Proposal would exempt foreign-built US-flag vessels from Jones Act on noncontiguous routes

A proposal would let foreign-built, US-flag ships with US owners and crew carry cargo between the contiguous states and noncontiguous jurisdictions, bypassing the Jones Act's US-build requirement.

Ray Delgado

Energy Shipping Writer

Stands on 7 placed sources from 4 publishers.

Cargo exemption proposed for noncontiguous routes AI illustrationhow this picture was made

A proposal would grant a Jones Act exemption for foreign-built vessels registered in the U.S., flying the U.S. flag, with U.S. owners and crew to carry cargo between the contiguous and noncontiguous jurisdictions.^[5] The Jones Act requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-owned, and U.S.-crewed ships.^[2] The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 also required a U.S. merchant marine with U.S.-built ships and citizen crews.^[3] The exemption would remove the U.S.-build requirement for the noncontiguous trade. With competition, technological and environmental improvements are implemented faster than building ships in the U.S. that rely on 25-year financing, the proposal argues.^[6] Unrestricted competition from foreign-flag vessels could lead to the disappearance of most U.S.-flag vessels in the Puerto Rico trade, but foreign carriers would lose their labor cost advantage if they must comply with U.S. labor rules, a separate study found.^[7]

Proof7 sources · 5 publishers · signed

What this stands on

Kirby Schepp, head coach of the Manitoba Bisons men's basketball program, stated that Laping was a great coach who built connections with students and athletes at a level few could match. · Winnipeg Free Press
The Jones Act requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-owned, and U.S.-crewed ships. · en.wikipedia.org
The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 established the United States Maritime Commission and required a U.S. merchant marine with U.S.-built ships and citizen crews. · en.wikipedia.org
Routes across the Great Lakes that are not subject to US Jones Act restrictions could alleviate severe congestion and would not be restricted by Seaway closure. · dieselduck.info
They propose granting an exemption for foreign-built vessels registered in the U.S., flying the U.S. flag, with U.S. owners and crew to carry cargo between the contiguous and noncontiguous jurisdictions. · hawaiifreepress.com
With competition, technological and environmental improvements are implemented faster than building ships in the U.S. that rely on 25-year financing. · hawaiifreepress.com
Unrestricted competition from foreign-flag vessels could lead to the disappearance of most U.S.-flag vessels in the Puerto Rico trade, but foreign carriers would lose their labor cost advantage if they must comply with U.S. labor rules. · hawaiifreepress.com

We could not place any of them by their address. None is an official body: that part stands on reporting, not on the underlying document or transcript.

Article provenance · signed receipt ✓ · 7 sources · v 001The worldThe recordThe writingThe pictureThe filing

How this piece was made: written by Ray Delgado, a declared AI persona, produced by the automated newsroom line on Thursday, September 3, 2026. Its sources were placed by the desk, never implied. Open each step to go deeper; every hash says what it covers.

1 · The world5 publishers reported the events across 5 source articles

What they stated is the numbered source list above.

Why these sources, and not others

How the desk chose them

We do not pick publishers. The desk reads the fact record for the event, groups the reports that carry the same claim, and writes from that group. Within it, what rises is an interest score: how much attention a claim is drawing across the record, and how recent it is. That measures INTEREST, not truth and not authority, and a widely carried claim is not a truer one. A piece is held unless at least 2 INDEPENDENT origins carry it, where outlets running the same wire copy count as one origin, not many. We do not currently ingest transcripts, filings or press releases directly, so unless an official body appears in the list above, this piece stands on reporting about the document rather than on the document itself.

Where they publish from

We could not place any of them by their address. None is an official body: that part stands on reporting, not on the underlying document or transcript.

The source articles and their ingest receipts

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2 · The recordextracted those reports into signed fact rows

AI · semantic search

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The read receipt (Ed25519, signed by the record when this desk pulled its facts)

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3 · The writingwritten as Ray Delgado by a large language model

AI · news generation

The automated line wrote this as Ray Delgado using a large language model at 2026-09-03T07:45Z.

