“Every once in a while, something you learn makes you viscerally angry,” Biden said. “There are nine, nine major ocean-line shipping companies that ship from Asia to the United States.”
Biden said the nine companies, formed into a trio of consortia, raised prices “by as much as 100 percent.”
“The Senate passed legislation that I am hopeful the House will enact soon to crack down on these companies, as I’ve asked, and lower the cost,” the president said.
The measure, which is expected on the House floor next week under the expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds vote for passage, would overhaul shipping laws for the first time since the enactment of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998.
“Rising costs are top of mind right now for the American people, and one of the more flummoxing causes of inflation is the crushing backlog that we are seeing at our ports. We have all seen the pictures of scores of ships lining up in ports from Los Angeles, to Savannah, to Seattle, to my home port of New York and New Jersey,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Thursday on the Senate floor. “These backlogs have created serious price hikes. According to one study from earlier this year, the price to transport a container from China to the West Coast of the United States costs 12 times — 12 times — as much as it did two years ago.”
