The gas in your car, the fertilizer on farms, and materials in everyday products may all cost us more because of a 100-year-old law. The Jones Act requires cargo moving between U.S. ports to be carried on American ships, even when foreign ones are cheaper. It was meant to protect jobs from foreign competition, but today it’s colliding with a hard reality. Lisa Fletcher reports on growing calls to scrap the law.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Ships like this, loaded with about 40-million gallons of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, sail into Boston Harbor during the winter months to help heat hundreds of thousands of New England homes.

Even though the U.S. is the world’s biggest producer of LNG, the region has long relied on shipments from other countries, historically from Trinidad, stored in massive tanks like these. And that means it costs more.

That’s because there are no U.S. built ships available to move gas from one American port to another.

Brent Gardner: This is something that holds back Americans from being able to receive American products.

Brent Gardner is with Americans for Prosperity. It’s a free-market nonprofit and one of dozens of groups now pushing Congress to abolish the law.

Lisa Fletcher: For someone who’s just hearing about the Jones Act, what is it?

Brent Gardner: The Jones Act is over a hundred years old and it is a maritime law that was intended to help boost, at the time, the U.S. shipping industry. It requires that all ships shipping domestically between U.S. ports be manufactured in America, crewed by Americans, owned by Americans. And ultimately it’s something that has been really challenging for American consumers.

Lisa Fletcher: A hundred years ago, that probably made sense. Does it make sense now?

Brent Gardner: Today, less than a hundred ships serve domestically here as Jones Act certified ships and it has built up real challenges for folks as consumers, as people who are producers in the U.S. So yeah, no, it doesn’t work.

Critics say the Jones Act functions like a hidden tax, hiking the cost of shipping goods between U.S. ports by roughly 64%.

For example, shipping fuel from Texas to Florida can cost nearly three times more on a U.S.-owned and crewed ship, $3.29 a barrel compared to roughly $1.23 if foreign tankers could make the trip.

In New England, experts say the law increases liquified natural gas import costs by 10 to 30%, forcing consumers to ultimately rely on Trinidad instead of cheaper U.S. supplies.

Lisa Fletcher: If I go to the store, are things more expensive because the Jones Act exists?

Brent Gardner: So the short answer is yes. The East Coast, the opportunity to be able to get Pacific Northwest lumber is not the optimal choice. They get it from Canada because of the requirements for Jones Act shipping. In the Northeast, the cost of liquefied natural gas is pretty high. There is not a single LNG transport that is Jones Act certified. People in the Northeast need that fuel to heat their homes to stay alive. And so this is one of those laws that really hurts these folks.

Even though the United States is the world’s largest LNG exporter, New England has repeatedly imported foreign LNG to help meet demand.

Brent Gardner: And so the opportunity to be able to get affordable U.S. domestically produced, who need it isn’t there.

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have waived the Jones Act numerous times, usually after natural disasters or supply emergencies, most recently amid fuel disruptions tied to the war with Iran.

Brent Gardner: Anytime a law has to be exempted for it to be able to work, it’s not a great law.

Lisa Fletcher: That’s one way of saying: that is evidence, I guess, that the law is not necessary.

Brent Gardner: That’s right.

That’s the idea behind the “Open America’s Waters Act.” A bill, supported by Gardner’s group and others, that would scrap the Jones Act, allowing foreign ships to compete to move goods around the U.S.

The law has survived for more than a century, in part because maritime unions, shipbuilders, and other industry groups say it helps protect American jobs and national security.

Gardner argues the opposite: that after a century under the Jones Act, the results speak for themselves.

Lisa Fletcher: When you just boil it all down, it is a very basic issue that affects a lot of Americans.

Brent Gardner: It’s really basic. They’ve gone looking for the places that have really reduced their buying power, and they’re looking at things like the Jones Act, which have been hidden taxes on the money that they make for over a hundred years.

For Full Measure, I’m Lisa Fletcher.

I kept the narrative and interview wording intact, changing only capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations, and percentage formatting. No em dashes or ellipses were used.

Watch the video here.

The post (WATCH) Jones Act appeared first on Sharyl Attkisson.

 

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