Hi, everybody. Welcome to another Banyan Tire Tracks Podcast. I’m Patrick Escolas. With me today is Nancy O’Liddy of the NIT League. If you don't know what that stands for, that's the National Industrial Transportation League. Nancy, how're you doing?

Great. Thanks for, Banyan, having me. This is kind of a fun opportunity. Thanks for having me. 

Hey, it's very fun to have you too. We're just talking about it and we're just going to stick with my shiny head instead of her having the glasses on and having shiny there too. So, that way, you're only blinded by one thing.

One shiny.

We already talked about it. Nancy is not just going to turn the camera off and say your camera's not working. So, we're delighted to have her in her full view here. So, thanks again, Nancy. 

Thank you.

Hey, so before we get into the NIT League, and what that's all about. I always like to start with who are you? Why am I talking to you? How did you find yourself in the logistics space?

So, let's start – I'll try not to go way back because they don’t know how old I am. But –

Yes. It’s only 33 years back. Not a day more.

It’s all good. It's all good. But I graduated from high school on a Friday was Memorial Day weekend and went to work on Capitol Hill on that Tuesday. I worked for a Congressman from California. Fabulous man. Then, I went to work for Leo Ryan from California, who, as you may recall, was part of that Kool-Aid massacre. Yes. So, that was my boss at a very young age. A little startling to go through. I eventually left the Hill, because just was time. I had the experience and it was time to go. So, then I went to the association world, forbid I was in the aging field and the aging issues.

What does that mean, aging? Just me getting older or what is that?

Well, maybe. No.

Are you trying to speed that up now?

So, I represented assisted living in nursing homes, specifically Jewish nursing homes. It was kind of just a fabulous opportunity to learn about how our country doesn't do a real good job on that. So, dear to my heart, that will be when I retire.

Hopefully, it's improved by the time you're in it, right?

Right. Then, I went to work for transportation. I went to work for the Truckload Carriers Association, and was there for about eight years. Then I went to work with the Transportation Intermediaries Association, which is actually how I met Banyan and Lance. Then, now I am the Executive Director of NIT League. So, I've done the full circle. I've done – now, I'm rail and ocean, which I have to tell you is much more complicated than highway. It makes highway look like a breeze.

I was just going to say, it's only east, west, north, south and then you got borders for the highway. If you go ocean and what was it? Railroad?

Rail. Rail is very difficult, and rail –

Not to jump in subjects. But are you involved with any of the railroad failings that have happened in the recent history here? Especially, I'm in Cleveland, so just in Ohio here.

Awful. Absolutely awful. We don't represent railroads. They have their own Association. Of course, my members, because NIT League has been around since 1907. Let’s jump in there. And NIT League represents industrial shippers. It's probably one of the first associations ever established, to be honest. During its history, there was a time when all the railroads were members of NIT League, even though it was the voice of the shipper.

Got you.

We do have some short lines that are still members and some larger ones, like KC and PT were before the merge. At that time, NIT League, we don't promote any more mergers. There's just not enough competition as it is, especially in rail. Rails had its time. COVID –

I was going to say, isn’t that why you put antitrust in the first place, was back in the day?

Hello. We could get into that about ocean as well. We will talk about that too. But NIT League’s members are, it's much more diverse. So, it's hard to say that we're just industrial any longer because we have members like Armada, Cargill, Nestle, Purina, which are definitely not industrial. However, we do represent members like Shell, BP, Exxon. So, our members are all over the place. We have logistics folks. We have the ports. A lot of the ports are members of ours. They support the organization. Then, we have outside associations themselves that work with NIT League and support us because of all the regulatory work we do. So, like [inaudible 0:04:52] is a member. Fertilizer Institute is a member. There’s just a few – there's a whole handful of them, because we are so involved and we handle rail, ocean, and highway. So, legislatively, we are very heavy in legislation.

Yes. I was going to say, it sounds like you got a lot of big names and kind of a diverse demographic within those big names that you touch there. What is NIT League's mission? Why are all these people coming to you? What is your goal? And why are they counting on you or working with you to get there?

So, I started with NIT League in September of 21. Truly, their whole mission is to be the voice of the shipper. I don't think we have to be distinct about which kind of shipper, because I also have small shippers. I have small chemical makers and movers and importers. We have solvate. It's such a combination of members. I've never – it's very broad.

Well, yes, shipper is such a broad statement, and when you say that you’re – that's kind of the voice for them, does that put you at odds with the 3PLs? Or is it more of just access to shipping and everything that comes with it?

