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Frustration simmers over Jones Act in American road salt fiasco
THE debate over the restrictive Jones Act and its role in slowing down the delivery of badly needed road salt in the stormed tossed eastern US, will soon be eased.
To help the crews clear the roads, the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) found a supply of salt at International Salt's terminal in Searsport, Maine, and sought an exemption to the Jones Act from the US Department of Homeland Security so it could arrange transport on a foreign-flagged vessel.
Despite no American-flagged vessel being available for a month, the NJDOT was not granted a waiver and instead it arranged for a tow-barge to ship the salt to the Port of Newark, reported the American Shipper.
The barge, expected to arrive early this week, will have to make up to four round trips to deliver the 40,000 pounds of salt purchased by New Jersey because it lacks the same capacity as a large bulk vessel.
Meanwhile, a vessel arrived from Chile at Port Newark with a regularly scheduled shipment of salt. International Salt of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, mines salt in Chile and transports it to bulk depots along the US east coast, including the one at Port Newark.
The Jones Act, a maritime shipping law introduced in the 1920s aimed at protecting the industry in the US, requires cargo shipped between US ports to be moved on US-registered vessels that are built in the United States and crewed by Americans.
The requirements make coastal moves more expensive because shipbuilding and crew costs are much higher in the United States than in many other parts of the world.
According to the American Maritime Partnership, a pro-domestic maritime industry coalition of vessel owners and operators, unions, shipbuilders and suppliers, the delay in the delivery of salt was not the fault of the Jones Act and federal bureaucracy.
To help the crews clear the roads, the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) found a supply of salt at International Salt's terminal in Searsport, Maine, and sought an exemption to the Jones Act from the US Department of Homeland Security so it could arrange transport on a foreign-flagged vessel.
Despite no American-flagged vessel being available for a month, the NJDOT was not granted a waiver and instead it arranged for a tow-barge to ship the salt to the Port of Newark, reported the American Shipper.
The barge, expected to arrive early this week, will have to make up to four round trips to deliver the 40,000 pounds of salt purchased by New Jersey because it lacks the same capacity as a large bulk vessel.
Meanwhile, a vessel arrived from Chile at Port Newark with a regularly scheduled shipment of salt. International Salt of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, mines salt in Chile and transports it to bulk depots along the US east coast, including the one at Port Newark.
The Jones Act, a maritime shipping law introduced in the 1920s aimed at protecting the industry in the US, requires cargo shipped between US ports to be moved on US-registered vessels that are built in the United States and crewed by Americans.
The requirements make coastal moves more expensive because shipbuilding and crew costs are much higher in the United States than in many other parts of the world.
According to the American Maritime Partnership, a pro-domestic maritime industry coalition of vessel owners and operators, unions, shipbuilders and suppliers, the delay in the delivery of salt was not the fault of the Jones Act and federal bureaucracy.
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