Thursday, June 17, 2010

No Jones about It! Why America Doesn’t Want Any Help!

America needs help cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and we need it now! So why are we turning down assistance from thirteen other countries? Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations have all offered assistance to help with this tragedy. The Dutch in particular offered ships equipped with oil-skimming booms as well as help building sand barriers which would protect the delicate marshlands of the Gulf coast. Shouldn’t we be jumping at the offers for help?

We’re not. Why? Our government is claiming that the Jones Act of 1920 prevents them for accepting help from foreign countries. Also called The Merchant Marine Act, this law says that all shipping on U.S. waters needs to be done in U.S. flag ships built in the U.S., owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens. This all sounds good under normal circumstances (it’s not as good as it sounds, but we won’t get into that). But right now is a not normal circumstance. We are dealing with a catastrophe here and we should be accepting whatever help we can get. In past emergencies this act has been suspended temporarily in order to address situations when we needed help, such as was done following hurricane Katrina. Why is our government not suspending it now? What’s your opinion? –Julie

1 comment:

Lo / Jim Vail said...

in my opinion, one of the reasons that Obama won't temporarily lift the Jones Act is because of the union workers. He wants to make sure all of his pals are working; after all, they got him elected. if we had foreign ships to come in and help; the union workers would not be protected. just my 2 cents!