WASHINGTON – House Agriculture Committee Members Rep. Jim Costa (Chair of Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture) and Rep. Dusty Johnson (Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture), with Rep. Salud Carbajal (Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation)  and Rep. Bob Gibbs (Ranking Member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation), released the following statement in response to a meeting with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) Chairman Dan Maffei and Commissioner Rebecca Dye on their efforts to mitigate ongoing shipping delays impacting American farmers, ranchers, and agriculture sector:

“We appreciate Chairman Maffei and Commissioner Dye for taking the time to provide these important updates to us and look forward to continuing to work with them to ensure that these shipping delays are ended expediently. As Chairs and Ranking Members of Subcommittees closely following the direct impacts of this situation, we are committed to resolving this issue in a timely manner and making sure that America’s farmers and ranchers can compete on the global stage. We will continue to follow this issue and look forward to a bipartisan dialogue between Congress and the Federal Maritime Commission.” 

This meeting comes after a March 9^th bipartisan letter sent to the FMC over mounting concern over reports that certain vessel-operating common carriers (VOCCs) are declining to ship U.S. agricultural commodity exports.