With less than a week to go until the fee kicks in, it seems to be making a difference. "This fee is already meeting its objective," Noel Hacegaba, deputy executive director of the Port of Long Beach, said in a statement. Clearing out those empties would help address one of the major bottlenecks that truck drivers say are making it impossible to clear out cargo. "What's moving a lot faster is the cargo that's showing up here now, it's just flaming out of here," Schrap said. "This has been described by the ocean carriers as a 'forced evacuation'" of containers, Schrap said.

Source: Los Angeles Times November 11, 2021 17:25 UTC