JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 878
- 527
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Two Republican members of Congress, Senator Scott and Congressmen Gimenez, came up with the genesis of a good idea to help the supply chain problem facing America which is helping fuel the alarming inflation facing America. The idea overs meaningful help it is far from a cure all; nevertheless, Democrats should work with these Republicans on the idea. The bill is called "The Supply Chain Emergency Response Act" (S 3224 and HR 5925) what it does is it takes $125 million of unspent money from the CARES Act (one of the pandemic relief bills) and gives it to the Secretary of Transportation to give grants to shippers who have their ship anchored off of or is heading toward a west coast port which is at their capacity limit and has a line of ships waiting to unload the grant is the amount of the cost to pay for the fee to get the ship through the Panama Canal; once through the Panama Canal the ship could then sail to an east coast port which don't have long lines and unload their freight. The bill also allows states to use unused CARES act money to pay for associated port cost connected with this rerouting program.
The genesis of the idea is a good idea. Currently some West coast ports have lines of ship waiting to unload in the dozens. Experts tell us that the port bottle necks are adding to inflation costs granted there is many other factors causing the problematic inflation the nation is seeing but if this port problem can be resolved it will help the country. The problem I see with this idea is just paying the shippers Panama Canal fee is not going to entice many shippers to take up the Federal government's offer and help alleviate bottle necks at the West Coast Ports. The shippers will have other significant costs, the added fuel cost to travel from a West coast port to the East Coast port and back again but moreover the added cost to move the freight on the ships over the continental United States to the promised destination on the West coast. Also, the country doesn't want to hurt the West coast Port operators as this port bottleneck problem diminishes over time; when a respective West coast port doesn't have any backlog ships heading for that port shouldn't be diverted under this program.
The idea should be reworked. The appropriation in the bill should be $3 billion coming from unspent money in any of the Pandemic relief bills and of course it should come from unspent monies from the specific East Coast state whose port is getting this added business from the program. In the bill for each East coast state it should designate the specific amount of money from each Pandemic bill and program the money is being drawn from; so if an East Coast state doesn't want to lose any unspent Pandemic relief money they don't have to participate or can limit their participation in the program the bill will not authorize or curtail authorization of grants for such a state. The bill should only authorize this program for one year the number of ships permitted to be diverted should be two hundred per month for the first three months and then one hundred and fifty for the remaining nine months. A ship can only be accepted into the program if the destination West Coast port has a backlog of ships waiting to unload where the time to unload such ships will be over a week; this determination can only be made once the applying ship to the program has left its departing port and has a contract to unload freight with the destination West coast port. You don't want to have shippers gaming the system that is getting grants when all along they intended to go to an East Coast Port. The grants should not only be for the amount of the Panama Canal Fee but also the added fuel cost to travel to and back from an East Coast Port and the shippers added cost (I am not an expert on this subject) by this it is meant that shippers could and someone must for this program to work contract with Freight carriers and logistic service companies to get the freight across America to their West coast destinations. The bill should allot the diversions on ships coming to the U.S. in a fair manner to each East Coast state's ports. The bill should scrap allowing a state to spend unspent CARES Act funding on port related costs associated with this program, allow the private sector to handle the whole matter; the program should push the shippers to handle the complete logistics problem with getting the freight to the West Coast destinations.
The genesis of the idea is a good idea. Currently some West coast ports have lines of ship waiting to unload in the dozens. Experts tell us that the port bottle necks are adding to inflation costs granted there is many other factors causing the problematic inflation the nation is seeing but if this port problem can be resolved it will help the country. The problem I see with this idea is just paying the shippers Panama Canal fee is not going to entice many shippers to take up the Federal government's offer and help alleviate bottle necks at the West Coast Ports. The shippers will have other significant costs, the added fuel cost to travel from a West coast port to the East Coast port and back again but moreover the added cost to move the freight on the ships over the continental United States to the promised destination on the West coast. Also, the country doesn't want to hurt the West coast Port operators as this port bottleneck problem diminishes over time; when a respective West coast port doesn't have any backlog ships heading for that port shouldn't be diverted under this program.
The idea should be reworked. The appropriation in the bill should be $3 billion coming from unspent money in any of the Pandemic relief bills and of course it should come from unspent monies from the specific East Coast state whose port is getting this added business from the program. In the bill for each East coast state it should designate the specific amount of money from each Pandemic bill and program the money is being drawn from; so if an East Coast state doesn't want to lose any unspent Pandemic relief money they don't have to participate or can limit their participation in the program the bill will not authorize or curtail authorization of grants for such a state. The bill should only authorize this program for one year the number of ships permitted to be diverted should be two hundred per month for the first three months and then one hundred and fifty for the remaining nine months. A ship can only be accepted into the program if the destination West Coast port has a backlog of ships waiting to unload where the time to unload such ships will be over a week; this determination can only be made once the applying ship to the program has left its departing port and has a contract to unload freight with the destination West coast port. You don't want to have shippers gaming the system that is getting grants when all along they intended to go to an East Coast Port. The grants should not only be for the amount of the Panama Canal Fee but also the added fuel cost to travel to and back from an East Coast Port and the shippers added cost (I am not an expert on this subject) by this it is meant that shippers could and someone must for this program to work contract with Freight carriers and logistic service companies to get the freight across America to their West coast destinations. The bill should allot the diversions on ships coming to the U.S. in a fair manner to each East Coast state's ports. The bill should scrap allowing a state to spend unspent CARES Act funding on port related costs associated with this program, allow the private sector to handle the whole matter; the program should push the shippers to handle the complete logistics problem with getting the freight to the West Coast destinations.
