Providing the verified gross mass of laden cargo containers is not a commercial matter, but regulatory matter, according to a letter sent to the United States Coast Guard by the World Shipping Council.
Unhappy with recent statements by the United States Coast Guard about the new container weight regulations in the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention that go into effect on July 1, the primary trade organization for the container shipping industry has asked the Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul F. Zukunft for a one-on-one meeting to clarify “the posture of the U.S. government on this subject.”
John W. Butler, the president and chief executive officer of the World Shipping Council (WSC), in a letter dated Thursday asked for the meeting after expressing frustration over comments made by Rear Admiral Paul Thomas about the rule. Thomas and Chris Koch, a senior advisor to WSC and Butler’s predecessor, spoke at the TPM 2016 conference in Long Beach on Tuesday about the International Maritime Organization’s amendment to the SOLAS treaty requiring shippers to provide the verified gross mass (VGM) of containers prior to being loaded onto a ship.
WSC said in its letter, “This week, Admiral Thomas publicly announced that:
• The IMO was the wrong place to address the container weight accuracy regulation;
• SOLAS was not an appropriate legal instrument to address the issue;
• Notwithstanding the express language of the SOLAS regulation placing mandatory obligations on shippers, that SOLAS regulations do not apply to shippers, and that shippers were not required by the regulation to provide accurate, signed container weights to their carrier pursuant to the two methods specified in the SOLAS regulation;
• That shippers were in compliance with their obligations using whatever weight information they provide today and there was no need for process changes or further regulation on this issue;
• That the Coast Guard would not apply the SOLAS regulation to U.S. marine terminal operators;
• And that, while vessel operators would be subject to flag state enforcement of the new regulation, he believed the industry was in compliance with what was needed for safe navigation and there should be no real problem.”
“For the ocean carriers, terminal operators, shippers, software companies and others that have been preparing for the July 1 implementation of the new regulation, this announcement has been stunning,” said Butler.
“People around the world do not comprehend the content or the rationale of the U.S. Coast Guard’s announcements this past week. As you might imagine, many people are confused and upset about how we got to this point.”
“This is not, as Admiral Thomas’ statements this week suggest, simply a commercial matter,” wrote Butler. “It is a regulatory manner, and the effectiveness of the SOLAS solution depends on shippers, carriers, and terminal operators all fulfilling their obligations to make sure that the ship is safely stowed.
The Coast Guard said in a statement that “We received the letter from World Shipping Council president, Mr. John
Butler. We are reviewing the issues he’s raised in his letter and will respond to those concerns directly with him.”
Thomas expanded on his remarks on Wednesday in an entry in the Coast Guard’s Maritime Commons blog.
The entry said the U.S. Coast Guard’s “flag state and port state authorities only extend to U.S. and foreign-flagged ships. The USCG has no authority over domestic shippers. Domestic shippers may be impacted by SOLAS requirements because their domestic and international business partners, who run ships, interpret their obligation to meet SOLAS requirements.”
In the case of the container weight regulations, “some carriers have determined they need to change their operational or business practices to meet the requirements of their flag states (foreign and domestic),” wrote Thomas. “As such, domestic shippers may be called upon to change their business practices with these international partners in the global supply chain.
“This is a business-to-business requirement. For the U.S., the USCG believes that carriers currently comply with SOLAS, and are therefore not requiring domestic shippers to make changes in existing practices.”
The Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC) said in a statement Thursday the Coast Guard position was “consistent with U.S. export interests.”
“In short, the Admiral is saying that for US exports, the Coast Guard will not require the shipper (exporter) to provide the weight (either actual or TARE) of the carrier’s container to the carrier,” said AgTC. “Not only is his conclusion logical, but it is consistent with the position being taken by other countries, including Brazil (a major competitor to US agriculture).”
“The Admiral’s position is welcomed by United States agriculture and forest products producers and exporters, as well as exporters of other US products, including resins, etc.,” the trade group added. “It will avoid unnecessary disruption and delay to the export supply chain, competitive disadvantage for US exporters with suppliers elsewhere (such as Brazil), and expense in new software for all components. It recognizes the many existing statutory and regulatory requirements for accurate cargo weight reporting for both domestic and export shipments, and is consistent with safe export maritime commerce.”
But Butler said, “It is disingenuous and factually incorrect for the Coast Guard to suggest that relieving shippers of their regulatory obligation will not fundamentally undermine the effectiveness of the SOLAS container weight verification requirements. It is not possible to have it both ways.”
Butler said if Thomas’s has accurately represented the Coast Guard’s position, it should “reconsider and reverse that position,” adding, “If Admiral Thomas’ statements do not accurately reflect the Coast Guard’s position, then we would expect that a clarification would be issued promptly.”
In the letter, the WSC seemed to take issue with the timing of Thomas’s remarks as much as the content of his message.
“If the Coast Guard thought SOLAS was the wrong instrument to address this issue, why did it not say so during the four years of the SOLAS regulation’s development?” Butler asked Zukunft. “If this was the Coast Guard’s view, how could it agree to cosponsor the various IMO papers that it did? If the Coast Guard thought this way, why did it chair the correspondence group to develop and agree upon the new regulation’s Implementation Guidelines?
“If the problem were much narrower and simply a matter that U.S. national law and existing Coast Guard regulations do not presently enable the Coast Guard to enforce the new SOLAS regulatory responsibilities of terminal operators and shippers, why did the Coast Guard wait until the eve of implementation to say so? If this is the problem, why did Admiral Thomas say what he did about the IMO and SOLAS and undermine the credibility of the IMO as the appropriate and effective forum to develop international regulatory solutions to international shipping problems?
“If this narrower U.S. domestic law issue is the problem, why did the Coast Guard not undertake an Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking to establish a domestic implementing regulation after the IMO adopted the regulation in May 2014? If additional statutory authority was needed for the U.S. national implementation of any part of the SOLAS regulation, why did the Coast Guard not inform the Congress that it needed such authority in order to implement the SOLAS regulation it had supported at the IMO?
“The IMO gave governments over two years to get ready to implement this regulation, yet the Coast Guard took no action and expressed no indication of its intentions until this past week,” Butler added.
Carriers ask USCG to reverse or clarify stance on SOLAS
