The Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) held its annual expo, dedicated to and for the intermodal industry, from Sept. 9-11 in Long Beach, Calif.
The event, which attracted more than 1,800 attendees is, according to IANA, the only forum on the continent that brings together the entire intermodal freight industry, including executives from third-pay logistics companies, ocean carriers, railroads, ports, motor carriers, suppliers and shippers.
Highlights of the three-day program included a plenary speech by Daniel Maffei, who was designated as the Federal Maritime Commission chair by President Biden in March 2021. He was first appointed to the FMC in 2016 by then-President Obama and is currently serving his third term.
During his remarks, Maffei reflected on the fact that the fifth anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic is coming up this winter and remarked on how the contagion affected global shipping.
“For we who work in and around containerized shipping, COVID … demonstrated to the world both the incredible power of container shipping and (the ability to) sustain a global economy under the worst of circumstances,” he said.
“But at the same time,” he added, “the pandemic revealed all of the hidden flaws and the strained seams and the outdated systems and inadequate infrastructure that had been there for a while but was suddenly causing confusion for everybody to see.
“TV news just couldn’t help itself but show lots of video of big stacks of containers that seemed to be everywhere, truck traffic jams, dozens of skyscraper-sized container ships looking like looming hulks out in San Pedro Bay,” he remarked. “Relatives of yours, I’m sure who never even asked remotely what you did for a living were suddenly coming to you with questions.”
“Supply chain suddenly became a household term, virtually overnight,” he added.
A couple of byproducts of all the additional attention, he said, was a renewed call to bring shipbuilding back to the U.S., and the passage by Congress of the bipartisan Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which aimed to streamline cargo movement operations.
Since then, the Maritime Commission has enacted a large number of reforms in its operations, he said, including:
- A new rule on detention and demurrage billing requirements that sets concrete requirements on how common carriers and marine terminal operators must bill charges.
- Publication of a new “refusal to deal” rule. It establishes conditions for the commission to apply prohibitions and penalties with respect to unreasonable refusals of cargo space accommodations when available, as well as refusals of vessel space accommodations.
- Ramping up of enforcement penalties against rulebreaking entities.
- The addition of two judges to the commission’s office of administrative law judges.
- A new charge complaint process for detention and demurrage billing complaints so that U.S. shippers can avoid costly, protracted litigation, and
- Increases in personnel and capacity within the commission’s consumer affairs office.
- More policy changes and enhancements also could be on the horizon, he said.
“I personally want to look at contract terms to see if something can be done to make them more predictable to ocean shipping and minimize both cargo fall-downs and no-shows, and the sudden change in space availability that seems to happen when spot rates start to go way up,” Maffei remarked.
He also said that he’d been to the Panama Canal recently. The good news? The waterway, which had been plagued by vessel backlogs due to a massive, long-lasting drought, was almost back to normal, as far as the number of daily transits.
“But I will tell you, sometime over the next several years, there will be a time where transits are again severely limited due to low-water levels,” he predicted. “There’s simply no permanent fix that can be implemented.”
Maffei wrapped up his remarks by telling the several hundred people in attendance that although the pandemic is over, America’s additional focus on shipping is not going away.
“The spotlight may have dimmed just a bit since the pandemic, but you who work in intermodal still have the attention of both Main Street and Wall Street,” he said.
“As challenges keep coming, supply chain will remain a household word,” he told the assemblage. “The work you do will remain an economic driver, the work we do at the FMC will remain important, and we will do our best to be a resource for you, and when appropriate, advocate for you.”