FreedomWorks Foundation Submits Only Comment to Coast Guard Regulatory Reform Effort, Opposing Jones Act

FreedomWorks Foundation submitted, thus far, the only comment to an open Coast Guard docket requesting information on regulations to review and/or reverse, in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders on regulatory reform.

The Foundation’s comments focus on the Jones Act and subsequent regulations governing domestic maritime shipping. The laws and regulations governing America’s domestic shipping industry, particularly the Merchant Marine Act of 1920—more commonly known as the Jones Act—restrict shipping between two domestic ports in the United States to ships primarily built, owned, operated and flagged in the United States. According to the World Economic Forum, America’s coastwise trade laws under the Jones Act are “the most restrictive” of their kind in the world.

FreedomWorks Foundation strongly contends that these laws and subsequent regulations designed to protect the domestic maritime industry, such as the Jones Act, have produced significant unintended consequences requiring immediate redress. In particular, these rules have suppressed competition in the domestic shipping market, ultimately harming demand and exposing merchant marine personnel to hazard aboard an aging fleet of ships.

You can read FreedomWorks Foundation’s comments in the attached document below or here.

You can find out more about the Jones Act and its unintended consequence by reading the following studies:

Mercatus Center at George Mason University: An Economic Analysis of the Jones Act

Grassroot Institute of Hawaii: THE JONES ACT IN PERSPECTIVE: A survey of the costs and effects of the 1920 Merchant Marine Act

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