The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke on Wednesday downplayed the need to ease shipping rules in order to get help to Puerto Rico, and said distribution, not delivery to the island, is the main problem right now.
“First of all, we don’t know of fuel shortages on the island of Puerto Rico,” Duke told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “The challenge to us today is getting it distributed.”
Duke’s answer about fuel supplies and shipping to Puerto Rico was a response to questions about the Jones Act, which restricts which ships can travel directly to the island. That law prohibits tankers from hauling crude oil between U.S. ports unless those vessels are American-made, flagged and manned by a crew that is made up of 75 percent U.S. citizens.
While the Jones Act has been widely debated in the media in recent days, but Duke said there has not yet been a request to waive the law from industry groups. However, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has asked the Trump administration to waive the Jones Act in order to help speed up the delivery of fuel and other supplies to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico.
But while the administration waived it to help hurricane response efforts in Texas and Florida, it has said there were enough U.S.-flagged vessels to meet demand in Puerto Rico.
Duke initially said there were no requests at all, but later clarified she only meant requests from industry.
“We have the [Jones Act waiver] requests from Congress, so if I misspoke I apologize,” Duke told Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. “We have the letters from Congress, those go to Customs and Border Protection. We do not have any waiver requests from industry, which is where they typically come from.”
The Trump administration is under pressure to rush aid to the island territory, as Democrats have started to compare the situation to the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago.
