WASHINGTON - While oil producers campaign against a 39-year-old ban on crude exports, refiners that benefit from those trade restrictions insist another longstanding policy should be on the table.

Their target is the 94-year-old Jones Act, which requires that vessels moving oil and other cargo between U.S. ports be U.S.-built, owned and operated.

Refiners say the law is a relic of another era - when the U.S. was desperate to protect the domestic shipping industry and the country's maritime might - that hikes shipping costs far beyond those paid by international competitors.

"If you're going to talk about exports of crude, our opinion is you have to bring the Jones Act into it," said Charlie Drevna, president of the leading refining trade group, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

The price tag for U.S.-built, Jones Act-compliant tankers can be about four times the price of foreign-built alternatives. And with relatively few available to ferry oil among U.S. ports - even as a domestic drilling boom drives up demand for all types of crude transport - the rates to rent them have climbed too.

It costs $5 to $6 a barrel to move crude from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast on Jones Act tankers, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. By contrast, a foreign-flag tanker can take the same crude from the Gulf Coast to eastern Canada for about $2 per barrel.

If policymakers undo the ban on oil exports but don't kill off the Jones Act too, "a refiner in Europe will be able to buy U.S. crude in Rotterdam cheaper than I can buy it in Philadelphia for my refiner there," said Graeme Burnett, Delta Air Lines' senior vice president of fuel operations. "We'll be selling U.S. crude cheaper to foreign competitors than to ourselves."

Exporting to East Coast

Tom O'Malley, chairman of New Jersey-based PBF Energy, delivered a similar plea during an earnings call this year.

"For heaven's sake, if we're going to take the crude and export it all around the world, please let us export it to the U.S. East Coast," he said, adding that's impossible if "we have to use a Jones Act ship, which costs us $6 to $7 a barrel."

PBF Energy and Delta's Monroe Energy subsidiary are founding members of a coalition of refiners fighting against the oil industry push for crude exports. Refiners benefit from lower prices for U.S. crude when it is largely limited to domestic markets

By contrast, Drevna's group, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, has taken a more nuanced position, insisting that the crude export debate should be a "holistic" one, with a serious look at other "market-distorting policies," such as the Jones Act and the mandate that renewable biofuels be blended into U.S. fuel.

A lobbyist for San Antonio-based refiner Tesoro Corp. also has said lawmakers should review the Jones Act "as they consider allowing markets to function without the heavy hand of government."

Strong support

But there is deep, entrenched support for the Jones Act, a political reality some free market advocates recognize.

"If you put exports on the table and then you tack on top of it a repeal of the renewable fuel standard and you tack on top of that a repeal of the Jones Act, you all of a sudden have a political behemoth that nobody wants to touch, because there are constituencies embedded in all of those," said Karen Harbert, head of the Chamber of Commerce's 21st Century Energy Institute.

"If a politician didn't want to vote to repeal the oil export ban, layering on two more very difficult things is going to be not just emotional but politically very difficult, even if it may be the most practical approach."

A third way

Some refiners now are looking at a third option: Temporary Jones Act waivers, which could be issued just for crude to the East Coast. The Obama administration has used Jones Act waivers in the past to ease the passage of crude released from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but the idea refiners are floating would be much broader, potentially spanning years.

"This may not be the best solution, but there are waivers, and a crude waiver several years long could be granted to East Coast refineries until we see how things shake out," said Joanne Shore, the chief industry analyst for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. U.S. shipbuilders would not benefit in that case from growth in crude transport to the Northeast, but it would preserve existing demand. That, Shore said, is a "practical solution."

Sees security issues

The American Maritime Partnership, which represents domestic shipping, disagrees. The group's chairman, Tom Allegretti, argues that using foreign-flagged vessels to transport domestic crude would "undermine America's national, economic and homeland security." And, he stresses that the domestic maritime industry "is investing heavily" to meet the transportation demands from today's U.S. oil boom.

It's unclear precisely how many Jones Act-compliant crude tankers are afloat - and the fleet can expand through new construction or conversion of vessels now carrying gasoline and other refined petroleum products.

The American Maritime Partnership counts 73 Jones Act product tankers and large articulated tug barges.

The government's Congressional Research Service reported in July that just 11 crude oil tankers are Jones Act-eligible. Of another 86 seagoing barges, only 42 can carry more than 130,000 barrels, according to the report.

Demand is high

Whatever the count, they are in high demand.

Delta's Monroe Energy and Phillips 66 recently chartered U.S.-flagged oil tankers to transport crude to the Northeast. Phillips 66 has used Jones Act tankers to take Eagle Ford shale oil from Texas to New Jersey. Monroe Energy has a two-year contract for a Seabulk Tankers Jones Act tanker to get Texas crude to its Philadelphia facility.

Any congressional debates over crude exports and the Jones Act will unfold slowly.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is likely to convene Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearings on the issue soon after she takes the panel chairmanship in January. But top Republican leaders in the House and the Senate have not made crude exports a top-tier issue, despite pressure from oil producers who want access to international markets.