July 28, 2026, 5:07 a.m. CT
Every day, billions of {dollars}’ price of products transfer by Tennessee by truck, prepare, aircraft and ship. With the busiest cargo airport in the U.S., 5 Class I railroads, the third busiest trucking hall and the fifth largest inland port, Memphis is dwelling to one of many world’s busiest cargo hubs and a crucial hyperlink in America’s provide chain community.
This gateway to worldwide commerce can be changing into a favourite goal for multi-state and worldwide crime.
In latest years, organized cargo theft has grow to be an more and more severe drawback throughout the Memphis space and larger Tennessee. Criminal organizations have focused vans, rail shipments, warehouses and distribution facilities all through the state, stealing high-value freight price tens of millions of {dollars} and disrupting provide chains that companies and households depend upon every single day.
This is not merely theft. It’s a rising risk to our nationwide safety and economic system.
The widespread penalties of organized crime
The refined felony organizations behind these crimes do not function like opportunistic thieves. They use fraudulent identities, fictitious trucking corporations, cyber-enabled fraud and coordinated networks that stretch throughout a number of states – and sometimes past our borders – to hijack freight earlier than it ever reaches its vacation spot.
When they succeed, the results lengthen far past the worth of the stolen cargo.
Manufacturers face manufacturing delays as a result of crucial elements by no means arrive. Retailers battle to maintain cabinets stocked. Farmers and meals producers encounter pricey disruptions. Consumers finally pay larger prices. Every profitable cargo theft additionally exposes vulnerabilities in the provision chains that transfer not solely industrial items, however most of the merchandise important to America’s financial resilience and safety.
For Tennessee, the stakes are particularly excessive.
The state has constructed one of many nation’s strongest logistics economies. Thousands of Tennesseans work in trucking, freight rail, warehousing, manufacturing and distribution. Businesses have invested billions of {dollars} to make Tennessee a world provide chain chief as a result of they know merchandise can transfer effectively and reliably from right here to nearly wherever.
Organized cargo theft threatens that aggressive benefit.
The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act
According to the FBI, cargo theft has surged nationwide in latest years as organized felony enterprises have grow to be extra refined and extra coordinated. These networks exploit gaps between jurisdictions, transfer stolen freight by advanced resale markets and sometimes function quicker than regulation enforcement companies can successfully coordinate throughout state strains.
This nationwide drawback calls for a nationwide response.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty have acknowledged the urgency of this problem by co-sponsoring the bipartisan Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (CORCA). Their management demonstrates a transparent dedication to defending Tennessee companies, supporting regulation enforcement and defending the provision chains that energy our state’s economic system.
CORCA would supply federal regulation enforcement with stronger instruments to research, coordinate and dismantle the organized felony enterprises liable for cargo theft and organized retail crime. Instead of permitting refined felony networks to use fragmented enforcement efforts, the laws would enhance info sharing and strengthen the federal response wanted to cease these operations.
The House has already overwhelmingly handed CORCA. Now it is time for the Senate to complete the job.
Why the Senate should act now
Congress has a chance to incorporate CORCA in the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act – a becoming automobile for laws which goals to strengthen America’s nationwide protection, crucial infrastructure and provide chain safety, whereas serving to to defend America’s financial competitiveness towards nefarious actors working to undermine our techniques.
Sens. Blackburn and Hagerty have achieved their half by championing this commonsense, bipartisan resolution. Now the complete Senate ought to comply with their lead and swiftly cross CORCA as a part of the forthcoming NDAA vote.
Protecting Tennessee’s provide chains means defending Tennessee jobs, Tennessee companies and the safety of the nation itself. Congress ought to act earlier than these transnational felony networks develop even stronger.
Chris Spear is the President and CEO of the American Trucking Association, and Ian Jefferies is the President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads.