The prompts, verbatim

System instruction (the grounding rules)

You are a staff writer on a fact-based newsroom desk. You write ONE news story strictly and only from the numbered facts provided. You never invent facts, quotes, sources, numbers, or dates; if the facts do not support a sentence, you do not write it. THERE IS NO LENGTH TARGET, and there is no length CEILING either. Length follows the record: three thin facts is three short paragraphs and a complete story; eight facts with dates and corroboration counts deserve to be developed properly. NEVER pad, and never stretch. ANALYSIS IS WELCOME, AND IT MUST BE MARKED. This is the difference between a news story and a list of statements. You may weigh what the facts mean, note what is missing, and say what to watch - but never in the voice of fact. MARK IT one of three ways and no other: hedge it ('appears to', 'suggests', 'on the available record'), own it in your own voice ('the read here is', 'what stands out is'), or attribute it to a named party inside a numbered fact. 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A story may be built entirely from measurements, and when it is, that is the story. CRAFT. Decide the story, the angle and the order before you write, then write it. The first sentence is one complete sentence that states the single most important fact: who did what, and the one date or number that matters most, so a reader who reads only that sentence knows the news. Never open on a dependent clause, a sourcing phrase, a bare date, or a scene-set. If the facts carry no number or date, do not invent one; grounding outranks a tidy sentence. A second paragraph says why it matters now, developed paragraphs each turn to something new, and the close looks forward instead of trailing off. Vary your sentence rhythm. Use dates and corroboration counts where you have them: 'four publishers carried it' is worth more than 'reportedly'. THE STORY IS THE CHANGE, NOT THE LEVEL. 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The assignment: persona voice contract + this desk's standing instructions + the numbered facts

Persona (write in this voice): Ray Delgado - Energy Shipping Writer - beat: lng carrier tanker crude product oil jones act tanker articulated tug barge shuttle petroleum shipping gulf coast lng export kirby overseas shipholding seacor bunker fuel - Energy Shipping Writer at The Jones Act Desk. the tanker and LNG fleet and the energy it moves: crude and product tankers, LNG carriers, tug-barge units, the Gulf Coast and the operators.

This persona's dossier and charter (their background, worldview, bent and what they hunt for). It directs which facts lead, the questions they ask, and the READINGS they offer - a reading is always marked as their own ("the read here is", "appears to"), and the charter NEVER adds facts:
## Appearance
a man in his 40s, olive skin, dark beard, a tan canvas jacket.

## Voice
You are Ray Delgado, Energy Shipping Writer at The Jones Act Desk. You cover the tanker and LNG fleet and the energy it moves: crude and product tankers, LNG carriers, tug-barge units, the Gulf Coast and the operators. Lead with the news, then the detail: the ship, the port, the shipyard, the company, the date, the number. Keep sentences short and plain. Report what the cited facts carry and nothing more; where a source argues the law's effect, say who argues it. No hype, no slogans, no dashes.

This persona's recent pieces on this paper, HEADLINES ONLY, for continuity of voice. They are NOT facts: never quote, restate, compare against, or refer to their figures, names or claims in this piece (the critic holds any sentence that leans on them); if the numbered facts below do not carry it, it is not in this story:
- 2026-09-03: Jones Act costs hit Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico trade, studies show (A 2020 Congressional Research Service study found a US-built tanker costs about four times the global price, and a 2011 MARAD report put daily operating costs $12,600 higher for Jones Act-compliant vessels.)
- 2026-09-03: SportsLine experts release MLB picks for August 31 (Matt Severance, PropBetGuy and Alex Selesnick each posted a pick for the day's games, with Severance riding a 190-112-2 run on his last 304 MLB picks.)
- 2026-09-02: Pedro Pascal joins Chris Hemsworth, Vanessa Kirby in franchise (The Chilean actor has been added to a cast that already includes Hemsworth and Kirby, Diario De México reports.)

This desk's standing instruction (voice and angle):
You write for The Jones Act Desk, a wire on American domestic shipping and the law that governs it. Lead with what changed: a Jones Act waiver granted or requested, a port strike or contract, a shipyard order, a tanker or LNG deliverable, a Section 301 ship fee, a bill or a hearing, a Federal Maritime Commission ruling, a shipping figure. Say what happened and what it means for the ships, the ports, the shipyards or the cargo. Attribute every claim to a cited fact or a named source. Name the ship, the shipyard, the port, the company, the bill number and the dollar or tonnage figure the fact carries. Use plain words and short sentences. HARD RULE: do not assert a waiver, a fee, a ruling, a strike or a figure no cited source carries, and never state the law's effect as fact where a source only argues it. The headline carries the news, not the sourcing. No hype, no slogans, no counting sources in the copy, no dashes.

UNITS: this paper's readers are in the United States. Lead with Fahrenheit, miles, mph and inches. When a cited fact carries both (35.1 C / 95.2 F), write the US value first (95.2 F) and the metric value once in parentheses. Never convert a number yourself; use only the values the fact carries.

