REGULATIONS

What Does the U.S. Shipping Coordinating Committee Do?

By C.F. St. Clair

The SCC is intended to give private sector players input on the U.S. position at IMO

On September 10, a Federal Register notice announced a teleconference meeting of the State Department’s Shipping Coordinating Committee (SCC) to be held September 30 “to prepare for the 104th session of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Maritime Safety Committee (MSC 104) from Monday, October 4, 2021, to Friday, October 8, 2021.”

The meeting announcement referenced an agenda with a lengthy list of critical topics, from domestic ferry safety to goal-based new ship construction standards to piracy to navigation and search and rescue.

One particular SCC focus is to work in alignment with the IMO’s meeting schedule, as directly referenced in the SCC’s recent meeting notice. More broadly, the SCC is to provide private sector views on a range of technical issues connected with shipping safety, security, and environmental protection. In recent years it has met twice a year. It was chartered in 1964.

Federal advisory committees (FACs), and there are about 1,000 of them, are an important part of the U.S. regulatory process. The SCC is a State Department committee, but it appears to function as something of a hybrid. The U.S. Coast Guard is an important player, and, in fact, Coast Guard staff is listed as the contact for the September meeting.

While most advisory meetings are largely routine, this recent SCC meeting is hard to bring into focus. Consider two basic questions: (1) what top SCC issues emerged from the September teleconference and (2), regarding those issues, what were the Committee’s recommendations to carry forward to the IMO? Those are rather basic action items.

Not for the SCC, which is either part of the Deep State or it’s been deliberately marginalized. Questions about the September 30 meeting sent to the Coast Guard were referred to State. Email answers from State, “on background,” were vague to the point of being non-answers.

Who is on the Committee? The official answer is: Government personnel “normally interested in shipping matters” and public representatives from maritime, labor and environmental groups. The Chair? Answer: “Director of the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs.” Uh … the State Department website lists an acting director. Is that person the chair? No answer.

When asked about the Committee’s discussion and action items State kicked the can back to the Coast Guard, which never replied to any questions. State did say that two items were “highlighted:” domestic ferry safety “and the work program.”

The September meeting was a final opportunity for American concerns to be included in the MSC’s deliberations; written comments to the IMO, for the October agenda, were due in midAugust. State’s spokesperson explained, “information from the SCC meetings is considered by the U.S. delegation.” Interestingly, though, “no written correspondence is transmitted directly from the SCC public meeting to the IMO.”

Neither State nor the Coast Guard said whether U.S. participants, at least in discussion, followed up and presented the SCC’s “highlighted” concerns about ferries or the work program to MSC. Neither agency would provide any information about the September 30 teleconference discussion.

The SCC does not have its own website. That’s unlike many advisory committees where a website lists members’ names, affiliation and contact information as well as the chair and a designated federal officer and usually links to meeting summaries and announcements about upcoming meetings.

The General Services Administration (GSA), however, does maintain a FAC database. A review of SCC’s information, provided by GSA, forces a basic question: is the SCC even a committee or are a few people just going through the motions? According to GSA, for 2021, the SCC has three members: • Jeremy Greenwood, State Department,

Chairperson; • Admiral Karl Schultz, Commandant,

US Coast Guard; and, • James Rocco, International Association of Drilling Contractors.

Was it Adm. Schultz who was concerned about domestic ferry operations or the “work program?” It seems highly unlikely, disturbing really, that concerns from the commandant of the Coast Guard might, or might not, advance to the IMO just based on informal notes from a teleconference.

GSA shows no current membership on the SCC from other trade associations, labor or environmental or academic groups, as referenced by State. There’s no reference to the Director of the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs. In fact, the Committee has shrunk - last year it had four members. Interestingly, the SCC was reauthorized in March for another two years!

The announcement of the September meeting was more like a pro forma, check-the-box move. The teleconference wasn’t a meeting, at least in the sense that peoples’ time is organized and focused on particular results. It provided a chance to comment on critical IMO topics, just as critically, likely to advance to new regulations. Here’s hoping that for whoever called in, it wasn’t a waste of time.