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Colin Grabow Profile picture
Colin Grabow
@cpgrabow
Associate Director, @CatoInstitute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies #EndTheJonesAct https://t.co/PumxFjaPQE
Jul 30 • 60 tweets • 35 min read
Many people recognize that the Jones Act is a very bad law that inflicts considerable harm on the US. So why is it so impervious to change? Let's take a deep dive, starting with an overview and then getting into the nitty-gritty of JA influence ops. (warning: *very* long 🧵) Fundamentally, the Jones Act's persistence is the product of diffused costs and concentrated benefits. The relatively few Americans who reap its benefits are highly incentivized to maintain it, while most don't know it exists. This Hill veteran nicely summed it up: Image
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Jul 21 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
Suspect most people aren't aware of just how long the Jones Act and its antecedents have been hurting the United States. So here's a 🧵 of people pointing out the failures and lunacy of US cabotage laws from at least a century ago. Noting that US shipbuilding had been "protected to strangulation," President Grover Cleveland called the requirement that US-flagged ships be US-built a "failure for good at every point" and "act of barbarism": presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/seco…Image
Apr 24 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
No, sorry, paying inflated costs for shipping and shipbuilding is not how a country becomes wealthy. Image Also no reason to think becoming a "major net export nation" promotes prosperity aei.org/carpe-diem/cha…Image
Feb 11 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
The Jones Act makes domestic shipping so expensive that last year Hawaii purchased 100% of its light sweet crude from Libya (distance: ~10,500 nautical miles), Argentina (~7,300 nm), Nigeria (10,000 nm), and Algeria (~9,300 nm) instead of Houston (~6,300 nm). Image That Hawaii did not purchase oil from the Gulf Coast is confirmed by this awesome chart from @AlfredCObregon showing the origin of every oil tanker that arrived in the state last year. Not one arrived from the US mainland: infogram.com/1p3egrxqlydpjv…
Jan 16 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
🚨Important update: I AM WRONG🚨. Thanks to a little-known Jones Act exemption, this vessel *will* be used to transport LNG from the US mainland to Puerto Rico (but will still be prohibited from transporting 🇺🇸LNG to New England). Let me explain (🧵). Image The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 1996 contained a provision allowing foreign-built ships constructed before the legislation's passage (October 1996) to transport LNG and LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) from US ports to Puerto Rico if the ships were registered under the US flag. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PL…Image
Apr 25, 2023 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
Unfortunately, I find the argument here unconvincing. In both the op-ed and the @YaleLJournal it is based on (yalelawjournal.org/note/the-negle…), the author argues that the Jones Act violates the Constitution's Port Preference Clause: Image
Apr 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Resolution introduced in Alaska's state legislature last month: "BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Representatives urges the United States Congress to consider repealing the Jones Act."
akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Det… 👏 👏 👏 Image
Jan 27, 2023 • 17 tweets • 8 min read
U.S.-built ships are extraordinarily expensive, with prices 4-5x higher than those found abroad for certain vessel types. But why? Here's a quick 🧵 on the reasons sometimes offered and the reality behind them. One such reason/excuse is that U.S. shipyards are disadvantaged by comparatively stringent regulations related to health, safety, & the environment. But as @scottlincicome and I pointed out in a recent blog post, this holds little explanatory power. cato.org/blog/industria…
Jan 26, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
"Investing in new vessels is particularly challenging due to their *high capital costs*, short construction contracts, and difficulty in creating consistent pipelines of contracts." More on high Jones Act-compliant offshore wind capital costs in this thread:
Jan 17, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
One of the least enjoyable aspects of working is the process of actually getting to work—and government policies are making it worse.

The country can do better, and changes to public policy—including trade policy—can help.

A #NewWorker 🧵 Nearly 85% of Americans drive a car, truck, or some other vehicle to work and back.

