The two lawmakers who spearheaded last year's House ocean shipping reform bill plan to introduce new legislation next week that could further expand the Federal Maritime Commission’s authority. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said he and Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., plan to introduce the “Ocean Shipping Reform Act 2.0,” which could “undo some of the damage the Senate did” to revise OSRA before it passed both chambers in June.
The New York State Legislature passed an amendment March 20 to a bill passed last year that banned perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in apparel. The bill expands the ban to outdoor apparel and outerwear, which had previously been exempt, according to a post on the Kelley Green Law blog.
The Federal Maritime Commission is "actively seeking information" to confirm whether ocean carriers and marine terminal operators are complying with a recent ruling about per diem detention charges, the FMC said March 23.
The Independent Mexico Labor Expert Board said it is not prepared to say that Mexico is not in compliance with the labor obligations under USMCA, given the steps the government is taking to reform the labor laws. But, with barely more than a year before the deadline to give all workers the chance to vote for independent unions, "we are increasingly concerned that the transition period for full implementation of Mexico’s labor reform will end next May with large segments of the old protection contract system still intact, including in critical manufacturing sectors and their suppliers."
Companies attempting to comply with U.S. laws against importing goods made with forced labor need to choose their words carefully when communicating with Chinese suppliers, said a trade lawyer on a recent webinar. A Chinese law enacted in recent years means using the words Uyghur or Xinjiang, among others, could expose the importer or their Chinese suppliers to legal liability.
The Federal Maritime Commission is updating its current user fees. The changes are meant to reflect changes in salaries for employees of fee-generating services. Some fees will increase due to the increase in salaries for employees of those agencies, while for one service the rule lowers fees as "less-senior employees" are assigned to the "fee-generating activity," according to the memo. Comments on the new rule are due April 20. The rule will take effect June 5 if no comments are received.
The Federal Maritime Commission is preparing for increased enforcement this year as it expects to receive more complaints and hire more investigators as part of a $43.7 million congressional funding request -- an uptick from the nearly $35 million it asked for last year.
The Federal Maritime Commission will amend its civil penalty regulations and procedures to align them with changes made by the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022. The final rule, released March 17 and effective April 19, makes changes to the language in the FMC's regulations that allows the commission to be able to "order a refund of charges" in a charge complaint proceeding, it said. The FMC also said that if a refund of charges is ordered in addition to a civil penalty, the civil penalty must be reduced so that freight carriers do not pay more than the "actual injury" caused.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will be sharing information with Mexico about "the safety of biotech products," which is something the president of Mexico brought up repeatedly in explaining his decrees about genetically modified corn, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a Senate oversight hearing.
CBP has received a third "exception request" under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act seeking to rebut the presumption that goods with content from China's Xinjiang province were made with forced labor, CBP officials said at a press conference March 14. The agency is still working through all three requests received so far by the agency, the officials said. CBP announced it had received the first two in January (see 2301270078).