Senate Passes Water Resources Bill, 83-14
The Senate approved a water resources bill, which funds Army Corps of Engineers projects and the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, in an 83-14 vote on May 15. The bill was introduced by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee leaders Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and David Vitter, R-La., in March. The White House previously warned Senators against passing the bill; in a May 6 statement of policy, the administration said the bill would constrain science-based decision making and undermine environmental laws (see 13050712).
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Kurt Nagle, president of the American Association of Port Authorities, commended the bill’s passage. The Water Resources Development Act will “spur vitally needed maintenance and improvements in America’s seaport related infrastructure and waterways,” he said in a statement (here). Over the next five years, public ports and private sector partners intend to invest more than $46 billion in seaport infrastructure, Nagle said. “We need the federal government to uphold its end of the partnership, including badly needed improvements to the land- and water-side connections to seaports.”
The bill aims to ensure Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund monies go towards pertinent projects. It specifies that the money in the fund shall be equal to the level of receipts plus interest credited to the fund for the fiscal year. The bill also states: “Such amounts may be used only for harbor maintenance programs” as described in the bill. Read the final Senate bill (here). A House bill on the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, introduced in January, consists of nearly identical language. That bill, HR-335, is still in committee (read it here).
The Senate bill also sets priorities for projects that use the fund: they should be “high-use deep draft,” and no more than 20 percent of remaining amounts in the fund should go to projects maintained at less than their authorized width and depth for five years, and for which “significant” State and local infrastructure investments have been made. The bill also provides for increased expenditures from the Fund to dredge all Mississippi River and Calcasieu River ports and waterways to their constructed width and depth, according to a statement from Vitter (here).
Nagle said AAPA is still reviewing details of the legislation. The group has adopted guiding principles to address the bill’s provisions on the federal Harbor Maintenance Tax, such as providing more equity for HMT donors and assuring tax policy doesn’t disadvantage U.S. ports, Nagle said. A comprehensive water resources bill has yet to be introduced in the House.