Anti Federalist
06-16-2010, 07:45 PM
From LRC Blog:
According to news reports, corporations from more than a dozen different countries with extensive experience and technological know-how regarding the clean-up of oil spills have offered to help but have been told to get lost by the Obammunists. The reason is a 1920 protectionist piece of legislation called ‘The Jones Act,” which requires shipping to be built by American (i.e., unionized) workers and staffed by American sailors. So as not to ruffle the delicate feathers of unionized dock workers and other protectionist parasites in an election year, the Obammunists have refused all of their help.
I'm not sure what information is flying around, but here's the low down.
At the well site, working to contain the spill, every large vessel there is a foreign flag vessel with mixed crews.
The Transocean vessels on scene: Discovery Enterprise, DDII and DDIII all are flagged out of Vanuatu or Majuro.
The Deepwater Horizon itself was also foreign flagged, out of Majuro.
The IMR vessels running the ROVs, the Skandi Neptune, the Rem Forza, the Viking Poseidon, the HOS Iron Horse, just to name a few, are all foreign flagged, Norwegian mostly, with US, Filipino, European and Canadian crews.
They are called "flags of convenience" in that the inspections, manning and regulation of the nations is lax, compared to say, the US.
The only US flagged vessels are the supply vessels and tugs and barges that the collected oil is being pumped to, along with damn near every MSRC and NRC vessel in the country.
And I've yet to see one US unionized marine company on scene, (with the possible exception of Moran - I think their southern operations are non unionized) outside of the foreign vessels, which, at least for the Norwegians, is unionized.
Seems a piss poor idea to me to turn over even more of our decision making processes and responses to even more foreigners, seeing as how it was a foreign owned drilling company that owned the foreign flagged drillship that followed the instructions of a foreign company's representative to move forward in an unsafe condition that caused all this mess.
Cue the screeches and wailings of the "free traders" in 3...2...1...
According to news reports, corporations from more than a dozen different countries with extensive experience and technological know-how regarding the clean-up of oil spills have offered to help but have been told to get lost by the Obammunists. The reason is a 1920 protectionist piece of legislation called ‘The Jones Act,” which requires shipping to be built by American (i.e., unionized) workers and staffed by American sailors. So as not to ruffle the delicate feathers of unionized dock workers and other protectionist parasites in an election year, the Obammunists have refused all of their help.
I'm not sure what information is flying around, but here's the low down.
At the well site, working to contain the spill, every large vessel there is a foreign flag vessel with mixed crews.
The Transocean vessels on scene: Discovery Enterprise, DDII and DDIII all are flagged out of Vanuatu or Majuro.
The Deepwater Horizon itself was also foreign flagged, out of Majuro.
The IMR vessels running the ROVs, the Skandi Neptune, the Rem Forza, the Viking Poseidon, the HOS Iron Horse, just to name a few, are all foreign flagged, Norwegian mostly, with US, Filipino, European and Canadian crews.
They are called "flags of convenience" in that the inspections, manning and regulation of the nations is lax, compared to say, the US.
The only US flagged vessels are the supply vessels and tugs and barges that the collected oil is being pumped to, along with damn near every MSRC and NRC vessel in the country.
And I've yet to see one US unionized marine company on scene, (with the possible exception of Moran - I think their southern operations are non unionized) outside of the foreign vessels, which, at least for the Norwegians, is unionized.
Seems a piss poor idea to me to turn over even more of our decision making processes and responses to even more foreigners, seeing as how it was a foreign owned drilling company that owned the foreign flagged drillship that followed the instructions of a foreign company's representative to move forward in an unsafe condition that caused all this mess.
Cue the screeches and wailings of the "free traders" in 3...2...1...