It's Finally Time to Repeal the Jones Act for Good

The Jones Act, as I’ve written about numerous times, substantially increases the cost of delivering oil from the US Gulf Coast to other places in the US. It does this because it requires that any ship going from any US port to any other US port is required to be constructed, owned, and crewed by US interests. Because US shipbuilding costs five times as much as ships built elsewhere, it becomes absolutely uneconomical to ship from one US port to another.

The choice then becomes either to ship from one US port to another at an outrageously expensive cost, (assuming such ships actually even exist), or else to ship our oil from US ports to foreign locations, requiring us to import oil from other foreign entities. This obviously substantially increases the cost of what Americans have to pay for their oil.

This administration decided to temporarily suspend the Jones Act -- initially to May 17 but has now extended it to mid-August, citing the unnecessary economic burden it places on Americans through higher prices. The Jones Act was originally enacted specifically for national security reasons for the purpose of solidifying our shipbuilding capability. However, the opposite has occurred; our shipbuilding capability has been decimated and in addition, the cost of shipping has skyrocketed as has our ability of being able to hire inexpensive shipping from our allies

The irony here is not lost: more than one hundred years after the Jones Act was established, we clearly see it costs us more money without actually making us safer. Thus, the question remains -- if the Jones Act just increases costs for Americans, why not just eliminate it for good and not merely suspend it?