So…like so many, tonight I was cruising election stories, helping to forward aid info for coordinators of Sandy relief, etc, etc …and a little piece of news flashes by me. A moment later, my brain apparently gets some extra oxygen, and grabs onto it: “..Jones Act suspended..”

Screeching brakes. EH?

I quickly find several brief articles on it, Bloomberg, Forbes, and Yahoo News, none which appear to have been noticed by the public due to the Sandy aid efforts and the election around the corner. I read all three. I am alarmed. I am a New Englander, living in Massachusetts.

Why would Obama suddenly lift the permanent, long-standing restrictions on foreign tankers docking at East Coast ports?

Hurricane Sandy = mysterious, unreported national US oil shortage?? Nope.

It made no sense, which, when that applies to politics and/or profiteers, makes me, at least, instantly suspicious. The facts:

1. Two east coast refineries were temporarily shut down by Sandy.

2. The East Coast is suffering no fuel shortages or delivery issues; damaged stations only await cleanup to resume business in hard-hit areas. This is a temporary condition.

2. Homeland Security got the waiver of the Jones Act, after a company requested it – a company that they refuse to name. Obama signed the waiver.

3. The waiver is supposed to be only until November 11th, but then we see this in one of the articles:

” Energy experts said the waiver might not bring immediate relief to fuel-strapped New York and New Jersey, where two refineries were shut by Sandy. But, in the longer term, shipping alternatives could help ensure steady supply.”

Longer term? And then this:

“There appears to be no urgent need at the moment” for a Jones Act waiver, said Bob McNally, head of Washington-based consulting firm the Rapidan Group. He said shortages so far have been at the retail level rather than the maritime import level.”

Now it makes even less sense. Waiving the Jones Act will provide no relief for the shortages – because the stations have to be repaired before they can refuel. We don’t need tankers bringing fuel to our ports, there is no delivery issue or shortage. There is no reason for this. But there must be.

Now I’m concerned and smell shenanigans. So I look up the Rapidan Group – who somehow had the chance to make analysis and policy and comment in a mere couple of days since Sandy -along with some mysterious company that asked Homeland Security to waive the Jones Act – all, apparently, simultaneously. One starts to assume there is a connection between these things, yes? Indeed there is:

The Rapidan Group:
Garrett Golding, from Dallas, TX, is an Energy Market and Policy Analyst with the Rapidan Group. Mr. Golding spent six years working at the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. His efforts at the Committee focused on LNG export and pipeline infrastructure policy, including the Keystone XL pipeline, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve & hydraulic fracturing. Under Bush.

Now I’m on fire. Bush. Texas. Keystone XL. Canada. Tar Sands. New England fracking. Pipeline through northern New England straight to our coasts to sell the profits to the foreign markets via our ports. Bingo. I remember the attempt to get the Jones Act lifted, back in 2010 – again, by Texas investors – who ARE the pipeline & fracking projects – and undercover as a Canadian company or two. Back then they said it was because the Jones Act was making it hard to clean up after Katrina.

Under cover of a major disaster on the East Coast, and days before a national election, they got the Jones Act lifted – a necessary step in the Keystone XL pipeline, Canaddian tar sands to New England (and secondarily, fracking in New England) profiteering plan. You bastards.

The waiver won’t be temporary; anyone taking bets?

New Englanders cannot let this pass, nor can it wait.

We spent decades cleaning up our coastline and wetlands; now they want oil tankers, with abysmal records of leaks, and a pipeline (BP’s pipeline leaked 800 times, to date) running from Canada through our pristine northern forests all the way to our coast – so they can sell oil on the foreign market, from our ports, for their own corporate profit. (This is another pipeline, not the XL. See http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/eshope/that_pipeline_through_new_engl.html)

We also currently have ZERO laws against, nor safety guidelines – about fracking. We are a tiny geological area that fracking would do massive environmental harm to; many of us rely on well water, fracking would contaminate our water tables; not to mention the increased threat of earthquakes and sinkholes. We’ve already seen what they’ve done elsewhere, and to their own Gulf area.

Will New Englanders allow Texas profiteers to ruin our part of the country, also, to merely increase their off-shored billions even further?

No, no, no and no. Get to your Reps and Senators, and do it quickly; and please share this info.

Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2012/11/02/u-s-cuts-up-red-tape-to-allow-foreign-oil-tankers-into-east-coast/

http://news.yahoo.com/u-issues-blanket-jones-act-waiver-fuel-tankers-152041390.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-02/u-s-gulf-gasoline-increases-after-jones-act-is-suspended.html

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/06/21/robert-bluey-gulf-spill-katrina-jones-act-waive-obama/