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The American Maritime Partnership (AMP) has welcomed the decision of the United States Senate to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline legislation without an amendment to repeal the Jones Act proposed by the U.S. Senator John McCain, which AMP believes would have decimated the nation’s shipbuilding capacity.

Earlier this month Senator McCain filed an amendment to repeal the Jones Act, stating that the Congressional Research Service found that the price of moving crude from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast United States on a Jones Tanker is three times higher than if a foreign-flagged tanker is used.

The amendment was strongly opposed by a number of bipartisan Congress Representatives who sent a letter to Senate leaders warning that the amendment would have a detrimental effect to domestic shipbuilding and repair industry which is sustaining more than 400,000 jobs in all 50 U.S. states.

”The decision not to offer or vote on the amendment to repeal the Jones Act on the Keystone XL Pipeline legislation, an amendment that relied on flawed data and factual omissions, showed that it would have been overwhelmingly defeated because of the law’s rock solid support in Congress,” said Tom Allegretti, Chairman of AMP. ”This was not surprising considering it was just one month ago that Congress enacted its strongest legislative endorsement of the Jones Act in memory.”