Didn’t need any votes to suspend it. Suppose he could keep suspending it as it is doubtful anyone would stop him.
He thought that about his tariffs too.
It’s time for the unions to show why they’re always collecting our money. I don’t think this situation warrants a waiver as defined by the allowable reasons for these waivers. Time to lawyer up and make the case in federal court
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This short 60 day Jones Act waiver is wrong. It’s a boneheaded mistake.
However, it’s not going to amount to much.
A 60 day waiver is not going to result in a flood of foreign tankers into the domestic Jones Act trade. Yes, there will be a few.
It’s not going result in a flood of foreign fertilizer carriers going up the Mississippi River to the Midwest.
Most vessels in the World are busy doing what they normally do. Most have contractual commitments. These vessels simply are not available to flood the domestic trade.
There is no foreign fleet of underutilized ATBs and shallow draft product tankers readily available to flood the US domestic trade for only 60 days of work.
Yes, this will cause some disruptions, and a few Jones Act shipowners will lose some money, but no huge impacts.
This may turn out to be a worthwhile experiment that shows that the Jones Act is Not doing any harm, and that there is not much benefit to waiving it.
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Agree totally. Was going to reply exactly this until you added it.
If one of these FOC tankers can get caught smuggling something or takes out a bridge, so much the better.
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As terrible as it is to say, yeah. Hopefully one mows down the golden gate or something
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There are no foreign fleet of ATBs PERIOD. Nowhere else are there ATBs carrying oil products in open waters.
Your wish may come through. No, not that any FOC tanker on a waiver will smuggle something between US ports. (How?)
But maybe a bridge gets hit and fall down, seeing that bridge maintenance is lacking in the US. Not likely to be by a FOC tanker, though.
If US tug and barge trains keeps on hitting bridges on a regular basis, sooner or later there will be another spectacular collapse:
What a surprising data. I thought only FOC monkeys are hitting US bridges assisted by US highly qualified pilots while doing it. Thx for your assistance in identifying and marking another red neck here.
Colin? That your second account?
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Did I say anything about anybody called Colin?
IKNRA such post 
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He’s making a joke. Your last post sounded very similar to posts from Colin Grabow. So he jokingly accused you of being Colin’s burner account. It’s funny
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Do not tell me You never heard about Colin. ??? Your and his epic verbal exchanges are already world famous my Dear Dr.Bugge 
If you are still in doubt allow me for one CLICK only to present you with this revelation .
I am offering you pro bono gCaptain search asistant and record digger services 
Taki it
by the time stamp I reckon He must be having dinner by now
Thank you for that info. 
It is an honour to be compared to Colin Grabow, who is widely known for his knowledge and consistency on the subject of the Jones Act.
Oh THAT Colin!! I always just see one image when his posts comes up:
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If there weren’t so many overly generous welfare programs, there would be demand for agricultural jobs.
I remember raking blueberries, shoveling manure, stuffing chickens in crates and loading them on trucks, haying, splitting wood, and doing lots of other things when I was a kid. Men, women and children did these tasks to make money because they had to. A lot less mechanization back then too
There weren’t many welfare programs back then, and no one with any self-respect would accept welfare.
There were no immigrant laborers doing these agricultural jobs back then. A lot less mechanization too.
Today, most kids don’t work at all. Many young adults don’t work either. There are lots of multigenerational welfare recipients that only work sporadically.
It’s really hard to hire any laborers now. We need immigrant laborers until welfare programs are cut, and Americans are retrained, that hard work, whatever work you can find, is necessary.
Idle hands do the devil’s work. People that are busy working hard to earn a living don’t have time or easy money to do drugs, or to commit petty crime.
We need to reinstate a culture of hard work in America
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I imagine a vote to repeal would be a slam dunk. Most Democrats want it gone for the benefit of Puerto Rico, and Republicans would be rallied to the vote in order to stick it to Mark Kelly. Its only a matter of time, really, but I think its been on its last legs long before the current thing.
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I went on a deep dive with AI and came up with some potential interesting solutions to amend/replace the Jones Act. AI even named it for me, Strategic Maritime Growth and Defense Act. It’s a rough draft/outline and I’m sure it will be picked apart, but dreamers can dream. Otherwise we will lose any semblance of a maritime industry. Look at what happened to Australia. Enjoy
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Being non-US, my awareness of JA had been mostly the inability to be on US-flagged vsls (lots of countries have similar restrictions)…
… until El Faro went down en route to P.R.!
Then I realised it also condemned US seafarers to work on tired old obsolete ships of dodgy seaworthiness, equipped with obsolete safety equipment, which could never comply with international law.
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That company Tote/Saltchuk, who killed 23 sailors with their ancient unsafe shitbox ship and 17th century lifeboats was ultimately rewarded for their acts by being given the management contract for the maritime academy schoolships being built at the Philly Shipyard.
Killing mariners has been phenomenally profitable.
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There are good reasons why there has always been strong bipartisan support for the Jones Act and it has endured for 106 years. That has not changed and it’s not going to change.
There are good reasons why most countries have cabotage laws similar to the Jones Act. That’s not going to change either.
The cost of shipping goods to a store in the US is about 7% of the total cost of goods sold.
Most goods sold in retail stores are marked up at least 300% That’s why stores still make good money with 50% off sales.
Eliminating the Jones Act “to save consumers money” won’t save them anything.
What happens when there are no US mariners paying local, state and federal taxes? What happens when mariner’s relatively high working class incomes are no longer getting spent in the local economy? How is this saving US consumers and taxpayers money?
If you want to save the US economy money on shipping, introduce Rotterdam and Singapore style port automation, which would reduce the number of ridiculously overpaid US longshoremen by about 75%.
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Gotta be careful throwing our allies under the bus. The longshoremen became:
Through their very strong union. That same union fights for their and their allied unions’ (shipping unions) interests, and by extension, all of our* interests on Capitol Hill.
I fully agree that longshoremen costs are a deterrent to expanding short sea shipping in the US. Would also agree that the same national security argument that applies to the Jones Act doesn’t apply to status quo for longshoremen. But I’m not willing to throw an ally under the bus to further the specific segment of these issues (US manning requirement) that applies to me.
*-by ‘our’ I’m referring to US mariners here on this forum, not the foreign trolls or domestic vultures looking to continue gutting American industry and autonomy.
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I personally agree with all of your arguments, but I think our government is a lot more focused on short term and cant really see the forest for the trees. Democrats see delayed hurricane relief for Puerto Rico, and nothing else matters, Republicans see increased shareholder profit at the expense of the working man, same as happened with every other American industry that was offshored. I hope it doesn’t go that way but it kind of feels inevitable and better to brace for it than hope against it.