U.S. Customs and Border Protection
confirmedon August 21, 2024 its Jones Act interpretations
relating to the installation of foundations for an offshore wind
project which it issued last year. The "Jones Act" is a
popular term for several laws which reserve U.S. domestic maritime
trade to U.S.-flag vessels which must be built in the United States
and be owned and operated by qualified U.S. citizens.
On July 17, 2023, CBP issued a ruling that a foreign vessel
could load monopile foundations (MPs) in a U.S. port, transport
them to an offshore work site where nothing had been previously
attached to the seabed and install such MPs. The Jones Act applies
to "transportation" of "merchandise"
"between two points in the United States." CBP had
already determined that work sites on the U.S. outer continental
shelf beyond 3 nautical miles from the U.S. coast do not constitute
U.S. points. Therefore, CBP concluded in July that the
transportation of MPs from a U.S. port to a
