As discussed in a previous blog post, proposed spending on U.S. ports in the bipartisan infrastructure bill is not only unnecessary but might actually slow down needed upgrades in the our port system, which ranks as one of the more expensive and least efficient systems in the world. Buried in the latest version of congressional Democrats’ reconciliation bill is more bad news: the $2.65 billion in additional federal spending on ports (to reduce air pollution) appears to exclude investment in automation – the lack thereof being one the key reasons that U.S. ports are currently so inefficient.

In particular, the bill provides grants for U.S. ports to purchase and install “zero-emission port equipment or technology” at their facilities. However, the bill’s new definition (at pp. 307–308) of eligible projects reads as follows (emphasis ours):

The term ‘zero-emission port equipment or technology’ means human-operated equipment or human-maintained technology that (A) produces zero emissions of [relevant air pollutants]; or (B) captures 100 percent of the emissions described in subparagraph (A) that are produced by an ocean-going vessel at berth.

Robots therefore need not apply.

As noted, there was already little reason for subsidizing U.S. port modernization, but that’s especially the case where those funds can’t be spent on the very modernization that ports need most. 

But, hey, at least the longshoremen’s unions – long resistant to U.S. port automation – are probably pleased.