US Coast Guard Proposes Scrapping Six STCW Course Requirements
Cubierto por 3 fuentesPublicado
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) issued a proposed rule to eliminate six training course requirements tied to STCW endorsements, finding that they exceed international standards and impose unnecessary costs on US mariners. The agency estimates the measure would generate savings of $6.1 million per year and benefit an average of 825 mariners annually, with total discounted savings of $42.8 million over ten years.
Affected Courses
Among the requirements that would be eliminated are Leadership and Managerial Skills (LMS) for masters of vessels of less than 500 gross registered tons operating near coastal waters, Bridge Resource Management (BRM) and the demonstration of competence in Leadership and Teamwork (LTW) for officers in charge of a navigational watch on those same vessels, as well as Engineering Terminology and Shipboard Operations (ETSO) for designated engineering officers and designated duty engineers, and the Computer Systems and Maintenance (CSM) and High Voltage Power Systems (HVPS) courses for electro-technical ratings on vessels with propulsion machinery of 750 kW or 1,000 HP or more.
Coast Guard's Rationale
The USCG maintains that on small vessels operating near coastal waters the bridge team is typically composed of a single credentialed mariner who also performs helmsman and lookout duties, so the additional BRM and LTW requirements, designed for larger bridge teams, would provide little safety benefit in these cases. Regarding electro-technical ratings, the agency notes that these workers are not authorized to carry out computer systems or high-voltage tasks independently, but only under the direct supervision of credentialed officers, making the specific CSM and HVPS courses unnecessary.
Regulatory Process
The proposal, titled 'Clarification of Certain Mariner Training Requirements', was published on October 1 in the Federal Register under docket USCG-2025-0392, with a comment period deadline of December 30, 2026. The initiative had originally been conceived during the first Trump administration in 2018 but was never published as a formal rule, and it stalled during the Biden administration; the second Trump administration revived it and expanded it from three to six requirements to be eliminated, doubling the estimated annual savings from $2 million to $6.1 million.
