Fed up with High Gas Prices and Slow Amazon Deliveries? Blame These 2 Century‐Old Laws That Need to Be Repealed.
To avoid higher costs, many companies are forced to turn to imports.
by Colin Grabow, Cato Institute, (This article appeared in Business Insider on September 13, 2022.)
If the supply‐chain crisis has taught Americans anything it’s the importance of efficiently getting things from point A to point B. A well‐oiled transportation system is vital to keeping the economy humming — especially in a country as large as the United States.
Unfortunately, Americans’ ability to get resources where they need to go has been crippled by a pair of outdated laws: the Jones Act and the Foreign Dredge Act.
Enacted over 100 years ago, the Jones Act — formally known as Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — limits which kinds of ships can move goods within the US. The law says only vessels that are US‐registered, US‐built, and mostly US‐owned and crewed can move goods between two US ports. The Foreign Dredge Act, meanwhile, is a 1906 law that applies the same restrictions as the Jones Act to vessels engaged in dredging, or removing sand and sediment from American waterways and channels.
