The Water Resources Reform and
Development Act of 2013, passed with changes by the Senate Oct. 31, will go
soon to a conference committee co-chaired by California Senator Barbara Boxer
and Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster. If the conference committee can
reach agreement on the final details of this legislation, it
will be the first time since 2007 that legislation providing for two year
funding of water resources development and construction in the nation’s inland
waterways has come to a vote in Congress. Because of the failure of
comprehensive budget and appropriation legislation in the past three
congressional sessions, projects to keep afloat the $185 billion in bulk
cargoes moving on the nation’s rivers and lakes annually has ground to a
virtual halt.
If
appropriations for harbor, river and lake construction and development could
once again become an agenda item of “regular order” in Congress every two
years, the average of 52 service disruptions per day along the navigable waters
of the United States might be brought down to more manageable proportions, not
to mention the additional employment that will be generated in the construction
sector of our economy.
