Donor Port Equity Hoped to Be Considered for Water Resources Bill
The House and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on May 25 approved the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) for full chamber consideration. Lawmakers are working to codify better returns on the amount of harbor maintenance taxes (HMTs) that donor ports collect, Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., said in an interview. “We hope to be able to [introduce an amendment] during conference or on the floor,” said Napolitano, whose district sits near the Port of Los Angeles. Donor ports are considered ports that receive less than 25 percent of the total amount of HMTs brought in over the last five years and that are located in states where more than 2,000,000 cargo containers were unloaded from or loaded onto vessels in fiscal 2012. The American Association of Port Authorities applauded the committee for addressing several of its recommendations (see 1605240041).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Currently, donor ports must also collect $15 million in yearly HMT funds, but the transportation committee's legislation (here) would lower this benchmark to $5 million. Under the new definition, "donor port" designations would attach to the ports of Hueneme, Calif., Everglades, Fla., and San Diego, according to a summary prepared by Napolitano’s office. During the May 25 full committee WRDA markup, lawmakers adopted committee Chairman Bill Shuster’s, R-Pa., package of amendments (here), one of which would extend the expiration date for ongoing annual discretionary $50 million allocations to donor and energy transfer ports for various activities, including shipper rebates, from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2020.
Ports should receive more of the money they collect, Napolitano said. The ports of Long Beach and L.A. collected $1.3 billion in HMT revenue, but only received $18 million in HMT funding over the last five years, and in 2015 the Port of New York/New Jersey collected $158 million in HMT revenue and received $46 million, she said. The House legislation would also set the end of fiscal 2026 as the expiration date for all HMT-related appropriations, as the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) is expected to fund 100 percent of port operations by that time. HMT-related funding decisions would thus switch to the sole jurisdiction of the Congressional transportation committees, and appropriators would no longer have say in such matters.