were sold to private operators, 5 were assigned to 
the Navy, and 1 was lost at sea. Except for the con- 
tract to construct the nuclear ship Savannah, no 
construction has been initiated under Title VII 
authority since 1953 when the last of the Mariner 
construction contracts was signed. 
In the years following World War II, three differ- 
ent Federal organizational structures have existed 
for carrying out U.S. shipping policy. As noted 
previously, upon abolition of the War Shipping Ad- 
ministration in 1946, administrative, promotional, 
and regulatory responsibilities in this area were re- 
turned to the U.S. Maritime Commission. Although 
this had been the arrangement of these functions be- 
fore the war, dissatisfaction with the intermingling 
of these responsibilities soon emerged in the postwar 
period, and in 1950 the President’s Reorganization 
Plan No. 21 abolished the U.S. Maritime Com- 
mission. 
In place of the independent Maritime Commission, 
two new agencies were established and located in 
the Department of Commerce. A three-member Fed- 
eral Maritime Board was constituted to carry out all 
Federal regulatory functions and certain quasi-judi- 
cial functions associated with the rendering of sub- 
sidy determinations, and a Maritime Administration 
was established to carry out the administrative re- 
quirements associated with the implementation of 
various merchant marine promotional programs. 
Under this arrangement, the Chairman of the Fed- 
eral Maritime Board also served as ex-officio Ad- 
ministrator of the Maritime Administration and the 
two bodies were served by a common staff. When 
functioning in a regulatory capacity, the Board was 
to be independent of the Secretary of Commerce, 
but, in its quasi-judicial subsidy role, it was to be 
The Merchant Marine Act of 1970 
Because of the large number of Government- 
owned ships sold to private operators after World 
War II, few new ships were constructed in the United 
States in the postwar period and during the 1950s 
and 1960s the U.S.-flag_merchant_fleet_declined 
rapidly. In 1950, U.S.-flag vessels carried more than 
40 percent of the country’s total foreign commerce; 
by 1969 this figure had declined to about 5 percent, 
and. three quarters of the vessels in the U.S. fleet 
were more than 20 years old and economically obso- 
lete. Although a few new ships were added to the 
fleet each year, these were primarily breakbuik ves- 
sels and total construction under the subsidy pro- 
gram in-this period was limited. 
In an effort to reverse the decline of the 1950s 
and 1960s, and to provide incentives for expansion 
of the U.S. bulk fleet, a comprehensive overhaul of 
the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 was undertaken. 
On October 21, 1970, the President signed into law 
guided by promotional policies established by the 
Secretary. The Maritime Administration discharged 
its responsibilities strictly in compliance with De- 
partment of Commerce authority. 
Although this basic structure was retained 
throughout the 1950s, it became an increasingly con- 
fusing and cumbersome arrangement the longer it 
remained in effect. As Lawrence has noted in his dis- 
cussion of this period, things had become so confused 
by 1959 that the Chairman/Administrator of the 
Federal Maritime Board — Maritime Administration 
had adopted the practice of signing all documents in 
both official capacities so that his actions could not 
be challenged for having been taken under the wrong 
authority.°® 
In 1961 Presidential action was again taken in an 
attempt to rectify these organizational difficulties. 
Under Presidential Reorganization Plan 7, the Fed- 
eral Maritime Board was abolished and its regulatory 
functions transferred to a new independent five- 
member Federal Maritime Commission. The Mari- 
time Administration was retained within the Depart- 
ment of Commerce, and to its other responsibilities 
were added the subsidy determination functions 
previously exercised by the Federal Maritime Board. 
Subsidy rulings under this arrangement were to be 
discharged by a Maritime Subsidy Board consisting 
of the Maritime Administrator, the Deputy Maritime 
Administrator, and the Maritime Administration 
General Counsel. 
The organizational structure established in 1961 
for the first time completely separated the promo- 
tional and regulatory functions of the Federal Gov- 
ernment and placed them in totally separate agen- 
cies. This structure has been retained since 1961. 
the amendments to the 1936 Act, which are known 
collectively as the Merchant Marine Act of 1970. 
At the broadest level, enactment of the Merchan 
Marine Act of 1970 represented a general reaffirm 
tion of the national policy of Federal support for the 
.S.-merchant-marine—Although the 1970 act im- 
plemented a number of major program adjustments 
designed to increase the effectiveness of the Mer- 
chant Marine Act of 1936, the fundamental policies 
embodied in the 1936 Act emerged essentially unal- 
tered. The commitment_to maintain _a viable U‘S. 
merchant marine was reiterated, and the major pro- 
grams of Federal aid, although modified, were re- 
such programs as construction fund tax deferment 
56 Samuel A. Lawrence, op. cit. note 46, p. 257. 
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