Connecticut Pushes Congress to Reform the Jones Act

Connecticut is pushing Washington to act on a century-old shipping law that advocates say drives up energy costs, burdens Puerto Rico, and slows the state’s clean energy ambitions.

State Rep. Christopher Rosario, a Bridgeport Democrat who represents part of Connecticut’s largest city in the General Assembly, is calling on Congress to reform the Jones Act, the 1920 federal law that requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to travel on American-built, American-owned, and American-crewed vessels. Rosario has been among the most vocal state legislators on the issue and argues that Connecticut has moved further on this question than federal policymakers are willing to.

The Connecticut General Assembly signaled its position clearly during last year’s legislative session. A resolution passed out of the Commerce Committee calling on Congress to amend the Jones Act and provide specific exemptions for Puerto Rico, including allowing foreign-flagged ships to transport liquid natural gas. The resolution, substituting for H.R. No. 9, was read on the House floor and adopted by voice vote. That kind of bipartisan signal from a state legislature does not happen by accident.

Rosario points to President Donald Trump’s recent 90-day waiver allowing foreign-flagged vessels to ship LNG as evidence that the law’s defenders are running out of arguments. The waiver is a tacit acknowledgment that the Jones Act is not working as intended. But a temporary workaround does not address the underlying problem, and Rosario is clear about that distinction. A waiver can expire. A structural fix cannot be undone by an administration change or a budget fight.

The cost consequences hit Connecticut households directly. Because the Jones Act limits which ships can move fuel between U.S. ports, energy prices in New England stay higher than they need to be. The region already faces some of the steepest electricity rates in the country, and families in Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford feel that squeeze more sharply than most.

Then there is the offshore wind question. Connecticut has staked a significant portion of its climate strategy on projects like Revolution Wind, the offshore wind development expected to deliver power to tens of thousands of Connecticut homes. Rosario and other reform advocates argue that Jones Act restrictions on the vessels used in offshore construction have slowed these projects and added costs that get passed along to ratepayers. The U.S. does not currently have enough Jones Act-compliant installation vessels to meet the pace of offshore wind development the region needs. That bottleneck is a policy choice, not an inevitability.

Supporters of the Jones Act typically lean on national security to defend it. The argument holds that a robust domestic maritime industry is essential for military logistics and wartime readiness. Rosario flips that argument. A law that keeps the American flagged fleet small, limits capacity, and drives up costs does not produce strength. It produces fragility. A maritime industry that survives only because foreign competition is legally prohibited is not a resilient one.

Puerto Rico’s situation sharpens the moral dimension of the debate. The island, a U.S. territory, has long paid a Jones Act premium on nearly everything it imports. After Hurricane Maria, the waiver debate became urgent and visible. Nearly a decade later, the structural problem persists. Puerto Rican consumers pay more for food, fuel, and construction materials because of a law written for a different era of American shipping.

What makes Rosario’s push notable is its geography. Connecticut is not a maritime state in the way that Washington or Louisiana might claim to be. But it is a state that pays the price for this law at the pump, on the electric bill, and in the slow-footed rollout of clean energy infrastructure. That gives legislators here standing to demand federal action, and Rosario is making clear that standing will be used.

Federal lawmakers face a straightforward choice. They can continue defending a system that serves a narrow set of interests while burdening working families, businesses, and the clean energy transition. Or they can act. Connecticut, at the state level, has already answered that question.