Decongest America's Ports

Floor Speech

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Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer a solution to decongest America's ports, revive America's supply chain, and get Americans back to work.

In the past few months, we have learned the hard way that congested ports create a real interstate commerce and supply chain problem. Families are waiting 6 months for working refrigerators, farmers are waiting 2 months or more for a simple part to fix their equipment, and manufacturing companies are waiting 5 to 6 times longer for electronic components.

Well, people are tired of watching their paid-for, necessary goods sit on our ships off our coasts. The Biden administration is not doing anything about it.

Today, I introduced the Truckers Responding at National Shipping Ports Overcoming Retail Turmoil Act, requiring the Secretary of Transportation to establish a grant program for motor carriers and motor private carriers to relieve congested ports during a national state of emergency or when ports are congested at 50 percent or more.

My bill would empower the Secretary of Transportation to issue Federal grants from unused relief dollars to truckers or distributors to transport goods from a port of entry to a destination point.

Additionally, my bill would temporarily waive State-operating standards, should those standards be more stringent than the Federal standard. For example, my bill would allow Kansas farmers and truckers to operate their U.S. Department of Transportation compliant trucks in California, a State that otherwise restricts trucks older than 2011 from entering the State, to help relieve the ports and transport goods across this country.

Temporarily waiving State requirements is a small price to pay for a strong supply chain, fully stocked shelves in grocery stores, and employed transportation workers.

Congested ports have far-reaching implications beyond the States in which they exist, and it is unconscionable to let the American people suffer because of the unwillingness to solve a problem that impacts us all.

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