US Department of Transportation appoints new port and supply chain envoy to work on supply chain disruptions

The White House and the US Department of Transportation announced on May 27 that retired general Stephen Lyons, former commander of the US Transportation Command, will be the new Port and Supply Chain Envoy to the Biden-Harris Administration Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force. Lyons will take over the role from John Porcari.

Lyons will work with the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), the White House National Economic Council (NEC), ports, rail, trucking and other private companies across supply chains to continue to address bottlenecks and speed up the movement of goods.

The task force was established in June of 2021. It has worked with ports to propose a container dwell fee to reduce congestion at the ports, launched a trucking action plan to recruit and retain more drivers, funded pop-up container yards to get goods from ships to shelves faster while supporting agricultural exporters, moved supply chain operators toward 24/7 operations, and launched a data sharing effort, Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW), with Target, FedEx, UPS, True Value, ocean shippers, ports and additional stakeholders to reduce shipping costs and ultimately consumer costs at the store.