PSTA\u2019s upcoming Tampa Bay Ferry service, <\/a>which will connect people from downtown St. Petersburg to downtown Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cThis new vessel will be in addition to the two used vessels PSTA has already acquired, Bay Breeze and Bay Clipper,\u201d wrote PSTA interim communications and public relations manager Amanda Boisen in a statement provided to the Catalyst. \u201cIt will take several years for the design and build of the brand-new vessel \u2014 this will be an investment in the longevity of the service.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She added that an official PSTA announcement is scheduled for later this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Duffy emphasized the importance of \u201crevitalizing American shipbuilding.\u201d He explained that the effort requires \u201ca holistic approach\u201d and that \u201cmany different departments of government need to work together to make this happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see now how important shipping is in the world economy,\u201d Duffy continued. \u201cAmerica has to have a different role in building ships and in the maritime industry. When you build commercial vessels, it makes it easier to build military vessels as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maritime Administration administrator Stephen Carmel emphasized the impacts of the Tampa Bay area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTampa is a critical port,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe about nine and a half million barrels net of petroleum products flowed through this port in 2025, making it not only a critical part of maritime dominance, but a critical part of the energy dominance agenda as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Carmel added that Tampa was selected for the investment due to a variety of factors. One of the \u201creally unique attributes\u201d was location. Port Tampa Bay is ideal for feeder services, which connect local regional ports to major hubs, into the Caribbean and Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of history here in building ships,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, it doesn\u2019t take much to expand that capacity as well. The bones are here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Duffy explained Florida \u201cis a great place to do business.\u201d It is important to support places that \u201cwant the investment\u201d and \u201cwant to develop the workforce.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paul Anderson, president and CEO of Port Tampa Bay, said Monday that \u201cwe have shipyard resources, we have the workforce resources and we have the platform to grow this port to be a contributor to our nation\u2019s success in restoring America\u2019s maritime dominance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy visited Port Tampa Bay Monday to discuss an approximately $1 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-374679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}