Can FMC de-bug the Shipping Act? (Federal Maritime Commission; 1984 Shipping Act)

Can FMC De-Bug the Shipping Act?

Shipper, carrier, forwarder representatives at public hearing in New Orleans indicate it is possible.

While some shippers are urging Congress to rewrite the 1984 Shipping Act, carriers suggest that a number of criticisms of the law could be handled administratively.

Carriers--and some shippers--are nervous about what might emerge if Congress were to reopen the 1984 act. They say any fine-tuning is best left to regulatory agencies such as the Federal Maritime Commission.

For example, the carriers say, the FMC could allow service contracts in which a shipper agrees to give a carrier a specific percentage of his business, subject to a minimum volume.

The FMC also should take a more active role in supervising activities of shippers' associations and non-vessel-operating common carriers, the carriers say.

Those proposals were included in a carrier position paper that K.E. Moller Nielsen, senior vice president of …