Calamity shows how Jones Act could harm Hawaii, critics say

Typically, it’s been limited to debate in Hawaii, Alaska and U.S. island territories — but this week the rest of the country is suddenly getting a crash course in the Jones Act.

The relatively obscure, 97-year-old maritime shipping law has seen a surge of national coverage in recent days as Puerto Rico continues to cope with devastation from Hurricane Maria. President Donald Trump hesitated at first and then on Thursday temporarily waived the Jones Act’s restrictions on shipping to the U.S. territory, allowing foreign vessels to transport goods there.

Some longtime local critics of the Jones Act, which requires ships that move cargo between U.S. ports be U.S.-built, flagged and crewed, have compared what’s unfolded under the law in Puerto Rico to what could happen in Hawaii.

“Our first concern for Puerto Rico is over the terrible catastrophe that its citizens and residents have experienced,” said Keli‘i Akina, president and CEO of the public-­policy think tank Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. But if there’s a silver lining, it’s “that national attention is being placed in updating the Jones Act,” Akina said.

The Honolulu-based Grassroot Institute has called for Jones Act changes for the past 15 years, and Akina said the group would like to lift the law’s requirement that ships be U.S.-built, because it’s the most costly of the Jones Act’s provisions.

Other observers, such as Rockford Weitz, who directs the Fletcher Maritime Studies Program at Tufts University, agree that lifting that requirement is crucial.

On Thursday, Weitz told a national radio audience on Public Radio International’s “The World” that “as globalization happened … the cost of building a ship in Pacific Asia is a fraction of the cost to build it here in a U.S. yard.”

Akina and other critics, including some Hawaii lawmakers, say the act unfairly punishes residents in the islands with higher costs of living.

However, U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono said in a statement Thursday that if Hawaii faced a major natural disaster and shortage of essential goods, she would invoke an established, “expedited process” that could lead to a Jones Act waiver.

“Waiving the Jones Act has focused attention on the challenges of delivering critical, lifesaving supplies already in Puerto Rico to people in desperate need of them,” she added.

Hirono and Hawaii’s three other Democratic federal delegation members have consistently supported the Jones Act. It’s also backed by the American Maritime Partnership, a coalition that represents vessel owners, operators and unions who say the law is critical for economic and security reasons.

“Every president since Ronald Reagan has agreed that the Jones Act is necessary for our national security because we need the industrial capacity to build ships and to have U.S.-owned and flagged vessels available in times of crisis,” U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said in 2014 when asked about the Jones Act. Schatz’s office did not respond to questions Thursday on the latest developments with the law and delivering disaster aid.

The federal government waived the Jones Act restrictions after recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida to aid relief efforts, but not immediately for Puerto Rico, where the island’s 3.4 million residents are still facing shortages of water, food, medicine and other basic supplies more than a week after the storm.

How much the waiver of the Jones Act will help Puerto Rico remains to be seen, as other problems persist such as blocked roads and a lack of capability to move supplies already available on the island.

Trump’s waiver is set for 10 days, although both Akina and Weitz questioned whether that would be sufficient.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.