Hurricane Fiona, which registered winds with speeds of up to 200 kmh, killed 21 people and left 1m people without electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case of the Hayfin Capital tanker has made national headlines in the US with the Jones Act once again facing scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce again, Puerto Ricans are paying the price for an antiquated shipping law that makes food and other goods more expensive on the island,\u201d The Boston Globe<\/em> said. \u201cThe law is inexcusable in ordinary times \u2014 and downright scandalous now, when the island is reeling from yet another natural disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Jones Act has not stopped the long-term decline of US shipbuilding or the rise of Asian and European competitors that now dominate global sealift capacity. But by limiting Puerto Rico\u2019s choices, it has driven up the island\u2019s import costs, an editorial from The Washington Post<\/em> stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Firing back, Sam Norton, president and CEO of Overseas Shipholding Group, which operates a sizeable US-flagged fleet, maintained in an update on LinkedIn that Jones Act waivers rarely provide either economic benefit or enhanced emergency response to victims in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMore often than not, waiver requests are a form of disaster arbitrage – that is opportunistic traders looking to game the system to avail themselves of outsized profits by obtaining exemptions from rules upon which the regular transportation ecosystem is built. Generally little understood is that vessels operating under the Jones Act are usually a better source of reliable relief than are foreign flag vessels. Granting even occasional waivers perniciously undermines the stability of these regular supply chain,\u201d Norton wrote, in a post that received quick support from John McCown, the founder of Blue Alpha Capital, a staunch advocate of the Jones Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe facts and timing related to movement of the foreign flag tanker now off the coast of Puerto Rico suggest that BP engineered this specifically to present a compelling case for waiver,\u201d McCown suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the tanker story refusing to die down, the Biden administration is expected to make a ruling on the Jones Act waiver soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A hurricane has whipped up a swell of Jones Act fury in the US with energy major BP in the eye of the storm. Hurricane Fiona slammed into the US territory on September 18 knocking out of Puerto Rico\u2019s power. Pedro Pierluisi, the governor of Puerto Rico, applied to the government in Washington DC for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":174052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.136,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.6785,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.85,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.2,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.9,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.27,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.02,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.47,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71,61,58],"tags":[200],"yoast_head":"\n