Talk about the need to repeal and replace. All of these hurricanes have once again brought up the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. Every time this so-called Jones Act makes the papers, some of us wonder how long it will survive.
This act became law in the summer of 1920. Yes, before television, before the New Deal, before American women were allowed to vote. Yet it's still on the books, restricting trade and making prices for goods higher for many Americans.
What this Jones Act does is simple: It makes things more expensive. That wasn't necessarily the point, but that's been the effect. This old law requires that any goods shipped between points in the United States be carried by ships built in the United States, owned by owners in the United States and operated (mostly) by people who are U.S. citizens. Any waterborne commerce between New Orleans and New York, or San Francisco and Miami, or Hawaii and Puerto Rico, is affected.
The dock unions love it, of course. It prevents competition and keeps wages artificially high. The domestic shipping industry lobbies to keep it on the books. Even if Hawaiians have to pay $4 a gallon for gasoline.
But after every hurricane the law has to be waived. Temporarily. It apparently takes a national disaster to see the problems with a 1920s protectionist law.
Puerto Rico begged for a waiver to the law as soon as Hurricane Maria passed on so it could get gasoline and jet fuel and food and water and utility poles to the island double-time. The Trump administration, to its credit, granted the waiver. The same as it did after hurricanes Harvey and Irma damaged Texas and Florida.
"Puerto Rico can't borrow funds and they are required to use American shipping only, which is the most expensive in the world," said U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). "In their hour of need, Washington can help by suspending the Jones Act."
Washington could help even more if Congress would pass a law to repeal the act completely. Which is something that a senator named John McCain has been trying to do for years. Or as the senior senator and heroic curmudgeon from Arizona put it: "It is unacceptable to force the people of Puerto Rico to pay at least twice as much for food, clean drinking water, supplies and infrastructure due to Jones Act requirements as they work to recover from this disaster."
Is it any more acceptable to make them pay so much more when there isn't a disaster? Our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska would benefit year-round if this thing just went the way of Prohibition, another relic from the 1920s that couldn't be repealed fast enough.
cc: Arkansas' congressional delegation
Editorial on 09/30/2017