US President Biden lauds passage of Ocean Shipping Reform Act 2022

On June 13 local time, the official website of the White House released Biden’s statement on the passage of Ocean Shipping Reform Bill by Congress. Supporters of the 2022 Ocean Shipping Reform Act said that the bill will help curb inflation and ease cargo backlogs.

Biden said last week that if the bill passed, he would sign it into law. The bill would expand the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission's (FMC) regulatory powers over container ship carriers, allowing the FMC to conduct its own investigations and enforcement actions against container shipping companies' business practices.

Biden also said: "One of the key ways to fight inflation is to reduce the cost of moving goods through the supply chain." And specifically mentioned the major foreign shipping companies that transport goods from Asia to the West Coast of the United States. "There's no better place to start than here at the port, and let the nine foreign shipping companies know that the blackmail is over."

Provisions of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act include the following:

▪ Shift the burden of proof on the reasonableness of demurrage charges from the billing party to the ocean carrier;

▪ Require ocean common carriers to report to FMC quarterly total import and export volumes and TEUs (loaded/empty) for each vessel calling at a US port;

▪ Prohibits ocean carriers from unreasonably reducing shipping opportunities for U.S. exports, as determined by the FMC in new rulemaking;

▪ Authority to establish a new registered shipping exchange for FMC;

▪ Study best practices for intermodal chassis pools to address chassis supply and positioning;

▪ Raise the FMC's funding level from $32.9 million in 2022 to $49.2 million in 2025 to help the agency increase the personnel it needs to expand its oversight of containerized trade.

This bill has won support from a number of associations, including the American Federation of Industrial Transportation, the Agricultural Transportation Alliance, the American Association of Port Authorities, the National Retail Federation, the American Trucking Association and the Port Freight Association.

Shenzhen Xunlaitong specializes in shipping export from Shenzhen to Australia & New Zealand, Germany, Netherlands and more business