Shipping United States

Sterling Transit, a longtime California trucking firm, had an enviable safety record--the company won a safe-driving award from the California Trucking Assn. last year--but it wasn't enough to steer it away from disaster. Last November, the 57-year-old Montebello trucking company slammed into a mountain of debt and closed its doors, one of 1,000 trucking firms nationwide to do so last year. Ten years after the federal government lifted most of its restrictions on interstate trucking, the industry is still in turmoil.

Price competition among foreign and domestic shipping lines has been virtually eliminated for importers seeking space aboard cargo ships bound for the United States from Asia, a new federal report concludes. The report, based on a six-month investigation by the Federal Maritime Commission, verifies a host of complaints from U.S. companies in 1998, when a glut of Asian cargo jammed freighters and left many businesses desperate to get their holiday shipments.

The strongest evidence of damage from the Asian economic crisis emerged last week in the form of a record U.S. trade deficit, but the shipping world didn't need to be told: It has been turned on its head by Asia's woes. Much as U-Haul trailers from Los Angeles stacked up in Seattle during the early 1990s flight from California, thousands of empty shipping containers are piling up at Long Beach, Los Angeles and other West Coast ports because of plummeting Asian demand for U.S.

Union Pacific Corp. is experiencing new railroad delays in Southern California, heightening fears among shippers that the railroad is still suffering the effects of the worst freight logjam in recent history. In a letter to customers, the nation's largest railroad acknowledged it was experiencing problems at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports--the nation's two busiest ports--and on a major line from California to El Paso, Texas.

A move to lift a ban on oil exports from Alaska got tentative support from the secretary of energy Tuesday, but an aide to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said the ban would stand if challenged on the Senate floor. Murray (D-Wash.) is fighting to make the ban permanent. Under current law, oil from Alaska's North Slope must be sold in the United States, a condition imposed when the trans-Alaskan pipeline was approved by Congress in the 1970s.

Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner said Friday that the Bush Administration is prepared to seek emergency legislation early next week to avoid a national railroad strike that threatens to shut down the nation's freight network and sidetrack economic recovery. Meanwhile, major rail shippers, taking no chances, searched for alternate forms of transportation and took other steps to minimize disruptions.

You may never have heard of a tiny, southwest Pacific island group called Vanuatu that was once known as New Hebrides and became an independent nation in 1980, with a population of just 115,000. But then you probably don't own a shipping company either. If you did, you would know that Vanuatu has joined Liberia, Panama, the Bahamas and a few other countries that for years have been selling "flags of convenience," which, along with drastic cuts in U.S.

The new trade accord announced Thursday is a landmark move to reduce the $49-billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. Or it's not. It depends on whom you ask: * "I think this accord will make a difference and continue what has already been a process of Japanese liberalization," said William Cline, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington. "I think it could have a measurable impact." * "I think it's much ado about not very much," said Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr.

Nearly 21 years after starting Federal Express Corp., Frederick W. Smith thinks the computer has become as important as his first love, the plane. "Oh, absolutely, perhaps even more important," Smith said. The company that invented airborne overnight shipping boasts of its computerized information services more than its transportation might these days. The reason is that for hundreds of businesses, the information Federal Express provides about shipment and distribution has tremendous value.

A cold front brought record cool temperatures to the sweltering Northeast on Friday and rain fell in parts of the parched upper Midwest, but hot, dry weather elsewhere continued to wither crops. It was the eighth straight day of 100-degree heat over the central part of the nation. Three days of dredging the Mississippi River at Memphis, Tenn., ended Friday afternoon, allowing officials to reopen the waterway and free an estimated 1,100 barges to resume their sluggish pace.

The strongest evidence of damage from the Asian economic crisis emerged last week in the form of a record U.S. trade deficit, but the shipping world didn't need to be told: It has been turned on its head by Asia's woes. Much as U-Haul trailers from Los Angeles stacked up in Seattle during the early 1990s flight from California, thousands of empty shipping containers are piling up at Long Beach, Los Angeles and other West Coast ports because of plummeting Asian demand for U.S.

A move to lift a ban on oil exports from Alaska got tentative support from the secretary of energy Tuesday, but an aide to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said the ban would stand if challenged on the Senate floor. Murray (D-Wash.) is fighting to make the ban permanent. Under current law, oil from Alaska's North Slope must be sold in the United States, a condition imposed when the trans-Alaskan pipeline was approved by Congress in the 1970s.

BP Says Shipping Unions Agree on Export Deal: British Petroleum Co. has reached a deal aimed at winning support of key U.S. maritime unions toward lifting a ban on Alaskan oil exports, the company said. In exchange, BP said it has agreed to use U.S. ships and crews to transport oil to foreign markets if the ban is lifted. Law requires that cargoes transported from one U.S. port to another move on U.S. ships, but no such law applies for goods moving out of the country.

Nearly 21 years after starting Federal Express Corp., Frederick W. Smith thinks the computer has become as important as his first love, the plane. "Oh, absolutely, perhaps even more important," Smith said. The company that invented airborne overnight shipping boasts of its computerized information services more than its transportation might these days. The reason is that for hundreds of businesses, the information Federal Express provides about shipment and distribution has tremendous value.

The Clinton Administration has decided to allow all operating subsidies to commercial ship companies to expire as scheduled in 1997, likely spelling an end to America's small ocean-going merchant fleet and more than 20,000 maritime jobs, possibly including some based in California. The two major remaining U.S.

Burlington Air Express, an Irvine air-freight company, said Monday that it will soon begin making next-morning deliveries to 50 additional U.S. cities. That's a result of the company's moving its transportation hub last September from the airport at Ft. Wayne, Ind., to a controversial new hub in Toledo, Ohio. The bigger Toledo airport allows Burlington to operate more flights, although some Toledo residents unsuccessfully opposed the increase in night flights that Burlington proposed.

What's left of the nation's once mighty oceangoing merchant marine is threatening to jump ship if the government does not ease burdensome taxes and regulations. American President Lines and Sea-Land--the two largest U.S.-flagged shipping lines--have put government agencies and unions on alert that, with maritime operating subsidies coming to an end and military shipments declining, the benefits of flying the U.S. flag are fast disappearing for commercial carriers.

Citing potentially huge legal liabilities from an oil spill, the world's largest oil company has declared that it will not use its own tankers to deliver the most environmentally dangerous grades of oil to U.S. ports, except for one in Louisiana. Royal Dutch/Shell Group's announcement late Monday raised the specter that shipments of such oil will be carried out by small tanker companies without the resources to clean up in the event of a substantial spill.

What's left of the nation's once mighty oceangoing merchant marine is threatening to jump ship if the government does not ease burdensome taxes and regulations. American President Lines and Sea-Land--the two largest U.S.-flagged shipping lines--have put government agencies and unions on alert that, with maritime operating subsidies coming to an end and military shipments declining, the benefits of flying the U.S. flag are fast disappearing for commercial carriers.

Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner said Friday that the Bush Administration is prepared to seek emergency legislation early next week to avoid a national railroad strike that threatens to shut down the nation's freight network and sidetrack economic recovery. Meanwhile, major rail shippers, taking no chances, searched for alternate forms of transportation and took other steps to minimize disruptions.