DID YOU KNOW?
Maritime shipping is responsible for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and less than 1% of new commercial ships are built in the United States.
The Trump administration prepared a new Maritime Action Plan (MAP) which proposes fees that would function much like a tax on imported goods and projected to generate $66 billion to $1.5 trillion strategy to revive American shipbuilding. Rebuilding U.S. shipbuilding capacity is a real and worthy goal. But there’s a catch: the plan lacks a clear strategy on clean maritime fuels that will increasingly power the global fleet.
Here’s why that matters. Right now, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) — the UN body that sets the rules for global shipping — is finalizing a Net -Zero Framework that will require ships worldwide to phase in cleaner fuels over the next decade like California does with the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) for on-road transportation. Countries like Finland (whose shipbuilders are already part of the MAP’s own plan) are racing to build vessels that meet that new standard. Whoever builds compliant ships first captures the market.
What’s at stake
The MAP proposes to modernize shipyards, expand dry docks and fund a new commercial fleet — but on the fuel architecture of the past. That’s not a long-term competitiveness strategy. It’s a plan to build yesterday’s ships, just faster.
There’s a human cost too: Roughly 12% of Americans live near seaports, in communities already carrying a disproportionate pollution burden. Scaling up maritime activity while rolling back environmental oversight doesn’t build a stronger industry — it builds one in tension with the communities it depends on.
As it has been put many times before: “Zero-emission vessels are rapidly becoming the global benchmark for maritime competitiveness.”
The path forward
Our near-term priority: Ensure the Net- Zero Framework passes as drafted, with no backsliding, and push for an implementation work plan that gets the technical details right, from lifecycle fuel accounting to fair governance of Net-Zero Fund revenues.
Our broader goal: Use the IMO as a lever for climate leadership even when U.S. federal engagement is inconsistent — bridging state-level progress (like California’s) with international policy, protecting the port communities left breathing the consequences, and building coalitions with port authorities, regulators and cities who are ready to act even when Washington isn’t.
If your work touches trade policy, manufacturing jobs, environmental justice or U.S. competitiveness, this is your issue too. The fight over what kind of ships America builds next is a fight over who leads the next era of global shipping, and who gets left breathing the exhaust of the last one.
