Senator also complains about the cost of food aid preference laws.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a long time opponent of the Jones Act, made a renewed call for reform of cabotage laws that require ships moving cargo between points in the U.S. to be built in the U.S., crewed by Americans and registered in the country.
In a speech at the Heritage Foundation last week, he also complained about attempts to restore a requirement that three quarters of U.S. food aid be transported on U.S.-flag ships.
McCain contended that construction prices for ships that must be built in U.S. rather than foreign shipyards are higher because the U.S. shipyards have a “captive audience.”
He also said operating costs are higher because of “heavily unionized crew.”
McCain noted that cabotage legislation can be traced to a law passed by the very first U.S. Congress, and he said the Jones Act may have had some rationale behind it in the 1920s, but complained that today, it “only serves to raise shipping costs and make U.S. farmers less competitive.”
He said a 2002 study by the International Trade Commission suggested a repeal of the Jones Act would have an annual positive effect on the economy of $656 million, and contended the amount today might be close to $1 billion.
McCain said that when cargo preference laws were revised in 2012 to reduce the percentage of food aid carried on U.S. ships was from 75 percent to 50 percent, the result was a reduction in transportation costs of 30 percent for food that was able to move on foreign flag tonnage.
He said efforts to restore the required share of food aid cargo that must be carried in U.S. ships to 75 percent would cost more than $75 million per year, according to the U.S. Agency of International Development.
McCain recognized in his speech that getting the Jones Act changed would be difficult, saying the “maritime lobby is as powerful as any organization I have run up against in my political career. So all I can do is appeal to the patron saint of lost causes.”
McCain also said it was “disgraceful” not to allow Mexican trucks into the United States.
