GAO to investigate West Coast port disruption

Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer says labor impasse sent “ripples through the U.S. economy.”    Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate “service disruptions” at West Coast ports that developed during and after the contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Pacific Maritime Association.
   In a letter to Gene Dodaro, comptroller general at the GAO, Fischer said “stalled negotiation caused widespread delays in cargo movement, inventory shortfalls at retail stores, crop losses to agriculture producers, and input delivery delays to manufacturers.”
   “Seaports serve as gateways to domestic and international commerce, connecting U.S. business, workers and consumers to the global marketplace,” she wrote. “West Coast ports, in particular, are key hubs for international trade, handling nearly half of all U.S. maritime imports and exports, including inputs for manufacturers in Nebraska and across the states.”
   Fischer, who chairs the Senate’s Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure Subcommittee, convened a hearing on the West Coast ports disruptions in February.
   She asked the GAO investigate:

• Implications of the port disuptions for different industries and whether it resulted in “increased transportation costs, inventory shortfalls or market share losses.”
• How alternative transportation modes affected industry supply chains.
• Costs and impacts of cargo shifts to ports on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, Canada and Mexico.
• “Current condition of infrastructure at our West Coast ports” and their ability to withstand future disruptions.

   Fischer has given the GAO 18 months to report back its findings from investigation.