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The Jones Act: How a 100-year-old law complicates offshore wind projects

April 4, 2023 — There’s a lot riding on the nascent offshore wind industry. Companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars. The Biden administration wants 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by the end of the decade. It could mean billions of investment in new manufacturing capacity. Offshore wind is being billed as a key part of a clean energy future for the United States.

Offshore wind farms are massive projects, with up to 100 or more wind turbines standing hundreds of feet above the ocean. They take decades to plan and get approved. As this industry has worked to get off the ground in the United States, companies have wrestled with how to deal with a 100-year-old law called the Jones Act.

The Jones Act, passed by Congress in 1920, says that only U.S.-flagged ships can move cargo from one point in the United States to another. The ships must have been built in the U.S. and be crewed by Americans. The offshore wind industry uses big, specialized ships to assemble the turbines miles out at sea, but there is not a single U.S.-flagged ship right now that can do that work.

“If you bring a part, say you bring in a cell, which is where the generator is housed for an offshore wind turbine — those are only manufactured in other parts of the world right now, primarily in the EU or southeast Asia,” explained Katharine Kollins, with the Southeast Wind Coalition, which promotes wind energy.

“Normally you would place that on the U.S. coast. If you do that, you need a U.S.- flagged vessel to install that,” she said.

So companies that are doing the early offshore wind projects on the East Coast have had to come up with workarounds. Dominion Energy, based in Virginia, put up test turbines off the Virginia coast and had to ferry parts back and forth from Canada to avoid running afoul of the Jones Act.

Companies doing offshore wind farms can also use U.S.-flagged ships to ferry pieces out to the specialized assembly vessels.

Dominion is planning to build an offshore wind farm off the Virginia coast. There are also projects in the early stages off North Carolina’s Outer Banks and off the southeast tip of North Carolina.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

Fishermen’s Finest loses appeal challenging fishing limits included in Jones Act waiver

February 14, 2023 — Kirkland, Washington, U.S.A.-based Fishermen’s Finest has lost an appeal challenging fishing limits contained in a Jones Act waiver it received for its newly-built America’s Finest vessel.

The ruling, delivered 8 February, 2023, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, found against Fishermen’s Finest’s contestation its rights under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution were violated by the limits, or sideboards, contained in the Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018, which was signed into law in 2018. The law gave Fishermen’s Finest a waiver to the Jones Act, which would have prohibited its newly-built vessel, the USD 75 million (then EUR 65.9 million) America’s Finest, from operating in U.S. waters due to the fact that it was constructed with 10 percent foreign steel.

Read the full at SeafoodSource

Feds accuse Alaska seafood transporters of ‘secret scheme’ to evade the Jones Act using 100-foot rail line

September 16, 2021 — Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice are accusing companies Kloosterboer International Forwarding and Alaska Reefer Management of secretly using a specially built rail track in Canada for years, in order to evade the requirements of a maritime shipping law called the Jones Act.

The accusation surfaced in a filing submitted Friday in a case involving the two companies, which help transport Alaska seafood to the East Coast. The companies potentially face massive fines, imposed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The government’s 43-page response is its first public explanation in the case brought by Kloosterboer and Alaska Reefer Management early this month in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. The two companies provide transportation and logistics services as part of the American Seafoods Group family.

The companies are suing the Department of Homeland Security and its division, Customs and Border Protection, to stop the large penalty notices, which they say arrived without warning.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

“A calculated and secret scheme”: US CBP alleges willful Jones Act violations by pollock transporters

September 15, 2021 — The U.S. government accused the operators and clients of a dead-end rail line in New Brunswick, Canada, used in transporting Alaska pollock to the U.S. East Coast, of engaging in “a calculated and secret scheme” to escape the restrictions of the Jones Act, which requires all domestically-caught seafood to be transported via vessels built in the United States with U.S. materials.

The filing in a U.S. District Court in Alaska on 14 September came in response to a lawsuit from American Seafoods subsidiary Alaska Reefer Management (ARM) and the company that operates the New Brunswick facility, Lineage Logistics subsidiary Kloosterboer International Forwarding (KIF), challenging approximately USD 350 million (EUR 294.3 million) in fines issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection against them and their contracted transportation partners. The suit was filed on 2 September.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

CBP issues USD 350 million in Jones Act fines, threatening Alaskan seafood trade

September 7, 2021 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued approximately USD 350 million (EUR 294.3 million) in fines against American Seafoods and other companies associated with the company’s supply chain.

