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In any area excluding Hawaii a cruise ship may not call at more than 4 U.S. ports in a week excluding her home port.
No American built and flagged vessel may be subject to port and federal taxes.
A foreign built U.S. flagged cruise ship must call at at least 2 U.S. ports during her break from U.S. only service.
I would also include that cargo ships have no restriction as long as they're U.S. flagged. They can be built anywhere.
What do you guys think, does anyone agree with my thoughts??
quote:Commodore says:Does anyone think the Jones Act should be modified, I do. I think it should be modified to be something more like this.
Well, I can only speak as an uninformed layman with respect to the Jones Act, but personally, without knowing the reasons for the act, I am inclined to think it should be done away with. Flagging and port access should be unrestricted with respect to place of construction of a vessel. Otherwise we are engaging in a form of embargo. Free markets with free access, subject only to the safety of SOLAS regulations.
Naive??
...KenH
the jones act was put in place to protect the U.S. merchant marine and it's mariners.all it did was secure the future of the U.S. coastal trade between U.S. ports.if you go to a foreign port and see a U.S. registered and manned merchant vessel take a photograph, it is a very rare sight.
Let the market decide. Remember that during the Iraq war mostly of the transports where done by non US flagged and manned ships.
Where ever did you get your information that "most" of the cargio shipped to Iraq was sent on non US flag ships? FYI, almost 60 US flaged merchant vessels transported the bulk of the vehicles, materials & other supplies sent to Iraq this past winter and in 1990-91.
For more specific statistics please go to the websites for the three Federal agencies with responsibility for US military shipping:http://www.marad.dot.gov/http://www.mtmc.army.mil/ & http://www.msc.navy.mil/
More on my ideas to reform the Jones Act and PVSA soon.
1. a foreign built ship can only be granted by license the right to trade coastwise & that license is conditional (US built ships retain unconditional right to coastwise trade) 2. the license is granted if no owner of a US built ship sucessfully claims harm will be done to his business by the license to the foreign built ship entering the coastwise trade (an independant board is formed to hear all applicant's and complaintant's claims & decides based on the facts presented)3. the license is renewable annually if no US built ship enters the same trade in the interim4. the license has a fee directly proportional to the gross tonnage of the vessel & inversely proportional to the vessel's age also the applicant pays a one time application fee to the Federal Government (all fees collected go to programs for the development of US shipbuilding)5. US built ships get 7 year depreciation schedules and foreign built get 256. foreign built vessels are subordinate to US built vessels when bidding on Govenment preference cargo (ie the US built vessel wins even if the bid is higher but only within a certain %)7. if no US built ship enters a given trade after 10 years since a foreign built ship entered the same trade, the owner of the foreign ship can apply for a permanent license which need not be renewed annually (except as provided in #12 below)8. if the owner of a foreign built ship granted a license agrees to built a similar ship within 3 years of the original license being granted then that original license will be good for 3 years instead of one and 2/3 of the license fees paid in that period will be rebated upon delivery of the US built ship 9. there would be no subsides or guarantees granted to a foreign built ship which might otherwise be granted to a US built one10. all maintenance & repair work to a foreign built ship granted a license must be done in a US shipyard11. any ship granted a license must be reflagged to the US registry but only need meet the SOLAS rules in doing so and must be maintained in class by a major class society with final oversight remaining with the USCG12. no ship older than 20 years can be granted an initial license for trade and no ship over 30 years can remain in a coastwise trade under license13. passengers on US built cruiseships are waived from all Federal taxes but still pay local port taxes as appropriate (since they use the same port services as all cruise passengers)
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