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Maritime experts say waiving Jones Act could be ‘catastrophic' for Jacksonville jobs

Thousands of jobs in Jacksonville could be in jeopardy. That’s what local maritime experts fear if President Trump decides to waive the Jones Act for Puerto Rico.

According to Bloomberg, the president is considering it because the recovering island and the oil industry are asking him to.

The Jones Act is a nearly 100-year-old law that requires U.S. built, flagged, and crewed vessels move cargo between U.S. seaports.

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It’s a policy that supports one of Northeast Florida’s biggest trade routes, Jacksonville to San Juan.

Crowley is one of the major players, most recently it helps supply liquified natural gas or LNG to the island.

“Crowley for instance has shipped 13 million gallons of LNG to Puerto Rico in the last five years safely and reliably on Jones Act vessels,” said Arthur Mead III, Crowley’s VP and chief counsel.

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An economic development study by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Transportation Institute shows the Jones Act supports 9,100 direct and indirect jobs in Northeast Florida alone.

“Florida is the second largest state in domestic maritime industry jobs at 66,000,” said Mead.

But opponents of the Jones Act call it an archaic law that contributes to the higher costs of fuel and goods in Puerto Rico which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria.

Puerto Rico is asking for a waiver of the Jones Act to help increase the flow of natural gas.

But Tote VP and General Manager of Caribbean Services Eduardo Pagan, another major player in the Jacksonville-San Juan trade lane, said the island’s infrastructure isn’t ready to support more LNG shipments yet anyway.

“Right now, the island is less than 30 percent LNG basically powered,” said Pagan.

When Action News Jax asked what would happen if the Jones Act went away, he put it this way.

“It’s going to be very, very catastrophic. There’s a lot of jobs that depend on the reliability of our service today,” said Pagan.

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