President Joe Biden signed legislation Thursday meant to make shipping goods across oceans cheaper — a move the White House says will help lower retailer costs that have remained high since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and helped fuel record inflation.
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act passed the Senate unanimously via voice vote and garnered bipartisan House support. It empowers the Federal Maritime Commission to investigate late fees charged by carriers while prohibiting ocean carriers and marine terminals from refusing to fill available cargo space.
The president also stressed that a concentration of corporate shipping power in the hands of just nine, large and foreign-owned companies has fed higher shipping costs in ways that hurt businesses and exacerbate problems with inflation.
“These carriers made $190 billion in profit in 2021, seven times higher than the year before,” Biden said. “The cost got passed on, as you might guess, directly to consumers, sticking it to American families and businesses because they could.”
