Commentary

With Los Angeles-Long Beach dockworkers back to work, the port labor spotlight returns to the International Longshoremen’s Association on the East and Gulf coasts.

AMP Americas manages a fleet of 42 milk trucks for Fair Oak Farms with renewable natural gas made from manure from the same 30,000-cow dairy.

Q: In your Nov. 19 column, “Master of the Billing Domain,” you responded to a question from a shipper who’d had a carrier combine two shipments tendered on two separate bills of lading at different times on the same day into a single shipment, and then billed charges higher than would have accrued if the two shipments had been handled separately.

It’s well-known that global container volumes are slowing. But the impact this will have on the industry isn’t nearly as well understood, if only because a new era of slower growth is arguably just beginning.

Maybe it’s the approach of the holiday season and its inevitable references to “A Christmas Carol,” but the ghosts of intermodal past seem to be offering good advice for us now and for the future.

An unhappy freight forwarder questions why forwarders are being lumped in with brokers in the recently enacted MAP-21 law that raises the security bond required for motor carrier brokers to $75,000.

Happy holidays? Not for shippers. Last summer they sweated the possibility of a peak-season strike by the International Longshoremen's Association. Now they're facing the real threat of an ILA work stoppage at year-end.

With the U.S. presidential election over, let the hand-wringing begin. Between now and January — less, considering the upcoming holiday breaks — what will a lame-duck Congress accomplish on the numerous and important issues facing it?

A statement in a recent analyst report on forwarder Expeditors International of Washington stopped me in my tracks.

When Congress acts to avoid the year-end fiscal cliff threatening the nation’s fragile economic recovery, it should include a solution for an issue that threatens to curtail the country’s ability to maintain competitive ports and diverts import containers away from U.S. ports.

Over the past several years, I’ve had the incredible good fortune to be able to shift the emphasis of my work from its focus on shipping lines, service contracts, delivery deadlines and cargo claims to an entirely different set of new, but related area of businesses.

Politically speaking, this month’s U.S. election appears to leave the country in the same position as before.

WASHINGTON — While most American turn their attention away from the elections, the transportation policy community in the Beltway is consumed by two questions...

Recent railroad earnings announcements feature robust intermodal volumes prominently, and there’s every expectation that 2012 will exceed the record volumes of 2006.

“The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain.”

Unlike former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin who could “…actually see Russia from land in Alaska,” you won’t be able to see the Port of Long Beach from the newly proposed Port of Long Beach Administration building. At least it will still be in the State of California.

How do I compete in a marketplace that seems to favor cut-rate carriers that offer only minimal service over the premium service on which we pride ourselves? Do you have any insights to offer?

Hurricane Sandy will have a devastating impact on life and property. However, gauging its ultimate impact on an economy still struggling to overcome the Great Recession but with substantial resources to overcome adversity is far more complex than merely adding up insurance payouts and uninsured losses.

Shipping lines in the eastbound Pacific have been congratulating themselves for successfully implementing a series of general rate increases this year.

Container shipping lines face another year filled with “unpredictability and volatility.”

Taking the right steps can help shippers prevent re-brokering by motor carriers. Step No. 1 starts at the loading dock.

Long-awaited conflict minerals regulations issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission in September will take effect on Nov. 13 for products including tantalum, tin, gold and tungsten.

On Oct. 8, Mexico became an official member of the world’s most important global trade talks: negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The BMC-32 Cargo Liability Endorsement has been gone for more than a year, extinguished in March 2011 by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Dr. Mike Walter – successful businessman, educator and former LB Port Commissioner – was honored recently by the International Seafarers Center for his contributions to the maritime industry.