United States Coast Guard - MTSA Regulations
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Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002
On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) of 2002, Public Law 107-295, which contains several provisions intended to protect America’s maritime community against the threat of terrorism without adversely affecting the flow of U.S. commerce through our ports. Section 102 of the MTSA creates a new subtitle VI of title 46, United States Code, to establish a comprehensive national system of transportation security enhancements. Chapter 701 of this subtitle contains provisions related to port security.

The Coast Guard is the lead Federal agency for maritime homeland security. The Coast Guard’s homeland security mission is to protect the U.S. maritime domain and the U.S. Marine Transportation System and deny their use and exploitation by terrorists as a means for attacks on U.S. territory, population, and critical infrastructure. The MTSA contains several provisions relating to the Coast Guard’s role in maritime homeland security.

The Act creates a U.S. maritime security system and requires Federal agencies, ports, and vessel owners to take numerous steps to upgrade security. The Act requires the Coast Guard to conduct vulnerability assessments of U.S. ports. The MTSA requires the Coast Guard to develop national and regional area maritime transportation security plans and requires that seaports, waterfront terminals, and certain types of vessels develop and submit security and incident response plans to the Coast Guard for approval. The MTSA also requires the Coast Guard to conduct an antiterrorism assessment of certain foreign ports. Finally, the Act requires certain vessels operating in U.S. navigable waters to be equipped with and operate an Automatic Identification System (AIS).

MTSA .pdf Files