Yes
IMO, yes. Obama doesn't care about anything or anybody except as he can use them to his advantage.
The Jones Act was was set up to protect our national security through maintaining a US flag fleet. Until the Exxon Valdez spill, Exxon, Arco, chevron and others all had non-union (or a non affiliated company union) fleets. There are many non-union small vessel companies particularly in Southern states. Without the Jones Act you could have a lot of these vessels with Mexican flags on them.
The US Maritime Administration has a simple form for obtaining waivers.
According to Admiral Thad Allen, no one has applied for a waiver. The turn down of foreign help by Obama has been speculated to be more from simple arrogance and ignorance.
I have yet to hear even a half-arsed excuse for not waiving the Jones Act in this circumstance.
Yes.
Does the Sun rise in the East and set in the West?
I come from the cruise travel industry which deals with the Jones Act on a daily basis. The unions have been interfering with fully legitimate American businesses such as the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. - a company owned by the Uebberoths (of Olympics fame). All they wanted to do was run a Mississippi cruise operation with American workers, but not union. James Oberstar (R - MN) blocked the vessels permit as head of the transportation committee because of union pressure. Ask NCL-America what trying to run a union cruise line in Hawaii has been like (they had to reduce their fleet from three to one ships costing thousands of jobs) because the union made them non-competitive with non-union (foreign flag) cruise lines.
Our Seaman’s Internation Union does not care about America - they care about their own agenda. Enough to even scare a sitting President. Sad. Meanwhile Fox is reporting foreign vessels are installing wind turbines off the coast of Maryland.