I would say, no, it does not put us at odds with shippers. I mean with the 3PLs because their issues are very different. Unless they're actually brokering, import, export, freight, there’s not really – I don't feel there is any problem there. It hasn't happened for me for the last two years anyway. Our issues, and as I said, we work a lot with Surface Transportation Board, and that's all rail, and they finally have a full house so we can actually get things done, and have great respect for Martin Oberman, the chair. Hope he stays on. And then we also work with the Federal Maritime Commission. Same thing as well on any of the ocean issues. Because NIT League was very instrumental, technically, and otherwise getting OSRA 22 passed. I've never in my career got anything passed that fast. So, that was outstanding. Now, what we have to do is, make sure it's implemented properly.

For the layperson, what is OSRA 22?

The Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which had not been updated for – it's like over 20 years. It had not been updated. And that goes back to that situation you were talking about before with antitrust. The same problem in ocean, we have a rail because we only have like five big carriers that are carrying all of the freight. However, they do have antitrust community, and none of them in American ships any longer. They're all for. So, we do question that at different times, if they still need antitrust, but we have to work with them. Because obviously we need the freight to move. Now, we have this dilemma of coming with Christmas that the Mississippi River just won't fill. It's not deep enough so the ships can't come through. So, that has caused – I mean, people are very afraid that we're going to have empty shelves at Christmas, because we can't get the ships to move through.

Wow. You were talking about that. I'm going to say, make sure, OSRA 22 went through so quickly is that because some of the problems with the issues were highlighted by the COVID pandemic and the logistics problems that were from there and the pack ports?

A 100%. Without, honestly, because I I've worked on the Hill and on the outside and it is not that easy to get legislation passed.

I don't think anybody that's come from the government side says, “Yes, don't worry. This fast. We’ll get on it right away.”

We got this.

Yes. 

We got this. And we highly respect Congressman Garamendi and DUSTY JOHNSON because their work making that a by bipartisan bill is fantastic. It was a crisis. I mean, we all lived it. It was a crisis. The shelves were empty. Things were getting there. Christmas stuff was showing up at Easter, so then they couldn't even sell it. It caused a really bad economic situation for us. 

I mean, supply chain and logistics is bipartisan kind of by nature.

It is. It is. It used to be. Used to be. I think, Biden did get the transportation bill through which was, I think instrumental in keeping us alive in the economy. But most of our shippers feel, through the study we did with Bloomberg, [inaudible 0:09:30]. I don't know if you've met him but he's fantastic and he's a wonderful speaker. He's a good person you might want to have on your little show. Might want to have him on your little show. 

I'll have my people reach out to it and by people, I mean –

He would love it.

– David and Megan. We'll have them get them. 

My people. But anyway, we did it for the – we kind of got it in late, kind of on the end of the first quarter. We'll probably do one again. But for the most part, they feel that it's kind of balanced at the moment. But you know that, so this is already like a couple months old. If you read, they're saying that the rates are starting to get back where they were and things are going to get a little tougher and contract work. So, the ball was only in the shipper court for a very short time.

Yes. I have –

Very short time.

And it's funny because I've even have a client or two that they're talking about going after managed transportation things and they're like, “Well, in order to get it right now, we'd have to get so low that we're just we're just going to wait, see what we have, so that way, we don't have to stay with any of these promises we committed to, and then end up losing money down the road.”

Exactly. You do not want to get any contract. I'm speaking for the shippers, but you do not want to get in a contract that's not fair. I think we've all had a rough couple of years with that. I understand that they're going to wait it out. Now, I get it.

Yes. I mean, so we've talked about a little bit of where that's going. Is that where right now the advocacy and the kind of the policy development you're looking at right now and for the future? Because we just talked about what has passed and what kind of what's going on? What are you working on currently? And what's the next step? Or what's the next thing to go for?

OSRA 22 had a lot of implementation by the Federal Maritime Commission. We are still working on that. We're still waiting for things to come out from that. One is to demurrage and detention and who gets billed and that whole process. That's taken up a lot of our time.

I was just saying, how do you get to have so much fun?

I know. Right? Let's talk about that. So, that bill has kept us quite consistently busy, because they're coming – they're doing what they're supposed to, thank goodness. We got to respond. 

I was going to say, but the bill passing is just step one in a much longer process.

Oh, major. Major. I forget how many. I apologize. I don't know how many things that will come out of it. I used to – but right now, we're waiting for demurrage and detention attention to come out. Then we also, on the rail side, we've been working on this since 2016, as an association, and it's called reciprocal switching. It's EP 711 for the rails. So, right now, if you wanted to switch off of a line, and move it differently, or if there's a crisis, generally, it's not such a big deal. But we've been waiting forever for it. Right now, you have to go to FMCSA to get permission to switch a line. Now you know that –

How long does that take?

