Emergency Energy Waiver Doesn’t Match the Market

By George Landrith, President, Frontiers of Freedom.

America needs a strong oil and gas industry. We also need a strong American maritime industry. Those two propositions should not be in conflict. In a serious nation, energy security and maritime security reinforce each other. Refineries keep our economy moving, our farms productive, our military supplied, and our families warm. U.S.-flag vessels, U.S. shipyards, and American mariners make sure the same economy is not dependent on foreign ships and foreign crews to move essential cargo between American ports.

That is why the current Jones Act waiver deserves a harder look. It was sold as an emergency measure to protect consumers and ease supply pressure during a dangerous war-driven energy shock. But the public facts now raise an uncomfortable question: if refiners are posting extraordinary profits while consumers see little relief and American vessels ship less domestic cargo, who exactly is the waiver helping?

One refining company’s recent second-quarter results put the issue in plain view. The company reported $3.7 billion in net income for the second quarter, a more than five-fold increase from $714 million a year earlier. That is not a criticism of business success. Profitable American energy companies are a national asset. But when government waives a foundational American maritime law—the Jones Act—in the name of emergency national security relief, the benefits should flow to the country, not merely to quarterly earnings releases.

President Trump has already recognized the political and economic problem with wartime windfalls. He accused major oil companies of not lowering gasoline prices fast enough as crude prices fell and directed the Justice Department to investigate possible price gouging. That instinct is right: Americans should not be asked to accept emergency prices while companies convert national strain into excess earnings.

But the Jones Act waiver cuts against that same instinct. If consumers are not receiving the promised relief, continuing the waiver effectively rewards the very market behavior by oil companies that the Administration is questioning. It gives refiners and traders a government-created option to bypass U.S.-flag shipping, lower their private transportation costs when it suits them, and preserve margins that ordinary families never see at the pump.

There is another cost, and conservatives should take it seriously: the waiver undermines the President’s own effort to restore American shipbuilding. Investors do not build Jones Act tankers on slogans. They build them when they can trust that U.S. domestic cargo will move on U.S.-built, U.S.-crewed, U.S.-flag ships. If Washington can suspend the rules broadly whenever foreign ships are cheaper, the investment signal is clear: keep capital on the sidelines.

Maritime analyses of the 2026 waiver report foreign vessels moving domestic American cargo across a broad range of petroleum and energy commodities, with no credible evidence of pump-price relief during the initial waiver period.

That is not America First. It is not industrial policy. It is a subsidy for short-term arbitrage at the expense of long-term national capacity. The national security stakes are real. The Jones Act supports a domestic fleet, shipyard base, and mariner workforce that the country needs for its defense industrial base and sealift capacity (ships and crews).

Refiners can make money, employ Americans, invest in infrastructure, and still support the maritime system that keeps domestic energy transportation reliable. A strong oil and gas sector should not need a broad, open-ended waiver that weakens another strategic American industry.

The better course is disciplined and conservative: end the blanket waiver, reserve future waivers for genuine, documented national defense needs, verify U.S.-flag vessel availability before granting relief, and require transparency showing whether any claimed savings reach consumers. If a waiver does not lower prices, does not meet a military necessity, and discourages American shipbuilding, it has failed the test.

America can have abundant energy and a strong Merchant Marine. We can support refiners and rebuild shipyards. We can keep fuel moving and keep American mariners working. What we cannot do is pretend that a policy enriching private actors while sidelining U.S.-flag investment in American shipbuilding is a strategy for national strength.

During a crisis, profits are not the problem. Excess profitmaking made possible by government waiver is. The Administration should align its energy policy with its shipbuilding policy and end a waiver that is helping refiners make money at the expense of the U.S. Merchant Marine.