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| By MICHAEL R. McKAY | |
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Foreign and domestic interests appear eager to revive the Jones Act debate that raged in Congress and the media a decade ago.
In the April 2 Trade Winds, a Norwegian weekly, columnist Terry McAlister took aim at the 1920 cabotage law, which holds domestic deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters cargoes for merchant vessels owned, built, flagged and manned in the United States. "The U.S.'s desire to cling ever tighter onto anti-competitive and protectionist shipping rules comes as the European Union marches in the opposite direction," McAlister wrote. Four days later, the London-based Lloyd's List (a business daily that covers shipping worldwide) reported that Hong Kong, Australia Switzerland, Taiwan and Nicaragua had proposed "substantial liberalization" of international logistics service markets and "all modes of freight transport" during the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations sponsored by the World Trade Organization. The Lloyd's article did not specifically identify the Jones Act as a target of "liberalization." But many foreign countries--the EU and Japan among them--have made no bones about wanting to use trade agreements to sink the statute. One of the first complaints brought before the WTO in 1993 was Japan's petition asking that the Jones Act be overturned. The WTO's response was to review Jones Act legitimacy every two years. The U.S. has refused to allow the Jones Act onto the World Trade Organization agenda because the law serves legitimate economic and defense interests. The Jones Act fleet in all sectors represents in excess of $24 billion in private capital investment, more than 125,000 vessel and shore jobs, and tax revenues for government at all levels. The Jones Act also sustains vessels suited for strategic sealift and other military support services and skilled civilian seagoing labor the Department of Defense needs to man government-owned and chartered sealift fleets--two Jones Act roll-on/roll-off trailerships, the Westward Venture and Northern Lights, are now operating under Military Sealift Command charter in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II. The Westward Venture and Northern Lights--operated for Totem Ocean Trailer Express by Interocean Ugland Management Corp. and manned by American Maritime Officers in all licensed positions--usually operate exclusively in domestic trade in the Pacific Northwest. Speaking of trade deals, Mexican interests are promoting a "North American Jones Act" under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The single cabotage law would permit vessels flagged in the U.S., Mexico and Canada to compete for the domestic cargoes of each country. In addition, a report from Washington April 10 said the new five-year U.S.-Brazil shipping agreement includes what the report called "a framework to provide equal access to cargoes otherwise reserved by laws in each country to their national-flag carriers." Meanwhile, Journal Of Commerce editor Peter Tirschwell noted in the weekly magazine's May 3-9 issue that, while the Jones Act still has the rock-solid bipartisan Congressional support base that caused Rob Quartel's Jones Act Reform Coalition to fail in the late 1990s, that support could soften as the Maritime Administration and the private sector develop "short-sea shipping" to relieve rail and roadway congestion along major arteries, like I-95 on the East Coast. "The political support structure for the Jones Act has traditionally been described as a three-legged stool," R.G. Edmondson wrote in a feature accompanying the Tirschwell column. "U.S. companies own ships that are built in U.S. shipyards and are manned by U.S. crews. A tripod is one of the most stable structures in nature, and the intertwined interests of builder, owner and mariner--though they don't always co-exist comfortably--have successfully pushed back attempts to change the basic Jones Act formula. Short sea shipping could change that." The immediate target would be the law's requirement that vessels intended for domestic markets be built in the U.S. Some short sea advocates say foreign-built vessels available now on the world market can accelerate short sea shipping where it would do the most good. Would authority to use foreign-built vessels in short sea trades be temporary or permanent? Would there be a "one-for-one" or "two-for-one" U.S.-flag replacement mandate tied to the use of foreign-built short sea vessels? We will not know until likely Jones Act amendment legislation hits the hopper. AMO will continue to monitor these developments as closely as possible, and we will work to sustain and even expand Jones Act support in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Because each of us has a substantial stake in the debate, it is up to each of us to continue supporting the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund. The AMO VPAF gives our union the access it needs to make its case on Capitol Hill for the Jones Act and other laws and programs that benefit us and our families by promoting the U.S. merchant fleet. |
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