This is a guest opinion column
Our country has been through a lot in recent years, navigating a global pandemic and grappling with supply chain and energy crises that have challenged all of us. Yet through it all, the men and women of the American maritime workforce have rolled up their sleeves and gotten the job done, working day and night on tugboats and towboats through all manner of weather to deliver the commodities that build our infrastructure, power our cars, homes and businesses, and sustain our quality of life. Now more than ever, our lawmakers need to do right by these Americans and ensure that our supply chain remains resilient. With the legislature’s recent passage of Senate Joint Resolution 32, our leaders in Montgomery have done so.
The Jones Act is the foundational law for the American domestic maritime industry, requiring vessels moving cargo between U.S. ports to be built, owned, and crewed by Americans. Led by State Senator Gerald Allen and State Representative Mike Jones, Jr., SJR32 rightfully puts Alabama on record as strongly supportive of the Jones Act and highlights the law’s many important economic and security contributions to our state and our nation.
Our supply chain depends on the marine transportation system – from the tugboats guiding container ships into our coastal ports to the towboats pushing barges on our rivers, and the shipyards building and repairing these vessels. Without the Jones Act, the critical responsibility of moving this cargo on our domestic waters would be outsourced to foreign vessels with foreign crews. That would make our maritime commerce captive to foreign interests, putting at risk the reliable delivery of fuels and chemicals, food and farm products, construction materials and other essentials to communities in Alabama and across the country.
The Jones Act has a sizeable economic impact, adding $2.8 billion to our great state’s economy and supporting 13,000 jobs right here in Alabama, including family-wage jobs in the tugboat, towboat and barge industry, as well as our important shipyards, that allow people to work their way up an economic ladder of success. A mariner can start as a deckhand right out of high school or military service and work their way up to captain in less than a decade, earning a six-figure salary with no college debt. All of this would be in jeopardy without the Jones Act.
On top of the Jones Act’s supply chain and economic impact, U.S. military leaders have noted the law’s critical role in our national security, highlighting it as key to ensuring a maritime defense industrial base and the availability of trained mariners to support sealift capabilities. Mariners in the Jones Act fleet also support our homeland security, serving as eyes and ears on our country’s waterways and working alongside the Coast Guard to keep our rivers, waterways and coasts safe.
I am proud to work alongside my colleagues at Parker Towing as part of the tugboat, towboat and barge industry in Alabama. Throughout my career in this industry, I have had the privilege of witnessing the skill and resilience of Alabama’s maritime workforce firsthand. When Americans need us, we are there, and the Jones Act is the foundation for the vital contributions we are proud to make every day.
From a global pandemic to war in Europe, today’s headlines underscore the importance of the U.S. maritime industry to our nation’s economic, homeland, and national security. I commend the Alabama legislature for recognizing the importance of the Jones Act to our state and to our country.
Tim Parker, Jr. serves as Chairman of the Board at Parker Towing, based in Tuscaloosa, and previously served three terms as a member of the Alabama State Legislature.
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