Feuer Calls for National Guard Assistance To Help With Backlog At Port of Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer has called for assistance from the Army National Guard in response to the dilemma at California ports, where dozens of ships are waiting to deliver goods.
As recently as October 20, the White House was considering deploying the National Guard to backlog situations that are not only affecting California, but ports all over the nation, according to CNN.
Feuer also said that other states should send their National Guard members to California to help, stating that the supply chain distribution problems affect the entire country.
"It's not only a Los Angeles problem. It's not only a California problem. It's a problem across the country," Feuer said. "The president has been asked about engaging the National Guard. It's time."
On Thursday, both the United States Department of Transportation and California announced multibillion loan agreement to improve supply chain infrastructure long-term. However, this move will have no affect on the current backlog situation facing America. The plan for the loan is to be better prepared for the future, should any problems like this one arise.
The Biden Administration's Port Enovy, John D. Porcari, said this move will benefit both the state of California and the United States through supply chain movements.
Just over the last month, both the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have called for a series of measures to try and ease the backlog of ships, that are waiting at anchor an average of 13 days.
On Monday, the ports made a joint-announcement regarding a set of fines that would incur for shipping containers that sat at port for too long. They also announced that they would temporarily relax a set of shipping container guidelines that previously limited stacking to two containers - raising it to four for 90 days.
Both of those moves came after President Joe Biden announced that both ports would work 24/7 to attempt to improve the speed with which cargo was unloaded and moved out of port.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)