This week, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing to evaluate key industry concerns impacting the supply chain crisis, including some Biden administration policies that are making the problem worse. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle 40 percent of the country’s container imports, and right now, there are nearly 60,000 shipping containers waiting at these ports. That’s enough shipping containers to stretch across the entire state of Arkansas along Interstate 40. Los Angeles County has implemented fees for these containers if they are not picked up by their carrier after 9 days for trucking companies and 6 days for rail companies. These fees will eventually trickle down to the consumers that will see an increase in prices and further exacerbate the current supply chain issue and inflation costs. This pause in our nation’s supply chain accounts for many of the empty shelves you are seeing at the grocery store.
I know there won’t be one simple solution to solving this complex problem, and nothing will make it suddenly go away. There are many factors that contribute to the high cost of moving goods throughout our nation’s supply chain, but the policies the President, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader Schumer are peddling are not just missing the mark, they’re making matters even worse. The agenda they continue to pursue through budget reconciliation and administrative actions increase energy and transportation costs, discourage Americans from work, and drive up already soaring inflation. This is not a problem we can just throw money at and hope it disappears. We have to work quickly to ease regulations and get our supply chain back up and running.
