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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday said it was temporarily waiving the Jones Act for tankers to ensure enough fuel reaches emergency responders and affected areas during Hurricane Irma and in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. The waiver was signed Friday by Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Elaine Duke and will be in effect for seven days. The waiver is specifically tailored to transportation of refined petroleum products in hurricane-affected areas. It includes shipments of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Louisiana to South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Puerto Rico. The DHS...

Photo: Philly Shipyard The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) has awarded a total of $9.8 million to 18 U.S. small shipyards to help pay for industrial modernizations that will increase productivity and allow the country’s small shipyards to compete more effectively in the global marketplace. The funding was awarded through MARAD’s Small Shipyard Grant Program. “Small shipyards play a significant role in our country’s maritime sector, which contributes to our economy, security, and infrastructure,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao. “In addition, these grants will support local communities by creating jobs for working families.” Small shipyard facilities...

With Merkel and Macron at the helm, there is little political will within the EU to avert the next migrant catastrophe. With less than 50 days until the German election, Germany’s intelligence services have warned of a large migrant wave set to hit the country, comparable to the one that overwhelmed Europe two years ago. “The new large refugee wave is already under way,” wrote Austria’s leading newspaper Kronen Zeitung today, citing German Security services. The story was broken by the German newspaper Die Welt in its Sunday edition: Security services believe that the number of asylum seekers in Germany...

Another effort is under way in the Senate to repeal the Jones Act sponsored by Senator John McCain of Arizona. The law, originally enacted 97 years ago by Senator Wesley L. Jones of Washington State under section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, focused on: Increased growth of American marine commerce Improving remedies to American mariners if injured on the job Providing for national security interests Today the Jones Act refers to federal statute 46 USC section 883 which controls coastwise trade within the United States. Essentially the Act prohibits foreign flagged vessels from engaging in coastwise trade...

ROCKY MOUNT — An intermodal CSX rail hub proposed for Rocky Mount will bring 1,500 jobs to North Carolina. The facility, called the Carolina Connector Hub, is expected to be operational by December 2019. “Good transportation is essential to economic growth. You can take it to the bank,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-Wilson, sponsor of the “Jobs First: Building for Our Future” forum held Friday. More than 100 people attended the event at the historic Helen Gay Train Station in Rocky Mount. Built in 1903, the station was acquired by the city of Rocky Mount in 1995 and restored in...

CAMERON PARISH, LA (KPLC) - The face of Cameron Parish will soon be changing. A massive, 500-acre port will be built over the next four years on the Calcasieu Ship Channel, creating close to 4,000 permanent jobs - doubling the employment in the parish. Peterson Offshore Group, a Dutch international energy logistics management company, signed a letter of intent Wednesday with Port Cameron to lease 1.2 million square feet in Part Cameron's Logistics Center. Peterson will co-manage the port. For Ted Falgout, executive director of Port Cameron, Cameron Parish is the perfect location for this project. "I think seeing these...

Jones Act ships under construction at Philly Shipyard, fomerly Aker Philadelphia Shipyard. File Photo Jones Act shipbuilder Philly Shipyard announced Friday that it has entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) with a leading, blue chip Jones Act operating company for the construction and sale of up to four containerships with planned deliveries in 2020 and 2021. The identity of the operating company has yet not been disclosed, but Philly Shipyard indicated that the vessels would be based on a similar design to the two Aloha-class containerships it is currently building for Matson, Inc. Friday’s announcement follows news from last...

(Note: On Wednesday, the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix released a statement saying that tissue pathology revealed that a primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer, was associated with Senator McCain’s blood clot. The statement added that the tissue of concern was completely resected during last Friday’s procedure, and the Senator and his family are reviewing further treatment options, which may include a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. The statement went on to say that “the Senator’s doctors say he is recovering from his surgery ‘amazingly well’ and his underlying health is excellent.” It is unclear...

President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing an executive order that will require all U.S. food aid to be transported on American ships, according to four sources with knowledge of the deliberations. Currently, 50 percent of such aid must be transported on U.S.-flagged vessels. The sources said Trump is considering going as far as doubling that to 100 percent, a move likely to stir opposition from both Republicans and Democrats.

