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Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation



The Coast Guard enforces the laws of the United States on waters under U.S. jurisdiction and on the high seas.  The service’s many missions include search and rescue, illegal drug and migrant interdiction, oil spill prevention and response, maritime safety and security, maintaining aids to navigation, icebreaking, and enforcement of U.S. fisheries and marine pollution laws. 

The Subcommittee also has jurisdiction over regulation of ocean shipping and the merchant marine, except as it relates to national security.

Issues and agencies under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee include:

  • United States Coast Guard
  • Maritime transportation safety
  • Navigation, port and waterway safety
  • Maritime transportation regulatory activities, including the regulation of vessels and merchant seaman,
  • State boating safety programs
  • Marine environmental protection, generally as related to vessel operations (oil and plastics pollution, invasive/aquatic nuisance species transported by vessels, international agreements concerning transportation of oil and hazardous substances)
  • Port security
  • Federal Maritime Commission and the regulation of ocean shipping
  • The Jones Act (United States cabotage laws governing shipping of goods and passengers between any two points in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone)
  • Non-national security aspects of the merchant marine
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