The Jones Act was introduced to protect the merchant marine, at the time, by stipulating that only American-owned and flagged ships with primarily American crews could transport goods between U.S. ports.
A dispute has arisen among politicians regarding interpretation of the Jones Act and whether it means that the U.S. is not accepting offers to help with the cleanup.
An article published by Brian Wilson from FOX News, on Friday, gave the impression that international ships with oil skimming technology are not being used in the Gulf of Mexico because the Jones Act restricts access for foreign ships to U.S. water.
Wilson cited a statement from Joseph Carafano of the Heritage Foundation, who questioned whether the U.S. is “accepting all the international assistance in the maritime domain that [it] can, and is the Jones Act an impediment to that?”
On Friday, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum sent a letter to the White House requesting that President Obama waive the Jones Act since requiring that foreign equipment be transferred to U.S. ships is too time-consuming and is hindering immediate response.
“The limited use of foreign vessels to aid in the cleanup of the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill will not likely impede U.S. trade and commerce,” McCollum also pointed out in his letter.
White House staffer Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, recently addressed the issue in a question and answer forum—the video is posted on the White House blog.
Browner said that foreign vessels are helping with the cleanup.
“There are a number of foreign offers that we have taken advantage of, and the Coast Guard analyzes them. I think we have … Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and there is one other country,” she said.
While she did not specify in what way the Jones Act may be restricting cleanup efforts, she did indicate there was flexibility in applying it.
“If it’s necessary to waive the Jones Act, then that will be taken care of. At this point it hasn’t been necessary,” said Browner.
The Jones Act was waived to assist with the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
BP released a statement on Thursday outlining the different methods being implemented to clean up the oil.
“Almost 3,600 vessels are now involved in the response effort, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels. Operations to skim oil from the surface of the water have now recovered, in total, approximately 383,000 barrels (16.1 million gallons) of oily liquid,” read the statement.
Browner also addressed, in the Q&A, why the cleanup effort hasn’t been federalized rather than having BP still coordinating certain aspects of it. Browner replied, “The cleanup process is done at our [the federal government] direction.”
