OMSA Wants U.S. Coast Guard to End All Type Approvals for Shipboard Gear
The Trump administration has announced ambitious goals to deregulate every industry, and maritime is no exception. That's welcome news for many in the business, including the members of the Offshore Marine Services Association (OMSA), who have proposed a significant rollback in U.S. Coast Guard type approval regulations for safety gear - the familiar standards for flares, ladders, rescue boats, fire doors, ballast water treatment systems, and other shipboard safety gear. Instead, OMSA says, the shipowner should be allowed to buy equipment that is independently tested and certified, without the burden of the Coast Guard type approval process.
"OMSA respectfully urges the USCG to revoke all regulations which require the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to approve a type of equipment before this equipment can be installed or used on a U.S.-flagged vessel. Adopting this recommendation will eliminate 95 regulations without any adverse impacts to safety, the environment, or property," asserted OMSA President and CEO Aaron C. Smith.
OMSA held up inflatable liferafts as an example. The USCG’s type approval rule runs to 11,000 words, and it repeats the ISO requirements that the rafts already have to meet on the factory floor, according to OMSA. Meeting the additional review of type approval adds cost and time for equipment manufacturers, and OMSA thinks that safety would be just as good without a Coast Guard type approval review.
"With all these rules, USCG inspectors are being diverted from critical safety work to duplicate tasks already handled by global standards bodies,” said Smith. “This is about making smart, efficient decisions that support American jobs and industry. Streamlining the system will save time, reduce costs, and keep our fleet competitive.”
According to OMSA, the type approval process also makes it harder for its members to get the equipment they need from vendors. For example, USCG type approved fast rescue boat engines are no longer distributed in Louisiana, so operators have to look far and wide for replacements, causing delays. If the type approval requirement were lifted, the association argues, operators could use locally-available engines without any difficulty.