46 U.S.C. § 53407 — National security requirements

(a) Emergency Preparedness Agreement Required. The Secretary of Transportation, working with the Secretary of Defense, must set up an emergency preparedness program. As a condition of its operating agreement, each program participant must agree to sign an emergency preparedness agreement with the Secretary. The Secretary must negotiate and sign this agreement with each participant as soon as practical after the operating agreement is signed. (b) Terms of Agreement. The emergency preparedness agreement must: (1) say that if the Secretary of Defense asks during a war, national emergency, or when needed for national security or a "contingency operation" (defined in section 101 of title 10), the participant must provide the commercial transportation resources described in subsection (d); (2) include any other terms the two Secretaries set; and (3) allow the Secretary of Transportation and the participant to change or add terms, if the Secretary of Defense approves. (c) Participation After Expiration of Operating Agreement. Except as section 53406 allows, the Secretary of Transportation can't require a participant to keep participating in an emergency preparedness agreement after its operating agreement ends. After the emergency preparedness agreement itself expires, a participant may choose to keep participating voluntarily. (d) Resources Made Available. The resources a participant must offer include vessels or vessel capacity, terminal facilities, management services, and other related services — or any agreed portion of these — that the Secretary of Defense decides are needed, while trying to minimize disruption to the participant's commercial customers. (e) Compensation. The Secretary of Transportation must include compensation terms, approved by the Secretary of Defense, requiring the Secretary of Defense to pay fair and reasonable compensation for all these resources. This compensation: (A) can't be less than the participant's normal commercial charges for similar transportation; (B) must be fair and reasonable given all circumstances; (C) runs from when the Secretary of Defense takes the resource until it's returned and available for commercial service again; and (D) is on top of, and doesn't reduce, the payments under section 53406. (f) Temporary Replacement Vessels. Despite the cargo-preference laws listed, a participant may use a foreign-flag vessel or foreign-flag capacity in foreign trade as a temporary replacement for a U.S. vessel that the Secretary of Defense has activated. That replacement vessel can carry preference cargoes under the same laws, to the same extent as the vessel it replaced, during the replacement period. (g) Redelivery and Liability of the United States for Damages. When the period of activation ends, all resources activated under the agreement must be returned to the participant in the same condition as when received, minus normal wear and tear — or the Secretary of Defense must fully pay for any needed repair or replacement. Unless the emergency preparedness agreement says otherwise, or another law provides otherwise, the government isn't liable for disruption to the participant's business or other consequential damages from activating the resources.