Moving Oil By Using Foreign Ships

Yesterday’s New York Times reported yesterday that when President Obama released oil from the Department of Energy’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in June, he enlisted foreign ships to move the oil.

The article reports:

The domestic ship owners say that 46 times the administration has waived the Jones Act, a 90-year-old law requiring purely domestic cargo to move on United States-flagged ships except under extraordinary circumstances. Only once this summer has oil from the reserve moved on American barges. 

Even as unemployment hovered over 9 percent, the administration approved dozens of applications to transport nearly 30 million barrels of domestic crude oil within the borders of the United States on tankers employing foreign crews and flying the flags of the Marshall Islands, Panama and other countries. 

Government officials defended their actions by saying that America did not have large enough vessels to move the oil quickly in large quantities. It would have cost more and taken longer to use American ships. American maritime operators stated that they feel that the oil could have been broken down into smaller lots and shipped on American ships.

The Obama administration may have meant well when it released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it missed an opportunity to give jobs to Americans who need them.

 

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