The past few years, since the early days of COVID, have been the most active period in memory for container shipping in Washington regarding legislation, regulation, and politics. This year — an election year — will be no different. When COVID hit early in 2020, longer-term shifts in the landscape were already well under way. Ocean carriers’ power was waning as Sea-Land, APL, and others had been sold, and the center of political gravity had shifted to US-based shippers. COVID catalyzed those changes; as ships and cargo backed up, rates spiked, and service levels collapsed, shippers took to the halls of Congress and successfully pressed for passage of the 2022 Ocean Shipping Reform Act over ocean carriers’ objections. The Federal Maritime Commission, meanwhile, long a bastion of carrier influence, shifted course under Chairman Daniel Maffei, a former New York congressman, becoming a de facto “consumer protection agency” for shippers seeking relief. Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition and known as “Our Man in DC,” has been one of the most influential players in this arena for many years and was a driving force behind enactment of OSRA 2022. In this session, we will ask him where US trade and transportation policy, FMC regulation and legislation is headed in this volatile election year and what it means for shippers/BCOs. We will specifically ask about the FMC’s aggressive enforcement; implementing the detention/demurrage rule; and the FMC’s recent multibillion-dollar “Box Rules” Order.