Waivers of Shipping Act provisions
Requests for waivers of certain provisions of the act are reviewed by the United States Maritime Administration on a case by case basis. Waivers have been granted for example, in cases of national emergencies or in cases of strategic interest. For instance, declining oil production prompted MARAD to grant a waiver to operators of the 512-foot Chinese vessel Tai An Kou to tow an oil rig from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska. The jackup rig will be under a two-year contract to drill in the Alaska's Cook Inlet Basin. The waiver to the Chinese vessel is said to be the first of its kind granted to an independent oil-and-gas company.[6]
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff temporarily waived the U.S. Shipping Act for foreign vessels carrying oil and Natural gas from September 1 to 19, 2005. [1][2]
Pressure exerted by 21 agriculture groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, failed to secure a U.S. Shipping waiver following Hurricane Katrina. The groups contended that farmers would be adversely affected without additional shipping options to transport grains and oilseeds.[6]
There are certain American ports which are exempt from provisions of the Jones Act. They are Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas in the Pacific and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. There have historically been sufficiently few calls to those ports that requiring American cabotage was assumed to be a hardship.[
