[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 43 (Thursday, March 18, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                MY COMMITMENT TO REPEALING THE JONES ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 18, 1999

  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, American agricultural producers today do 
not have access to domestic deep-sea transportation options available 
to their foreign competitors. There are no bulk carriers operating on 
either coast of the United States, in the Great Lakes, nor out to Guam, 
Alaska, Puerto Rico, or Hawaii. This places Colorado producers at a 
competitive disadvantage because foreign producers are able to ship 
their products to American markets at competitive international rates 
whereas U.S. producers are not.
  Colorado agricultural producers also need access to deep-sea 
transportation options because other modes of transportation are often 
expensive, unpredictable, or unavailable. The rail car shortage we 
experienced in 1997 could have been averted if just 2% of domestic 
agricultural production could have traveled by ocean-going vessel. With 
continued record harvests anticipated across our state, the bottlenecks 
and congestion on rail lines could easily happen again. This raises 
rail rates to artificially high levels at a time when commodity prices 
are already depressed. This in turn raises the costs of production, 
lowers income, and makes it more difficult for Colorado's producers to 
compete against subsidized foreign products.
  The reason there are no domestic bulkers available to agriculture 
shippers is because of an outdated maritime law, known as the Jones 
Act, which as passed in 1920 in an effort to strengthen the U.S. 
commercial shipping fleet. This law mandates any goods transported 
between two U.S. ports must travel on a vessel built, owned, manned, 
and flagged in the United States--no exceptions. The domestic fleet has 
languished under the Jones Act because it is prohibitively expensive to 
build new ocean-going vessels in U.S. shipyards.
  Only two bulkers have been built in U.S. shipyards in the last 35 
years, which has left our country with the oldest fleet in the 
industrialized world. To contract for a new ship would cost an American 
operator over three times the international non-subsidized rate, almost 
assuring no new bulkers are built in the United States.
  At a time when we should be fighting ever harder to open foreign 
markets, reduce unnecessary costs and regulatory burdens, and promote 
sales of American products, we should not be imposing artificial costs 
and burdens on Colorado's hardworking agriculture producers. I will 
continue my work in Congress to repeal the Jones Act and assure a more 
efficient and cost-effective system for transporting agricultural goods 
to market.

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