Two Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday that would permanently waive a decades-old shipping restriction law for Puerto Rico.
The waiver would help aid hurricane recovery efforts and would also give the island the “sustainable relief it needs to rebuild.”
President Donald Trump granted the U.S. territory a 10-day waiver to the Jones Act Thursday morning, but Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mike Lee (R-UT) would like to see the hurricane-ravaged U.S. territory exempt from the law permanently.
The Jones Act, also called the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, restricts shipping between American ports to American ships with American crews only, which ends up making it twice as expensive to ship things from the U.S. to Puerto Rico as it is to ship from other foreign ports in the world, according to a joint statement from McCain’s and Lee’s offices.
McCain said he welcomed the President’s 10-day waiver, but said it was “insufficient to help the people of Puerto Rico recover and rebuild.”
“Our legislation would permanently exempt Puerto Rico from the Jones Act, an antiquated, protectionist law that has driven up costs and crippled Puerto Rico’s economy,” McCain said in a statement. “For years I have fought to fully repeal the Jones Act, which has long outlived its purpose to the benefit of special interests.”
Lee said it was “far time to repeal” the law, which he said gives “foreign corporations an edge over American businesses and makes disaster response harder.”
This is the fourth time McCain has introduced legislation to end the Jones Act since 2010 and the second time he’s done it this year. Earlier this week, he sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security asking them to waive the law to help with hurricane recovery efforts.
Trump indicated Wednesday he may not lift the Jones Act for Puerto Rico because “a lot of shippers” don’t want it waived, despite the fact that he lifted the restrictions when Hurricane Harvey and Irma hit the U.S. earlier this month.
Correction: This post originally referred to Puerto Rico as a “country.” It is a territory of the U.S.
Getting rid of the Merchant Marine act or Jones Act will harm all who work in the shipping industry. Right now, because of the Jones Act, if you are injured, you can get treatment or disability and they take you back to the states. This is a good Act and has been one for almost a hundred years.
By ridding the owners of their responsibility to their crews, the GOP just gave them a wet kiss. This is some Shock Doctrine once again.
sees title and quickly assumes that Florida’s junior senator is one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
Ok, maybe so.
Maybe don’t repeal it completely, but re-write it in such a way that the citizens of the island don’t get killed paying double and triple for stuff than anyone else pays.
Fix the legislation, maybe. But of course, with these guys, it’s all or nothing.
The part of the Jones act that mandates taking care of crew in foreign ports is not related to the part that makes people in island states and territories of the US pay way more than they otherwise would (and thus prefer non-US sources of goods when they can). But of course with republicans doing repealing/rewriting.
(My grandfather was in the foreign service when he was young, and when we cleaned out my grandmother’s house, one of the things we found was forms he had to fill out about injured US sailors. That and copies of the correspondence about trying to get reimbursed for moving expenses when they shifted him halfway around the world.)
The phrase the comes to mind is “A day late and a dollar short.”