The Senate passed a five-year highway bill before leaving for its summer recess. It includes the “Port Performance Act” which would require the federal government to collect port data and report export declines to measure productivity at major U.S. ports.

This information will help determine productivity slowdowns resulting from labor disputes. The legislation was introduced by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Thune (R-SD), Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Corey Gardner (R-CO) as a result of the recent nine-month labor dispute that shut down the 29 West Coast ports earlier this year.