At a time when more people are recognizing the detrimental effects of the Jones Act on the American economy, Congress is moving to extend requirements found in the law to new areas.
The Jones Act requires that all coastwise shipping within the United States be conducted with ships that are built and flagged in the U.S., owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens or residents. It’s one of the strictest protectionist laws on the books, and it has led to an aging and shrinking U.S. fleet, making much of domestic shipping cost-prohibitive.
The law has caused problems in the energy industry by making it difficult to transport oil and gas from the places where they’re produced to the places where they’re consumed. It often has the effect of enriching Russia, as it can be cheaper for places such as New England to import Russian natural gas than it is to ship American natural gas from Gulf ports to New England ports.
Not content with the Jones Act only harming our fossil-fuel industry, Congress now wants it to harm our renewable-energy industry as well. The House passed a crew-mandate bill that would apply to the ships used for offshore energy projects, including wind farms.
The new mandate was included in a defense authorization bill, and it would require the crews that work on offshore wind and oil projects to be citizens or permanent residents of the U.S., or be from the same country as the vessel’s flag. Foreign-flagged vessels are rarely crewed solely by people from the same country, so the bill has the effect of extending the Jones Act’s provisions to offshore energy projects.
The head of the American Clean Power Association described the mandate as a “gut punch to offshore wind projects.” The effects will be similar for offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
The mandate was proposed earlier this year by Senator Bill Cassidy (R., La.) as the American Offshore Worker Fairness Act. It was supported by Representative John Garamendi (D., Calif.), who said it “closes an egregious Jones Act loophole.” Garamendi sponsored the amendment to the defense authorization bill that passed the House.
The energy industry is not a jobs program, and the bipartisan effort to treat it as one will only continue to make energy production more difficult. By putting the interests of the water-transportation lobby (a very influential one) ahead of the interests of American energy consumers, Congress is proving it has learned nothing from our ongoing energy woes.