[cid:[email protected]]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 11, 2022
Contact: MacKensie Kvalvik, [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Blue Dog Coalition Hosts Virtual Supply Chain Issue Roundtable Led by Correa and Spanberger
ICYMI—Last month, the Blue Dog Coalition held a virtual roundtable on supply chain issues with experts and business leaders, moderated by U.S. Representatives Lou Correa (CA-46) and Abigail Spanberger (VA-07). The discussion focused on the nature and scope of recent supply chain disruptions, as well as potential solutions to secure the supply chain in the future. This roundtable was part of ongoing efforts by the Blue Dog Coalition’s Task Force on Jobs and Economic Growth to examine the needs of the economy and small businesses in order to secure a more prosperous future for communities across the country.

The panel was hosted by U.S. Representatives Lou Correa (CA-46) and Abigail Spanberger (VA-07), with speakers Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director of Trade and Global Markets at the Progressive Policy institute, Gene Seroka, Director of the Port of Los Angeles, Joshua Beiter, Vice President of Operations for Lundequam Development LLC, and Joan Eliasek, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience at McKesson.

To watch the full round table, click here<[link removed]>. Excerpts can be found below.

Ed Gresser on Blue Dog Coalition Role: “I think this is a starting point, this session is very much in the tradition of the Blue Dogs’ pragmatic problem solving, evidence first approach to policy. That is why the organization is held in such high regard and has made such a contribution to policy over the years, which is why I am so happy to be a part of it. I’d like to make two points. One is that the challenges we are seeing at ports are the consequences of the covid experience and some rather good policy we have had over the past year. If you look at the container data that the port puts out, it has been very good and very interesting. In October 2021, la ports reported 467,000 incoming containers of goods, in October 2019 just before covid that was 393,000, so it is a really massive increase of inflow in goods in an incredibly short time. That reflects heightened consumer confidence, and people have money to spend.”

Joshua Beiter on Challenges Surrounding Housing Boom: “In my opinion we are in uncharted territory. I’ve been involved with the purchasing, development, construction, and design of thousands of homes with national builders, regional builders and most recently the local custom homebuilder. I’ve never seen anything like this. It's truly one of a kind, the situation we’re in right now. Lastly, how does it affect our business, I get ask almost daily, you know the housing market is great, prices are going great, you must be living life. Yeah, you’re right, we are busier than ever, but we’re busy for the wrong reasons. Our trademark workers double and triple to get the same work done. We’ve had a huge impact on our cycle time, cycle time increased about 20-30% year over year. Along with that comes huge cost implications for overhead structure and most importantly, it takes a big toll on employees, takes longer to get jobs done, they’re fatigued, they want to show up and see stuff get done, finish that house and move on to the next one.”

Joan Eliasek on Government Role in Supply Chain Issues: “I will say being in the medical industry and certainly on the front lines of the pandemic has been unfortunately sort of a perfect storm. We have a tremendous variety of demand. I think everyone has heard and knows about PPE demands, and the increase that we experienced about two years ago. But the unprecedented demand and certainly for the products on PPE we had to respond to that and one of the best things that happened was the opportunity to work with the government to help expedite those products, bring them in, make them available and I will say the supply chain handled some of those unique demands. Since then there have also been impacts to the medic to medical demand for medical services depending on again where we stand the variability of COVID and so that up and down for lack of a better term has created a difficult environment to manage supply chain, you add that to a supply chain that is very difficult to predict and has many ways expanded dramatically for the reasons the previous speakers have talked about.”

###
The Blue Dog Coalition is an official caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives comprised of fiscally-responsible Democrats, who are leading the way to find commonsense solutions. They are pragmatic Democrats, appealing to the mainstream values of the American public. The Blue Dogs are dedicated to pursuing fiscally-responsible policies, ensuring a strong national defense for our country, and transcending party lines to get things done for the American people. Visit our website<[link removed]> to learn more, and get the latest news updates by following us on Twitter<[link removed]> or liking us on Facebook<[link removed]>.