Jones act and the oil spill

[coldduck]

Why do the talking heads keep bringing up the Jones act as something that is slowing the oil recovery? I have heard this question arise several times, most of the time in conjunction with the lack of skimmer vessels in the gulf. Carol Browner who is the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, even states today on Whitehouse.gov that the Jones act could be waived if needed but it has not been neccesary to do so yet.This is BS! As most of us know there are SEVERAL non-Jones act vessels working this spill, including most of the vessels that are at the well site. I have only seen one politician(hopefully not the only one) defend the Jones act during this spill and he was from Florida.I would love to see others state that the Jones act is in NO way slowing the response. I believe this is another way for politicians to push their agenda to the general public, and another way to drive us out of our livelyhood. In conclusion I would like to state that I am not against non-Jones act vessels working this spill. We need every vessel and all technology availible.I also want it stopped and cleaned up as bad as anyone else, but I do not want spin put out to the public about the act.

[Shellback]

I have seen people from both parties suggest this possibility and it's been my belief that when both sides agree on something " we the people" are about to get screwed...

[skycowboy]

It is making my blood boil every time I hear them say that the Jones Act is not being waived to appease the Unions...

[RkyMtn Paul]

I'm with cowboy. I mean, how many GOM boats are unionized? None? That's what I thought. What they fail to understand is that without the Jones Act, the US Merchant Marine (in all forms) ceases to exist.

[Kingrobby]

I just heard Glenn Beck talking about this tonight. Don't these people realize that all those undersea images of the spewing oil well are taken from an ROV from the Skandi Neptune a foreign flagged, foreign built, and almost certainly foreign crewed ship? Just look at the name of the ship at the top of the screen, every undersea clip I've seen is from this ship. There are already non-jones act vessels in the Gulf. Why do we need more there unless they can really help us clean up the oil. Lets mobilize all the ships in the GOM that are sitting at the docks and get them working on this. I'm all for calling in help from all over the World for a limited amount of time in order to solve this and clean this up, but have them be supporting us, not taking over from us.

[mtskier]

Folks,
Big business has wanted to kill the Jones Act for decades. I suspect that they view this as an opportunity to to take a few shots at it, and maybe push the exemptions that Bush2 put into effect post Katrina. Remember, all you have to do is follow the money...
MTSKIER

[coldduck]

Could somone please put a stop to this! I have been watching the Communist News Network this morning and others since the spill, and there is a constant assult against the american mariner. Between the hosts that have a political agenda and having guest on that have no idea about the marine industry we'll be lucky if we survive this. Hell they're wanting it to appear as if the only reason the oils not cleaned up is because of us. We're trying to clean this S**T up, we're not the ones that caused this!

[caps]

"BS" ????

I wrote this, a year ago, on the situation in New Orleans, after hurricane Katrina:

"...the U.S.A. is in need for remedial, maintenance and capital dredging, and definitely lacks the options given by large-scale capabilities...." http://www.theartofdredging.com/jonesact.htm


And now I have to repeat, with almost the exact same words: the U.S. have no dreding capacity to have prevented a New Orleans, nor do they have now to remedy the oil spill in the GOM.


Those are hard and stubborn facts.

Thanks to ???? The Jones Act ?

The Jones Act is already long overdue for a review: keep the legal protection of US mariners,
but remedy the pathetic US backlog in knowhow and capacity.

[hopperdredgbill]

Marc,
I like your homepage, but your information is simply incorrect. The US dredging fleet is more than capable of completing this mission. What you don't understand is the federal and environmental regulatory issues we have to contend with in the US. The berm project has started, and will be ramping up all week. The entire "waive the Jones Act" cry is a red herring used to beat up Obama.
The dredge I am sitting on at the moment is fully equipped with a Kongsberg DP/DT system, and due to the fact that we have triple azimuthing Z drives, it is far more manueverable than the dredge you are sitting on.
We only carry 13,000 cy, US dredges need to be able to operate in narrow channels as well as pump ashore, so we don't build mega dredges (the market is simply not there). With 10,000 Hp over the bow thru a Vosta bow connection we are more than capable of putting sand on the berm.

The reality is that the Dutch have vastly overbuilt their fleet, and now that Dubai is all stop, the Dutch are scrambling to find work, and trying to capitalize on this terrible incident.