Putting the Jones Act and the Gulf Oil Spill in Perspective: Some Facts for our Constituents
As the nation’s leading domestic ocean shipping company, Horizon Lines carries cargo that is vital to the basic needs of our tradelane customers and the U.S. Government. We are deeply invested in these markets, which we have been serving in some cases for more than 50 years. Based on our experience as a long-time working member of the Jones Act community, we have seen first-hand the benefits our customers have garnered by working with the U.S. built, U.S. owned, U.S. crewed and U.S. flagged Jones Act fleet. We employ the highest-skilled, best-trained seafaring professionals and are dedicated to meeting or exceeding U.S. safety and environmental standards, while delivering the highest service levels for the most demanding U.S. commercial and public customers, from Walmart to the Department of Defense. As a Jones Act carrier, we strive every day to deliver excellence, and it is in this vein that we are also committed to helping set the record straight for our constituents with accurate information that unequivocally refutes the false claims that the Jones Act is hampering cleanup efforts surrounding the tragic Gulf oil spill.
Please note that these facts are condensed and consolidated from information provided by the Maritime Cabotage Task Force at www.mctf.com. For further information, please click on this link.
Blaming the Jones Act for hampering efforts to clean up the Gulf oil spill is both misplaced and misinformed.
- Some Americans do not understand the Jones Act and think it might be hampering the cleanup in the Gulf. It is not. The law does not even affect most of the spill clean-up area and is designed to allow, in emergency situations like the Gulf oil spill, the use of foreign ships when no American vessels are available.
- The Jones Act requires the use of American vessels for certain maritime services within American domestic waters. Almost every nation has similar laws, which are known as cabotage laws. The primary purpose of cabotage law is to draw a distinction between international trade (between countries) and domestic trade (within a country). Ships that operate in U.S. domestic trade must obey American laws, including immigration, employment, safety, environmental, tax, labor and other laws.
- Pertinent to the Gulf oil spill, the Jones Act pertains only to skimming vessels operating within three miles of shore. Oil skimming outside the three-mile limit is completely open to foreign oil spill response vessels. That is where the vast majority of skimming has occurred so far, since the source of the leak (the Deepwater Horizon drilling and explosion site) is some 50 miles off the coast.
- No offers of foreign assistance to help clean up the oil spill have been declined because of the Jones Act, according to both the National Incident Command (NIC) and the U.S. Department of Transportation. In fact, the U.S. State Department says offers of assistance have been accepted, including those from Mexican skimmers, Norwegian skimming systems and other assets from Canada, Germany and the Netherlands.
- The Jones Act contains well-established provisions that allow the use of foreign vessels when no American vessel is available. The waiver process is quick and has been streamlined even further since the spill to deal with any waiver requests.
- The problem isn’t the Jones Act – even state-of-the-art American vessels have been standing by in the Gulf, ready and willing to participate in the cleanup, according to the Marine Cabotage Task Force. “The Gulf oil spill is an unprecedented disaster. Finding, evaluating, procuring, and directing oil spill response vessels or skimming, booms or other response equipment does not happen overnight, and both BP and the federal government have acknowledged that the procurement of skimmers has not occurred as quickly as people would like.”
Legislation calling for a blanket waiver or repeal of the Jones Act based on the incorrect assumption that the Jones Act is hindering the Gulf cleanup is misguided and would do more harm than good to American interests.
- A blanket waiver of the Jones Act (as opposed to a vessel-specific waiver in instances where no American vessel is available) would effectively outsource to foreign interests the work that Americans legally should receive and very much need, especially in this region and economy. A broad waiver would in effect eliminate employment opportunities for American workers, resulting in an odd and even cruel irony considering the economic devastation of the oil spill and related fishing and drilling restriction on American fishermen, offshore supply vessels and others in the Gulf.
- According to the Marine Cabotage Task Force, a repeal of the Jones Act would eliminate the American industry that is helping clean up the spill, an industry that supports 500,000 U.S. jobs, and outsource that work to foreign companies registered in nations like Liberia and the Marshall Islands that operate outside of American law. Using a spill caused by foreign companies as a pretext to bring in more foreign companies makes as much sense as replacing the American workers cleaning up the Gulf beaches with foreign companies and foreign workers.
- The economic rationale used by those seeking repeal of the Jones Act is based on studies that are outdated and widely discredited.