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The defense value of the Jones Act merchant fleet was documented in a report July 29. The report, detailed and data-driven, was distributed in Washington by the Maritime Cabotage Task Force. The task force was organized by sea, air, rail and road transportation industry and labor interests in 1995 to counter a determined Jones Act repeal movement launched that year by the Jones Act Reform Coalition. Jones Act critics can learn an important defense lesson from the British experience in the Balkans in 1995, the law's principal defense group said in July. The U.S. International Trade Commission has done it again. In a recently released additional update of its 1991 import restraints study, the ITC charged anew that the 1920 Jones Act is a burden to U.S. consumers--but, once more, it offered a flawed analysis. House and Senate conferees have agreed on legislation to permit the Navy to lease its replacement support ships from the private sector. A further portent of renewed diplomatic pressure on the Jones Act and other U.S. maritime cabotage laws arose in Geneva July 12. The Jones Act Reform Coalition will carry on despite the surprise departure of its high- profile president. Under orders from an American court, a U.S.-based foreign cruise line revealed that its crewmembers had committed 108 sexual assaults against passengers and other crewmembers aboard the company's flag-of-convenience vessels during a five-year period. The world's second largest cruise line will pay an $18 million settlement to resolve criminal charges that it dumped chemical waste in U.S. waters and lied to U.S. authorities investigating the incidents. |
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