Since the re-escalation of the war with Iran, energy prices have zoomed higher again, straining families’ finances. The national average for gasoline is back over $4 a gallon and diesel has blown past $5. Brent crude, the price of roughly three-quarters of global oil, is over $90, and touched $100 during the last week. It’s a repeat of the war’s start.

Back then, the Trump administration faced a genuine supply shock and a lethargic Congress, so it reached for policy levers entirely in its own control, including not enforcing foolish rules. Those suspensions worked, raising an important question: if these emergency measures cut costs in wartime, why not have them in peacetime too?

First there’s the Jones Act, part of a 1920 law requiring that cargo moving between American ports travel on ships that are American-built, -owned, -flagged, and -crewed. The problem is that almost nothing in a globalized shipping industry qualifies, and that creates an artificial shortage, which drives up prices.

The compliant ocean-going fleet has withered from 193 vessels to 92, and the ones left are expensive precisely because the law shields them from competition. The result is a........

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