Title 46 (drugs)
TITLE 46
TITLE 46—SHIPPING
How Current is This? •Subtitle I—General (§§ 101—505)
•Subtitle II—Vessels and Seamen (§§ 2101—14702)
•Subtitle III—Maritime Liability (§§ 30101—31343)
•Subtitle IV—Regulation of Ocean Shipping (§§ 40101—44106)
•Subtitle V—Merchant Marine (§§ 50101—58109)
•Subtitle VI—Clearance, Tonnage Taxes, and Duties (§§ 60101—60507)
•Subtitle VII—Security and Drug Enforcement (§§ 70101—70508)
•Subtitle VIII—Miscellaneous (§§ 80101—80509)
More on Title 46
Subtitle VI—Clearance, Tonnage Taxes, and Duties
How Current is This? •CHAPTER 601—ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE REQUIREMENTS (§§ 60101—60109)
•CHAPTER 603—TONNAGE TAXES AND LIGHT MONEY (§§ 60301—60312)
•CHAPTER 605—DISCRIMINATING DUTIES AND RECIPROCAL PRIVILEGES (§§ 60501—60507)
Predator Drones now hund for illegal immigrants crossing US border
The US Homeland Security is now using the sophisticated military Predator drones to locate and track illegals crossing the US border along the Mexican border. These drones are the same ones used in Afghanistan with one difference, they are not armed with deadly missiles.
The drones fly out of their Antelope Valley airbase operated by a military contractor, General Atomics. While this is new for the California-Mexican border, military drones have been flying along the Arizona border since 2005 and used along the Canadian border. Also different is that the B-type drones carry a special radar, cameras and sensors to detect humans at a cost of $13.5 million each and can fly up to 20 hrs without returning to base at a speed of 275 mph and so quiet that people on the ground cannot detect their presence (they fly at an altitude of 50,000 ft.). Known in the military as the "Predator", this version does not carry the deadly Hellfire missiles.
But the drones are not perfect. They can only fly in clear weather so controllers can visually see it, and for $13.5 million, a lot more less expensive items could be had to put in place along the border.
Does the Jones Act apply to dock workers
EXCERPT:
The Jones Act, formally known as the Merchant Marine Act (1920), is an American federal law governing shipping in American territorial waters and in American ports. It regulates a wide variety of affairs relating to maritime shipping, one of which - and the most important, for the present purposes - is the rights of seamen. However, the Jones Act does include a variety of other rights and limitations which only become the subject of public controversy. The limit on foreign vessel aid during the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, for instance, also
PLEASE READ IN ENTIRETY ......cal
Merchant Marine Act of 1920 wikipedia
EXCERPT:
In June 2010, Sen. John McCain said that this law restricts shipping and raises costs to consumers in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Guam.[5] His proposed legislation to fully repeal the Jones Act of 1920,[6] co-sponsored by Senator Jim Risch, was introduced to Congress as the Open America's Water Act on June 25, 2010, with the following statement:
"Today I am pleased to introduce legislation that would fully repeal the Jones Act, a 1920s law that hinders free trade and favors labor unions over consumers. Specifically, the Jones Act requires that all goods shipped between waterborne ports of the United States be carried by vessels built in the United States and owned and operated by Americans. This restriction only serves to raise shipping costs, thereby making U.S. farmers less competitive and increasing costs for American consumers". [7][8]
Border fence plagued by glitch
EXCERPT:
JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX, Arizona -- An ambitious, $6.7 billion government project to secure nearly the entire Mexican border with a "virtual fence" of cameras, ground sensors and radar is in jeopardy after a string of technical glitches and delays.
Having spent $672 million so far with little to show for it, Washington has ordered a reassessment of the whole idea. The outlook became gloomier this week when President Barack Obama proposed cutting $189 million from the venture.
Project 28 wikipedia
EXCERPT:
Project 28 is the name given to a U.S. border protection program that runs along a 28-mile (45 km) stretch of the US/Mexican border in southern Arizona.[1]. The project, the first phase of a much larger program called the "Secure Border Initiative network" (SBInet), was scheduled to be completed in mid-2007, but did not become operational until late 2007. It involves the placement of 9 high-tech surveillance towers that monitor activity using radar, high-resolution cameras, and wireless networking, looking for incursions to report to the Border Patrol.
