Following on yesterdays article on the oil spill mess in the Gulf of Mexico, I got a very good comment from a reader who pointed me to a site called Deep Sea News that breaks down the Jones Act issue and its impact on the BP Deep Water Horizon oil spill clean up.
The Jones Act does prevent use of foreign vessels in US domestic commerce, but apparently is not directly preventing clean up activities in the Gulf by foreign owned skimmers etc. The Jones Act involves those domestic waters out to 3 miles from the shore. Activities conducted beyond the 3 mile limit, in international waters, are still open to use by any ship of any flag. In fact the Deep Water Horizon well itself is beyond 3 miles from the coast of Louisiana.
I will stand corrected (and updated) in my comments on the concerns on the Jones Act, though I still think the President should set it aside for this particular catastrophe. Thanks TG for your excellent post in response. I'll admit I got suckered by Fox News on this one.
Eric
Comments