The American Waterways Operators - Annual Reports 2016 | Page 12

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THE JONES ACT
The Jones Act requires that cargo shipped between
U.S. ports be transported on American-owned,
American-built and American-crewed vessels.
This critical law underpins our nation’s economic,
homeland and national security and provides the
statutory foundation for the billions of dollars of
investment made by AWO members in American-
built tugboats, towboats and barges. In 2016, AWO
remained at the helm of the American Maritime
Partnership, a 450-member coalition of maritime
stakeholders that advocate for the Jones Act. AWO
and AMP worked to build strong bipartisan support
for the Jones Act and defeat legislation that would
undermine the law.
AMERICAN WATERWAYS OPERATORS
VESSEL DISCHARGE LEGISLATIVE
REFORM
In 2016, AWO led a robust coalition effort to
establish a uniform national framework for
the regulation of ballast water and other vessel
discharges, and streamline the unworkable
patchwork of federal and state regulations currently
in place. AWO and over 200 coalition partners
representing vessel owners, shippers, labor, and
ports worked together to secure House passage of
the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act and move this
bipartisan legislation to the brink of passage in the
Senate. AWO’s top legislative priority for the 115th
Congress is to secure enactment of vessel discharge
reform legislation in 2017. This legislation will
strengthen protections for America’s waterways,
provide the stable regulatory structure essential to
interstate and international maritime commerce,
and prevent wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on
duplicative regulatory programs