Millions more commute using mass transit systems that are unnecessarily costly, slow (average one-way bus commute time: 46.6 minutes), or unreliable.
Jan 17, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Hard to imagine: "[@AlaskaDOTPF Spokesperson Sam Dapcevich] says the 60-year-old Matanuska has a fair amount of what’s called 'wasted steel.'" Ruh-roh: "In the meantime, Southeast Alaska and Prince William Sound communities will be mostly served by ships built in the 1970s...There’s no long range plan or state savings to replace the aging fleet."

alaskapublic.org/2021/02/01/ala…
Jan 3, 2023 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
I recently came across @ChuckGrassley's remarks at a 1993 hearing on cargo preference (laws mandating the use of expensive U.S. commercial ships for government-impelled cargo). They are full of thermonuclear truth bombs regarding U.S. maritime policy: drive.google.com/file/d/15_KGLO… When critics point out the flaws of cargo preference or the Jones Act, defenders of the status quo typically counter that such measures are necessary to provide ships and mariners for military sealift. Grassley dismantles this line of argument.
Dec 29, 2022 • 27 tweets • 13 min read
President Biden is currently vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is exempt from the Jones Act. Seems like a good time to dig into the USVI's history with this protectionist maritime law. Originally a Danish territory, the United States had made attempts to acquire the Virgin Islands since 1867. But during World War I these efforts took on a new urgency due to fears Germany could conquer Denmark and use the islands as a naval base. 2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/w…
Dec 28, 2022 • 10 tweets • 7 min read
Today @algore is perhaps best known for his environmental activism. But in 1993 one of his top goals was improving public sector efficiency as head of an interagency task force called the National Performance Review. Among targets identified by the group: U.S. maritime policy. From the task force's draft report: "What is left of the U.S. maritime industry stands as a stark reminder of how protectionist, economic regulatory policies by our government literally razed the economic underpinnings of our once mighty and proud merchant marine fleet."
Dec 6, 2022 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
The Jones Act is Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. In his 1938 book "American Shipping Policy" (amazon.com/American-Shipp……) Paul M. Zeis explains the Merchant Marine Act's origins and how it was passed: ImageImage Zeis essentially makes two noteworthy claims here:

1. The MMA was written by the Senate Commerce Committee (under the chairmanship of Sen. Wesley Jones) and shipping lobbyists.
2. Few in Congress knew what was in the bill when it came up for a vote.
Nov 8, 2022 • 24 tweets • 12 min read
A lack of Jones Act-compliant tankers means 🇺🇸 LNG can be sent to China but not New England or Puerto Rico. Some may think the solution is building and subsidizing the operation of U.S. LNG tankers. But that’s a road the country has been down before, and it didn’t end well. 🧵 From 1977-1980 16 LNG tankers were built in three different U.S. shipyards, with 11 of the ships lavished with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies. shipbuildinghistory.com/shipssincewwii…
drive.google.com/file/d/1y3-5Ji… ImageImage
Nov 3, 2022 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
Three 3,600 TEU Jones Act containerships ordered for $1 BILLION. Incredible. For perspective, last month a $1.14 billion order was placed from a Korean shipyard for SIX containerships with cargo capacities of *17,000 TEUs*: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Sep 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
👀 "A Jones Act medium range (MR) tanker newbuild currently costs around $200mn, compared with $45mn for an international-flagged MR, according to a broker." argusmedia.com/pages/NewsBody… Seems a bit high. This recent document places the cost at $160-$175 million: americanshippingco.com/wp-content/upl…

This means a Jones Act tanker costs anywhere from 3.5x ($160 million) to 4.4x ($200 million) the world price.
Sep 28, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
At *best* this indicates the Jones Act waiver process is far too restrictive/bureaucratic and needs to be reformed. But I'm not convinced bureaucracy and rules are the problems here. During the Colonial Pipeline outage last year Citgo requested a Jones Act waiver to move fuel (sound familiar?) from LA to NJ on May 12, 2021: maritime.dot.gov/sites/marad.do… Image
Sep 23, 2022 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
A short 🧵 with some thoughts on the letter sent by @NydiaVelazquez and 7 other members of Congress yesterday requesting that @DHSgov grant a one-year waiver of the Jones Act for Puerto Rico. ImageImage First, I commend them for raising this issue and recognizing the Jones Act as an impediment to Puerto Rico's recovery from Hurricane Fiona. Granting the island access to expanded and more efficient shipping options from U.S. ports is the least the federal government can do.
Sep 20, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Another example of a ship shipping ship shipping shipping ships. Just to stay on brand, there are none of these heavy lift ships in the Jones Act fleet: sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R4572… Image