Ag Producers Say Asian Shipping Problems Costing Exporters Customers; Senate Will Soon Mark Up Bill
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act is part of the House China package, and a Senate version is going to have a markup next week. House co-sponsor Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said the bill's advocates need senators "to be able to punch this into the end zone."
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who is leading the charge in the Senate, wants to both address detention and demurrage and return bookings, as the House bill does, and wants to change the antitrust exemption for ocean carriers. Rep. James Costa, D-Calif., said there are some differences of opinion between the two chambers. Costa and Johnson were speaking at a press conference March 17 hosted by the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House, a bipartisan group of lawmakers that tries to find common ground to get things done.
Johnson said "there are no red lines" among House advocates on the differences between their bill and the Senate bill. "We are going to fight for our preferences, but we are going to get something done," he said. He said they would not allow territorial feelings in either chamber or partisan tensions to prevent them from getting a bill passed.
The press conference also hosted trade group leaders, and Agriculture Transportation Coalition Executive Director Peter Friedman said the situation for agricultural exporters who need to send their goods across the Pacific in a container is "untenable." He said if farmers can't deliver their goods dependably and at a cost that allows their products to be competitive, they will lose customers.
Costa said that in California, it used to be that 20% of containers went back to Asia empty, and now it's 80%. Friedman said he knows a farmer in Washington state who is associated with an operation that had been selling hay for 102 years, but won't bother to cut it this year, because they don't want to sell it into the domestic market and they lose money on every container that goes to Asia.
Jaime Castaneda, the National Milk Producers Federation's trade policy staffer, said that he's hearing from companies in Latin American countries that had imported U.S. dairy that they are switching to New Zealand because the deliveries from the U.S. have become unreliable.
Friedman said that a survey of his members found that 21% of confirmed, contracted sales with overseas customers could not be performed, either because the cost of shipping was too high, or because the producer could not promise delivery within the contracting window.
He said that some who question why there aren't more complaints to the Federal Maritime Commission don't understand that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and, he said, three years to get a resolution.