The Senate’s version of the bipartisan Ocean Shipping Reform Act overwhelmingly passed in the House this week. The legislation is on its way to the president for his signature and its being touted as the first major update to federal regulations for the global ocean shipping industry in over two decades. It comes after surging consumer demand for retails goods throughout the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed U.S. ports and supply chains.
The bill gives the Federal Maritime Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulation of international ocean shipping, greater authority to regulate ocean carrier practices to help U.S. exporters with the backlogs they’ve seen the last several months in ag shipping. This is key for perishable products like produce, dairy and meat.
Dan Halstrom, USMEF President and CEO says, “You know one of the strengths of the U.S. agricultural industry is the ability to ship chilled beef and chilled pork weekly and deliver weekly, whether its to Japan, Korea, China to Central America, etc. And today we’re not a reliable weekly supplier nobody is because of the supply chain issues.”
The legislation would outlaw ocean carriers leaving U.S. ports with empty containers, a pandemic era development that has hurt U.S ag exporters. ProFarmer’s Jim Wiesemeyer says this is critical. “here are very needed things in there with those empty carriers and see this is where we like to connect dots that’s the significant part of the backup of some of the containers in the cotton industry that I heard about for the last few days and other commodities. So this is an important one.”
He says President Biden has indicated he is eager to sign the bill into law, after firing shots at the shippers for gouging on his trip to Los Angeles last week.
It’s hoped the bill will also help lower record high freight rates that have increased the cost of all goods. Plus, limited trade has made it more difficult to import supplies like fertilizer, which has also fed inflation.
Although the U.S. is coming off a record year of ag exports, the American Farm Bureau estimates agriculture lost out on more than a $25 billion of ag export business due to shipping issues.
