There is a new push by a coalition of regional stakeholders to revitalize shipbuilding in Solano County and the surrounding area, asking the federal government to designate the California Delta as a "maritime prosperity zone."
"We've seen what happens when jobs go away. It's going to be great to see if shipbuilding, maritime jobs come back to the region," said Chris Rico, president and CEO of the Solano Economic Development Corporation.
The effort is backed by the Solano EDC, Cal Poly's Maritime Academy, the owners of Mare Island, the Nimitz Group, the Bay Area Council, and California Forever, which released the announcement Thursday.
California Forever is the group of tech-billionaires looking to build a new city of more than 400,000 people, an advanced manufacturing park and a shipyard in Solano County. The group is now the county's largest landowner. Their total acreage is greater than the size of the city of San Francisco.
California Forever CEO Jan Sramek says he supports reviving Mare Island in Vallejo alongside their own efforts to create what they call the Solano Shipyard, proposed for Collinsville.
"The proposal revives Northern California's contribution to America's maritime power," Sramek wrote in a thread on X announcing the coalition's plans.
The group of regional leaders says their goal is to attract private investment, thousands of jobs and bring back large-scale shipbuilding to the West Coast.
"I think it's a really good signal to the market that we want to bring those jobs here," said Rico. "I can tell you that my peers across the water in Contra Costa and Alameda, even folks in Yolo and Sacramento, they know that even though the location is in Solano, the opportunity is for this whole region."
Proposed California Delta federal "maritime prosperity zone" California ForeverIn response, Rep. John Garamendi, a Democrat representing much of Solano County in Congress, says this aligns with a bipartisan push moving through both houses of Congress right now to build more American ships.
"I'm excited. I'm very, very pleased. This is the first of this in the nation," said Garamendi. Garamendi is working to get the SHIPS for America Act signed into law this year, promoting both national security and economic development in bringing back American shipbuilding. It is an effort President Trump has already supported through executive order aimed at 'restoring American maritime dominance.' "The United States has maybe 50 deep-water commercial ships. China has over 5,000. We simply are not in a position to support our military using our own American-flag vessels. That was one of the reasons that I got into this a decade ago on the Armed Services Committee," said Garamendi. Garamendi has been critical of California Forever. In previous interviews with CBS Sacramento, he has called their vision to build a new city both a "pipe dream" and "dumb growth," representing the worst of California's urban sprawl. But on the topic of shipbuilding in Solano, he says they are aligned. "I am looking for support wherever we can get it. California Forever is motivated for economic reasons, and that's fine. Other participants who signed the letter have similar motivation, and that's good," said Garamendi. So what is a federal maritime prosperity zone? Garamendi says the designation does not actually exist now, but it would if the SHIPS Act passes. It creates tax breaks, incentives and regulatory relief to promote the maritime industry and help streamline the creation of thousands of shipbuilding jobs. "We will use this support to push the legislation, advance the legislation, and it will undoubtedly cause other regional ports to also participate," said Garamendi. The announcement comes on the heels of the Mare Island Dry Dock in Vallejo recently announcing they had to lay off more than 80 workers right at the start of the new year. Garamendi said he wanted to correct the record and that the dry dock has not closed permanently, as was previously reported by the city of Vallejo to CBS Sacramento.
"The panic was caused by an inappropriate description of the problem. Mare Island Dry Dock did not shut down. It simply lost a bid, laid the folks off for lack of work. They continued to search for work and hopefully will be successful in obtaining additional bids," said Garamendi.
Garamendi added that they are aggressively working right now alongside the U.S. Coast Guard to secure a new contract that would mean some, if not all, of those laid-off workers would get their jobs back at the dry docks.
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