The fines, which were all issued in August 2021, apparently relate to the use of an intermodal facility in the Canadian province of New Brunswick that is used to transport Alaskan seafood to the U.S. East Coast.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Recent Offshore Wind Changes Offer Promise for Protection of Domestic Fishing

December 17, 2020 — Change is in the wind as three developments have modified the seascape for offshore wind in favor of fisheries.

Defense legislation affirming Jones Act compliance for offshore projects, a decision affecting the Massachusetts-planned Vineyard Wind project and an interior legal memo all help reinforce the importance of fisheries and domestic business when offshore wind projects are proposed.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Jones Act changes would ‘jeopardise countless US jobs’ in offshore wind

December 3, 2019 — US fisheries advocacy body the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) has claimed proposed changes to the Jones Act – requiring that cargo, including wind turbines, shipped between US ports be transported on American-flagged vessels – could cost ‘countless of job opportunities’ to local companies in the rapidly emerging Northeast Atlantic offshore wind sector.

Writing to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to voice it opposition to the “new interpretations” of the law – which would flex the legislation to allow offshore wind developers to shuttle components to a project site on non-US-owned vessels, FSF said such a move would “allow foreign developers to use foreign vessels for the rapid build-out of offshore wind farms [and would] jeopardise” the economic development potential to local contractors.

“These proposed modifications would place foreign-owned offshore wind energy companies at a unique advantage not afforded to the thousands of US-owned maritime industries, including commercial fisheries,” said FSF counsel David Frulla.

“FSF is not submitting this letter to oppose offshore wind energy development in its entirety. If there is a need for some form of modification to these requirements, those modifications should be narrowly tailored to meet those needs … and they should consider the impacts on our domestic maritime industries and coastal communities in so doing.”

Read the full story at Recharge News

Fisheries Survival Fund warns changes to Jones Act interpretation give foreign offshore wind companies advantage over U.S. maritime industries

December 2, 2019 (Saving Seafood) — WASHINGTON — The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) submitted a letter to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) late last month warning against a proposed new interpretation of the Jones Act that would allow foreign wind energy developers to use foreign vessels for the rapid build-out of offshore wind farms. For nearly a century, commercial fishermen have been required to use domestic manufacturing for construction of their scallop vessels due to Jones Act requirements, FSF wrote.

FSF, which represents the vast majority of full-time Limited Access permit holders in the Atlantic scallop fishery, wrote that the proposed modifications “would place foreign-owned offshore wind energy companies at a unique advantage not afforded to the thousands of U.S.-owned maritime industries” and “would jeopardize the countless job opportunities for domestic laborers who would otherwise benefit from the build-out of offshore wind facilities.”

In its letter, FSF emphasized that is has been actively engaged in the public input process for the planning and development of offshore wind leases, and has worked with both government agencies and offshore wind developers to better understand and reduce the potential impacts of offshore wind development.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) also wrote to CBP expressing “serious concern” over the proposed modifications.

Read FSF’s full letter here

Coast Guard gives approval to America’s Finest Jones Act waiver

January 18, 2019 — The U.S. Coast Guard has signed off on a Jones Act waiver for America’s Finest, a USD 75 million (EUR 65.8 million) vessel commissioned by Fishermen’s Finest, according to a press release issued by U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Washington) earlier this month.

That means the boat built by Dakota Creek Industries is free to fish in U.S. waters and deliver products to American ports.

“The Coast Guard worked hard to create a thorough report absolving Dakota Creek and giving the green light to the America’s Finest vessel,” said Larsen in the statement. “The employees at Dakota Creek support a job-creating industry that strengthens national defense and fosters innovation and contributes to the maritime economy in Washington state and Alaska. I am proud to be a part of giving the hard working employees at Dakota Creek a stronger future.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trump signs Coast Guard bill into law, includes Jones Act waiver for America’s Finest

December 6, 2018 — When Dakota Creek Industries took America’s Finest out for its first sea trial on Tuesday 4 December, it looked like the 264-foot vessel was taking a victory lap.

The Anacortes, Washington-based shipbuilder held an event that day to celebrate the Jones Act waiver elected officials were able to get for the processor-trawler. Later in the day, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Coast Guard Authorization Act, which contained the labor provision, into law.

The process itself is not quite finished. The Coast Guard will get 30 days to review information to make sure neither Dakota Creek nor Fishermen’s Finest – the company that commissioned construction of the USD 75 million (EUR 65.9 million) vessel – committed a deliberate violation of the Jones Act in building the ship.

Coast Guard officials did not return a request for comment.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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