3 Supply Chain Updates From DC
Richard Gupton, ARA’s senior vice president of public policy and counsel, joins the podcast to talk about legislation and court cases with effects on movement of grain and fertilizer, ag exports and global fertilizer supplies.
Water Resources Development Act
As Gupton explains, “This is authorization legislation that Congress typically authorizes every two years, and it makes investment in our water infrastructure. It includes all the waterways and ports to make sure we have a viable competitive transportation system to move not only for grains downstream but fertilizer upstream. The Senate and the House have now passed their versions of the Water Resources Development Act, and so we're hopeful they'll get resolved and be signed into law soon with a final package to the President. It's one of the few things that there's a lot of infighting in Washington DC and in partisan politics. That's one of the few things that we've had strong bipartisan support to get done because we need those types of investments in our water infrastructure to maintain our competitiveness globally.”
Ocean Shipping Reform Act
Gupton says: “It has been signed into law by the President. And what it'll do is give the federal Maritime Commission a little bit more regulatory teeth for their oversight of the ocean carriers and also provide more accountability related to the excessive charges that they were imposing on shippers. You've heard the stories about empty containers or near empty containers leaving our ports and going off to China. This will hopefully help put a stop to that and make sure that they are being utilized and filled with ag exports before they're shipped out of port. So those are important step and I was just reading the news that you know, surprisingly, over you know, the shipping costs are now going down. So that's a positive rate. I don't know if that's because ocean shipping reform or other supply chain issues, but there's some positive movement. We're appreciative. And again, that's a bipartisan legislation that that was able to get through the Senate of the house, which is a big win.”
Trade Case Update
Gupton explains, “The phosphate case relates to Morocco. The Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission had said there were some trade violations. So they've imposed countervailing duties against those products, which basically puts a freeze on those products coming to the US. The US Court of International Trade has taken that case up. We're not a direct party but filed a brief raising concerns about those trade barriers in place. That case is pending. They had a hearing within the last month.”
“The other case relates to UAN particularly from Trinidad Tobago, but the case also involves supplies from Russia. So that dynamic probably doesn't help but that's also part of it. The Department of Commerce preliminarily decided that there were trade violations. And there was just a hearing by the US International Trade Commission. And so, again, we think the case was made not to impose tariffs on those products. We've seen that supply disruptions on the east and west coasts particularly for UAN. So that is for our members a major issue related to supplies. We're hopeful that the ITC re-evaluates you know, the case and it does not pose any tariffs or countervailing duties, but it's still pending at the moment.”
Timely way to get involved.
Gupton shares USDA is accepting comments on the fertilizer supply chain. ARA is submitting member comments by the Friday, July 15 deadline. Click here for more and access the DC Help Desk.
