46 USC § 50101 - Objectives and policy | Title 46 - Shipping | U.S. Code

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-99. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

(a) Objectives.— It is necessary for the national defense and the development of the domestic and foreign commerce of the United States that the United States have a merchant marine—

(1) sufficient to carry the waterborne domestic commerce and a substantial part of the waterborne export and import foreign commerce of the United States and to provide shipping service essential for maintaining the flow of the waterborne domestic and foreign commerce at all times;

(2) capable of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency;

(3) owned and operated as vessels of the United States by citizens of the United States;

(4) composed of the best-equipped, safest, and most suitable types of vessels constructed in the United States and manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel; and

(5) supplemented by efficient facilities for building and repairing vessels.

(b) Policy.— It is the policy of the United States to encourage and aid the development and maintenance of a merchant marine satisfying the objectives described in subsection (a).

prev | next

(a) Objectives.— It is necessary for the national defense and the development of the domestic and foreign commerce of the United States that the United States have a merchant marine—

(1) sufficient to carry the waterborne domestic commerce and a substantial part of the waterborne export and import foreign commerce of the United States and to provide shipping service essential for maintaining the flow of the waterborne domestic and foreign commerce at all times;

(2) capable of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency;

(3) owned and operated as vessels of the United States by citizens of the United States;

(4) composed of the best-equipped, safest, and most suitable types of vessels constructed in the United States and manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel; and

(5) supplemented by efficient facilities for building and repairing vessels.

(b) Policy.— It is the policy of the United States to encourage and aid the development and maintenance of a merchant marine satisfying the objectives described in subsection (a).

Source

(Pub. L. 109–304, § 8(b),Oct. 6, 2006, 120 Stat. 1556; Pub. L. 111–84, div. C, title XXXV, § 3511,Oct. 28, 2009, 123 Stat. 2722.)

Historical and Revision Notes
Revised Section	Source (U.S. Code)	Source (Statutes at Large)
50101
46 App.:861.
June 5, 1920, ch. 250, § 1, 41 Stat. 988; Exec. Order No. 6166, June 10, 1933, § 12; June 29, 1936, ch. 858, title II, § 204, title IX, § 904, 49 Stat. 1987, 2016; Pub. L. 97–31, § 12(33), Aug. 6, 1981, 95 Stat. 156.
	46 App.:891.
May 22, 1928, ch. 675, § 1, 45 Stat. 689.
	46 App.:1101.
June 29, 1936, ch. 858, title I, § 101, 49 Stat. 1985; Pub. L. 91–469, § 1, Oct. 21, 1970, 84 Stat. 1018.

This section consolidates the source provisions to eliminate repetition.

Amendments

2009—Subsec. (a)(4). Pub. L. 111–84inserted “constructed in the United States” after “vessels”.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, May 3, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

top

General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

46 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

46 USC § 50101 - Objectives and policy

U.S. Code Toolbox

Law about... Articles from Wex

Find a Lawyer

Get Involved