This is not an official government website.
© 2026 PLEJ LC. All rights reserved.
Congressional Daily Record
This section covers nominations, confirmations, or other executive branch business. It mentions members such as Bill Cassidy.
Official title: Waiving the Jones Act (Executive Calendar)
Issued
May 12, 2026
senate side of the record
People
2
Linked members mentioned in this section
Legislation
0
No linked legislation in this section
Committees
0
No linked committees in this section
Senate Holds
0
No hold activity linked here
Source Document
Connected Data
People mentioned
1 Helpful Term
Executive business
Senate business involving nominations, treaties, and executive branch communications rather than ordinary bills.
Source Control
Reader mode is for comprehension. The linked government PDF is the official published source.
Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. CASSIDY. Madam President, the Jones Act is a law that we have had for over a hundred years, enacted by Congress, and it simply says that cargo moving between two points in the United States should move on an American-built, American-owned, and American-crewed ship. It supports American workers, American shipyards, and American national security.
The Presiding Officer represents the State of Alabama. Mobile has some very good shipyards; Louisiana, some tremendous shipyards. But they are scattered around our Nation. It could be in Florida, Mississippi, Washington State—I am sure California—Maine.
the boats, could be maritime manufacturing in Illinois, software in San Diego.
This supports American industry.
maritime workers are a large portion of the State's economy. I could list you the towns: Houma, Lockport. Thousands of people in Louisiana depend on this industry for jobs that actually support the families.
vessels for the oil industry, for NOAA, for the Marines, for portions of ships that go to the Navy. And why do we have this workforce and these companies that can build these boats? Because of the Jones Act.
is doing for another 90 days, we are saying that foreign-built vessels by foreign workers with foreign components—not from San Diego or Illinois or Mobile or Lockport or Houma but someplace else—can put together a vessel that moves goods between one point of the United States and another.
lower energy prices for California, and when gasoline and diesel go from the gulf coast to California, we are going to magically decrease the price paid at the pump in Los Angeles.
to Korea and to India, when you waive the Jones Act, it does not, by any—any—significant amount, lower the prices at the pump in California. Why? California pays $6 a gallon for gasoline because they have shut down refineries. They will not allow them to be expanded. They require a special mix of gasoline.
You could never get a pipeline built from Louisiana to California. It would never have been permitted under the Obama or Biden administrations.
expensive in California, in order to encourage people to buy electric vehicles.
Put it all together. The high prices of the oil, regulations, lack of refineries in California, no pipeline—that is the reason they are paying over $6 a gallon for gasoline.
are doing something, actually is more of an excuse to waive the Jones Act than it is to actually lower the price of gasoline in California.
And while you are doing this kind of philosophical “we don't like the Jones Act,” it hurts Louisiana workers. It costs Louisiana jobs, and jobs in Mobile, jobs in Illinois, jobs in San Diego. I could keep going down the list. It hurts the American worker for a kind of “it ain't going to happen” decrease of gasoline prices in California.
restore shipbuilding to the United States. Now, there is a difference between a boat and a ship. A boat is something below a certain size, but it can be really big, and a ship is like what the Navy uses. If you want more shipbuilding in the United States, you don't start doing that by hurting boatbuilding in the United States because the same workers who build boats build ships, the same technology that supports building boats supports building ships, and in some cases, components of that bigger Navy ship are built in a boatyard.
actually trying to do things that are important to national security; that support our ability to make a Navy—a blue-water Navy—using American workers and not having to buy an aircraft carrier from Korea with all the kind of “Are we sure we are getting what we want to get?”
make sense to me; it is just not logical. But now it has been extended. So it tells me that there is something motivating that waiver beyond the imagination that it is going to significantly lower gas prices in California. It is somebody who doesn't like the Jones Act, who doesn't like the support that Congress deliberately gave to the workers in our boatyards, the people who are building the engines in Illinois that go into those boats or in any of the other places that are scattered around the country, in our heartland or on the coastline, that support our workers. Somebody philosophically doesn't like it, and they are using this as an excuse in order to kill the Jones Act.
the country. Once waivers become routine, companies stop investing, workers leave the industry, and America becomes more dependent on foreign operators, and it becomes less prosperous for our Nation's workers.
we can to lower gas prices—oh, my gosh; families back home are feeling the price at the pump—but let's focus on solutions that work, that provide real relief and protect an industry that Louisiana, the gulf coast, and many in our country rely on.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BRITT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). Without objection, it is so ordered.