Defense Bill Sets Maritime Administration Funding Target Levels
Because a significant portion of the Maritime Administration’s mission is related to national defense, the periodic reauthorization laws for MARAD sometimes hitch a ride on the much larger National Defense Authorization Act, the annual Pentagon reauthorization law, if for not other reason than that the NDAA gets enacted every year – 64 years running – and is now the only completely reliable legislative vehicle in town.
This year, the new NDAA bill passed by the House this week does include MARAD reauthorization language, but only a skeleton bill. It’s just one section (sec. 3501, starting on page 1,917 of the bill) and has one year’s worth of numerical targets, for fiscal 2026.
The only policy language in the section is a continuation of the labor protection from port cargo automation, restricting Port Infrastructure Development Program grant funding for FY 2026 from being used “to make a grant to be used for the purchase of fully automated cargo handling equipment that is remotely operated or remotely monitored with or without the exercise of human intervention or control, if the Secretary of Transportation determines such equipment would result in a net loss of jobs within a port or port terminal.”
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have already approved their MARAD budgets for fiscal 2026 and now have to negotiate final terms. Sometimes they take the authorization levels into account, sometimes they don’t.
| Maritime Administration FY 2026 Funding Levels (Thousand $$) | ||||
| House | Senate | NDAA | ||
| Approp. | Approp. | Authoriz. | ||
| Maritime Security Program | 380,000 | 390,000 | 390,000 | |
| Cable Security Fleet | 10,000 | 0 | 10,000 | |
| Tanker Security Fleet | 91,000 | 122,400 | 122,400 | |
| Operations and Training | ||||
| USMMA Operations | 101,500 | 101,500 | 101,500 | |
| USMMA Facilities | 50,000 | 50,000 | 50,000 | |
| USMMA Campus Modernization | 0 | 10,000 | 50,000 | |
| META | 5,000 | 2,000 | 15,000 | |
| US Marine Highway Program | 7,500 | 5,000 | 15,000 | |
| Environment and Compliance | 0 | 0 | 2,000 | |
| HQ Operations Expenses | 75,652 | 72,398 | 73,500 | |
| State Maritime Academies | ||||
| Student Incentive Payments | 2,400 | 4,800 | 4,800 | |
| Direct Payments to SMAs | 7,000 | 6,000 | 13,000 | |
| Training Ship Fuel Assistance | 3,800 | 9,800 | 12,000 | |
| Training Ship Sharing Costs | 0 | 0 | 4,000 | |
| Training Ship Mainten./Repair | 7,800 | 7,800 | 25,000 | |
| Training Ship (NSMMV)/Shoreside | 70,000 | 115,000 | 75,000 | |
| Ship Disposal | 6,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 | |
| Title XI Loan Program | 4,000 | 3,940 | 33,700 | |
| Aid to Small Shipyards | 30,000 | 30,000 | 105,000 | |
| Port Infrastructure Development | 123,470 | 96,482 | 550,000 | |
| Total, MARAD (Excluding Rescissions) | 975,122 | 1,033,120 | 1,657,900 | |
