Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here on a very important bipartisan bill, but I first wanted to address the fact that I am proud to be supporting Judge Jackson.

I think she has incredible legal experience--more experience as a judge going into the job than four of the people had when they went on to the Supreme Court.

She is in the top two for trial experience. She showed incredible grace under pressure when one over-the-top, inappropriate question was asked of her after another.

She will be walking into that Supreme Court with her head held high, and she is going to be confirmed next week.

As I said, I will speak more to this later. I spoke a lot about it in the Judiciary Committee, but she is going to be a great Supreme Court Justice. Ocean Shipping Reform Act

Mr. President, I rise today to highlight my bill with Senator Thune, which just passed the Senate, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act.

We worked for months together on this bill to come to an agreement. We did everything right and got cosponsors on both sides of the aisle. I particularly want to thank Baz, my staff member on the Commerce Committee, who did such a great job in working on this. And I also want to thank Senators Cantwell and Wicker for their support of the bill as the chair and ranking member on the Commerce Committee. We worked together on some changes to the bill, and I appreciated their input.

As U.S. Senators representing Minnesota and South Dakota, Senator Thune and I know how crucial it is for American businesses to be able to export throughout the country and across the globe. American farmers feed the world, and consumers and businesses look to them for in-demand agricultural goods like soybeans, corn, dairy, poultry, pork, and beef, just to name a few. And American manufacturers support so many of the essential parts and products that fill our jobs, businesses, and store shelves.

As I look at our economy as we come out of this economic downturn, we must be an economy and a country that makes stuff, that invents things, that exports to the world. No matter how much American ingenuity we have--and there is a lot of it--if ships owned by foreign interests are going to other countries with empty containers and exporting nothing but air and then come to our country filled with foreign goods, that is not exactly an even playing field.

As the past 2 years have highlighted, significant supply chain disruptions and vulnerabilities have occurred. There are many answers here, one of them being workforce, one of them being port infrastructure and rail infrastructure and the like, but what we have seen when it comes to shipping--and I am so glad my colleague from South Dakota has joined me here on the floor--what we have seen in the middle of the country, where people are pretty sensible, all of a sudden they are looking at this, and they see the price of shipping containers increase by four times in just 2 years. Four times--that is not normal.

We have also heard from U.S. companies that they have only been able to ship 60 percent of their orders because they can't access the shipping containers. At the same time, these ocean carriers--almost all foreign-owned--have reported record profits. It is estimated that the container shipping industry made a record $190 billion in profits in 2021, a sevenfold increase from the previous year.

Their financial performance isn't a result of improved performance when our manufacturers and farmers can't ship out their goods, no. They are fleecing consumers and exporters because they know they can get away with it, and this is all while exporters and consumers are literally paying the price for the supply chain disruptions caused by unreliable service.

(Ms. CORTEZ MASTO assumed the Chair.)

We need to get exports to those who need them, but it is plainly obvious that the ocean carriers are prioritizing non-American shipments at the expense of both American exporters--as in manufacturers, so many of them in Minnesota and South Dakota, as Senator Thune knows, being small businesses--as well as farmers and American consumers. It isn't sustainable, and it isn't acceptable. We can't let ocean carriers slow down our supply chain while shaking down our American businesses and farmers for their own profit.

That is why we introduced the Ocean Shipping Reform Act. It just passed the Senate. Our bill protects American farmers and manufacturers by making it easier for them to ship ready-to-export goods waiting at our ports. Our bill aims to level the playing field for American exporters by updating the Federal rules for the global shipping industry.

It will give the Federal Maritime Commission greater authority to regulate harmful practices by these big international carriers. It directs the Federal Maritime Commission to issue a rule prohibiting international ocean carriers from unreasonably declining shipping opportunities for U.S. exports. This will make it harder for them to leave our products behind, just sitting there at a port, in favor of shipping over to China, sailing over to China, and then bringing their products back to us.

In addition to giving the FMC more authority to investigate bad practices by ocean carriers, the bill also directs the Federal Maritime Commission to set new rules for what the international carrier companies can reasonably charge and require them to certify and ultimately prove that fees that they charge are fair. As rates continue to climb, this is more urgent than ever.

And I personally believe that, even before this rule goes into effect, the fact that we passed this unanimously in the U.S. Senate sent a pretty strong shot across the bow because there is so much more we could do and we will do if this practice continues.

As I was working on this bill with Senator Thune, I heard about exporters who wanted to speak out against these predatory practices but were scared into silence because they feared that the ocean carriers would retaliate. That is why our bill includes strong anti-retaliation protection for shippers. In short, this bipartisan legislation says to the foreign-owned shipping alliances: Charge fair prices, stop profiting off our backs, and fill your empty crates with American-made products.

Senator Thune and I have a bipartisan group of 29 cosponsors representing a variety of regions: Senators Cantwell; Wicker; Baldwin; Hoeven; Stabenow; Marshall; Peters; Moran; Blumenthal; Young; Kelly; Crapo; Smith of Minnesota; Blackburn; Booker; Ernst; Cortez Masto, the Presiding Officer; Braun; Warnock; Risch; Bennet; Cramer; Wyden; Blunt; Van Hollen; Boozman; Fischer; Padilla; and Hickenlooper.

The legislation earned the endorsement of the American Association of Port Authorities, which represents more than 130 Port authorities across North and South America, including my own port of Duluth. This bill is also endorsed by more than 100 organizations, including the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, the National Retail Federation, the American Trucking Associations, and the Consumer Technology Association.

I also want to mention the House leaders on this bill-- Representatives John Garamendi and Dusty Johnson of South Dakota-- whose companion legislation has already passed the House. I see this as a truly bipartisan solution to a problem that is impacting millions of Americans and a great example of what is possible when we work together.

I want to congratulate Senator Thune for his great leadership. He may be a bit taller than I, but we have worked together on many, many things across our borders.

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