David Broyles’ August 15, 2006 article entitled: “Jones Act: The Price of Re-Electing Akaka” is full of falsehoods, misconceptions and fake science.
Foreign ships CAN stop in Hawai`i and unload cargo and then proceed to the mainland and unload more cargo. Foreign ships just can’t transport cargo from Hawai`i to the mainland and vice versa.
The cost of shipping a 40 foot container from China to Los Angeles is almost half the cost of a California to Hawaii container is because 6 million containers move every year from China to LA. Only 350,000 containers move between the mainland and Hawai`i on Matson and Horizon Lines. It’s not the Jones Act -it’s volume! It’s the same reason it costs more to fly from LA to Boise, Idaho than it does to fly from LA to New York.
Broyles goes on to say that Hawai`i should be, “a mid-Pacific ocean shipping hub.” Mr. Broyles needs to look at a globe instead of the map on his wall. Hawai’i is 1,500 nautical miles south of the great circle route that mega-container ships ply between Asia and North America.
As for allowing foreign ships to move our cargo from the mainland to Hawai’i – has Broyles forgotten about the firestorm of criticism created when some of our port terminals were going to be sold to Dubai World Ports? While that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, would you want to depend on a Chinese shipping company that might or might not be able to get terminal space in LA or San Francisco – a company that would be out of the reach of the U.S. government or Federal Maritime Administration if you had a problem or they decided they could make more money elsewhere?
Matson and Horizon are committed Hawai’i players who are here for Hawai`i residents. They aren’t the cheapest but their stockholders ARE entitled to a fair profit in return for the dependable service they guarantee us in return for no longer having to warehouse a month’s supply of food and staples.
You get what you pay for.
”’Creighton Goldsmith lives in Nuuanu. Reach him via email at”’ mailto:cwgoldsmith@usa.net