You never know. Not going to happen overnight, though. There goes that detention and demurrage. It is quite a process. Then, the other one we've been working on forever, way long before I came is EP 704, which would give – right now there are very many commodities that are exempted from being able to use rail. We don't know why we still have so many exemptions and why the rail can't move it. If we're really trying to go carbonize and clean air and –

Really make the most of moving that giant freight train along with all of it packing up with everything you can. So, who would reevaluate that list or what is your push to have that list be reevaluated by?

That would be the Federal Maritime Commission. So, we spend a great deal of time on that. Just an example of things that are exempt, paper, steel.

Oh, so it's not for like a safety reason? It’s more of like, “Hey, if we let trains move it, then we're going to miss out on being able to move it the way we always have been.”

Correct. Or you have to get an exemption, which is also not easy. We've been working with ISRI on this. It's a steel association for scrap metal, and quite a few others. I'd be happy to share the list right now. That's the two top ones on my brain.

Is that an old thing? Like how old is that list?

Old. Old and it's long. It's a lot of commodities that get hurt by it. So, we've been fighting that one for a long time. These are things that people don't know.

I have no idea and I've been working on the logistics side of things. If that was to change, do you think that would, for the shipper side, with that lighten some of those rates, because there's more options? What kind of reaction would happen to the market, if all of the sudden, I now have options I didn't have before for certain commodity goods?

I think it would be really helpful. We need it. The longer it takes to move it, the less of the availability. So, we know we need steel, right? If we're going to build homes or anything, pretty much, even rails. Even rail. That one has always –

They can't move the part that they used to make –

A part that they need, which has had been our biggest argument, actually on Capitol Hill. So, we're working on that daily. There's always something coming up.

Are they're still big opponents of that? Or is it just you're fighting an old and like, concrete process is the problem?

I think it's just an old problem that hasn't resurfaced from the basement, because there's been so many other new supply chain issues, through COVID, through – I mean, really, we've been really – the supply chain has been so challenged, since I've been here, that the things that we were working on, like those had not to get to the top again. So, we're trying to get them back to the top.

But I mean, from my hearing, and I'm probably way over simplifying it. This would help with a lot of the capacity issue that is out there, too.

Yes, 100%. I mean, if everyone really does truly want to go green, and help with the environment and everything, we need options. We need the options to be able to move it. I mean, everybody pushes rail, so we'd like to have it everybody be competitive. Right now, it's not competitive. If you can't use it, then it's not competitive.

If people aren't using it, there's probably a reason.

Right. And competition is a big issue. I mean, it is an ocean, and it certainly is in the rail.

That's interesting talking about ocean and rail for that, because like I said, very LTL and on the ground century here at Banyan, not to say we don't touch everything. But there's competition everywhere. I mean, from the small, regional, to the big names, and I kind of always assumed that played out in all the different modes. It's surprising to hear from you that that's not the case. 

Not the case. It was interesting for me as well, because I was with truckload and I was with the brokerage. So, you didn't see so much of all of the legislation, and most of it is old, that is making it an anti-competitive supply chain, which we have to change. We have to change it in ocean, we have to change it rail, and keep highway going.

Now, we got this situation with yellow, which I think was very, very sad. We'll see what happens – 

We have to say, we're all looking to see how the pieces fall, who picks them up, and where it goes from there.

And what the rates will be. Although, we can't talk about rates, but rates will change. They're already changing.

When aren't they changing?

I know right. Oh, my goodness. I think, I really wish at some point that I could get articulate enough to do a whole thing on just how the supply chain really works. Because I don't think the everyday consumer understands.

Let's say you have a big enough whiteboard, because –

I know. I mean, honestly. And the fees that it takes to move things is an unbelievable. 

It's one of those things where in my past life, I'd have to go inside places and see, and you'd get to realize that this product that's on the shelf isn't just one thing. A box comes from one place. A leg of it comes from another. Then, somebody puts this part together and someone puts the whole thing. Then, as I've been in logistics, you realize that between all of those separate steps, then there's, where did you get the source material from? Where is it going? How is it now getting to the – and you’re just kind of in awe at how much happens for someone just have like, “Oh, it showed up on my doorstep.” Or, “I bought it, I purchased it, and it's there now and I use it, and I never gave it a second thought.”

I think we will see a little slowdown again, if we can't get the chips in or out of Mississippi. I don't know what we're going to do, because a lot goes through there.

