AMO Currents - AMO best able to endure legislative setbacks, uncertainty

AMO Currents - Posted: October 5, 2012

AMO best able to endure legislative setbacks, uncertainty

By Tom Bethel
National President

Life and work at sea are tough enough without the political disappointments confronted almost routinely by U.S. merchant mariners in domestic and international trades. It is difficult to focus on the day's essential work and to imagine completing a satisfying career when you have to wonder what new legislative discouragement will set you and your plans off course.

For example, mariners working in what remains of the oceangoing U.S. dry bulk fleet cannot help but fret over the possibility of lost employment in the wake of the recent late-night legislative reduction of the PL-480 U.S.-flag cargo preference requirement from 75 percent to 50 percent. This reduction was agreed to at the last minute by the administration and by the leaders of both parties in the House of Representatives and in the Senate as a way to help pay for a politically popular, two-year, $105 billion highway funding measure.

Merchant marine officers and crews working in the PL-480 food aid export trade do not begrudge construction, railroad and mass transit workers the jobs that will result from the election year highway bill, and they are open to the very real probability that most lawmakers were unaware of everything that was in the legislation they voted for. But these mariners - with their jobs at real risk - cannot help but wonder why no one in the White House or in Congress recognized that the waterborne mode is a safe, highly efficient principal element of surface transportation, or that most cargoes moved in the U.S. by road or rail arrive in or depart from the U.S. by sea. Jones Act mariners surely sense security slipping away as well. The law that sustains their jobs along the ocean and Gulf coasts, on the Great Lakes and along inland waterways has been under flawed but increasing criticism and baseless attack since the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

On September 13, a Wall Street Journal columnist targeted the Jones Act as "protectionist." Facts were flubbed and issues were skewed, but WSJ readers who did not know any better were likely to accept the commentary as gospel.

While media duplicity on Jones Act issues is harmful at least in terms of public perception, more direct damage is done when the federal government undermines the domestic shipping law.

In the summer of 2012, Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security waived the Jones Act at least 48 times to allow crude oil drawn down from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to be carried directly between U.S. ports in tankers owned, built, registered and crewed overseas - despite the availability of suitable Jones Act vessels. These waivers were granted at the request of the Department of Energy, which set the minimum cargo load for each SPR shipment at a level slightly higher than what the largest available Jones Act vessel could carry.

In a separate issue earlier this year, DOE's Energy Information Administration acknowledged that its February 2012 Jones Act product tanker fleet analysis shorted the Jones Act fleet by about 270 vessels. Despite this critical statistical error, the EIA refused to amend its report.

In June, it was reported that the European Union is likely to renew its call to include the Jones Act in ongoing multilateral service trade negotiations supervised by the World Trade Organization. Japan, Mexico, Canada and the Nordic nations also want the Jones Act on the WTO table.

Meanwhile, political and business interests in Puerto Rico are awaiting the results of a Government Accountability Office study of the Jones Act's impact on two-way trade between the U.S. territory and the U.S. mainland. The study will influence whether Puerto Rico presses for a complete exemption from Jones Act jurisdiction or an exemption only from the law's requirement that cargo vessels intended for domestic service be built in the U.S.

Energy interests in Hawaii want a Jones Act exemption that would allow foreign ships to carry liquefied natural gas from the mainland to the islands, and others in the Aloha State and in the U.S. territory of Guam want specific exemptions for specific services.

As national president of American Maritime Officers, I understand the concerns these developments and others raise among the seagoing men and women I am privileged to represent.

But I also believe that bipartisan Congressional support of the U.S. merchant fleet is stronger and deeper than the PL-480 setback would suggest. There is some solace in the fact that the statutory U.S.-flag PL-480 share was not eliminated completely, and in the widespread, confident pursuit of a practical and lasting way to avert the looming consequences - the loss of several U.S. merchant vessels and hundreds of seagoing American jobs.

I know that increasingly frequent public criticisms of the Jones Act have not inspired a meaningful Capitol Hill movement to repeal or amend the law. I know that the actions of an indifferent or even hostile administration have resulted not in Congressional acquiescence, but in legislation to make Jones Act waivers more difficult to obtain. I know that key House and Senate Republicans and Democrats have called strongly upon the administration to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law in matters of Jones Act enforcement.

In addition, the Maritime Security Program has gone without real challenge since it was authorized initially by the Maritime Security Act of 1996, and Congress and the President in May renewed the charter of the Export-Import Bank of the United States for three years, with the U.S.-flag cargo preference requirement intact - despite the quiet effort by major exporters and the administration to eliminate the U.S.-flag mandate or, at the least, to pare it down from 100 percent to 25 percent.

These truths stand because of our union's legislative leadership over the last 20-25 years, coupled by consistently strong individual AMO membership support of the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund.

Another important truth: American Maritime Officers remains the nation's largest union of merchant marine officers, with unrivaled fleet growth and opportunity. This year alone, our union welcomed nine deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters vessels to its fleet roster, with most of the oceangoing tonnage serving the Ex-Im Bank heavy lift trade or Jones Act petroleum product markets. And there is more new work on the way.

Much of the credit for this goes to the seagoing AMO membership, the men and women who set new standards of professionalism in every job they do aboard their vessels, and whose skill and dedication do not go unnoticed in the industry or in government.

Together, these points provide positive balance to the sometimes negative news out of Washington. Considered objectively, they provide real cause for long-term optimism among seagoing AMO members and applicants for AMO membership.

As always, I welcome your comments, questions, criticisms and suggestions. Feel free to call me on my cell at (202) 251-0349.