U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, Jr. (D-NJ) praised the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Tuesday for working to limit cargo delays that have caused severe problems on the West Coast.
Payne and U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said the backlog at Port Newark is only four vessels at anchor with an average wait time of one day, compared to the more than 60 vessels waiting an average of four days on the West Coast.
“I think that today’s meeting was a very good start to deal with the issues of unloading cargo at the port,” Payne said. “We are doing everything we can to minimize these issues as we approach the holiday season. The situation at Newark is not nearly as large as the problems faced on the West Coast and that is due to the great work of Port Authority workers. But I am outraged to hear that the cost to move a shipping container has risen from $1,000 before the pandemic to more than $22,000 today. We will not tolerate any arbitrary price increases that are not directly related to legitimate market forces.”
High consumer demand and increased product shipments has created a record volume of cargo to be shipped to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, officials said. In 2020, the Port Authority moved a record 7.6 million shipping containers, but it estimates it will move more than 8.5 million containers in 2021. The Port Authority serves 28 million consumers in New Jersey area and another 106 million throughout the Northeast, Midwest and Eastern Canada.