The Biden Administration is weighing whether to waive the Jones Act temporarily amid rising gas prices and shortages following a cyberattack on the largest petroleum pipeline between Texas and New York.
Waiving the rule would allow non-US maritime vessels to carry oil from ports on the Gulf Coast to the one along the Atlantic coastline, where a gas shortage is in effect following the outage of Colonial Pipeline’s operations.
GAS STATIONS RUNNING DRY AFTER PIPELINE HACKING
The Transportation Department “has started the work needed to enable consideration of a temporary and targeted waiver of the Jones Act,” including a survey of whether there are sufficient Jones Act-qualified vessels to carry the necessary petroleum from Gulf ports to the Eastern Seaboard, according to a statement Tuesday.
The agency on Sunday “issued an hours of service waiver, which provides greater flexibility to drivers who are transporting gas and diesel and jet fuel, across 17 states as well as the District of Columbia,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters during a briefing at the White House.
Granholm said the Transportation Department is also in discussion with rail operators to determine their capacity to transport fuel.
“These are not easy solutions because there may or may not be the right rail cars, there may not or may not be the water ports available for the Jones Act to be able to respond to this particular area of the country,” Granholm said.
The pipeline is expected to be “substantially operational” by Friday or over the weekend, she added. “It’s not that we have a gasoline shortage, it’s that we have a supply crunch.”
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Demand for gas spiked on Monday, with prices at the highest level in six years.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a tweet that U.S. officials are looking for ways to “mitigate potential disruptions to supply.”