In February 2008, authorities said that the project did not work as planned nor did it meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol. As a result, the deployment of about 100 miles (160 km) of virtual fence near Tucson, Yuma, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas is now projected to be completed by the end of 2011, rather than 2008.[2]
28-Mile Virtual Fence Is Rising Along the Border
EXCERPT:
Published: June 26, 2007
SASABE, Ariz., June 21 — If the effort to catch people illegally crossing the border here in the southern Arizona desert is a cat-and-mouse struggle, the Homeland Security Department says it has a smarter cat.
David Sanders for The New York Times
The Homeland Security Department is building nine towers with radar and cameras to scan 28 miles of border.
Project 28, nine nearly 100-foot-tall towers, is arrayed across 28 miles of Arizona desert with radar and high-definition cameras.
David Sanders for The New York Times
Roger Beal of Arivaca, Ariz., said, “We are just not used to being observed.”
It comes in the form of nine nearly 100-foot-tall towers with radar, high-definition cameras and other equipment rising from the mesquite and lava fields around this tiny town.
Maritime statutes
EXCERPT:
New Maritime Statutes
46USC 101 et. Seq. (New Jones Act)
Entire New Jones Act 46USC 101 et. Seq.
Table of Contents
"CHAPTER 603--TONNAGE TAXES AND LIGHT MONEY
''Sec.
"60301. Regular tonnage taxes.
"60302. Special tonnage taxes.
"60303. Light money.
"60304. Presidential suspension of tonnage taxes and light money.
"60305. Vessels in distress.
"60306. Vessels not engaged in trade.
"60307. Vessels engaged in coastwise trade or the fisheries.
"60308. Vessels engaged in Great Lakes trade.
"60309. Passenger vessels making trips between ports of the United States and
foreign ports.
"60310. Vessels making daily trips on interior waters.
"60311. Hospital vessels in time of war.
"60312. Rights under treaties preserved.
"§ 60301. Regular tonnage taxes
"(a) LOWER RATE.--A tax is imposed at the rate of 2 cents per ton (but not more than a total of 10 cents per ton per year) at each entry in a port of the United States of--
"(1) a vessel entering from a foreign port or place in North America, Central America, the West Indies Islands, the Bahama Islands, the Bermuda Islands, or the coast of South America bordering the Caribbean Sea; or
"(2) a vessel returning to the same port or place in the United States from which it departed, and not entering the United States from another port or place, except-- ..................
MMS deepwater lease sales to BP others continues lax oversight
EXCERPT:
Catherine Wannamaker, Senior Attorney, 404-521-9900
Derb Carter, Director, NC/SC Office in Chapel Hill, 919-967-1450
Kathleen Sullivan, Communications Manager, 919-967-1450 (email)
Representing:
Defenders of Wildlife - Mike Senatore, 202-772-3221
Defenders of Wildlife - Caitlin Leutwiler, 202-772-3226
ATLANTA –
The Minerals Management Service (MMS) continues to approve new leases after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that give British Petroleum and other companies the right to drill even more deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico under the same inadequate oversight that led to the current oil spill, according to a new legal challenge filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Defenders of Wildlife. The groups say current policies create an incentive to allow drilling even in the face of evident risks because once a lease is issued by MMS, the U.S. government is obligated to pay the lessee either the fair market value of the lease or the amount spent to obtain the bid plus costs and interest if the government cancels the lease or refuses to allow drilling. MMS approved new leases for deepwater tracts as recently as June 10 under the same lax oversight complicit in the current Gulf spill.
“MMS quietly granted oil companies the right to drill 198 more deepwater wells as if the spill wasn’t devastating the Gulf,” said Derb Carter, senior attorney and director, Carolinas Office, Southern Environmental Law Center. “If it’s too deep to stop a spill, it’s too deep to drill. BP is under criminal investigation for its explosion and dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, yet MMS approved 13 new leases for BP to drill in deepwater without any better oversight.”
