Marsha Blackburn To Logistics Expert: What Is Behind The 'Explosion' In Cargo Thefts?

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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) questioned Chief Strategy Officer at IMC Logistics Donna Lemm about the uptick in cargo thefts.

Transcript

00:00Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Lim, welcome. We know that you and IMC do a great

00:07job in Memphis and we appreciate that you are here today before the committee. How long have

00:13you worked in logistics? Actually, 38 years. 38 years. So you have seen this as Tennessee has

00:23grown to be a logistics hub, an intermodal hub there in Memphis, where you have all of the class

00:31one railroads. You have the very active port of Memphis, which is moving a lot of cargo and

00:40containers up and down the Mississippi River. We have FedEx that is there. And then, of course,

00:47because of that, we have all the trucking organizations that are well located in Memphis.

00:53I noted in your testimony, you talked about the increase from 21 to 24 was a 5,000 percent

01:01increase. So this is an astounding number. Now, we all know that weak DAs and weak judges that will not

01:16abide by sentencing guidelines and lock these people up and prosecute them is one of the reasons that we

01:26have seen this cargo theft explode. So I want you to talk for a minute about what you think has caused

01:36this explosion. Well, I absolutely agree that, you know, part of it is that there is, there's no arrest

01:45and there's no prosecution. We do have a problem with that. But we also have a problem with an

01:52understanding of what the magnitude of cargo theft actually means. So often, and the Memphis Police

01:59Department does a great job, I will tell you, they do respond. Chief Davis. Tremendous job. But in so many

02:06ways, cargo theft, we speak almost a different language, our terminology. Many things are very

02:12different. And so often when the local police do come, they may write this whole theft up as

02:21vandalism. Vandalism. They're not able immediately to even qualify and quantify what was taken, what's

02:28the value of what's taken. They see the damage when the fences are cut. And it's vandalism as we know it.

02:35And so I think what we like so much about the Corka bill is this outline in this standardization of

02:44what is cargo theft? What is it? How do we aggregate it? I was talking about motor carriers being the eyes

02:53and ears of our industry because we are and we don't have a voice. We don't know where to report. We need a

03:00centralized place to report. I explained the incident in St. Louis where we, you know, basically

03:07had the ATF calling us, right, to tell us that we had, oh, we've got your refrigerators. And so it's

03:15this ability to connect the dots, local, state, and federal, that we don't have today. And you asked

03:22the question, you know, about what is it? What could we do better in the state of Tennessee? What could we do

03:29better in Memphis? I think we're doing all that we can. Right. Let's talk for a minute, pardon me,

03:38about that. Because you're right, it takes passing legislation, reframing the conversation, if you will,

03:48and then putting the parameters around that. But one of the things that we've looked at is

03:55utilization of technology. Yes. Because of what you're talking about with cutting the fences and

04:02then local law enforcement having to say, is it something that is vandalism or how do we know

04:11what the extent of the theft is? So changing the approach and gathering that evidence, utilizing

04:19technology speak to that importance. Well, I 100% agree that there are ways perhaps we can use technology to help us

04:30better record those instances. And I think that could be very, very helpful. Part of this whole discussion, too, of

04:41reporting. Resources needed to do it. Technology can help us do it faster, more efficiently, more effectively.

04:48So I really appreciate you even bringing that up. I think, you know, we've got a very strong technology

04:57team in Memphis would love to invite you to our headquarters and to have this maybe a further discussion

05:05about how we could bring in this whole idea of technology to help us in this area of cargo theft where we

05:14we badly need standardization, communication, and more speed in our ability to collaborate.

05:23Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes.

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