Over the past year, supply chain challenges have led to product delays, rising costs, and inventory stock-outages that have impacted a wide range of industries and consumers across the United States. Port backlogs and skyrocketing ocean cargo prices aren’t only hitting store shelves and consumers’ pocketbooks, they are also threatening shortages of many ingredients essential for our health and everyday lives.
These supply chain challenges are disrupting our members’ ability to deliver essential products on time and are threatening the viability of many businesses. Ending the supply chain crisis is NACD’s number one priority. We’ve been working tirelessly to bring about changes that will ease the current crisis and ensure supply chain efficiency in the future.
Unfair ocean shipping provider practices are driving up shipping rates, nearly tripling the cost, and, ultimately, increasing prices for consumer goods while threatening access to life-saving products. This crisis won’t end until ocean shippers are held accountable for their anticompetitive practices. The Ocean Shipping Reform Act will go far in strengthening the Federal Maritime Commission’s (FMC) current enforcement abilities, expanding its authority to ensure industry-wide compliance with federal law, and establishing a streamlined process for addressing demurrage and detention complaints.
In the United States, a reliable network of transportation options is vitally important to chemical distribution. Chemical distributors provide a viable network of national and local hubs for moving vital products to our nation's manufacturers and local municipalities. That’s why we’ve also been advocating for infrastructure dollars to address intermodal freight bottlenecks. Once cargo is moved off ships, timely, safe, and reliable freight rail is essential in ensuring products reach their final destination on time. That’s why we also need a strong and engaged Surface Transportation Board (STB) that can review and evaluate commercial fairness and reciprocity issues such as demurrage and accessorial charges to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our nation’s freight rail system.
Lastly, NACD has long advocated for legislation to address the truck driver shortage. Our nation’s shortage of truck drivers is directly impacting chemical distributors’ ability to provide on-time product delivery now more than ever. The slow replacement of retiring drivers contributes to the shortage because commercial drivers are not permitted to move goods interstate until they have reached 21 years of age. Today’s interstate restrictions hurt businesses that are bound by contract to deliver a product on time. Congress has taken a small step in addressing this issue by including the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law by President Biden last December. The Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program is an FMSCA-led pilot program to allow employers to establish an apprenticeship program for certain 18 to21-year-old drivers to operate commercial vehicles in interstate commerce. NACD supported the development of the pilot program and commended Congress’s efforts to address the truck driver shortage. It is our hope that a successful implementation of the pilot program will lead to the passage of the DRIVE-Safe Act which would open the program to all 18 to 21-year-old truck drivers and make the program permanent.
As I’m sure we’ve all observed over the past two years, it’s clear that there is no single solution to solve our ongoing supply chain crisis, rather it is a combination of the items noted above that together will create change. We need our nation’s leaders to ensure this crisis is a priority. NACD is committed to working with our leaders in Washington to find comprehensive solutions to end the current crisis and strengthen our supply chain for the next one. The future of our industry depends on it.
Join us in advocating for better solutions. Find out more about NACD’s activities on the supply chain crisis here. #ChemicalsCantWait
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