Bill Keating: “I associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues regarding our late colleague Don Young, my friend, someone I worked…”

“I associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues regarding our late colleague Don Young, my friend, someone I worked with on fishing issues, ferry issues, air service issues. He will be sorely missed. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6865, which makes significant investments in the extraordinary work of the United States Coast Guard. I have deep concerns, though, about one provision in the bill regarding the sole-sourced crewing of foreign vessels needed to construct the first offshore wind projects in our country. This language will prevent existing crews from building already planned offshore wind projects years before the ships can be built and long before American seamen are trained to take on these jobs. We all support U.S. jobs, but here at home, this industry is at its relative infancy. The requirements in this provision will prevent participation of the existing fleet of vessels needed to begin construction on these projects while no U.S. alternative exists. This will cost us jobs, jeopardizing more than 3,600 jobs, largely union jobs, from the Vineyard Wind project in my district alone and create years of delays to the building of offshore wind projects with an estimated 20,000 new jobs across the eastern seaboard. Mr.…”