Absurd 200-Foot ‘Railway’ Demolished After Court Closes Shipping Loophole

40 points by thomasjb 2 years ago | 16 comments
  • ckdarby 2 years ago
    Isn't the Jones Act the same act that has to be waived every time Puerto Rico needs aid?

    Sounds like a terrible legacy law that needs to be reworked.

    • WorldMaker 2 years ago
      Also the same act that makes cruise ship itineraries sometimes weirder and maybe more expensive than they need to be, because the Jones Act applies to passenger travel as well as cargo.

      (Cruise ships can't just do Florida to Puerto Rico to Florida nor California to Hawaii to California, for two instances, unless they are US flagged and most of the cruise ship companies are not US flagged. To be fair, the company flags that aren't historic like Holland America's actual Dutch origins are mostly tax dodges, but the Jones Act isn't the best way to discourage tax dodgers.)

    • fatnoah 2 years ago
      Worth noting from the article:

      > The verdict required American Seafoods and its subsidiaries to find a new way to ship seafood into the United States, bringing the Bayside Canadian Railway's usefulness to an end.

      It looks like the "railway" owner solved the problem by switching to Russian-sourced seafood (Jones act applies to shipments between US ports): https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/cbp-bayside-canad...

      • AntonyGarand 2 years ago
        I liked this short video from "Half as interesting" on Youtube on the railway itself if you're looking for a video on the subject.

        [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1Oq3JLNbc

        • theandrewbailey 2 years ago
          The Jones Act needs to be abolished, or limited to only apply to the contiguous US.
          • croes 2 years ago
            >The law requires shipping between American ports to be handled by American-built, American-flagged vessels

            Sounds anti competitive and not really like a free market. China vibes.

            • Kon-Peki 2 years ago
              This free market you are thinking about has never existed in the United States, except maybe during the Articles of Confederation. Article I of the constitution explicitly states that "The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
              • Robotbeat 2 years ago
                Irrelevant. Free market arguments don’t rely on the Constitutional as their Holy Writ. You’re doing next-word-prediction here (those who often make “free market” arguments will often market themselves as Constitutional originalists or something), not logical reasoning.
                • Kon-Peki 2 years ago
                  "anti competitive" "not really like a free market" "China vibes."

                  Logical reasoning suggests that the author believes that the Jones Act is un-American. I'm not stating my personal opinion on the Jones Act itself but pointing out that the regulation of international and interstate commerce is, by definition, as American as it gets. It was uncontroversial back then and it is uncontroversial now. The Congress can pass these laws. There aren't a whole lot of things that are spelled out in the unamended constitution, but this is one of them. Whether they should maintain this particular law is a totally different issue.

              • thomasjb 2 years ago
                If you want some entertainment, look up the Jones Act fleet. I believe the biggest and most modern vessel in it is actually a foreign vessel that the US government seized from criminals and auctioned off.
                • jsmith45 2 years ago
                  In jan 2022, there were only 99 ships merchant ships eligible under the Jones Act, under a quarter of them are container ships. Over half are tanker ships. Then we have a few general goods ships, and a few roll-on roll-off ships. That is it!

                  Also the jones act not only requires the vessel to be US Flagged, but it must also be wholely owned by citizens of the united states, and either be US built or one of the following exceptions:

                  (i) was captured in war by citizens of the United States and lawfully condemned as prize;

                  (ii)was adjudged to be forfeited for a breach of the laws of the United States; or

                  (iii)qualifies as a wrecked vessel under section 12107 of this title;

                  The net result is that nearly half the US Flagged merchant fleet is not even Jones Act Eligible. Which seems pretty absurd.

              • hermannj314 2 years ago
                I am trying to find the judge's ruling. If I go to the District Court of Alaska, they want me to register for a PACER account and pay up to $3 a document.

                In my Google, I did find an interesting Yale Law Journal [1] article that mentioned this case, that when on to say that repealing the Jones Act is basically DOA due to lobbying interests.

                [1] The Yale Law Journal https://www.yalelawjournal.org The Neglected Port Preference Clause and the Jones Act

                • mikeyouse 2 years ago
                  Pacer has a quarterly free limit where your first $20 (?) of retrieved documents aren’t charged, useful for the casual browser to look up documents.
                  • hermannj314 2 years ago
                    Thank you, I am guilty of bailing out too quickly after I saw a fee schedule and assumed it would apply.
                  • aaron695 2 years ago
                    [dead]
                  • Peritract 2 years ago
                    > Its operator was lucky not to be fined $350 million

                    If the courts actually want to discourage this behaviour, they should have levied the fine

                    • exabrial 2 years ago
                      Why are we calling the railroad absurd and not the Jones Act?