60 Minutes Blamed the Jones Act for America's Gas Problem. It Missed the Bigger Story.
There is a genuine American industrial crisis here. There is also a genuine problem with the Jones Act, a century-old shipping law that prevents ordinary foreign-built vessels from transporting cargo between American ports.
But 60 Minutes makes a mistake that weakens its investigation: it turns one real obstacle into an explanation for an entire regional energy crisis. It tells viewers that New England cannot get natural gas because of the Jones Act, uses a Russian LNG shipment to Puerto Rico as its dramatic proof, and presents Korean shipbuilding investment as the route to an American solution.
The evidence is considerably more complicated. Some of the most important developments had already happened before the programme aired.
New England's gas problem is not simply a shipping problem
The exchange that deserves the closest scrutiny comes when Lesley Stahl asks Colin Grabow of the Cato Institute:
"Are there parts of this country that cannot get natural gas because of this law?"
Grabow answers: "That's right. New England."
That answer is misleadingly broad.
The Jones Act restricts domestic waterborne transportation. It requires qualifying vessels to be American-built, American-owned and appropriately crewed and registered. It does not prevent natural gas from travelling through interstate pipelines or being transported by truck.
New England receives natural gas through five major interstate pipeline systems. The problem is that their capacity becomes insufficient during severe winter weather, when household heating demand and electricity generation compete for the same supply.
A 2022 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission assessment identifies the actual mechanism. During most of the year, the pipelines have spare capacity. During severe cold, that capacity becomes constrained, forcing electricity generators without firm transportation contracts to compete for the remaining supply at higher prices.
The region also lacks indigenous natural gas production and substantial underground storage.
The FERC winter energy assessment explicitly identifies pipeline limitations, storage constraints and competition between heating customers and power generators as central problems.
This matters because the Jones Act does not create those pipeline shortages. It prevents one possible alternative from being used efficiently: transporting domestically produced LNG between American ports.
That is an important distinction, and the programme never properly establishes it.
There is also an important qualification in the other direction. A November 2025 Connecticut General Assembly research report confirms that the Jones Act does obstruct direct shipments of American LNG to New England. It cites an EIA estimate that imported LNG can contribute as much as 35% of the region's natural gas supply on peak-demand days.
That is substantial. But 35% is the potential contribution from imported LNG, not the percentage of New England's gas shortage caused by the Jones Act. Nor does it establish how much domestic LNG could actually replace those imports or how much consumers would save.
The distinction is precisely what an investigative report should have quantified.
The pipeline alternative has its own political and financial obstacles
The Connecticut report provides a particularly revealing piece of context that 60 Minutes leaves out.
Increasing pipeline capacity requires federal and state approvals, land access, environmental permits, financing and customers willing to commit to long-term contracts.
Consider the proposed Constitution Pipeline.
The 135-mile project would transport natural gas from Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale into New York and connect with existing pipeline systems serving the Northeast.
FERC issued a certificate for the project in 2014. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation subsequently refused the required water-quality permit, and the project was shelved.
Williams Companies announced plans to revive it, with projected service around April 2028 if approvals are secured.
There is another economic complication. Connecticut's electricity generators account for approximately 56% of the state's natural gas consumption, yet many do not sign the long-term firm pipeline contracts that infrastructure developers need to finance expansion.
Investors are also concerned about future demand as states pursue electrification and renewable energy.
These are not minor details. They help explain why abundant natural gas in Pennsylvania does not automatically translate into cheap, available gas in Boston.
The Connecticut General Assembly's November 2025 investigation documents these obstacles alongside the Jones Act restriction.
I find the omission consequential. The programme presents a shipping law as the central explanation without examining the regulatory, political and commercial failures that prevent additional domestic gas from reaching the region.
A tanker cannot substitute for an entire missing pipeline network. It can provide another supply route, but that route still requires terminals, contracts, suitable vessels and competitive LNG prices.
The report never establishes the relative contribution of these different constraints.
The Russian LNG example was real, but the story had moved on
The programme's most memorable energy anecdote concerns Puerto Rico.
