46a USC Rule - Reemployment rights for certain merchant seamen

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(a) In general

An individual who is certified by the Secretary of Transportation under subsection (c) of this section shall be entitled to reemployment rights and other benefits substantially equivalent to the rights and benefits provided for by chapter 43 of title 38 for any member of a Reserve component of the Armed Forces of the United States who is ordered to active duty.

(b) Time for application

An individual may submit an application for certification under subsection (c) of this section to the Secretary of Transportation not later than 45 days after the date the individual completes a period of employment described in subsection (c)(1)(A) of this section with respect to which the application is submitted.

(c) Certification determination

Not later than 20 days after the date the Secretary of Transportation receives from an individual an application for certification under this subsection, the Secretary shall—

(1) determine whether or not the individual—

(A) was employed in the activation or operation of a vessel—

(i) in the National Defense Reserve Fleet maintained under section 1744 of Title 50, Appendix, in a period in which that vessel was in use or being activated for use under subsection (b) of that section;

(ii) that is requisitioned or purchased under section 1242 of this Appendix; or

(iii) that is owned, chartered, or controlled by the United States and used by the United States for a war, armed conflict, national emergency, or maritime mobilization need (including for training purposes or testing for readiness and suitability for mission performance); and

(B) during the period of that employment, possessed a valid license, certificate of registry, or merchant mariner’s document issued under chapter 71 or chapter 73 (as applicable) of title 46; and

(2) if the Secretary makes affirmative determinations under paragraph (1)(A) and (B), certify that individual under this subsection.

(d) Equivalence to Military Selective Service Act certificate

For purposes of reemployment rights and benefits provided by this section, a certification under subsection (c) of this section shall be considered to be the equivalent of a certificate referred to in paragraph (1) of section 4301 (a) of title 38. ^[1]

[1] See References in Text note below.

Source

(June 29, 1936, ch. 858, title III, § 302, as added Pub. L. 104–239, § 10(a),Oct. 8, 1996, 110 Stat. 3133.)

References in Text

A certificate referred to in paragraph (1) of section 4301 (a) of title 38, referred to in subsec. (d), probably means a certificate described in section 9(a) of the Military Selective Service Act (50 App. U.S.C. 459 (a)), which was referred to in section 4301 (a)(1) of Title 38, Veterans’ Benefits, prior to the general amendment of that section by section 2(a) ofPub. L. 103–353.

Prior Provisions

A prior section 1132 of former Title 46, Shipping, acts June 29, 1936, ch. 858, title III, § 302,49 Stat. 1992; Aug. 6, 1981, Pub. L. 97–31, § 12(83), 95 Stat. 160, related to citizenship of officers and crew prior to repeal by Pub. L. 98–89, § 4(b),Aug. 26, 1983, 97 Stat. 603. See sections 7102 and 8103 of Title 46, Shipping.

Effective Date

Pub. L. 104–239, § 10(b),Oct. 8, 1996, 110 Stat. 3134, provided that: “The amendment made by subsection (a) [enacting this section], shall apply to employment described in section 302(c)(1)(A) of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936 [subsec. (c)(1)(A) of this section], as amended by subsection (a), occurring after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 8, 1996].”

Regulations

Pub. L. 104–239, § 8,Oct. 8, 1996, 110 Stat. 3133, provided that:

“(a) In General.—The Secretary of Transportation may prescribe rules as necessary to carry out this Act [see Short Title of 1996 Amendment note set out under section 1245 of this Appendix] and the amendments made by this Act.

“(b) Interim Rules.—The Secretary of Transportation may prescribe interim rules necessary to carry out this Act and the amendments made by this Act. For this purpose, the Secretary of Transportation is excepted from compliance with the notice and comment requirements of section 553 of title 5, United States Code. All rules prescribed under the authority of this subsection that are not earlier superseded by final rules shall expire no later than 270 days after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 8, 1996].”

Pub. L. 104–239, § 10(c),Oct. 8, 1996, 110 Stat. 3134, provided that: “Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 8, 1996], the Secretary of Transportation shall issue regulations implementing this section [enacting this section and provisions set out as a note above].”

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 Tuesday, April 16, 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.

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General Reference

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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.

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

This is a list of parts within the Code of Federal Regulations for which this US Code section provides rulemaking authority.

This list is taken from the Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules provided by GPO [Government Printing Office].

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46a USC Rule - Reemployment rights for certain merchant seamen

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