That’s right. Wait for it to freeze and put some ice skates on it, right?

I don't know. But that will take some rerouting as well, and then that takes more the LTL, and that takes more of the – yes. So, it's not as simple process to move freight. That's for sure. And it's definitely not a cheap process.

Just real quick what we're talking about Mississippi here, are we seeing some roadway freighters, either LTL or truckload trying to take advantage of grabbing those lanes? Or is that what some of the maritime or the ocean have to do, to get those to where they've committed them to be?

The last thing I read, I didn't get how we're getting it off there. But they're saying that we have to, because the backup is fairly – it's starting to get bad. We had in Long Beach and LA when we couldn't move it because there was no one. We couldn’t –

There's a line of trucks and nothing was moving.

Nothing was moving. It was frozen. Yes, it was frozen. Another issue that we've been dealing with and this is just kind of a – it's not one of our heavy ones. But it's interesting, and I think because we're talking so broadly –

Yes, I like interesting.

Well, this one is we work with the global shipping forum of London, and they're fabulous, very bright. So, they're kind of our arm in that area. One of the things that we've spent some time on this year is cleanliness of containers. So, when we're about ports and containers just sitting there and how long they sat there and how many times they're moved and put somewhere else, that's a big issue right now. Even next week, they’ll be meeting again to discuss – they're trying to make them voluntary, like a voluntary checklist of who should do what. Who should be on first. But that's how a lot of these strange insects got in this country.

I was just going to say, and I'm going to say, voluntary doesn't strike me as the best way to get things to happen, especially within a business that's very, “Let's go. It needs to be done yesterday.”

And you got to make sure it's all fair. Right? You have to make sure that everyone should have a part to play, not just one particular entity. 

Exactly. Can't put all the weight on one person, because then they're never going to be able to do it. It won't get done the way they wanted to. But yes.

Well, we don't want to hold up. We don't want to hold up freight any longer than it sometimes gets held up, right?

Yes. Sorry, guys. Today's a cleaning day. Everything's got to get flushed out. Call back on Friday.

But like, that's how they're stinkbug got here. It was a hitchhiker on a container that was sitting out in the ocean forever. So, you're like, “God only knows what we could get hitchhiking.”

What the next thing coming through is.

Right. Right. So, one of the things they want to do is take away the wooden floors of the containers and make the metal. Well, that could be costly. There's just a lot of things floating around and we definitely are keeping our ear to the ground on that, because it would affect a lot of folks. And then the United States already does have some programs in place. I don't know if you're familiar with CTPAT. But that's a certification for making sure that your warehouse and your businesses is kept in a certain manner. It makes you be able to, like a fast lane through the ports, if you qualify. But they have those kinds of standards. How do you clean the thing? How do you – and so we want to be careful that we don't step on toes either. So, we're helping those in London understand that we already do have some of those things in the United States.

And here's how it works. Here's what we do. Here's maybe the benefits and maybe some of the pitfalls of that system. So, as you're implementing, you don't have to start from scratch.

Exactly.

That makes a lot of sense. And kind of talking about NIT League working with other entities towards that. I know you had mentioned, teamed up with Bloomberg. Can you tell me about why and what you got out of that?

Sure. Bloomberg is, I'm sure you know they're outstanding. They do great research. I've worked with Lee, through, I think, all the jobs that I've had, except for Capitol Hill. What he was studying this time, we will be doing another one. But this time, it was more on like one of the questions was, I think everyone is still concerned. Is there a freight recession or is there not? Our shippers, 40% of them felt demand and rise in the next three to six months was going to happen. If you read the papers, I think because of some of the mergers and some of the yellow, and I know I read the other day that Night, and Swift, CEO and CFO are taking a 20% cut and pay until the end of the year. To me, that's a sign that freight is not as voluminous as we thought. I mean, that's a bad sign. It's a smart sign. I mean, they're saving themselves. But –

Is that because of, as you're saying a freight recession, or is that because of maybe lofty goals coming off of some of the biggest gains they had in the past two years?

I agree. And if you – a lot of people coming out of COVID started really purchasing equipment again, and maybe it's just like you said, maybe it was a little higher goal.

Yes, exactly.

But that was interesting to read. I thought, “Wow, interesting.” Right along with yellow.

And so, with that, is there a period and that we think there is a freight recession around the corner, or it's still kind of too much of a mixed bag to really put a stake in anything?

Well, what I've read and what his report showed from our members. So, you're doing the shipping side, not the trucking side. They still feel like we're doing okay. Nobody felt, even – now again, remember, when I talk about less than truckload, this is a little bit older. It was before we had our little crisis. So, those rates –

Are going to be a little different than the rates we're seeing today.