Grabow tells viewers that Puerto Rico imported Russian natural gas in February 2022, the same month Russia invaded Ukraine.
The shipment is real. But there are two important qualifications.
First, the cargo's LNG originated in Russia but was loaded in Spain. It was not simply a Russian ship sailing directly to Puerto Rico.
Second, the person presenting this example had already published the same argument.
Grabow co-authored a May 2023 Cato Institute article titled The Jones Act's Role in Encouraging Puerto Rico's Use of Russian Energy.
The programme identifies him as a trade expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, so his institutional affiliation is disclosed. What it does not tell viewers is that he had already developed and published this precise argument using the same Russian LNG example.
That does not make his argument false. It does mean the programme is relying on an established policy advocate rather than presenting an independently corroborated investigation of the particular purchasing decision.
More importantly, the Puerto Rico shipping situation changed before 60 Minutes aired.
On March 18, 2025, Crowley began operating the American Energy, a vessel transporting American-produced LNG from the Gulf Coast to Puerto Rico under a multiyear agreement with Spanish energy company Naturgy.
The vessel carries 130,400 cubic metres of LNG.
There is an important technical detail: the ship was constructed in France approximately 31 years earlier and reflagged under a specific exemption in the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 1996. It is not an American-built LNG tanker.
Nevertheless, it provides a working route for American-produced LNG to reach Puerto Rico.
S&P Global reported that this was the first American LNG carrier to provide such service from the mainland to Puerto Rico. Crowley's announcement confirmed that regular deliveries had begun.
The exemption is specific to Puerto Rico. It does not solve New England's inability to receive domestic LNG directly by sea.
But it matters enormously to the programme's broader claim that American LNG cannot be transported to other American destinations.
By March 2026, Puerto Rico had already been receiving American LNG through this arrangement for a year.
The 2022 Russian shipment remains a valid historical example. It is not evidence that Puerto Rico remained unable to obtain American LNG when the programme aired.
The programme should have investigated that development, explained the exemption and established why one successful arrangement had not been replicated elsewhere.
Instead, it presented an old shipment as the dramatic conclusion to a current energy-policy argument.
Philadelphia's first LNG carrier order has a Korean asterisk
There is another important omission concerning Hanwha's proposed revival of American shipbuilding.
In July 2025, Hanwha Shipping ordered an LNG carrier from Hanwha Philly Shipyard for approximately $251.2 million. It also secured an option for a second vessel.
This was a significant development, announced eight months before the 60 Minutes broadcast.
But the actual construction arrangement deserves attention.
According to Hanwha's own announcement, a significant portion of the construction would take place at its Geoje shipyard in South Korea. Hanwha Philly Shipyard would handle American regulatory compliance and safety certification as part of a joint-build arrangement.
Yonhap News Agency reported that most of the vessel's construction would take place in Korea because the Philadelphia facility did not yet possess the necessary workforce and supply-chain infrastructure.
This is not necessarily a bad arrangement. Technology transfer and joint production could eventually give Philadelphia the capability to construct these specialised vessels independently.
But that is not the same as already having an American LNG shipbuilding industry.
The distinction matters because the programme presents Hanwha's plans as evidence that Philadelphia could become a domestic LNG carrier manufacturing centre.
The first actual order demonstrates how dependent that ambition remains on Korean industrial capacity.
It also puts the programme's dramatic cost comparison into perspective. Grabow says an LNG carrier costs approximately $260 million to build in Asia and $1 billion in America. The broadcast provides no comparable ship specifications or detailed cost breakdown.
The $251.2 million Hanwha order cannot establish the cost of a fully American-built vessel when most construction is being undertaken in Korea.
The programme should have examined the contract before presenting its broader manufacturing ambitions.
Even the final policy update is incomplete
CBS identifies the report as updated on June 7, 2026.
Yet its closing statement describes Trump's Jones Act suspension as lasting 60 days.
The Congressional Research Service's May 4, 2026 report records that the original March 17 waiver had already been extended for another 90 days, through August 16.
The waiver concerned specified products and does not resolve the underlying LNG shipbuilding problem. But the distinction matters when a broadcaster presents an updated account of a rapidly changing shipping-policy dispute.
