The recent decision by ocean carriers to reduce vessel service at the Port of Oakland and send more vessels to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has negatively impacted U.S. agricultural exporters in the middle of the harvest.

The Propeller Clubs of Northern California and of Los Angeles and Long Beach convened a joint forum to discuss the impact of U.S. railroads on California ports.

Port of Los Angeles executive director, Gene Seroka, supports U.S. agricultural exporter efforts to increase export bookings on global ocean carriers, but cites challenges related to the recent import volume surge.

Mike Short, president of Global Forwarding at C.H. Robinson, shares an update on the current global shipping market and insights into how shippers can prepare for this historical peak season.

Michael Einhorn, President and CEO of Dealmed disscusses how critical commercial trucking is to keeping supply chains open for medical supplies while COVID continues to surge, and offers insight on how to remedy the issue and prevent the medical supply chain crisis from growing.

This morning, over 70 agriculture associations delivered another urgent plea for intervention to President Biden, USDA Secretary Vilsack, Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg, FMC Chair Maffei, the Chair of White House Council of Economic Advisors, and the US Attorney General.

Mario Cordero, the executive director of Port of Long Beach, welcomed President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, adding that “we have an administration who talks about ports”. While presenting the infrastructure plan, President Biden had announced that the plan would also include ports besides building highways and bridges.

Martin Oberman, chair of the Surface Transportation Board (STB), charged U.S. railroads with reducing service, raising freight rates, shifting more truckloads onto highways, contributing to global warming while deriving $191 billion in dividends and stock buybacks since 2010.

The Port of Los Angeles reported year-to-date container volumes were up in July by 36.8% over 2020 levels for a total of 6,318,675 TEUs, according to Gene Seroka executive director, Port of Los Angeles.

On August 5th Union Pacific (UP) Railroad CEO Lance Fritz wrote Martin Oberman, chair of the Surface Transportation Board (STB), assuring him of UP’s efforts to address rail congestion issues that includes connecting West Coast ports to Midwest destinations