THE RIGHT TIME FOR US PORTS TO TALK UP THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS

President Joe Biden has been talking about infrastructure spending tied to a bill passed late in 2021 and his recent messaging did include a visit to a New England port, with mentions of topics including dredging of channels and the much needed refurbishment of highway and railway bridges.

The political experts (I don’t claim to be one) have suggested that the bigger issues, including those mentioned here, are going to be dominating the election cycle; with various Primary Elections underway, the battling for the 2022 “midterms” has already started.

The ports, where a local focus is always important, need not get drowned out in all this loud political noise- and yes, a lot of it is partisan shouting of political points. Ports can have the best of both worlds if they point to their very positive steps in solving another “national” problem- the “supply chain crisis.” Counts of anchored vessels in recent trouble spots have decreased, while surface transportation analysts are suggesting that trucking demand has leveled off.

“Bottlenecks”- some real, and others created to garner media attention for a particular point of view, have been reduced. Vessel anchorages no longer feature on the evening news.

Each port has played a role, unique and tied to local circumstances, in ameliorating what was a dire situation in late 2021 into early 2022. Some have influenced local work practices towards more efficiency, others have created facilities for storage and mobilisation that did not exist previously. The timing is auspicious for putting out messages all about those steps taken and their contribution to positive results being seen on a national level.

That last part is key; there is nothing wrong with celebrating local gains (maybe an uptick in payrolls, for example), however- the issues of disruptions moving goods around, or not, are national in scope. This non-expert cannot say exactly when- but infrastructure will be back on the minds of law-makers. Nor can I predict when the next Presidential visit to a seaport will occur, but the timing is right for the ports to continue developing, and fine-tuning talking points of their own, enumerating their own local victories, and their contribution to the national success in unclogging the supply lines.