The Obama administration on Friday backtracked on its plan to make it easier for foreign-based ships to move the millions of barrels of emergency crude oil the government hopes to sell to ease expected tight global supply.
Under the administration’s plans announced on Thursday to sell 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the government said it would provide an automatic waiver from the Jones Act, a federal law that prevents foreign ships from transporting U.S. goods, including crude oil, between American ports.
“We are dumbfounded by President Obama’s decision to disregard the American maritime industry, which has sufficient capacity to complete this work,” the American Maritime Partnership said in a statement on Thursday.