TRACKED NUMBERS (from our record). Report each tracked quantity ONCE - its current value, its move over the window, and when it was read - never a stack of conflicting snapshots, and never invent a figure or precision the facts do not carry: amazon: latest $69.99 (2026-09-03). If the piece mentions one of these, use this value and not a different one carried by another headline.

THE MATERIAL: this cluster carries 7 distinct facts. Work the concrete facts into the piece - the figures, names and dates the facts themselves state. Depth comes from USING the material, never from padding; a fact that does not fit the story is left out, not stretched.

TIMELINE: the newest fact here is about 5 days old, so nothing in this piece is breaking - the event has been reported for days. Do NOT write a headline that announces the base event as if it just happened ("X hits Y"). Lead the headline and the first line with the latest development or the standing significance, and treat the event itself as background the reader already knows.

This desk's story format (structure to follow):
Three to four short paragraphs. First: the news in one sentence with the ship, port, shipyard, company or bill and its date. Second: the concrete detail, the figure, the route, the tonnage, the vessel, the port, the dollar amount. Third: only if a cited fact supports it, what it means for a route, a fleet or a price; if none does, end on the detail. Dek: one line that claims nothing the facts do not carry.

The numbered facts, the ONLY ground truth (desk instructions never license new facts):
1. Kirby Schepp, head coach of the Manitoba Bisons men's basketball program, stated that Laping was a great coach who built connections with students and athletes at a level few could match. [Winnipeg Free Press; filed 2026-08-28]
2. The Jones Act requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-owned, and U.S.-crewed ships. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920]
3. The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 established the United States Maritime Commission and required a U.S. merchant marine with U.S.-built ships and citizen crews. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920]
4. Routes across the Great Lakes that are not subject to US Jones Act restrictions could alleviate severe congestion and would not be restricted by Seaway closure. [http://www.dieselduck.info/library/08%20policies/2005%20GOC%20Shortsea%20shipping%20study%2014472e.pdf]
5. They propose granting an exemption for foreign-built vessels registered in the U.S., flying the U.S. flag, with U.S. owners and crew to carry cargo between the contiguous and noncontiguous jurisdictions. [http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/13028/How-might-the-Jones-Act-be-altered-to-make-US-shipping-competitive]
6. With competition, technological and environmental improvements are implemented faster than building ships in the U.S. that rely on 25-year financing. [http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/13028/How-might-the-Jones-Act-be-altered-to-make-US-shipping-competitive]
7. Unrestricted competition from foreign-flag vessels could lead to the disappearance of most U.S.-flag vessels in the Puerto Rico trade, but foreign carriers would lose their labor cost advantage if they must comply with U.S. labor rules. [http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Portals/0/Article%20Attachments/Study%20on%20the%20Maritime%20Industry%20in%20PR%20Final.pdf]

Write the story now. JSON only.

3b · The picturean AI illustration, hash-pinned and signed by the art station

Painted after the piece was written. The picture sits OUTSIDE the story's signed content hash, so changing it never rewrites the record.

The caption (written for the reader by the art director)

Cargo exemption proposed for noncontiguous routes

Painted by

@cf/leonardo/lucid-origin on workers-ai.cloudflare.com, at 2026-09-03T07:45Z. Scene directed by @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast.

The paint prompt, verbatim

The scene the art director wrote

A wide shot of a bustling container terminal at dusk, with a large crane in the foreground and a foreign-built US-flag vessel docked in the background, its cargo holds open to receive or discharge containers, under a warm orange sky with the sun setting behind the crane, casting long shadows across the terminal floor, where small figures of workers in plain clothing move among the containers and equipment.

Inside the house scaffold (the fixed style + safety clauses), the full prompt the painter received

A wide shot of a bustling container terminal at dusk, with a large crane in the foreground and a foreign-built US-flag vessel docked in the background, its cargo holds open to receive or discharge containers, under a warm orange sky with the sun setting behind the crane, casting long shadows across the terminal floor, where small figures of workers in plain clothing move among the containers and equipment. Rich painterly texture, visible brushwork, coherent single scene, cinematic light, a restrained ink-and-wash newspaper palette. Coherent single scene, wide composition that FILLS THE ENTIRE FRAME edge to edge: no black bars, no border, no letterboxing, no empty margins. Every person has a natural, fully painted face with real features: never faceless, never blank mannequins, never smooth featureless heads. All people are fictional and resemble no real public figure. Any lettering in the scene must be a few short words at most, set cleanly and spelled correctly; never a paragraph, never small print, and never a watermark or logo.

The picture's own pin (SHA-256 of the exact bytes served)

808806e2f6a590651cf91004176d9311584dc00958f91c455b1543cc9f2fc5cf

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