Our nation’s ports are the lifelines of our economy. In 2016, foreign trades through U.S. ports were valued at $1.5 trillion—$475 billion exports and $1.0 trillion imports were moved by vessels. When goods travel through ports, it means they are traveling via ship. NOS is in the business of making sure that mariners—and the goods they are transporting—make it to their destinations safely and quickly. Just as airplane pilots need to know current weather and ground conditions, ship captains need to know exactly what's going on in the water and in the air. NOS monitoring systems supply mariners with the...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a memorandum dated June 5, 2017, prohibiting the DOJ from entering into any agreement on behalf of the United States that would require a party to make a payment or loan to any non-governmental person or entity that is not a party to the dispute. The agreements affected include plea agreements, non-prosecution agreements, deferred prosecution agreements, and civil settlements. The memorandum provides only three exceptions to the general prohibition: (1) victim restitution or other payments that directly remedy the harm that is sought to be redressed, such as environmental harm or harm from official corruption;...

[Bloomberg] The expansion also coincided with a population boom that has made the south home to 10 of the 15 fastest growing cities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning there is a growing market for goods being imported. At the same time, manufacturing growth throughout the south means shipping lines also can pick up American-made exports to transport abroad.

My family is traveling from Omaha to DC in July and I'd like to ship some steaks vs. shipping Omaha Steaks or similar products. My goal would be for them to travel with us on our direct flight. From my research, it's not worth the $50 to get my own freight account and going thru FedEx is outrageously expensive. Hoping Freepers may have ideas or thoughts.

It’s well-known among people who bother to learn the facts that U.S. manufacturing output continues to rise despite the reality that the number of Americans employed in jobs classified as being in the manufacturing sector peaked in June 1977 and has fallen, with very few interruptions, ever since.Nevertheless, some people – for example, the Economic Policy Institute’s Robert Scott – continue to insist that the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. is largely due to increased American trade with non-Americans. Other studies find empirical evidence that labor-saving innovation rather than trade is overwhelmingly responsible for the loss of manufacturing...

First the good news for all of you NRA members. (I include this because I didn’t even know about it, so perhaps you didn’t either.) Federal Express is offering a shipping discount for all of us! That’s really nice of them. It’s one of only many partnership deals you can receive. FedEx and the NRA Business Alliance have teamed up to offer BIG savings on FedEx Express® and FedEx Ground® shipping, FedEx Freight® services and FedEx OfficeSM services. Simply enroll in the FedEx Advantage® program using passcode FVMK8W13 or call 1-800-475-6708 for more information.Enrollment is free and there are no...

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has claimed that the project has encroached on its land, damaged sacred sites and would potentially harm a major source of their drinking water by going under Lake Oahe. [snip] But what continued to throw a wall up in the discussions was the tribe's demand to receive a fee for shipping the oil. "Even though the pipeline never crosses the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, [snip] "But time and again the tribe rebuffed or ignored the company's offers demanding, instead, a toll on the crude that passed through the pipeline, an ultimatum that showed the tribe's...

The problems that sank South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping last week could be just the tip of the iceberg, with the long global downturn leaving the industry burdened by excess capacity. With growth refusing to budge and consumer demand still slack, the world’s freight carriers have more ships than they can fill — a quarter of cargo space lies empty. That has led to fierce price cuts and cut-throat competition, badly impacting the bottom lines of some of the giants of the seas. Those problems played out last week when Hanjin, the world’s seventh-largest shipping firm, filed for bankruptcy in Seoul,...

When we first reported about the imminent paralysis of an unknown number of global supply chains and a potential shock in worldwide trade as a result of the historic bankruptcy of Hanjing Shipping, one of the world's largest container shipping companies which handles 8% of Trans-Pacific trade volume for the US market, we concluded that "the global implications from the bankruptcy are unknown: if, as expected, the company's ships remain "frozen" and inaccessible for weeks if not months, the impact on global supply chains will be devastating, potentially resulting in a cascading waterfall effect, whose impact on global economies could...

But while manufactured cargo can survive indefinitely, crews on ships can not, and as Hanjin ships drift at sea, their crews face increasing uncertainties and diminishing supplies. “We usually have food and water for about two weeks,” said the captain of a Hanjin-operated ship speaking by satellite phone from the South China Sea. But, after 12 days at sea, “everything is getting tight—food, water and fuel,” he said.The captain added that he is rationing water and cutting back air conditioning to save energy. “The heat is driving the crew crazy,” he said. His ship was carrying lubricants and home appliances...

Kenya on Saturday inaugurated the first part of a new container terminal at Mombasa which is expected to boost by 50 percent the volume of cargo handled by East Africa’s largest seaport.