Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam have all passed resolutions urging Congress to exempt them from the Jones Act ^[2]. That is four governments, across the Pacific and the Caribbean, saying the same thing: this law costs us. The Jones Act requires goods moved between U.S. ports to travel on U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-owned and U.S.-crewed ships ^[16]. Senator Wesley Levisey Jones introduced the law in 1920 to exclude Canadian ships from the Alaska trade and protect Seattle merchants ^[14]. The law was reinstated after World War I and expanded in 1940 to cover towing vessels, then in 1988 to cover dredge spoil and municipal solid waste ^[17][18][19]. Consider Alaska. The law requires Alaska crude oil exports to be carried on Jones Act qualified vessels ^[3]. That requirement has severely limited exports from the North Slope. Only two cargoes went out in the last ten years ^[5]. The read here is that the law has turned Alaska's oil into a captive cargo. Consider Guam. Horizon Lines ended its westbound container service to Guam in November 2011 ^[8]. After that, only Matson remained on the route ^[9]. Matson's container volume to Guam jumped 94% in the first quarter of 2012 ^[10]. The governor's economic advisors made Jones Act reform a key part of their plan, seeking an exemption to return competition to Guam's trade ^[6][7]. The read here is that one carrier leaving gave the other carrier near-monopoly power. The proposal on the table would exempt Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and Puerto Rico from the U.S.-build requirement for large self-propelled ships ^[11]. That is a modest change. It would not repeal the Jones Act. It would let those places buy ships on the global market. Had Horizon been allowed to carry cargo, it would have provided competition to both Guam and Hawaii ^[12]. A Jones Act exemption would lower the price of gas, electricity and shipment of goods to Guam ^[13]. The same logic applies to every territory and state the law traps.