Senator John McCain (R-Arizona)
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has introduced an amendment to the Keystone XL pipeline bill that would effectively gut the Jones Act, part of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. His proposal would remove the requirement that ships operating exclusively in American waters be built in the U.S. and crewed by U.S. citizens or legal U.S. residents.
According to the U.S. Maritime Administration, there are 23,450 shipbuilding jobs in Mississippi alone, jobs that add $2 billion to that state's GDP each year--employment and state income that would disappear under Mr. McCain's proposal.
The amendment would also mean that foreign oil companies with off shore rigs in our coastal waters, rigs that are now manned by American oil workers, could replace their entire crews with foreign employees, putting even more Americans out of work.
Tom Allegretti, chairman of the American Marine Partnership said, "The McCain amendment would gut the nation's shipbuilding capacity, outsource our U.S. Naval shipbuilding to foreign builders and cost hundreds of thousands of family-wage jobs across this country. The shipbuilding requirement, which Senator McCain seeks to eliminate, is in place to ensure that the United States maintains the industrial capacity to build its own ships, to protect and defend the American homeland. It is hard to believe that Congress would endorse a change to the law that would outsource U.S. jobs and reduce national security by effectively creating dependence on foreign countries to build out ships."
Thomas Curelli, first vice president of the Great Lakes Maritime Task Force in Toledo, Ohio replied to Senator McCain's proposal this way: "Why would anyone subject an industry that produces such superior products to unfair competition from government-subsidized shipyards throughout the world? It's not just about the new construction we'd be losing, it's all the work related to keeping the vessels in service. Without construction, we cannot sustain this industry."
Coming from a man who is gung ho for increasing our military spending every time there is a budget vote and who is always ready to involve the U.S. in a seemingly never-ending series of foreign conflicts, a man whose party has been on a "Where are the jobs?" rampage for six years, I can only echo Mr. Curelli, "Why, Mr. McCain? WHY?!"
Ya gotta wonder who bought him (McCain) off and why. Ya also gotta wonder why Mister All American would sell out the American worker. Money? No... Really, ya think its just about money? Hmmn, ya might be right.
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