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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_ivhdfcr wrote

Reply to comment by Asells in Why is National Grid increasing rates by 64% by oceansofmyancestors

The jones act prohibits foreign flagged vessels from transporting from a US port directly to a US port

There is insufficient pipeline capacity and there are no US merchant ships capable of carrying natural gas, therefore we have to import gas from other countries

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wereunderyourbed t1_ivhud16 wrote

Every time I hear about the Jones act it seems like it was a terrible idea. Why don’t we just repeal it? It seems to do nothing positive.

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g_rich t1_ivids19 wrote

In 1920 during war time it made perfect sense to safeguard the US merchant fleet; in 2022 with globalization it makes less so. What they need to do is amend the act removing the requirement that the ships be built in the US to just be US flagged ships.

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ketofauxtato t1_ivjnqft wrote

Every time I read stuff like that I just have to shake my head. Americans have a way of stating stuff like that like it’s a natural law or something. But I’m sure there’s some entrenched lobby preventing the amendment of the Jones act so that’s just the way it always was and always will be.

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PM_me_PMs_plox t1_ivhlvgf wrote

Can't we build ships? Shouldn't we be doing that now?

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_ivhrl0p wrote

Building a ship in the US is several times more expensive than china or Korea

That’s why even though we spend more on the military than china, China is actually outpacing our naval ship production

Since trade is commercialized, there’s no incentive for these mostly foreign shipping companies to buy American ships and the only ships America really makes are naval ships which are local for national security

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PM_me_PMs_plox t1_ivi31am wrote

I feel like this is just an excuse. We can buy ships from Korea, can't we? We certainly buy oil rigs that are made there.

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_ivijisa wrote

Then you have to pay American wages, and if wages are 50% of operating costs would you as an American company use the American shippper at 100 a crate or the Liberian one at 55?

American shipping is dead because it’s fundamentally uncompetitive internationally

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PM_me_PMs_plox t1_ivisou1 wrote

But I mean just to ship natural gas from US ports to US ports. There is no international competition since foreign ships can't do it due to the Jones Act.

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_ivj418w wrote

There are no U.S. flagged natural gas carriers they’ve all been out competed

None have been built since 1980

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-16-104

Alaska has it even worse

https://maritime.law/legal-insights/us-cabotage-laws-and-alaska-lng-trade/

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PM_me_PMs_plox t1_ivlpltj wrote

How can they be out-competed if foreign ships can't do domestic routes? There must be some solution here. Subsidies maybe? Seems more important than cattle farming, but I'm probably missing the scale of the oil industry.

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_ivlrh6j wrote

No shipyards means no ships which means no ships eligible for US-US travel under the jones act

No one wants to buy us ships because they’re expensive, uneconomical against pipelines, and wouldn’t turn a profit.

Of course pipeline expansion or alternative sources get shut down by environmentalists so that’s not really an option either and we’re just left with high cost

The solution is repeal the jones act, which would never happen because supporters would go “but national defense and the jobs of sailors that remain” which has staved it off every attempt to repeal and nuclear power, which also gets shut down by environmentalists

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PM_me_PMs_plox t1_ivlv74q wrote

>No shipyards means no ships which means no ships eligible for US-US travel under the jones act

This is the part that confuses me. Does a ship have to be built in the US to be US flagged? I would expect a ship built in Korea and owned by a US company could transport gas, notwithstanding the economics of it.

I guess you're probably right about the Jones Act though.

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