Jones Act

The Navy released its preliminary findings yesterday in the case of the fire aboard the Los Angeles Class fast attack nuclear submarine USS Miami (SSN 755) that may result in the vessel being assessed as a total constructive loss....

Rep. Hirono states that the Jones Act has created 10,000 maritime jobs in Hawaii, and the Hawaii maritime industry generates an annual turnover of more than $4.7 billion and provides wages of $1.1 billion. These are extravagant numbers ... 

The Governor of Guam, the Honorable Eddie Baza Calvo’s Council of Economic Advisors has recently released the outline of their new economic plan, and Jones Act reform is a key element of that plan....

...in a direct rebuff to U.S. shipyards, it will refit three of its ageing containerships in Asia hypocritically skirting the so-called “second proviso” of the Jones Act....

First-class travel. Six-figure salaries for half the 132 officers and staffers. Plenty of plum jobs for family members. Life is good at the top of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers.

Horizon wishes to assure the Jones Act industry of its fidelity and that it will not succumb to the siren call of Jones Act reform even if that means it will never have a chance to rationally renew its fleet of dreadful old clunkers....

In response to my article, a reader asks: “We get all the natural gas we need now. How does it get here? The article makes it sound impossible, but it’s here.”

Professor Stiglitz explained that the first time the Jones Act came to his attention is when he worked on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and it was identified as a major impediment to the national U.S. economy....

There are no Jones Act ships available to transport the LNG from the contiguous United States or Alaska to Hawaii. No deep draft LNG carrier has been built in a U.S. shipyard for at least 30 years....

More than a thousand ships and barges will reach the end of their useful lives in the next few years. More may be forced out of service as environmental standards tighten....

... labor rates are not the main reason why U.S. shipyards are uncompetitive ....

Last year, instead of enacting a law stating that the Supreme Court was wrong, the Legislature adopted special legislation exempting the Superferry pending completion of an environmental impact statement. The Supreme Court’s recent decision correctly struck down that exemption as violating the Hawaii constitutional prohibition against legislative special treatment for special interests.

The governor and Legislature were then handed a second opportunity to make the law pono by saying what everyone believed. The Legislature could enact simple language, such as the following which I recommended to the legislative leadership in March 2009, making clear that our environmental laws do not extend to "secondary" impacts:

"Significant effect" does not include or require consideration of “secondary impacts” on the environment that may result from government action. This latter provision is retroactive to enactment of this chapter.

By doing so, the law would state what everyone always believed it meant and the Superferry would have been allowed to continue providing essential transportation to Hawaii's citizens and competition to interisland airlines.