoping guides for the new levels one and two and an overview document describing the CMMC 2.0 model.
The Pentagon announced major changes to the CMMC program on Nov. 4, including consolidating the program into three maturity levels, removing 20 practices and three processes from the new level two, and allowing contractors to submit a plan to address certain unmet controls.
Under CMMC 2.0, defense contractors seeking a level one certification will self-attest that they meet the 17 controls in the first maturity level. DOD is establishing a bifurcated process for level two where third-party assessments are only needed for some DOD contracts with information critical to national security.
CMMC stakeholders have emphasized the importance of getting scoping guidance from DOD since the initial assessment guides for the original levels one and three were released in December 2020.
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Biden Administration Approves Nation’s Second Commercial-Scale Offshore Wind Farm
The U.S. Department of the Interior has approved the construction and operations of the South Fork Wind project offshore Rhode Island, marking the second approval of a commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project in the United States. The approximately 130 megawatt South Fork Wind project will be located 19 miles southeast of Block Island and 35 miles east of Montauk Point, New York. It is expected to create about 340 jobs and provide enough power for about 70,000 homes.
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FMC Commissioner Calls for More Action to Speed Up LA/Long Beach Cargo
On Wednesday, a member of the Federal Maritime Commission called for the FMC to take additional action on port congestion at the ports of LA and Long Beach by addressing issues with night hours and truck appointments. The twin ports are at the epicenter of the U.S. supply chain crisis, and they are overburdened with containers of Asian imports for American consumers. To address the crisis, the Biden administration has been working closely with port stakeholders to address bottlenecks, including the addition of regular 24/7 gate operations for the first time.
The FMC agreed to allow terminals to stop charging a traffic mitigation fee during nighttime hours, giving truckers and shippers an incentive to use the extra period of availability. The ports say that utilization of the recently-implemented night shift has been relatively low so far; the waiver of the traffic fee might provide reason for some shippers to start taking advantage of the after-hours option.
Fincantieri to Expand U.S. East Coast Ship Repair Operations
In a move that is expected to bring hundreds of jobs to Jacksonville, FL, Fincantieri Marine Systems North America is set to expand its ship repair operations on the U.S. East Coast. Aimed at both commercial and government vessels, the focus of the effort will be Commodores Point, Jacksonville, where the company will bring in a large dry dock.
“We are investing millions of dollars in waterfront improvements, including bringing in a large dry dock, which will allow us to be a top-tier marine repair operation.” said Ryan Smith, Fincantieri Marine System’s president and CEO. “The dry dock will be U.S. Navy-certified, which will enable us to repair and maintain Navy vessels in addition to our work on commercial and Coast Guard vessels.”
Wartsila to Deliver Cargo Handling System for Polaris’ LNG Bunker Barge
Wartsila recently secured an order to supply a complete liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo storage and handling system for a new LNG bunker barge to be built at Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding in Wisconsin. The vessel is being built for Polaris New Energy (PNE). This will be the second vessel in a series of two barges to be constructed at the yard for PNE, with the same Wartsila offering ordered for both of the vessels. Demand for LNG as a marine fuel is growing rapidly, with over 400 new LNG-fueled vessels set to enter service over the next several years.
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If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the SCA staff.
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