Johnson & Garamendi to FMC: Get OSRA Right or Risk Further Abuse by Foreign-Flagged Ocean Carriers
“We all witnessed the havoc foreign-flagged ocean carriers wreaked on our ports in 2021. If this definition stands, they could easily do it again.”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. House leaders of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-14), Representatives Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) and John Garamendi (D-CA-03), urged the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to uphold congressional intent as implementation of the law continues. The Congressmen’s bipartisan letter was cosigned by Representatives David G. Valado (R-CA-21), Jim Costa (D-CA-16), Adrian Smith (R-NE-03), Mike Thompson (D-CA-05), and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA-20), cosponsors of the 2022 law.
Johnson and Garamendi oppose the FMC’s recent broad definition of “unreasonable” applied to vessel space accommodation, nor do they believe it will protect American shippers and exporters from unfair business practices of foreign ocean carriers. In January 2021, three in four containers offloaded at American ports returned to Asia empty, causing record losses for American exporters and manufacturers.
“The FMC’s currently definition of “unreasonable” refusal is so feckless it has us wondering: What was the point of passing OSRA in the first place? We all witnessed the havoc foreign-flagged ocean carriers wreaked on our ports in 2021, price gouging shippers and leaving American exporters high and dry. If this definition stands, they could easily do it again,” said Johnson and Garamendi. “This proposed definition is not in line with congressional intent – it needs to be remedied for the sake of our farmers, exporters, and manufacturers who already faced extreme losses at the hands of foreign carriers.”
“The ten largest ocean carriers and three global alliances reportedly control more than 80 percent of the global market,” wrote the Members of Congress. “As American exporters and other businesses navigate this anticompetitive marketplace, they must have an ally in our nation’s only ocean carrier regulator: the Federal Maritime Commission.”
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act was signed into law on June 16, 2022, and prohibits ocean carriers from discriminating against American exporters and unreasonably refusing cargo space accommodations. The bill provides authority to the FMC to investigate ocean carriers’ business practices and apply enforcement measures as appropriate following the unreasonable refusal of American exports throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read the full letter here.
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