There’s a lot riding on the nascent offshore wind industry. Companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars. The Biden administration wants 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by the end of the decade. It could mean billions of investment in new manufacturing capacity. Offshore wind is being billed as a key part of a clean energy future for the United States.

Offshore wind farms are massive projects, with up to 100 or more wind turbines standing hundreds of feet above the ocean. They take decades to plan and get approved. As this industry has worked to get off the ground in the United States, companies have wrestled with how to deal with a 100-year-old law called the Jones Act.

The Jones Act, passed by Congress in 1920, says that only U.S.-flagged ships can move cargo from one point in the United States to another. The ships must have been built in the U.S. and be crewed by Americans. The offshore wind industry uses big, specialized ships to assemble the turbines miles out at sea, but there is not a single U.S.-flagged ship right now that can do that work.

What You Need To Know

• The Jones Act is a 1920 law meant to protect the United States' maritime industry
  


• The law says only ships which are U.S.-flagged, U.S.-built and crewed by Americans can move goods between ports
  


• The United States does not have any of the specialized ships needed to assemble offshore wind turbines
  


• Dominion Energy began building its own $500 million offshore wind assembly vessel in...

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