From ‘Seafarers fret over new assault on Jones Act in wake of storms’ in Bloomberg News:
“The Jones Act is pretty much the only reason I have a job,” said Brett Cowan, a mariner from California who has been working on boats since he was 13. Changing the Jones Act, he said, “would put a lot of us out of work.”
The latest attack on the Jones Act follows President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily waive it after Hurricane Harvey disrupted refinery operations in Houston, and again to help aid reach Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
Senator John McCain, a long-time opponent of the law, took the opportunity to introduce fast-track legislation to permanently exempt Puerto Rico from the law — something that would eliminate a major shipping route from the act’s protection.
The legislation could be included in a vote on an aid package for the island to be voted on this week, according to C. James Patti, president of the Maritime Institute for Research and Industrial Development.