A new study by the US Federal Maritime
Commission has found that despite previous suggestions to the contrary, carriers
shipping cargo through Canadian and Mexican ports do not violate any US law,
treaty, agreement, or FMC regulation.
“We identified a situation in the Pacific
Northwest, even reaching southward into California, whereby cargo movements
through certain other parts of our border are putting these ports at a strong
competitive disadvantage,” FMC chair Richard Lidinsky wrote in a foreword to
the report. “However, in the supply chain of American international waterborne
commerce we oversee, US shippers violate no FMC law or regulation by using
Canadian or Mexican ports.”
The report, which is entitled “Study of US
Inland Containerized Cargo Moving Through Canadian and Mexican Seaports” and was
issued July 27, comes eight months after the FMC launched an inquiry into
whether American policies are causing an
erosion of container traffic at ports on the US West Coast.
Numerous factors account for why shippers
elect to use ports in Canada and Mexico, according to the report, including
overall shipment savings, risk mitigation through port diversification,
perceived transit time benefits, avoidance of the US Harbor Maintenance Tax.
The maintenance tax is a US-only
per-container federal fee, collected by American ports on behalf of the federal
government, based on a percentage of the cargo’s value. The money collected –
an average of $109 per forty-foot equivalent unit, according to the FMC – is distributed to ports for dredging work and
other improvements.
Since the fee’s not charged in Canada or
Mexico, it has given rise to the belief by some officials that the tax could be
causing diversion of cargo to non-US ports. In recent years, there’s been a
steady increase in the amount of US-destined cargo moving through Canadian port
Prince Rupert and the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico.
The study confirms previous estimates that
a significant amount of containerized cargo imports moving through the Ports of
Oakland, Seattle, Tacoma and Portland on the US West Coast may be vulnerable to
Canada routing.
The study says there are many options
available to Congress should it decide to revise or replace the current
maintenance tax structure.
“It is clear that HMT is one of many
factors affecting the increased use of foreign ports for cargo bound for US
inland destinations,” the report states in part. “While a user fee is necessary
for US ports to grow, the number of proposals in both the House and Senate as
well as from other sources, suggest that amendment to the current HMT structure
should be given consideration.”
Among the ideas on the table are a joint
proposal by the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles and Tacoma to reform the HMT
to allow for more efficient use, and other proposals have been introduced as
legislation in Congress.
All would restructure the maintenance tax
in various ways, and in particular reform the collection process.
