SCHUBERT PRAISES EUROPE’s SHORT-SEA TRANSPORT SYSTEM

SCHUBERT PRAISES EUROPEÆS SHORT-SEA TRANSPORT SYSTEM    If the United States wants to control increased truck and rail freight traffic, it should take a lesson from Europe’s decade-old short-sea shipping system.
   “The Europeans have focused on the lower environmental and social costs of waterborne transportation,” said Maritime Administrator William G. Schubert during a Transportation Research Board forum in Washington. “Their short-sea shipping has reduced road congestion, economized fuel consumption, and helped to reduce pollution.”
   “I believe that the Europeans are on the right track,” he added. “And just as Europe is successfully advancing their short-sea shipping initiatives, we can do the same here at home.”
   It’s estimated that 40 percent of the freight in Europe today is transported on water. The European Union has developed a “motorways of the sea” initiative to increase the share of waterborne carriage between EU members.
   Schubert said MarAd would work closely with the Bush administration and Congress, in addition with the country’s shipping industry, to develop and promote commercially viable coastal shipping routes to serve the East, Gulf and West Coasts.
   “We must develop legislative initiatives to remove obstacles to the growth of short sea-shipping, including addressing the harbor maintenance tax so that it does not apply to domestic trade in order to spur commercial initiatives and interest,” Schubert said.
   Schubert also envisions that the increase in short-sea transportation activities bring increased construction of U.S.-built ships and shoreside labor opportunities.