Alice Colarossi and Julia Norsetter discuss how the Jones Act poses challenges for the development of offshore wind projects in the U.S.  They explain the contents of the Jones Act, provide commentary on its implementation, and discuss solutions that have been used to overcome its restrictions. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges, and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory, and finance lawyers across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers. Julia: Good afternoon. Welcome back to Trading Straits. My name is Julia Norsetter, and I'm here with Reed Smith council, Alice Colarossi , and we're ready to talk about the Jones Act and offshore wind. Hi, Alice. How are you doing today? Alice: Hi, Julia. I'm doing very well. Thank you. How are you doing? Julia: Hey, I'm doing great. So I was thinking we could just jump right in here. So what's kind of the latest on the U.S. offshore wind market? Where do things currently stand? Alice: Yeah, well, it is a mixed bag. I think we see a lot of uncertainty, but also a lot of potential. So on the one hand, the U.S. offshore wind sector is still very far behind the European and the Asian offshore wind sectors. We're also far behind the goals that the Biden administration had set for the sector back in 2021. So the goal was to have 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in the U.S. by 2030. People refer to it as the 30 by 30 goal. But according to the latest reports that I have seen, the U.S. Should only have about 16 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030. So that's just a bit more than half of the 30 by 30 goal. I would also mention that the two leading candidates for the U.S. Presidential election have quite opposite views on the significance and the future of the U.S. offshore wind sector. And therefore, there is a lot of uncertainty in the near future, how many federal leases will be available for offshore wind projects in the next few years, and so on. So it is really a challenging environment. But on the other hand, there's a real push among players in that field to try to catch up with the rest of the world and the Biden 30 by 30 goal. So according to recent reports, we could reach that 30 goal as early as 2033. So we may not be that far behind after all. And the Biden administration has approved several major offshore wind projects very recently, perhaps in an effort to achieve as much as possible before the end of the current term. And another significant development that I think we should talk about today is the construction of the very first U.S.-flagged, Jones Act-compliant wind turbine installation vessel by Dominion Energy in Texas. That's a unique, first-of-its-kind vessel. The sea trial just took place in May. That was a major milestone in the construction project. And that Dominion vessel is expected to start installing offshore wind turbines, in Virginia just next year in 2025. Julia: Terrific. Well, thanks for setting the stage there, Alice. I really appreciate it. You mentioned the recent sea trial of the first Jones Act-compliant wind turbine installation vessel. For those of our listeners who may not be familiar with the Jones Act, could you kind of explain what it means for a vessel to be Jones Act-compliant, and in particular, what this means in the U.S. offshore wind sector? Alice: Yes, of course. So the Jones Act is what we call the Merchant Marine Act. It's a U.S. law that dates back to 1920. So the Jones Act requires that all vessels, all ships that carry any type of cargo between points in the United States must be U.S. flagged, so U.S. Registered, as well as U.S. built, U.S. owned, U.S. controlled, and mostly U.S. crewed, subject to some limited exceptions. So when I just say