As a proud Puerto Rican, I was gratified by the Connecticut House of Representative’s recent unanimous and bipartisan vote to advance a resolution out of committee that calls for amending the Jones Act.

For over a century, this American law has harmed the United States and Puerto Rico by inflating the cost of water transportation. I hope that the General Assembly will adopt this resolution and, in so doing, encourage the long-overdue reform of a law that has exacerbated the economic struggles of my island.

Passed in 1920, the Jones Act—or ley de Cabotaje as it is often referred to in Puerto Rico—limits domestic water transportation to vessels built and registered in the United States. These restrictions dramatically increase the cost of shipping. Cargo ships that fly the U.S. flag are more than four times more expensive to operate than internationally flagged ships and four to five times costlier to build.

In Puerto Rico, just two companies control 85 percent of the container capacity for transporting goods to and from the U.S. mainland. Competition is so limited that in 2008 executives from three Jones Act shipping companies pled guilty to price fixing. Such an anti-competitive arrangement was only possible because of the Jones Act.

Costly ships and restricted competition mean that Puerto Ricans must pay a premium when purchasing goods from the states. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York report found that shipping goods from the East Coast to Puerto Rico—where the Jones Act applies— cost approximately twice as much as sending those same goods to neighboring Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, where the Jones Act does not apply.

Incredibly, if Puerto Rico was sovereign and free of the Jones Act, it would actually be easier for us to purchase American products.

Instead, we are subjected to this costly law, which a 2024 academic study found imposes a $1.4 billion annual welfare burden on Puerto Rico. This is no small hardship for an island that already suffers from a 40 percent poverty rate. How can subjecting us to the Jones Act be considered a wise policy?

Aside from the obvious climate, health and economic costs of having over 95% of electric generation in Puerto Rico come from fossils, the Jones Act almost forces Puerto Rico to switch to renewables. In fact, the island’s law requires reaching 100% renewable energy by 2050. Building a resilient network of microgrids based on renewables is a necessity for Puerto Rico, not a luxury.

In the meantime, purchasing fuel to temporarily patch up our unreliable electric grid is so much more expensive than it needs to be thanks to this obsolete and protectionist law. What most folks that follow this issue don’t realize, is that the Jones Act is bad for the United States as well.

Take Connecticut for example. While the United States is the world’s leading exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) and even has export terminals along the East Coast, New England instead imports LNG used for electricity generation at higher cost from overseas. The reason? There are no Jones Act-compliant LNG tankers to transport it domestically.

The law also makes life difficult for the state in other ways. Expensive shipping means increased trucking and rail demand, contributing to traffic on Connecticut highways. The Jones Act has made water transport so costly that, despite thousands of miles of coastline, vast rivers, the Great Lakes, and places such as Puerto Rico that can only be accessed by sea or water, it accounts for less than nine percent of domestic freight movement.

Clearly, change is needed.

The Jones Act is costly, unfair, and isn’t working. After over 100 years, reform of this law is long overdue for both the Puerto Rican and American peoples. I thank Connecticut legislators for their leadership in this effort.

Federico A. de Jesús is Principal of FDJ Solutions, and was the Communications Director for Hispanic Media for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama. De Jesús is also the former Deputy Director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration.