Copyright 2002 Journal of Commerce, Inc. Journal of
Commerce - JoC Week
April 8, 2002 Correction
Appended
SECTION: LOGISTICS; Pg.30
LENGTH: 1389 words
HEADLINE:
Opening volleys ; US Chamber of Commerce study focuses attention on
links between ports and inland transportation
BYLINE: BY CHRIS DUPIN
BODY: As Congress and the administration prepare for next year's
reauthorization of the law that guides billions of dollars in funding for the
nation's highways, various policy groups are gearing up to try to influence the
debate."You are beginning to see the emergence of strategies and philosophies,
some still conceptual and some with a little more meat on the bone," said Joni
Casey, president of the Intermodal Association of North America. IANA is one of
several dozen members of the advisory panel to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
which is in the midst of a 14-month, $450,000 study of the North American
port and intermodal system. The study is scheduled for completion this fall. The
chamber hopes it will lay groundwork for renewal of the Transportation Equity
Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and focus attention on Transportation
Secretary Norman Mineta's call for a "SEA-21" program to coordinate landside
transportation with the nation's maritime system.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. A successor to TEA-21
will determine spending from the highway trust fund, which is financed by
federal fuel taxes. During the current six-year TEA-21 program, which expires on
Sept. 30, 2003, $218 billion was authorized from the trust fund.
Greg Lebdev, the chamber's executive vice president and
chief operating officer, said the business organization commissioned the study
because its members are concerned about the deteriorating quality of the
nation's transportation infrastructure and believe trust funds for highways,
waterways and air traffic "should be spent on the purposes that the taxes were
collected."
"As the organization that is probably most
focused on and most vocal about trade on a consistent basis, we recognize trade
is something that begins or ends here. America's global competitiveness will be
enhanced by trade corridors, and the ability to move goods quickly and
efficiently," Lebdev said.
The chamber is not the only
organization focusing on SEA-21 and a successor to TEA-21. Subcommittees of the
Marine Transportation System National Advisory Council are preparing reports for
Mineta. The National Defense Transportation Association is expected to release a
white paper on cargo security this summer. The Freight Stakeholders Coalition --
a broad-based panel of transport officials that is coordinated by IANA and the
American Association of Port Authorities -- also is discussing the upcoming
reauthorization.
"There was a national freight
summit that was hosted by the Transportation Research Board, and a lot of
ideas and initiatives were floated, and the Department of Transportation and
Federal Highway Administration is engaged in a lot of background briefing and
white paper work," IANA's Casey said.
John Vickerman, a
principal at the port consulting firm TranSystems Corp., said the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce study can "speak with a much higher crescendo" than similar studies
because of the group's large and diverse membership -- 3 million businesses,
3,000 state and local chambers, and 830 business associations.
"Usually ports and freight in general don't have a high enough
constituent level to get a lot of things done," he said.
Vickerman's firm is the lead consultant in the study, but it is being
assisted by the Texas Transportation Institute, the National Ports and Waterways
Institute and Norbridge, a Concord, Mass., consulting firm.
"Historically we tend to speak of our modes vertically -- we talk about
the condition of the rails and what the truckers are doing and the state of
ports or waterways, but see them as individual, almost mutually exclusive
ingredients," Lebdev said. The chamber is aiming to "look at U.S. transport
policy in a horizontal fashion."
Vickerman said the
chamber study "is allowing us to touch some things that have been taboo: labor
issues, productivity issues, and those kinds of things. Freight is so close to
our economy and quality of life that if we do not start paying attention to it,
it will be degraded over time and we will not be able to compete
effectively."
The issue is gaining urgency, he said,
because of growing cargo volumes. "No longer can ports and intermodal terminals
build their way out of congestion," he said. "In my opinion, the ports of Los
Angeles and Long Beach are running out of room here in about 2006 to 2008. Same
thing in New York. We are getting so used to this brick wall coming up to us we
are not doing anything. We have this huge opportunity, and if we don't do it
right, we will have to wait to 2010 and the next reauthorization to correct a
lot of things. I don't think the system can wait."
The
chamber report is examining cargo-volume growth, congestion and intermodal
access. It focuses on 16 seaports that handled 680f the container trade in North
America in 2000. Vickerman's firm has done consulting work for 14 of the 16
ports.
Chamber officials say the 16 ports -- 14 in the
United States, and Halifax and Vancouver in Canada -- were selected to provide a
large enough sample to allow intelligent analysis of the challenges ports face
in coming decades.
Vickerman said that initially some
ports feared that the chamber would call for "a rationalization of their system.
The fear is that as we look at what we do very well and where our shortcomings
are, a lot of the ports don't like to be associated with the shortcomings end of
that equation. But that is only pointing out where we make our investment and
where we can do better things."
Vickerman said the
government needs a way to measure ports' performance to determine which ports
perform well. He said there's a lack of "good freight data" to measure labor and
terminal productivity.
One of the shippers on the
chamber's panel, Don Tieken, vice president of purchasing and logistics at
Riverwood International Corp., said he expects the report to discuss the need to
establish priorities for spending. "Ports are in competition with one another
and are spending money on infrastructure to become the most desirable," he said.
"But we can't afford to have every port trying to be the best in the country."
He said ports may need to concentrate on particular types of cargo instead of
trying to be all things to all carriers.
Vickerman
acknowledged that central planning "sounds very communistic." He said the U.S.
needs "a national policy on freight that is still market-driven and still
private sector-driven. Lordy be, if the Corps of Engineers built everything
applied for -- we don't have enough money in the civil works budget to do
that."
While the need for spending on intermodal
infrastructure has been recognized in the last two highway-spending bills, Casey
hopes that the chamber will urge that a fixed percentage of the TEA-21 successor
be devoted to freight projects such as the "intermodal connectors" -- industry
argot for the last few miles of road between ports and intermodal rail
terminals. These heavily traveled roads are often among the most congested in
the nation and in the worst shape.
Robert Martinez,
vice president of marketing and international services at the chamber, said he
would like to make it easier to use highway funds to be spent on rail-cargo
projects if they will alleviate congestion on highways, in much the same way
that highway funds are used to fund mass transit to alleviate road congestion
caused by passenger cars.
Jeff Crowe, chief executive
of Landstar System and a member of the chamber study advisory panel, said
security has become a more important part of the study since Sept. 11.
But Lebdev said the chamber has been careful not to allow
security concerns to overwhelm the study's agenda. He said there is "tension
between the need in a global economy for accelerated mobility of goods and
services coupled with the nature of security, which tends to slow things down,
kick tires, examine containers and do other things that are very understandable
and necessary to do. How you resolve that tension is part of the ongoing
debate."
Vickerman said "port security and port
productivity are not mutually exclusive," and that better information about
cargo can also help speed freight through terminals. "We are at a crossroads
here," he said. "Let's select the right security technology that empowers our
port and intermodal productivity."
CORRECTION-DATE: May 6, 2002
CORRECTION: -- Robert Martinez, vice president of
marketing and international services at Norfolk Southern Corp., was incorrectly
identified in an April 8-14 report, Page 30, on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's
port and intermodal study.
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