The Maritime Administration (MARAD) has taken on environmental oversight of deepwater port licensing from the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), which officials say will streamline environmental reviews, accelerate license approvals, and lower domestic energy costs.
The change, announced on Monday, means that MARAD will oversee National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and environmental compliance review duties, with the USCG providing additional oversight in areas including safety, design, construction, and operations of deepwater port facilities. Congress required this change as part of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025.
MARAD, USCG and the Department of Transportation (DOT) said the shift in leadership aims to advance President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Unleashing American Energy.
"We’ll accelerate project approvals so the nation can safely utilize more of its abundant natural resources, create more high paying jobs, and lower energy costs for American families.”
“The Deepwater Port Program is a key pillar of President Trump’s energy dominance strategy,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “With this change, we’ll soon accelerate project approvals so the nation can safely utilize more of its abundant natural resources, create more high paying jobs, and lower energy costs for American families.”
History of Deepwater Port Program
The establishment of the Deepwater Port Act of 1974 (DWPA) provides a licensing system for construction, operation, ownership, and decommissioning of deepwater port structures to import and export oil and natural gas from U.S. waters.
Under the DWPA license applicants must meet certain conditions for approval, including minimized adverse impacts on the marine environment in addition to providing detailed plans for construction, operation, and decommissioning of deepwater ports.
Since 1975 a total of 31 such applications have been filed for approval. They are as follows:
- Eighteen were filed for licenses to import liquefied natural gas (LNG).
- Five were filed to export LNG.
- Six were filed to export oil.
- Two were filed for licenses to import oil.
However, just 11 of the 31 applications have been approved. To date, eight licenses have been issued out of those 11 approved applications, including the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port and Northeast Getaway.
“MARAD is excited and proud to lead the Deepwater Port Program. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with our partners at the U.S. Coast Guard to make this process more efficient and fuel our energy economy for years to come,” said MARAD Administrator Steve Carmel in a statement.
But not everyone is sold. Jeff Lewis, former MARAD chief counsel now part of Cozen O’Connor’s Transportation and Trade Group in Washington, D.C. wrote in an op-ed last year in Marine Link that the USCG should still maintain regulatory authority over environmental reviews despite criticisms of drawn out processes.
“While there has been frustration among some applicants in recent years with the slowness of the review process, I would argue that this current division and specialization of roles between Coast Guard and MARAD is an outgrowth of the agencies’ inherent, organic capabilities, and should be left as it is,” Lewis said.
He added that the USCG standards and law divisions “already have the breadth and depth of experience from 50 years of deepwater port work” and that MARAD “does not possess these competencies at all.”
