MARITIME MOBILITY

Keeping boat traffic, both private and commercial, moving safely and securely - through everything from congested harbors to ice-laden waters - is a responsibility that falls directly on us. We are the nation's lead agency for waterways management, port safety and security, and vessel-safety inspection and certification.

We are responsible for maintaining and patrolling the safe and efficient navigable waterways system needed to support domestic commerce, facilitate international trade, and ensure the continued availability of the military sealift fleet required for national defense.

Beginning in 1790 with the establishment of the Revenue Cutter Service, we've protected our nation's cargo and shipping. Today, we protect upward of $4.9 million in property daily. Then, as now, we charted waters and kept an eye out for threatening ships at sea.

In 1789, Congress created the Lighthouse Service (another of several of our predecessors) to establish and maintain maritime aids to navigation.

Presently, the U.S. Marine Transportation System consists of a complex mix of waterways, ports, and intermodal landside connections, which collectively allow the nation's various modes and types of transportation to move people and goods to, from, and on the water.

And we continue to maintain the "signposts" and "traffic signals" - more than 50,000 federal aids to navigation, including buoys, lighthouses, day beacons, and radio-navigation signals - on the nation's waterways. Our maritime Differential Global Positioning System network provides boaters and mariners with the most accurate, electronic maritime navigation system available.

We are also responsible for about 18,000 highway and railroad bridges that span navigable waterways throughout the U.S. We issue permits for bridge construction, order obstructive bridges to be removed, and overseas drawbridge operations.