NAWE director chastises shipper groups for VGM complaints

Commercial practices for certifying the weight of ocean containers can be developed in a straight forward way, with few exceptions, according to officials from trade groups that bear ultimate responsibility for enforcement of the IMO rule.    U.S. business groups are being hypocritical and unrealistic in calling for the U.S. Coast Guard to clearly delineate how it would enforce a looming international deadline for verifying the weight of ocean containers prior to vessel loading, or to delay its implementation, John Crowley, executive director of the National Association of Waterfront Employers, said Tuesday.
   Many shippers and ocean freight consolidators remain confused by the International Maritime Organization requirement that they certify container weights and transmit the information to the ocean carrier, effective July 1. The container weight rules were developed in reaction to concerns by carriers about misdeclared container weights, which have been blamed for causing or contributing to maritime accidents. The amendment to the Safety of Life at Sea treaty essentially removes the ability of cargo owners to estimate the weight of ocean shipments on shipping documents.
   Uncertainty stems from the fact that the rule looks more like a guideline, with each country setting its own enforcement protocols while carriers and marine terminals set their own rules for transmission methods, timeframes and consequences for incomplete or untimely data. Agriculture exporters and other shippers complain that they shouldn’t be responsible for providing the verified gross mass of the container because the shipping box itself is owned by ocean carriers or leasing companies, that agriculture shipments are not absolutely uniform because they can pick up moisture, that scales are not all certified and uniform, and that the weight threshold should allow for some variation.
   Meanwhile, Coast Guard officials drew the ire of international container lines when they said the sea service wouldn’t specifically enforce the updated IMO rule because they don’t have jurisdiction over shippers, but would simply continue normal inspections of vessels under its port-state control authority and refer any violations for overweight containers to the carrier’s flag state. The Coast Guard’s position is that the commercial sector should work together to figure out how to comply with container weight certification.
   Crowley, who represents marine terminal operators, said the rule is simple to understand.
   “In my view the regulation is self-executing. It doesn’t take a lot of verbiage to tell the carrier and the terminal operator they need a verified gross mass (VGM) to load and the shipper that it needs to weigh it and signal communication,” he said on a panel at the American Association of Port Authorities’ spring conference in Washington.
   Crowley, who spent 37 years in the Coast Guard, said businesses usually want the government to not be prescriptive about how to implement rulemakings and instead allow industry to determine the best path for meeting a regulation’s goals, but they are running counter to that philosophy when it comes to the VGM rule.
   “Quite frankly, when I was in the Coast Guard, I’d have been completely surprised if somebody in industry came and said we want you to tell us more about what we should do from an industry standpoint,’ he said. “I find it a little bit ironic that there are calls for more detail from the Coast Guard.”
   The Coast Guard has said it won’t delay enforcement of the IMO regulation and panelists said a delay would be ineffective and counterproductive.
   John Butler, president of the World Shipping Council, said a U.S. implementation delay “doesn’t fundamentally change the equation for carriers” because they still need to comply in the rest of the world. Under the IMO’s regulation, marine terminals and carriers can’t load a container until they get the certified weight from the cargo owner or its agent. 
   The WSC, which represents global container lines operating in the United States, was one of the main proponents behind the new IMO regulation.
   “It’s 2016. We need to know the weight of the cargo in the box,” Butler said.
   Shippers can do that one of two ways: by weighing the entire laden container, or by totaling the weights of the contents and packing materials and adding it to the tare weight of the container itself.
   A delay or carriers experiencing trouble verifying container weights “could potentially put our own exports at risk,” Crowley said, because carriers would not accept the shipments and overseas buyers might turn to foreign competitors for the same products.
   Crowley said the policy of U.S. terminals will be to turn away containers at the gate because they don’t have the space or resources to store them until the verified gross mass can be obtained. 
   Such a scenario could impact drayage motor carriers who will be stuck with an undeliverable container and have to return it to the shipper’s premises. How terminals would handle unverified containers arriving by train is unclear.
   “What our community expects to receive are cargo documents with an accepted form field that can identify the weight so the gates can be informed that the cargo can enter,” the load planning systems can be instructed and the cargo can be loaded on the vessel, Crowley said.
   Butler said ocean carriers want to automate the process so that marine terminals and their own personnel can know which containers to move and add them to the vessel stow plan. A standard process for calculating and verifying the weight is necessary to ensure efficiency, he argued.
   “If we let the exceptions become the rule, you end up with an overall system that is much less effective” and will lead to congestion on the docks, Butler said. 
   Terminals and carriers have an incentive to ensure compliance, aside from the safety of the vessel and dockworkers, because if a Coast Guard vessel inspection turns up an overweight container prior to departure the carrier will be forced to unload the box and resolve the discrepancy before it can depart, which would tie up pier space and potentially delay another vessel getting into port, he said.
   Some have suggested terminals could weigh incoming containers on industrial scales and submit the information to the carrier, but there remains the problem of how to get a shipper representative to sign off on the certified weight.
   Another practical problem is that weighing each container could considerably slow down cargo flows, creating large backlogs. 
   Joseph Ruddy, chief innovation officer at the Virginia Port Authority, said weigh-in-motion scales are not precise enough to meet the IMO requirements.
   The World Shipping Council has a tool on its website that shows the guidance each country around the world has issued about implementing the IMO container weight regulations. Many countries have not published any details so far.