Tim Runyan, chair of the National Maritime Alliance is leading the effort to restore funding to the Maritime Heritage Grants program to its original levels:

The “Storis Act” offered by Sen. Begich of Alaska includes Section 5 (c) that would restore funding for the maritime heritage grants program at the former level before the MARAD amendment to the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act gave all authority to MARAD. Today I learned MARAD is pushing back in order to keep the money, so we have a fight.

Bills are being marked up on Capitol Hill as I write. We must write now to members on the committees that will be involved in this bill. There are 4 committees—2 House, 2 Senate.  Click here for Senate / House committees list (Word Version) or (PDF version).

Here is a letter template for your convenience. Fill it out with your information. Email the letter to the committee members from your home state. You can write to all senators through their Senate web site—you must be a member of the district to submit a letter to a congressman via their web site.  Unless you have an email address to send to, you will need to copy and paste your letter into their online form.  I suggest sending a hard copy of your letter by snail mail.

Please send me a copy of your letters.

I thank you for stepping up and your willingness to help. We must contact these members of the House and Senate now if we are to succeed. Millions in grant funding for the maritime heritage community is at stake. Please make these contacts.

 Tim
runyant@ecu.edu