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The U.S. will temporarily waive the requirements of the Jones Act for Puerto Rico. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act, requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be carried using American vessels crewed by Americans:
The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would temporarily waive a century-old shipping law for Puerto Rico that officials there said was hindering disaster relief efforts after Hurricane Maria.
The waiver of the law, known as the Jones Act, comes as federal and local officials report more supplies trickling onto the increasingly desperate island. But the Trump administration remains under pressure to step up the recovery effort.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, announced the decision on Twitter on Thursday morning, saying that President Trump had authorized it after a request from Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló of Puerto Rico.
But the real problem for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico? A lack of truck drivers:
It's one thing to get supplies to Puerto Rico. But officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which administers FEMA, say moving goods around the island is the bigger challenge. Diesel is short. Drivers are scarce. And authorities say some roads are still impassable, although local officials dispute that explanation.
These containers were brought to the island by Crowley, a maritime shipping company. The company started unloading shipments on Saturday. By Friday, it will have received four ships, with a total of about 4,000 loaded crates. Crowley says it has more than 3,000 containers there now. That's just one shipping company, at one port. Several other ports are accepting shipments and stranded crates total an estimated 10,000. "This is food, this is water, this is medicine," says Vice President Jose Ayala, who notes a barge a day has arrived since the port opened on Saturday. "It has reached Puerto Rico. The problem is we can't get it on the shelves."
"Plenty of vessels can get cargo to the island," agrees Mark Miller, Crowley's vice president of communications. "But the real difficulty is getting the goods to the people via trucks."
FEMA: Puerto Rico situation has 'improved significantly'
(Score: 2, Disagree) by JustNiz on Saturday September 30 2017, @02:25AM (12 children)
Thats apparently what slashdot is for these days. Lets please keep this a tech news site and not go down the same slippery slope?
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 30 2017, @02:39AM
I'm sorry, but it's impossible for a tech news site to not involve politics. Tech and politics are inextricably intertwined these days. Granted, this story doesn't really involve tech (it's about the stupid Jones Act which should be repealed), but "ending the political posts" would mean, for instance, not having posts about what's going on with the FCC and Net Neutrality, which is an extremely important issue in the tech industry.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by captain normal on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:15AM (6 children)
You want politics? Here's the real political slant on P.R.: If Puerto Rico where a state of the U.S. (like it should be) it would have 2 Senators and at least 17 members of the House of Representatives. Nevada's population less than 3 million, P.R. population ~3.5 million. Now how do you think that would shake down in this country?
Where P.R. a state I'll wager there would be a lot swifter and complete reaction by the U.S. government.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @05:08AM (5 children)
Puerto Rico has repeatedly voted to not be a State, and seeing as how things went down the last time a State voted to leave, I don't blame them.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Saturday September 30 2017, @05:16AM
That's not even close to the truth. In *every* vote (the first in 1967), nearly half of voters expressed a desire for Puerto Rico's statehood, except for the last vote in 2012, where 61% of voters expressed a preference for statehood. In fact, Puerto Rico has *officially* requested that they be admitted to the Union as a state [wikipedia.org]:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @05:17AM (3 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Puerto_Rico_referendum [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @07:19AM (1 child)
It seems that the outcome could have been very different if the ballot had been written differently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @06:26PM
Seeing as how their membership was only 3% of the population, I think we can ignore them.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Whoever on Saturday September 30 2017, @08:33PM
For comparison, what percentage of eligible voters actually voted for Trump? Somewhere around 26 to 27%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @06:17AM
Just treat the parent post as the juvenile satire that it is and ignore it, or use one of your 10 mod points to mod it down accordingly.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedBear on Saturday September 30 2017, @09:01PM (2 children)
I would also love to live in a world where literally every single goddamn thing in our lives hadn't become irrevocably enmeshed in politics. Unfortunately, Trump.
.
.
No, I said exactly what I meant to say.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 02 2017, @03:41AM (1 child)
If you aren't in the USA, ignore this, otherwise...
All these problems would go away if people would just love their country and support their president. At minimum he's the best since Reagan, so any complaints are a personal problem with perfectionism. We dodged a bullet in the last election. We can mostly relax now -- there is a bit of unamerican globalist trash in congress to discard in the upcoming primary, but mostly we're in an OK situation right now.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Monday October 02 2017, @05:48AM
So much delusion in so few words. But the most important to directly address is this: Those of us who are #RESISTING our Nazi-loving Toddler-in-Chief love America just as much as you think you do. We just love a version of America that is actually free and democratic and filled with opportunity for all, while you love a version of America that is a hateful, frightened, racist, fascist, xenophobic theocracy. Trump is insane and un-American, and so are you. Supporting his insanity is not our job because this isn't a fascist dictatorship, nor would it make any of his administration's problems magically disappear. You think we dodged a bullet, but actually we elected the bullet, and it's busily drilling a giant hole right through the heart of the GOP.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