PEORIA, Ill. — A bill before Congress would allow the federal government to better monitor port productivity as a way to prevent a repeat of the labor “slowdown” that caused shipping congestion in West Coast ports.

The tactic greatly affected the movement of agricultural and other products earlier this year. Senate Bill 1732, the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s newly-crafted six-year transportation bill, includes the port transparency measure, which would be administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“What prompted this was the profound and elongated service disruption on the West Coast. What the law aspires to do is set performance metrics for our nation’s port regions,” said Mike Steenhoek, whose Soy Transportation Coalition is among the agriculture and business organizations supporting the bill.

“It enables the ports to report things like how many ‘lifts’ they get, what their throughput is, what kinds of delays they may have. The law is going to require that the ports submit this information.”

In essence, the bill strives to create a database of average port production performance that can be compared to performance records during a labor dispute in order to allow the federal government to prove union or management conspiracy during an intentional work slowdown, and take lawful action to dissolve the dispute.

Currently, the federal government has the ability to become more engaged in a labor dispute if there is the presence of either a strike prompted by workers or a lockout enforced by management. When either of those events occur, the government can engage in a solution, such as compelling the parties to return to work.

“What happened this year is the unions dramatically slowed down operations, almost to the effect of a strike. As a result the government was restricted in their involvement. This law would establish a history of a port’s operations so the next time there is a conflict, there exists a track record of the port’s normal productivity,” Steenhoek explained.

More than 100 business and agriculture groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Assoc. (ASA), National Assoc. of Egg Farmers, National Cotton Council, National Pork Producers Council, National Grain and Feed Assoc. and the United Fresh Produce Assoc., called for Congress to pass the legislation in a letter to Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who chairs the committee.

“We believe this bill is an important first step to gain empirical visibility into how U.S. ports are operating, identify key congestion issues and ensure our nation’s commerce continues to flow efficiently,” reads the July 15 letter, in part. “We fully believe that there is a strong need to start collecting basic uniform data on port performance.

“This is an essential step to ensure that we fully understand the current and future challenges facing our ports and identify the right solutions. We stand ready to work with you in support of this important legislation.”

Congestion at the nation’s ports can be credited to a variety of contributing factors, according to the letter, which is also signed by the Agricultural and Food Transporters Conference, the National Retail Federation and the American Assoc. of Exporters and Importers, among others.

“The congestion has resulted in slowdowns, bottlenecks and chokepoints that impact the efficient flow of cargo with far reaching impacts on all supply chain stakeholders,” stated the letter. “One only needs to look at the damage caused to the U.S. economy from the slowdowns and congestion that impacted U.S. ports earlier this year.

“Today’s reality is that supply chain stakeholders do not have any consistent or objective means to measure performance in these key marine transportation nodes.”

Steenhoek noted though the STC is in support of the bill, along with the ASA, he hopes the final legislation, if passed, will not create undue burdens or financial hardships associated with recordkeeping on U.S. ports.

“In the end we’re all in this together, and we need ports to be able to operate efficiently and economically,” he said.