New England Governors Seek Jones Act Relief as Spike in Winter Heating Bills Looms

Colin GrabowConcerned by high and volatile global energy prices, New England ’s six governors dispatcheda letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm last month asking for assistance. At the top of their wish list: exploring the conditions under which theJones Act might be suspended to allow the region expanded access to U.S. natural gas. It ’s an eminently reasonable request that Congress and the White House should embrace.Although geographically part of the U.S. mainland, in terms of energy New England is almost an island.Lacking pipeline connections to refining centers outside the region, it also has insufficient pipeline capacity to transport natural gas —New England’sdominant fuel for electricity production —from other parts of the United States during wintertime spikes in demand. Instead, the region must turn to marine deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to meet its needs. That means imports. While U.S. natural gas is bothplentiful and substantiallyless expensive than elsewhere, there are no ships to transport it to New England.More accurately, there are no ships to transport it that comply with the Jones Act.Of the world ’snearly 600 LNG tankers, none are U.S.-flagged, U.S.-built and mostly U.S.-crewed and owned as required by the 1920 law to transport goods within the United States. And such a vessel isn ’t likely to appear anytime soon, if ever. With U.S.-built LNG tankers estimated to cost over$500 million more than those from forei...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs