NIT League lays out Shipping Act positions
While a bill to revise the U.S. Shipping Act appears doomed, the National Industrial Transportation League said it will press for a major overhaul shipping regulation to include a half-dozen positions the league adopted in 2007.
At the NIT League’s 103rd annual meeting earlier this month in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., its ocean transportation committee convened a special meeting to assess the views of members on the league’s legislative positions relative to H.R. 6167, the Shipping Act of 2010, introduced in September by Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn.
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“We believe ending antitrust immunity, or collective ratemaking, is the right public policy to move on in the 21st century,” President Bruce Carlton said at a press conference the following day. The NIT League, the National Association of Manufacturers and a coalition of more than 30 other organizations will press lawmakers to introduce a bill in either the House or Senate, he added. Oberstar's bill has little chance of passage in the remaining days of the 111th Congress.
The NIT League said the committee reconfirmed the following policy positions that will guide its deliberations of proposals to amend shipping regulation:
' Eliminate antitrust immunity for ocean liner carriers. However, the NIT League said carriers should be allowed to continue to perform joint activities other than collectively establishing or discussing rates and charges, that enhance efficiency, subject to guidelines issued by the U.S. Justice Department.
' Eliminate all requirements relating to the filing with the Federal Maritime Commission of ocean liner carrier agreements.
' Eliminate requirements for ocean liner carriers to file service contracts, and for non-vessel-operating common carriers to file NVOCC service arrangements with the FMC.
' Retain in limited form of common carriage such that ocean liner carriers and NVOs should be obligated to provide service to shippers on reasonable request and provide to shippers copies of or access to their rates, charges and rules prior to performing the transportation service.
' Eliminate the “filed-rate doctrine,” where the FMC enforces tariff or contract rates. Retention of certain “prohibited acts”, such as the restrictions against unreasonable refusals to deal and unreasonable practices by carriers.
' Retain licensing and bonding requirements for ocean transportation intermediaries.
' Retain the Controlled Carrier Act and the Foreign Shipping Practices Act.
' Continue review of mergers among ocean liner carriers by the Justice Department.
Carlton said the NIT League favors protecting vessel-sharing agreements and other efficiency-related activities because they benefit carriers and shippers, if the authority is properly structured.
“I think that a Republican Congress would be rather warm to the idea of bringing international ocean shipping into the same legal framework that all other businesses deal with in terms of competition,” he said, noting that immunity is an exemption similarly enjoyed by Major League Baseball.
“This immunity was given to carriers in 1916. It’s 2010. Conditions that were pretty bad in those days don’t exist any more,' Carlton said. “I think that a conservative, Republican Congress tends to see the touchstone as competition, not protection. So I don’t think we’re out of alignment at all when we say it’s time to inject more competition into this industry,” Carlton said.
Meanwhile, Michael Berzon, chairman of the NIT League’s Ocean Transportation Committee, announced he will step down from the position. Berzon is a former Du Pont executive and president of the consulting firm Mar-Log Inc. in North East, Md. He will remain an at-large member of the NIT League board of directors.
Berzon will be replaced by Donald Pisano, chairman of the Traffic and Warehouse Committee at the Green Coffee Association. ' Chris Dupin and Eric Kulisch