Dusty Johnson Promotes ‘Healthier, Fairer’ Maritime Markets After Bipartisan Reauthorization Of FMC

4 months ago

At a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee budget review before the Congressional recess, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) dug into how Congressional resources and maintenance support the Federal Maritime Commission’s day-to-day functioning.

Transcript

00:00The chair recognizes Mr. Johnson for five minutes.

00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll pick up where Mr. Garamendi left off, which is on the FMC reauthorization.

00:09Commissioner, I'm not, number one, thank you to your team for providing technical assistance.

00:16I'm not really talking about the tweaks and the edits they suggested.

00:19More big picture, when you reviewed the FMC reauthorization bill, what were your general observations?

00:26Did you think we hit the center of the target?

00:28I think so.

00:30I think so. I think that we had suggestions.

00:34Be glad to sit down and talk with you about those and work anything out.

00:42But I don't think we had any extreme changes.

00:45And there were things that the FMC had recommended.

00:51We appreciate it very much. Thank you.

00:53And one of the things, listen, it's not an earth-shattering reauthorization,

00:57but all the more reason for Congress, and again, I'll echo what Mr. Garamendi said.

01:00Thank you to the leadership of the committee for doing our regular blocking and tackling work.

01:05Sometimes we wait so long, we are driven by crisis,

01:09that we don't take care of the day-to-day, year-to-year maintenance.

01:13Reauthorizing solid agencies like FMC in a timely manner is helpful.

01:20It's not going to transform the nature of your work, but I would think it provides some additional stability,

01:24additional predictability for you, the other two commissioners currently in place,

01:28as well as the staff, that, okay, we've got Congress is once again,

01:32give us an imprimatur, but they want our work to continue.

01:35So again, not earth-shattering, but Commissioner, I think you probably agree, helpful nonetheless.

01:40Oh, I had a couple of suggestions.

01:44The staff had seen some other things, but I think in short order,

01:50we can discuss those.

01:53I don't see any major problems.

01:55I appreciate it. Thank you.

01:56So moving back to OSRA, you had mentioned in your testimony that, of course,

02:00that brought the number of complaints up.

02:02Your experience with that is causing the commission to enter into a rule promulgation

02:07on a more permanent process.

02:11Talk to us a little bit more about the lessons learned

02:14and how that may translate into a new process.

02:18I think the thing that surprised me, pleased me,

02:22that with the FMC's involvement,

02:27people suddenly decided that they would refund money.

02:31Right.

02:32And so it went much more smoothly than I had anticipated.

02:41So the overall, I think the overall revenue

02:47doesn't really represent the effectiveness of the approach.

02:53And I'm reminded, Commissioner, when then Chairman Maffei was in my office,

02:59before OSRA had passed,

03:02he had observed that just the specter of the bill,

03:05specter is maybe a more ominous definition than I intend,

03:10but clearly it was bipartisan.

03:12Clearly, Mr. Garamendi and I were engaged in a real lawmaking exercise

03:16that we wanted to get done.

03:18The writing was on the wall.

03:19We were going to get this done.

03:20Chair Maffei had mentioned that behavior was already changing

03:25in the marketplace in anticipation of that.

03:28And I think it's one good reminder that when y'all,

03:31of course, y'all are the day-to-day cops on the beat,

03:33and yet Congress, when we're doing good oversight,

03:36when we're engaged in making sure that y'all have the tools needed

03:39to do your job, we do get a healthier, fairer,

03:43and more robust marketplace.

03:44What am I getting wrong?

03:45No, I think that you're right.

03:47And as we just discussed, enforcement's never over, right?

03:55And we don't expect it to be.

03:58There are always different approaches to color outside the lines.

04:07But I'm very pleased with the way things are going.

04:16We have, I think I had recommended, in fact, finding 29,

04:21that all these companies have compliance officers,

04:24people that we can call up immediately.

04:27And that's working out well.

04:29And I think that that's shown some pay dirt, too.

04:32So I would close by saying this, Mr. Chairman.

04:36This might be the least sexy hearing going on on Capitol Hill today.

04:41No disrespect to Commissioner Dye.

04:43We hope so.

04:43But it is just responsible management of government.

04:49And one of the reasons that I fought to get on this committee

04:52is because I knew it would be populated by people like Mr. Larson

04:56and Mr. Graves who'd worked together to get there,

04:58even though they're different parties,

04:59and Mr. Ezell and Mr. Carbajal,

05:02and Mr. Maffay and Ms. Dye,

05:04and Mr. Garamendi and Mr. Johnson,

05:06people who do not take the same perverse joy in fighting.

05:11Instead, they just want an America that works.

05:13Thank you for being a part of that solution, Mr. Chairman.

05:15I would yield.

Dusty Johnson Promotes ‘Healthier, Fairer’ Maritime Markets After Bipartisan Reauthorization Of FMC

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