The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of natural gas, but it does not build ships capable of transporting liquefied natural gas, or LNG. That creates an absurd situation: The U.S. exports LNG on foreign carriers to more than 30 countries, but not to some part of the U.S. This is because of the Jones Act, a century old law requiring cargo shipped between U.S. ports to travel on American-built ships. “You might think, ‘Well, seems like an easy problem to solve. Go build the ship, transport the gas,’ except the math doesn’t work. If you want to build one of those ships in Asia, the cost is around $260 million; here in the United States? About $1 billion!” explains Colin Grabow, a trade expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. One of the areas affected is New England. In the winter, New England has to import more expensive natural gas from abroad, even though it’s extracted only a few states away. #lng #naturalgas #shipbuilding