SIMIC

But shipowners, represented by the World Shipping Council (WSC) say "the bill would make existing congestion worse . . . neither version of the bill does anything to fix the landside logistics breakdowns that are at the heart of America's supply chain problems."

The bill that President Joe Biden said he is anxious to sign into law, appears to give the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), greater authority to regulate ocean carrier practices to promote US exports.

For example, the bill requires the FMC to investigate complaints about detention and demurrage charges charged by ocean carriers, increasing the efficiency of the complaint process, and gives the FMC the ability to order refunds.

Last month, the FMC, suspecting anti-competitive skullduggery on the part of shipping lines because of their high rates and poor service, concluded its investigation, by giving the industry a clean bill of health.

Said FMC Commissioner Rebecca Dye: "The historically high freight rates have been devastating, but I want to emphasise that the Commission has done its job to enforce our competition authority.

"Our markets are competitive and the high ocean freight rates have been determined by unprecedented consumer demand that overwhelmed the supply of vessel capacity. Congestion further constrained available capacity," she said.

The new bill would also prohibit common ocean carriers, marine terminal operators, or ocean transportation intermediaries from unreasonably refusing cargo space when available. It also establishes a shipping exchange registry through the FMC.

The bill appears to offer comfort to agricultural exporters, who cannot induce the boxes to come to them far inland to ship out low value cargo when they would rather go back to Asia and return with high value cargo instead.

It¡¯s also not clear if the bill will give the FMC with enough regulatory authority to implement all 12 of FMC Commissioner Dye¡¯s final recommendations or any initial recommendations not yet implemented from her two-year fact finding investigation into ocean shipping supply chain issues during the Covid crisis.