The White House is nominating Max Vekich to serve on the Federal Maritime Commission.

Members of Congress told the Federal Maritime Commission that they are hearing again and again about exporters being denied the opportunity to send their goods across the water, either directly, or with last-minute cancellations or unreasonable expectations on time to load, and so they asked why the FMC cannot solve these problems.

The Federal Maritime Commission is accepting applications from those interested in joining its newly formed National Shipper Advisory Committee, the FMC announced June 7. The committee -- which will accept 12 members from the export community and 12 from the import community -- will meet at least once a year and advise the FMC on the “competitiveness, reliability, integrity, and fairness” of the ocean freight delivery system. Members will serve appointments of up to three years and will not be paid. Applications are due June 30.

Lawyers speaking at the Foreign Trade Association’s World Trade Week event said CBP is already drowning because of the consequences of the massive increase in post-importation tariff exclusions, and they're expecting it to get worse. Michael Roll, from Roll & Harris trade law firm, said he's betting that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will reopen the exclusion process for Section 301 tariffs before summer's over. But he expects it will take until late 2021 or early 2022 for exclusions to be granted, which means many imports that entered after exclusions expired, or that never had exclusions, will have been liquidated by the time the importers learn they didn't have to pay the tariff.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for May 3-7 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Shipping regulations should be revised to allow the Federal Maritime Commission to better address unfair detention and demurrage fees, agricultural export issues and a range of other shipping problems at U.S. ports, FMC Chair Daniel Maffei said. While he didn’t propose any concrete changes, he said he is “frustrated” with the situation at the nation’s ports and is speaking with Congress about potentially proposing regulatory changes. “I'm not prepared to go into any details now, but I do think that some things clearly need to be clarified,” Maffei said during a May 5 National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference. “There are many, many areas where the law is vague or so outdated because it simply was written mostly in the time of tariffs, and now it's mostly contracts.”

The U.S. needs a national export strategy and a combination of federal support and digital solutions to address ocean carriers declining to carry U.S. agricultural exports, said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. While he thinks the issue can be fixed, Seroka said it will be challenging.

Nearly 300 agriculture groups and companies urged the Department of Transportation to intervene as carriers continue to decline shipments of agricultural exports. The agency should “utilize all existing authorities” and help the Federal Maritime Commission “in expediting its enforcement options” to deal with the carriers, the groups said, which are sending empty containers back overseas rather than filling them with exports because the carriers can charge higher rates for imports (see 2103050014).

The Federal Maritime Commission plans to permanently revise its regulations to give shippers and carriers more flexibility surrounding service contract filing requirements. The change, outlined in an upcoming final rule, will allow ocean carriers to file original service contracts with the FMC up to 30 days after they take effect, the FMC said April 19. The commission had introduced this change on a temporary basis over the past year to help carriers mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic but will make it permanent after receiving “positive” feedback from industry. Previously, FMC required carriers to file initial service contracts before they were allowed to receive and move cargo under the terms of that contract. The FMC expects to publish the rule in the “coming weeks” and said it will take effect June 2. It also published an unofficial copy of the rule.

The Federal Maritime Commission met this week with lawmakers and held a separate closed session to discuss its investigation into maritime port issues and reports of carriers declining to accept U.S. exports (see 2011200024). The meetings were the first held under the FMC’s new chairman, Daniel Maffei (see 2103310004), and included an update on the “challenges to the freight delivery system,” the FMC said April 7. Trade groups have complained of unfair detention and demurrage fees and other port issues for months (see 2011170041).