(This image from The Telegraph has nothing to do with the Jones Act. It is a recent picture of the Motor Vessel Rubymar (“Red Sea”) sinking in that body of water- a crucial link between oceans. It was hit by a missile fired by Houthi rebels and demonstrates one of the means by which global trade is impacted. Another one is the Jones Act. More on that below).

We regret each day we have a question about any activity involving transportation, shipping and commerce. That regret comes from a pal who was unique in his days of life. He was, among other things, a US Coast Guard Master Chief Boatswains Mate. That status made him special in the Old Salts group of ancient sailors. All of us- except “Boats,”- were in the warrior group of mariners. Being a Coastie, Boats had something we did not have in his portfolio: Law enforcement. That could be simplified with his professional pronouncement on observing some nonsesenical on the waves. He would shrug and say “Jones Act.”

There is plenty of other stuff to talk about this morning. The Super Tuesday of the primaries is done, and we may have a GOP nominee for this Fall, and an incumbent who will likely be the opposition if he has not joined Boats on the other side of the Styx. It is a Leap Day, the anomaly of the Leap Year, so we have reports of a Leap Year Baby who is turning 100 years of age- and 25- on this day. She prefers the latter, since it only happens every four years and she claims it has extended her useful life.

That is one of the topics in play, and it applies to what Boats would have said about it in his usual fashion, pushing his cap back and taking a puff on his cigar. “Jones Act.”

We put up with it for years, even nodding when he said those two words. We finally had to ask who this Jones fellow was, and why he was pretending to be something he wasn’t. Boats smiled, puffed, cleared his throat and launched.

“The Jones Act is a federal law that regulates maritime commerce in the United States. The Jones Act requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be transported on ships that are built, owned, and operated by United States citizens or permanent residents. Violations are punishable by law, and of course there is no highway patrol or police force out there except us.”

We did the usual in response. We nodded in agreement and went on to talk about why the Billionaire class was buying up big parcels of property on what we called Hawaii’s Big Island. Apparently they have some concerns about the viability of property in the Continental United States, since Mr. Putin in Russia announced yesterday that he was considering ending global civilization with an atomic demonstration if things didn’t work out to Russia’s advantage.

It was only after his passing that we actually did our own research, since Boats considered it a universal value. The Jones Act is Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. It was originally titled after a United States Senator from Washington named Wesley Jones in the wake of the First World War. The US shipping industry had been devastated by German U-Boats whose campaign against resupply of France and Britain had sunk hundreds of ships. That was the word in the halls of Congress, though of course it actually meant something else.

Senator Jones wanted to monopolize shipping from the Pacific Northwest to the territory of Alaska. In addition to providing maintenance of the American Merchant Marine, it would ensure plenty of money for his political supporters. The specifics in the Act are pretty simple. The official name of the 1920 law is “The Merchant Marine Act.” That provided the justification for mandating “any cargo traveling by sea between two U.S. ports must sail on an American-owned ship that was built in the United States and crewed by a majority of American citizens.”

That is a lot shorter than the full provisions of Senator Jone’s law, but Boats taught us to distill things to a level even Salts can understand. Since it specifically was intended to benefit one Senator in one state, it resembelled the way much of our legislation is crafted today. The titles generally mean the opposite of the contents contained in them. Like the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which increased it. In the case of the Jones Act, it forced internal American shipping to be conducted by foreign ships built overseas and crewed by foreigners.

The people most directly impacted by The Act? Puerto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii, the locations that were ostensibly to benefit from a robust American shipping industry. As Boats would put it, after a puff on his cigar, “It the Jones Act.”

The paths of commerce work much faster than building a shipyard, or raising a labor force that is always more expensive than the overseas alternative. So, the Act caused Boats to puff more Havana cigars (also shipped by overseas partners) and shorten his explanation for incongruous maritime events to his two (or three) word response.

Smart folks here in your nation’s Capitol considered it “protectionist legislation” since it regulated a thing called “cabotage,” or the transport of people or goods between ports in the same country. This provision and its restrictions increase the cost of shipping to Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and other non-continental U.S. lands that rely on imports.

It sufficed for things like the fact that Russian oil in 2022 destined for the US went first to Hawaii, but was carried on foreign ships. Puerto Rico demanded a reprieve from the Act during the Covid emergency, another curious event one would not normally associate with the Public Health.

We asked Boats about that one time, earlier in our friendship. We asked why a law that seemed so dysfunctional had not been repealed or amended in 104-years. It was simple, really. The industry was modified to benefit a certain class of ship owners and the politicians to whom they contributed. That is a nearly perfect, though abbreviated, description of how our legislative process now works.

We learned to get it even shorter from the Master Chief. For anything incomprehensible or defying a simple explanation, we learned its effectiveness. We would take a puff on a Marlboro, stub it out and push back our ball caps. Then we would mutter “The Jones Act,” and move on with whatever it was we were supposed to be doing.

Got a question on that? We think you already know the answer, in as little as two words.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com