Exactly. Because he said that they were only like 3% – our members were saying they were only like 3% different from their good days. But I have a funny feeling that's going to change and  I saw that FedEx – well, you saw that UPS, their negotiate hasn’t raised –

Yes. They had that strike or the threat of it, and then they got, or they came to a negotiation and compromise there. But now you're saying that the rates have gone up since then?

I'm sure that they will. FedEx just –

It would make sense. The money's got to come from somewhere and chances are it'll be on the side of the shipper.

Right. So, FedEx also just, I think, it was this morning, put out their rate hikes. I didn't finish the notes of what they are, but they're substantial. They're not –

It's not small enough to just scratch off. You might have to reevaluate or at least be aware of the changes.

I would say that every shipper, actually, anyone in the supply chains, but because my shippers are my members, really should be looking at their 2024 numbers and their contracts. Because if you've had long-term ones, you may want to renew them. You may not, depending on how this goes.

Depending on what you get grandfathered in.

Exactly. 

I can see that. Okay.

Yes. So that's – yes. 

This intelligence that you got from Bloomberg, that's available on your website, where can someone can find that?

It is. Actually, it's on nitl.org, and that's where we put all of our comments and anything you want to know about issue-wise that we filed is there, on all notes.

Do you have a pretty good resource thereof not just that, but other pieces of information as – now, would you say for your members, and as their shippers, is going to the website, something you should do when you're going to look at contracts? Or is it as you're getting – when should someone take advantage of what the NIT League is putting out there?

From what I can see and say for the last few years, NIT League is very, very regulatory and legislative heavy. We don't spend as much time on educational programs, or webinars, so to speak. But I do want that to change. Because just like you said, we should be having a class on rate instruction. We did do a one on one on rail, which was tremendous.

I can imagine.

Oh, because again, it's so involved. It is not – I don't want to say that trucking is easy, because it isn't. It isn't. But legislatively wise –

It probably gets a lot more attention because you've got the roads, you've got the highways, you've got the different money being given out, year after year, whereas railroad I think, that's a little more sporadic. I bet you at that one on one, there was a whole lot of, “Hey, did you even know this is why you have to do this and why that dates back to 1910 that that law got enacted?”

Absolutely. And part of the problem was for a while, the Surface Transportation Board didn't have enough people to have votes. So, you have to have five. That went on for a while. But now we have five, and things are moving. It is absolutely – and they have definitely been in touch both side, working with railroad and shippers, on fixing some of the problems about competition, and the availability of competitive service.

And we work closely – so, as I said, we do have to work closely with them because the issues are so – it's constant, constant. One of our goals as the shipper’s voice is to get competitive service, rail, ocean, and highway. It just has to start being more competitive. So, we don't spend as much time on highway, as we do on the other two, rail and ocean, because there's others really doing a fine job on the highway.

So, there's a little more overlap and coverage from some other regulatory and oversights and advocacy group.

We try to work with those groups as well and if we can support them, we do. We're on different sides. Sometimes same thing. But that doesn't happen all the time. We're on all kinds of coalitions with everybody. 

Sometimes your friends, sometimes your enemies, sometimes it's that. We're going to drink after. No, I get you. That's awesome. Then, as we're kind of wrapping up here, because you told me a lot and I'm happy to hear about that. What's the message to anyone listening or watching right now? Here’s your chance to talk about whatever you want.

If you are a shipper, and you deal daily with the rail, or ocean, or highway, that can be your voice. I mean, our job is to advocate, again, for competitive rail, ocean, and highway. As I said, some of the issues have been around forever. But I think that's the same in highway. I think I've dealt with that as a service since I was 10. Some of the issues just don't go away. We try to make them better. But if you are not a NIT League member, you should join, if you need regulatory help or legislative help. I hope that if you want to try that the best way to do it would be to come to the conference in Columbus. Time's running out. We're about six weeks away now. So, we really need, if you want to room on the campus. Because you want to be at the hotel where the conference is.

There you go. I like that. Nancy, thank you so much for speaking me today. For everybody, this has been Nancy O’Liddy with the NIT League, the National Industrial Transportation League, where we learn that she's fighting for the rights of shippers out there. And yes, you guys have a good fighter here and it was great talking to you, Nancy. Thank you so much. I hope everybody enjoyed the episode and keeps following the Banyan Tire Tracks Podcast, and for Patrick Escolas. We'll see you next time.

And thank you for having me.

Thanks, Nancy. I’ll talk to you later.

Bye.

Bye.