The groups’ lawsuit challenges MMS approval of leases, including 198 deepwater leases, in the Central Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20 and ongoing spill. In a legal claim added on June 10 to an ongoing lawsuit in federal court, the groups allege that MMS failed its legal responsibility after the explosion and spill to reconsider its 2008 conclusions that the sale of the deepwater leases and future oil drilling would have no potential significant impact to the environment and no detailed environmental review was required.
“Clueless and inept is really the only way to describe the ongoing situation at MMS,” said Mike Senatore, vice president for Conservation Law at Defenders of Wildlife. “This agency is at the epicenter of the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history and yet it’s still going about business as usual. How else do you explain MMS’s approval of the right to drill hundreds of new wells in the Gulf, including 13 for BP, based on the same fundamentally flawed and patently illegal environmental documents used to green-light the Deepwater Horizon operation?”
Despite President Obama’s moratorium on new deepwater wells, MMS approved the leases as it did the Deepwater Horizon rig—under the same inadequate environmental review, requiring no failsafe spill preventions, and with insufficient spill response plans—all of which led to the ongoing Gulf oil spill. Now news reports say the President is considering cutting short his moratorium on new deepwater wells due to increasing pressure from oil companies.
Waiver of Compliance with Navigation and Inspection Laws (Katrina) pdf
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528
Homeland
Security
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Office of the Secretary
Waiver of Compliance with Navigation and Inspection Laws
Hurricane Katrina is one of the largest natural disasters to ever strike the United States. It has significantly disrupted production of oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico, has caused many Gulf Coast oil refineries to go out of service because of flooding, lack of electric power or other reasons, and has significantly disrupted the pipeline transportation of oil and refined products from the Gulf Coast States. These production losses, outages and disruptions have already caused large runups in the price of oil, gasoline and other refined products. The Department of Homeland Security is also now receiving reports of threatened or actual shortages of gasoline, jet fuel, and other refined products, and of the rationing of these fuels, both in the Southeast U.S. and in other locations throughout
the country.
Numerous companies that produce and/or ship petroleum and/or refined petroleum
products have submitted to the Department requests for waivers of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the "Jones Act"). 46 U.S.C. App. section 1. This and related laws are generally referred to as the "coastwise laws." These laws provide, among other things, that only vessels built and owned by citizens of the United States and flagged in the United States can carry merchandise between U.S. ports.
The Secretary of Homeland Security is vested with the authority and discretion to waive the coastwise laws "to such extent and in such manner and upon such terms as he may prescribe, either upon his own initiative or upon the written recommendation of the head of any other Government agency, whenever he deems that such action is necessary in the interest of national defense." In consultation with and upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Energy, I have determined that such a waiver, in accordance with the terms set forth below, is in the interest of the national defense.
The catastrophic destruction brought about by Hurricane Katrina has dramatically
impeded, and in some places in the affected region stopped altogether, production and transportation or transmission of oil, refined petroleum products, natural gas, and electricity. Much of the lost oil production is from producing areas in the Gulf of Mexico which have been leased pursuant to programs of the Department of the Interior. This lost production, refining and transportation capacity has resulted in the threatened rationing and unavailability of gasoline, jet fuel and other refined products, and threatens the www.dhs.gov
Nation's economic and national security. I believe that waiver of the coastwise laws
would facilitate the transportation of oil and refined petroleum products in and
from portions of the United States devastated by the Hurricane, and to other regions
affected by the disruptions that have occurred in the Gulf Coast area.
Therefore, I am exercising my discretion and authority to waive the coastwise
laws generally for the transportation of petroleum and refined petroleum products for the period until 12:01 a.m., September 19, 2005. In addition, I am exercising my discretion and authority to waive the coastwise laws generally for the transportation of petroleum released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, whether pursuant to an exchange, sale or otherwise, undertaken in response to the circumstances arising from Hurricane Katrina. I find, for the reasons set forth above, that such waivers are necessary in the interest of national defense.
Michael Chertoff September 1, 2005
