port cargo handling equipment

Billions in port grants rolled into Democrats’ inflation bill

Container terminal at Port of Houston.

Billions of dollars in federal grants aimed at reducing air pollution at seaports are included in the Democrats’ inflation bill with the caveat that the money cannot be used to automate container terminals.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, announced last week by Senators Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is a pared down version of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” package introduced last year but never passed.

The new version, which backers say will...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/billions-in-port-grants-rolled-into-democrats-inflation-bill

UK, US kill merger between port crane makers Cargotec and Konecranes

A giant blue crane straddles rail tracks with intermodal container trains. at the Port of Savannah. Konecranes makes the equipment and just abandoned its merger with Cargotec because it couldn't get regulatory approval.

Cargotec and Konecranes, two of the largest global manufacturers of shipyard and container handling cranes for ports, announced Tuesday they are abandoning their planned merger after U.K. antitrust regulators blocked the transaction and the U.S. threatened legal action.

The two Finnish companies agreed in October on a $5 billion deal to create a combined material handling group.

The U.K. Competition & Markets Authority said it blocked the deal because proposed remedies to remove all overlapping...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/uk-us-kill-merger-between-port-crane-makers-cargotec-and-konecranes

How does Biden’s Build Back Better plan affect freight?

John Porcari, the port envoy to the White House Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, was asked this week for his long-term assessment of the U.S. supply chain.

“The pandemic laid bare a system that creaks along in the best of circumstances,” Porcari said. “We have an unprecedented opportunity here with the bipartisan infrastructure law and with Build Back Better to build a goods movement system that will serve our children and grandchildren. We really need to make some long-term structural...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/how-does-bidens-build-back-better-plan-affect-freight