Marine Highways Conference at CCMIT on MITAGS Complex

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will be the keynote speaker on April 7 during the seventh annual Journal of Commerce North American Marine Highways and Logistics Conference.
The conference will be held April 6-7 at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute at Linthicum Heights, Md., near Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, will address the conference opening session on April 6. Cummings is sponsor of legislation to exempt marine highway operators from the Harbor Maintenance Tax.

The 2010 conference emphasizes the role marine highways can play in sustainable, environmentally-friendly intermodal freight transportation.

Speakers will discuss practical steps logistics managers can take to incorporate waterborne transportation into their supply chains. In addition, two marine highway operators, 64Express, and Seabridge Freight, will discuss how they are meeting shippers’ needs.

The conference also will feature a debate on the government’s role in marine highways featuring Mary E. Peters, secretary of transportation under the Bush administration, and Mortimer Downey, deputy transportation secretary in the Clinton administration.

Other roundtable discussions will feature Maritime Administration officials who will discuss new marine highways policy initiatives, marine highway developments in Canada and Mexico, and work by the U.S. Navy to develop a practical roll-on roll-off ferry that could be used in coastwise freight transportation.

Contact R.G. Edmonson at [email protected]