In response to the disruption experienced earlier this year at West Coast ports, four Senators introduced a bill to help federal authorities and Congress know when labor disputes are beginning to affect productivity at ports.

The Port Performance Act (S. 1298), introduced by Sens. John Thune (R-SD), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Cory Gardner (R-CO), would require performance data be collected at major ports and mandate reports from several federal agencies when that data shows declines in exports immediately before and after labor agreements at those ports expire.

The bill requires an annual report on key performance metrics, as well as additional reporting before and during a port labor negotiation until that negotiation is completed. The intent of these proposed reporting requirements is to help inform a decision as to whether or not a slowdown is occurring and what the impact is on the ports. A press release announcing the bill’s introduction, cites estimates indicating that the recent nine month labor dispute at 29 West Coast container ports cost the economy up to $2.5 billion per day and the resulting strife was widely cited as a contributing cause to the anemic 0.2 percent annual growth rate of the U.S. economy in the first quarter of 2015.

S. 1298 seeks to create additional transparency and accountability for ports, many of which are government owned, by requiring:

• The director of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to establish a port performance statistics program and report annually to Congress on the performance and capacity of the Nation’s key ports.
• U.S. port authorities that are subject to federal regulation or that receive federal assistance to report annually to BTS.
• The Secretary of Transportation, in consultation with the Secretaries of Labor and Commerce, to report to Congress on a port’s performance before and after the expiration of maritime labor agreements to help indicate whether labor discussions have impacted operations, the estimated economic impact of such disputes and roughly how long it will take for shipments to return to normal.

ASA and many other industry organizations urge leaders to quickly reach agreement and end the economically harmful disruption that occurred at the West Coast ports earlier this year.  In the aftermath, ASA and the soybean industry are among those seeking measures to prevent such disruptions in the future and we will work to support S. 1298 and other efforts to address this issue.