News and Events

Perspective: Taking Aim at Unfair Billing

American Trucking Associations, the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers and the Harbor Trucking Association jointly support a recently released Notice of Proposed Rulemaking from FMC that seeks to expand the timeliness and overall level of detail and transparency for detention and demurrage invoices coming from common carrier billing parties that provide ocean carriage and storage of freight. OSRA also requires the commission to address the issue of which parties can be billed for these charges in the first place.

Link to full Transport Topics article

NY-NJ swept of more empties as West Coast diversions grow

The Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers, which represents intermodal trucking firms at the port, has long pushed for accelerating the evacuation of empties due to the constraints their repositioning imposes on drivers. In a statement to JOC.com, Bi-State President Lisa Yakomin said that the group’s members are seeing some respite from dealing with empties, but there are still instances where drivers are forced to drive miles from the port to unload an empty or get blocked from returning an empty to the port due to a lack of terminal appointments.

“While we have seen some ocean carriers step up their efforts to evacuate empties following the announcement of the ‘container imbalance fee,’ motor carriers are still experiencing shut outs on a daily basis due to lack of available space and/or lack of appointment availability,” Yakomin said.

Link to full JOC article

Coming Down the Pike: California governor signs legislation regarding detention and demurrage fees

California has passed AB 2406, a new state law concerning per diem charges imposed by intermodal marine equipment providers or intermodal marine terminal operators. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill to stop “extended dwell charges on a motor carrier, beneficial cargo owner, or other intermediary relative to transactions involving cargo shipped by intermodal transport.”

Link to full MarketScale article

FMC chairman says lines should compensate shippers, truckers forced to store containers because of port congestion

After a meeting last week at the Port of New York and New Jersey, US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) chairman Daniel Maffei said: “When ocean carriers continue to bring thousands of containers per month to a port and only pick up a fraction of that number, it creates an untenable situation for terminals, importers and exporters, trucking companies, and the port itself.

Link to Splash247.com article