WSJ: Keeping Up With the Jones Act is Hard to Do

In my previous role at Alaska Policy Forum, I spoke and wrote about the costs of the Jones Act, a 1920 law that limits trade between U.S. ports to U.S.-flagged ships. As American Experiment has noted (Isaac Orr) before (John Phelan), this effectively bans imports of oil and gas from the Gulf Coast to New England, which must then ship fuel over land routes, making energy prices more expensive for New Englanders.

A recent piece in The Wall Street Journal discussed the 1920 law’s impacts on New England. However, the effects are worse on states and territories that have few (or no!) overland routes, including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and my home state of Alaska. For a world so interconnected through shipping, this policy has real costs to consumers.

Why we have the Jones Act today is a remnant of century-old politics (that has powerful lobbies today), as I wrote in a letter to the editor on March 1:

As a born and raised Alaskan, I found it refreshing to see other states call for reform of the century-old Merchant Marine Act (“Connecticut Asks Congress to ‘Rethink the Jones Act’” by Bryce Chinault and Andrew Fowler, Cross Country, Feb. 22). The Jones Act, which limits trade between U.S. ports to U.S.-flagged ships, effectively prohibits New Englanders from importing liquefied natural gas from the Gulf Coast. The effect: They must pay top dollar for overseas LNG.

The law, passed in 1920, was originally intended to capture the nascent market of Alaska. It uniquely burdened the territory by also prohibiting the use of Canadian railroads in conjunction with foreign ships. While that practice came to an end with statehood in 1959, Washington Sen. Wesley Jones had already firmly cemented Seattle’s monopoly over shipping to Alaska.

Read the rest here, at The Wall Street Journal (gift link).