This past Wednesday, the National Retail Federation (NRF) and more than 100 other business groups called for passage of legislation requiring the Department of Transportation (DOT) to track port statistics. The legislation, according to the NRF, could help avoid a repeat of the congestion and slowdowns that occurred along the West Coast during the labor dispute resolved earlier this year.
The letter was sent to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which voted on the Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act—a six-year transportation authorization bill—on Wednesday evening. Groups representing retailers, wholesalers, importers, manufacturers, exporters, distributors, agriculture, and transportation and logistics providers signed the bill.
The authorization bill includes the language of the Ports Performance Act, which would require DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics to establish a port performance statistics program and report annually to Congress on the performance and capacity of the nation’s key ports. Port authorities that receive federal assistance would be required to make annual reports to the bureau, and DOT would be required to work with the Commerce Department and Labor Department to report on ports’ performance before and after expiration of labor contracts.
These evaluations, which would be made to Congress, would help indicate whether labor discussions have impacted operations, the economic impact of such disputes, and how long it would take for shipments to return to normal.
The legislation was introduced in response to slowdowns that occurred at West Coast ports after the contract between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union expired in July 2014. Contract talks were not concluded until this February, after Labor Secretary Tom Perez sat down to personally broker a deal, and backed-up cargo was not cleared until May.
