Ian, I just had a chance to read the examiner article. The thrust of what they are proposing is to present Djou who is from Hawaii in their own light.
I have taken this from Ian's link:
See this:
The facts don’t support Djou’s statements about the Jones Act
At the time Congressman Djou made that statement with full agreement from the Fox anchor, of course, there were already 15 foreign flagged vessels actively participating in the gulf oil spill clean up effort. None of them required a Jones Act waiver, because it applies mainly within 3 miles of the U.S. coastline and applies to the moving of cargo to and between U.S. ports. Its purpose was and is to ensure that U.S. vessels with U.S. crews are used in close U.S. territorial waters.
= The Djou interview was on day 65 of the spill. The NL offer came in the very early days of the spill. The NL ships are the most advanced in the world. then at day 70ish the largest skimmer in the world was deployed to the area. Why did it take so long?
That is the question - why did it take so long? The answer is not because of the lack of a Jones Act waiver, which a lot of people seem to be focusing on both on this forum and elsewhere.
The reason that the Jones Act waiver was used for both Katrina and Alex were:
1) To allow foreign flagged vessels to carry relief supplies into US ports
2) In the case of Katrina, significant disruption in the production and transportation of petroleum and/or refined petroleum products in the region during that emergency and the impact this had on national defense.
BTW, the concerns for "National Defense" are very important when waiving the Jones Act. National Defense is not an issue WRT to the BP spill, which makes it harder to suspend the Jones Act.
In actuality, according to the Deepwater Horizon response team, as of June 15th, 15 foreign flagged ships were assisting in the cleanup. Granted, that is still 57 days since the spill started (though it isn't clear when the first ships actually started helping out, as well as the fact that while the leak may have actually stared on April 20th when the rig exploded, until Coast Guard Rear Admiral Landry stated it was leaking on April 24th, BP denied it was).There is information that offers of help were received within the first two weeks of the spill, and foreign ships were already assisting at that point. Part of the delay may have been due to EPA regulations that the use skimmers that leave more than 15ppm of oil in the water are prohibited, so many large scale skimmers are, by this rule, not allowed to help. The EPA has been reluctant to ease this restriction, and I am not sure the President has the power to override it. Also, a large Japanese skimmer was held up due to bad weather.
Some more info from FactCheck:
Oil Spill, Foreign Help and the Jones Act | FactCheck.org
Ian