The Congressional Research Service's May 2026 assessment had already documented the extension.
Verdict: A real crisis deserves better than a convenient villain
I do not dispute the American shipbuilding crisis. The industrial weakness, dependence on foreign expertise, shortage of skilled workers and absence of domestically built LNG carriers are serious matters.
Nor do I dispute that the Jones Act restricts an important potential route for domestic energy transportation.
What I object to is the way 60 Minutes turns that restriction into a simplified explanation for a much larger problem.
New England's energy difficulties involve pipeline capacity, storage, permitting, financing, customer contracts and international LNG markets. The Jones Act adds another constraint, but the programme never establishes how much of the problem it actually causes.
Puerto Rico's Russian LNG shipment was historical evidence, not proof of an ongoing inability to obtain American gas. By the time the programme aired, a US-flagged vessel was already delivering American LNG to the island under an existing statutory exemption.
And Philadelphia's first LNG carrier order relied substantially on Korean construction, a qualification the programme omitted despite the contract being public months before broadcast.
The larger failure is one of investigative discipline. A compelling industrial story is not permission to turn a complicated energy system into a single-policy morality play.
America needs a functioning shipbuilding industry. It also needs journalists who can distinguish a shipping restriction from a pipeline shortage, a historical example from a current condition, and an American shipyard order from a ship actually being built in America.
60 Minutes had the access to tell that story. It stopped too soon.
References
- With South Korea and China building ships faster and cheaper than U.S., Trump makes shipbuilding a priority — CBS News / 60 Minutes, originally March 22, 2026; updated June 7, 2026. The original investigation and the exact claims about New England, Puerto Rico, Hanwha and the Jones Act.
- Winter Energy Market and Reliability Assessment 2022–2023 — Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, October 20, 2022. Documents New England's pipeline capacity limitations, lack of storage, winter demand competition and dependence on LNG.
- New England utility closes import-dependent gas-fired power plant, keeps LNG import option — U.S. Energy Information Administration, June 24, 2024. Establishes Everett LNG's role, its supply contracts and the volume of LNG imported into New England.
- Barriers to Increasing Connecticut's Natural Gas Supply — Connecticut General Assembly, Office of Legislative Research, November 4, 2025. Documents the Jones Act restriction alongside pipeline permitting, financing, customer-contract and infrastructure barriers.
- The Jones Act's Role in Encouraging Puerto Rico's Use of Russian Energy — Cato Institute, Colin Grabow and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon, May 1, 2023. Establishes that Grabow had previously published the same argument and provides the account of the Russia-origin LNG cargo loaded in Spain.
- First US LNG tanker begins operations, will supply Puerto Rico — S&P Global, March 18, 2025. Documents the American Energy, its French construction, the Jones Act exemption and its new mainland-to-Puerto Rico service.
- Crowley and Naturgy Deploy First U.S. LNG Carrier, American Energy, to Serve Puerto Rico — Crowley, March 18, 2025. Confirms the multiyear agreement and regular delivery of American-produced LNG to Puerto Rico.
- Shipping Under the Jones Act: Legislative and Regulatory Background — Congressional Research Service, updated November 21, 2019. Explains the legal requirements and the specific congressional exemptions for LNG shipments to Puerto Rico.
- Hanwha Shipping orders LNG carrier from Hanwha Philly Shipyard — Hanwha, July 23, 2025. Establishes the first LNG carrier order and Hanwha's own disclosure that substantial construction would take place in South Korea.
- Hanwha Philly Shipyard wins 1st LNG carrier order under Hanwha ownership — Yonhap News Agency, July 22, 2025. Independently reports that most construction would occur at Hanwha's Korean shipyard, while Philadelphia handled American certification and compliance.
- The Strait of Hormuz in Brief: Non-Oil Shipments and Effects on U.S. Shippers — Congressional Research Service, updated May 4, 2026. Confirms the extension of the March 2026 Jones Act waiver through August 16, 2026.
Clarify the opening thesis and scopeTighten repeated criticisms of 60 Minutes