Following the Puerto Rico disaster, people are wanting to suspend the Jones act to get more aid to PR. That happened for Texas and (Florida?), but hasn’t happened for PR yet. Because it’s relevant, rerun of a 2014 episode.
Jones act says that if you’re ferrying something between two ports in America, it needs to be done on an American-owned, American-made, American-crewed ship. There aren’t that many of those, so it’s expensive. Some workarounds people use: ferrying things from port to a bigger ship using a tiny Jones-acceptable barge that has to make several trips (is the bigger ship in international waters or something, or is port-to-ship just acceptable?); shipping cattle from Hawaii to Canada and driving them down to the states; flying younger cattle from Hawaii to the states. There was a family who ran up against it for their holiday, they missed the boat in not-America but had the chance to fly to Florida and board their cruise ship there, but then they’d have to pay like $300, I didn’t catch exactly why.
Economists are not fans. The (Council of Economic Advisors?) to Clinton recommended scrapping it. The person PM spoke to called it “stupid”. As a jobs program, it costs $250k/job which is a lot. Military says they need to encourage American shipmaking and skill-building, but council is unconvinced. But diffuse costs, concentrated benefits.
Planet Money #524 (Rerun 27 Sep 2017): Mr Jones’ Act
Following the Puerto Rico disaster, people are wanting to suspend the Jones act to get more aid to PR. That happened for Texas and (Florida?), but hasn’t happened for PR yet. Because it’s relevant, rerun of a 2014 episode.
Jones act says that if you’re ferrying something between two ports in America, it needs to be done on an American-owned, American-made, American-crewed ship. There aren’t that many of those, so it’s expensive. Some workarounds people use: ferrying things from port to a bigger ship using a tiny Jones-acceptable barge that has to make several trips (is the bigger ship in international waters or something, or is port-to-ship just acceptable?); shipping cattle from Hawaii to Canada and driving them down to the states; flying younger cattle from Hawaii to the states. There was a family who ran up against it for their holiday, they missed the boat in not-America but had the chance to fly to Florida and board their cruise ship there, but then they’d have to pay like $300, I didn’t catch exactly why.
Economists are not fans. The (Council of Economic Advisors?) to Clinton recommended scrapping it. The person PM spoke to called it “stupid”. As a jobs program, it costs $250k/job which is a lot. Military says they need to encourage American shipmaking and skill-building, but council is unconvinced. But diffuse costs, concentrated benefits.