OPINION:
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Jones Act, the federal law requiring that cargo shipped between two U.S. ports be transported on vessels that are American-built, -owned and -crewed.
The philosopher George Santayana is often credited with having said, “[t]hose who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The Jones Act was passed by Congress largely because, in the years between the Civil War and World War I, America had forgotten that it was a maritime nation and that its security relied on strategic sealift capabilities and the domestic maritime trade.
Today, the Jones Act continues to endure because it has proven critical to supporting our national defense and protecting homeland security, enabling the United States to project military capability around the world, and helping secure military and economic assets here at home.
Notably, this summer we will also commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II — a conflict in which Allied victory was achieved in large measure due to America’s ability to transport warfighters and critical supplies across oceans. As we look forward, both the 100th anniversary of the Jones Act and the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II should remind us that America’s victory over the Axis powers was made possible, in no small measure, by passage of the Jones Act 25 years earlier.
In passing the Jones Act, Congress asserted that “[i]t is necessary for the national defense and for the proper growth of its … domestic commerce that the United States should have a merchant marine … to carry the greater portion of its commerce and serve as a naval or military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency, ultimately to be owned and operated privately by citizens of the United States.” If the Jones Act had not existed for the past 100 years, we would surely need to invent it today to help America confront the challenges of the next century.
Our nation’s ability to project power abroad is deeply tied to what the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has referred to as America’s “defense maritime industrial base” — the importance of which I came to greatly appreciate in the course of over 20 years of service in the United States Navy.
While serving in the Navy, I boarded scores of Ready Reserve Force and Military Sealift Command auxiliary and transport ships. Working with their crews to load vessels with vital military supplies and equipment and to operate them safely to and from conflicts taught me the extent to which the DoD’s ability to project power around the globe, one of the Navy’s core missions, relies on the viability and robustness of that defense maritime industrial base.
The partners in this are vast and many, including American mariners and shipping company management, domestic shipyards, maritime academies and union trade schools, and the U.S. owners and operators of merchant tonnage.
The Jones Act is the policy foundation of our country’s defense maritime industrial base.
Without the Jones Act, there would be no U.S. facilities to build or repair vessels (or those places would need to be created at greater expense to the taxpayer); there would be a severe shortage of educated, skilled and patriotic mariners dedicated to upholding our values and way of life; and there would be a severe lack of financial and management support by Americans who are invested in ensuring that cargo is delivered in the safest and most cost-efficient way possible to domestic markets — let alone to the warfighter thousands of miles away in theatre.
The Jones Act is not only key to supporting the military’s ability to fight and maintain a presence overseas, but it is also fundamental to providing the military with the resources to sustain it here at home. Across the nation, the U.S. military relies on domestic maritime — Jones Act operators — to deliver fuel and other supplies to U.S. bases, and to conduct dredging operations and daily ship-assists at those bases to enable our fleet of aircraft carriers and other surface warships, submarines and support ships to arrive and depart safely.
The military depends on the Jones Act fleet for these services because these are sensitive logistics functions that go to the heart of military readiness. Security considerations and common sense require that we not leave these responsibilities to foreign crews.
On the homeland security front, the Jones Act allows the U.S. Coast Guard to focus its resources on a smaller, more manageable and lower-risk pool of vessels on our inland rivers, coastal waters and Great Lakes. With so much of America’s essential critical infrastructure located along our domestic waterways and coastlines, the Jones Act helps the Coast Guard allocate its limited resources effectively.
Alfred Thayer Mahan said: “[t]he study of history lies at the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practice.” Therefore, as we recognize both this milestone anniversary of the Jones Act and prepare to honor 75 years since the end of a war that shook the world and redefined America’s place in it, we must always remember the critical role of the U.S. maritime industry — and the Jones Act on which it stands — in helping safeguard American security.
• Art Mead is chairman of The American Waterways Operators, the national trade association of the American tugboat, towboat and barge industry. He is a vice president at Crowley Maritime Corp., a leading Jones Act operator, and served as a commander in the U.S. Navy.
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