June 14, 2022 — Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the bipartisan Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 (S. 3580) by a vote of 369-42.

The legislation now goes to President Biden, who is expected to sign the bill into law this coming Thursday, June 16.

Every day, our industry faces a shipping crisis that has delivered us contract breaches, stubbornly high shipping rates, excessive and unjust fees, constant delays, and ongoing uncertainty on whether our product will ever arrive or even be moved. We are an industry of small companies who have no bargaining power with the big foreign-owned ocean carriers we rely on to move our product. This reality has translated into empty store shelves and much higher prices at the cash register, spurring inflation to historic levels.

This bipartisan bill will strengthen the overseas supply chain and ensure fairness in the global ocean shipping industry by bolstering the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), the U.S. government agency that oversees ocean carriers, and requiring the FMC establish and enforce rules to prevent excessive and unjust detention and demurrage fees and stop refusal/denial of service.

The Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 will put in place commonsense reforms that will be instrumental in combatting the current shipping crisis and preventing the next shipping crisis.

TGA will now work with the FMC to develop, implement, and enforce these new rules as quickly as possible.

We wish to thank Congressmen John Garamendi (D-CA-3) and Dusty Johnson (R-SD) and Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Thune (R-SD) for their leadership in getting Congress to recognize the urgency of this situation and getting this legislation approved in near-record time.