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I’ve long advocated a revision of the Jones Act that leaves most of its provisions intact but removes the prohibition against foreign-flagged vessels for domestic shipping routes to Hawaii and Alaska.

Then why leave the rest?

Both Hawaii and Alaska already have seaports that serve foreign carriers operating international routes. It's ludicrous to allow a Malaysian ship to dock in Hawaii to make a port call on a route between Singapore and Hawaii, but to prohibit that ship from making the same port call on a route between Los Angeles and Hawaii.

These numbers might be a few years old, but they tell the story nonetheless ... It costs about $800 to ship a 40-foot container from Los Angeles to Shanghai, and about $8,000 to ship the same container from LA to Honolulu. The ship carrying the container to Shanghai sails past Hawaii. This seems ludicrous on its face.

The primary focus of the Jones Act should be on truly domestic shipping -- and by that I mean shipping between U.S. ports on U.S. waterways (barge shipping up on the Mississsipi River system and within U.S. harbors, for example). This type of shipping would be most applicable in terms of U.S. security interests and the protection of our domestic shipping industry.