U.S. State Governors Step in to Assist With Supply Chain Challenges

The world’s eyes are on the global supply chain like never before. As retailers and shoppers countdown the days until the Holiday buying season, each news cycle brings more stories of interruptions, price increases, and potential gift shortages.

Governors in states with heavy ship traffic are getting involved to help smooth operations in their ports, and making adjustments to policies and procedures in an effort to reduce the imbalance between full and empty containers, create more room for container storage, and streamline truck transport.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for 40% of seaborne traffic in the U.S. are now operating 24-7, with fines proposed for companies that don’t move containers out of the ports in as little as three days. 

The City of Long Beach is also allowing for containers to be stacked four and sometimes five high in off-port storage yards, an increase from the normal two, for a period of 90 days coinciding with the busiest shopping time of the year. 

There have been attempts to reroute ship traffic in the Los Angeles area to smaller ports, like Heunemene, but these smaller ports are farther from logistics hubs creating additional snarls offloading goods and getting them to distribution centers.

Other states are getting involved as well, with Florida touting the availability of their 15 ports, and announcing they’re receiving their biggest ship ever in the upcoming weeks, a cargo vessel out of India. Portland, Oregon is receiving its first cargo ships since 2016, while Seattle and Baltimore are attempting to lure cargo ships to their relatively congestion-free ports. 

Rerouting ships to smaller, more remote ports can prove difficult for the logistics of removing the containers and getting them to distribution centers. 

And it’s not just coastal areas either. Just recently Kansas Governor Laura Kelley announced an initiative to integrate and share data among Kansan manufacturers to create efficiencies within the state’s supply chain.

It’s expected that some disruption to the global value chain will be around until at least the 2nd quarter of 2023. In the meantime make sure to check Supplyframe Resources for the latest intelligence and tools to help you streamline your operations and ensure you are ahead of the curve in a volatile and ever-shifting global landscape.