Editorial
/ ANNA TOWNSHEND
The Cost of Doing Nothing: T&I Committee Pushes Ahead with HMTF Reforms
The new Democratic lead- ership in the House has refocused infrastructure and funding discussions on the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF). On April 30, Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastruc- ture (T&I) Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Committee Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO), Chair of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA), Sub- committee Ranking Member Bruce Westerman (R-AR), and Congressman Mike Kelly (R-PA) introduced the Full Utilization of the Harbor Maintenance Fund Act, to use the billions in al- ready collected fees for ports and harbors as it was intended. The U.S. Treasury has approximately $9.3 billion in already collected revenues, and the bill would ultimately unlock $34 billion over the next decade for federal projects. An executive summary of the bill explains: "This bipartisan bill ensures the Harbor Main- tenance Trust Fund is used for its intended pur- pose-maintaining our federally authorized har- bors. By providing a discretionary cap adjustment for full utilization of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for authorized harbor maintenance needs." In 2016, the Corps estimated its dredging backlog at $20.5 billion, and the crafters of this bill estimate the Corps' need is actually much higher. That estimate includes additional ex- penses related to navigation work, such as the construction of dredge material placement facili- ties, but it does not include other work identified by ports as needed to maintain or expand har- bors, such as jetty and breakwater work. The T&I committee also held a hearing that same day: "The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why Full Utilization of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and Investment in our Nation's Waterways Matter." The hearing included testimony and questions from the bill's supporters, and those called before Congress, including Eugene Se- roka, executive director of Port of Los Angeles, and Rick Goche, commissioner, Port of Bandon, Oregon, associations for the commercial fishing industry and corn farmers, and representatives from the Waterways Council Inc. and the Up- per Mississippi River Basin Association. Phyllis Harden of Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel Co. from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, represented businesses along the inland waterways, specifically the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation Sys- tem (MKARNS), where the company moves its product - primarily crushed stone and riprap de- livered by barge on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The company also does marine con- struction and transportation, commercial sand dredging, and ready-mix concrete and hot mix asphalt. "Pine Bluff Sand and Gravel has been in business for over a century in part because of op- portunities the nation's inland waterway trans- portation system provides," Harden said in her opening testimony. For transporting its bulk commodities and aggregates, she said the inland waterways are the most economical and environ- mentally friendly. She praised the committee for its work in America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, and for navigation improvements at the Three Rivers Project, where the White and Arkansas Rivers meet the Mississippi River; changes to the Inland Waterways Trust Fund to increase the diesel fuel tax; and changes in the Water Resources Reform and Continued on page 23
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