Senate fails to authorize FMC supply chain portal

The Senate Commerce Committee cited “labor-related concerns” with the Federal Maritime Commission’s pilot supply chain information portal project, but said supply chain innovation teams will continue work this summer, focusing primarily on U.S. exports.    During a mark-up of a bill to authorize funds for the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation last week removed provisions to fund the commission’s plan to create a “supply chain information portal demonstration project.”
   Frederick Hill, a committee staff member, said the committee “expects supply chain teams will continue to function well this summer even without this funding. Removing the provisions alleviates labor related concerns and creates more time to clarify the intent and goals of a potential demonstration project in future legislation.”
   Hill declined not elaborate further on what the concerns of labor were.
   As originally worded, the legislation would have authorized $1 million in funding for each of the fiscal years 2018 and 2019 for the project.
   The supply chain initiative grew out of a report that the FMC issued in 2015 on port congestion. The agency invited executives and other officials from ocean carriers, ports, labor unions, marine terminals, warehouses, chassis providers, trucking companies, railroads, intermediaries, and shippers to come to Washington last year and participate in “supply chain innovation teams.”
   FMC Commissioner Rebecca F. Dye, who is heading the agency’s supply chain initiative, told members of the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this month that said told the teams that met last year “identified supply chain visibility as one of the most effective ways to increase supply chain performance.”
   “Integrated information systems provide supply chain visibility that encourages businesses to act in a more coordinated and effective way,” she said, and the teams “identified the development of a national seaport information portal as the one process innovation that could be adapted for use by ports around the United States.”
   The purpose of the demonstration project is to see if the portal would work. But in interview with American Shipper last week, Dye emphasized, “I do not recommend the federal government build it.”
   Dye said that she understood the Senate wanted more time to consider the FMC’s plan, but added that the work of the supply chain innovation teams will continue.
   “We are not done with the project yet,” she said.
   Whereas the groups that met at the FMC last year were focused on imports, she said new panels that will start meeting in July will focus primarily on exports.