GOP Sen. Lummis tells Biden to ditch Covid vaccine mandate

A Republican member of the Senate’s Commerce and Banking committees on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to take several unilateral actions that she argued will help ease U.S. supply chain disruptions ahead of the holiday season.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming told Biden in a letter that those steps would have “an immediate and measurable impact” to improve the transportation of goods by truck drivers, railroad workers and other shippers.

Specifically, she encouraged Biden to allow 18-year-olds to drive trucks in interstate commerce, direct the Department of Defense to find potential storage sites on the West Coast and do away with vaccine mandates that could discourage freight workers from seeking jobs.

The letter from Lummis comes as the freshman senator works to establish herself as a leading voice on economic and financial issues. She has focused on financial innovation and digital currencies, and co-authored a bipartisan amendment popular with the cryptocurrency industry that would have refined the definition of a broker in the infrastructure legislation.

“With the holiday season rapidly approaching, consumers are now facing the likelihood of empty shelves in stores and delayed shipping for online purchases,” Lummis wrote. “Removing barriers that allow the private sector to operate efficiently is the best path forward to rebolster our supply chains.”

The U.S. is struggling with a combination of raw materials scarcities and staffing shortages that hamper the broader U.S. supply chain and have caused headaches for businesses across the country.

The impact has been overwhelming for American retailers and manufacturers, causing inventory problems and shipping delays at companies as diverse as clothing stores and cellphone makers.

Biden addressed the supply chain issues on Sunday during the annual gathering of G-20 leaders.

“Supply chains are something that most of our citizens never think twice about until something goes wrong. And during this pandemic, we’ve seen delays and backlogs of goods from automobiles to electronics, from shoes to furniture,” he said. “We have to take action now, together with our partners in the private sector, to reduce the backlogs that we’re facing.”

The White House said in a blog post Wednesday that it will update Americans twice a month on the health of the U.S. supply chain at the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, which together handle about 40% of the nation’s containerized imports.

Normally, there are only a “few” container ships waiting to dock outside those two cities, the administration said. On Friday, there were 75. Still, Biden’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force said it expects unprecedented demand for goods to decline and spending on services to rise in the coming months.

“We are already seeing that with…