Capitol Currents Newsletter
April 20, 2012

This is a text-only version of Waterways Council’s newsletter, Capitol Currents.  To read the full PDF version, including all images, please visit www.waterwayscouncil.org/CapitolCurrents.htm.

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CORPS GETS $4.8 BILLION IN FY 2013 HOUSE BILL WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO EXPEDITE OLMSTED L&D

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development marked up its FY 2013 appropriations bill yesterday, allocating $4.814 billion for the Corps of Engineers’ civil works program.  The figure is $83 million more than the President requested but $188 million less than enacted in FY 2012.

Operation and maintenance (O&M) outpaced the Corps’ other accounts, getting $209 million more than the President requested and $95.4 million over that enacted in FY 2012. The construction account received $1.477 billion, just $6 million above the budget request but $216.7 million less than the FY 2012 enacted amount.

As it did last year, the committee provided additional funds – $324 million in the pending bill – for “essential flood control and navigation projects to be prioritized by the Corps.”  The panel said “this additional flexibility will help address critical navigation and flood control needs across the country while... maintaining Congressional authority over budget decisions.” Individual project allocations, not including the additional funds, will be listed in a committee report expected to be available next week.

In a break with tradition, the House Appropriations Subcommittee posted its proposed 55-page spending bill on the committee’s website on Tuesday, a day in advance of the subcommittee’s mark-up session.  (For a listing of the House subcommittee’s FY 2013 allocations for each Corps account compared with recent Presidential budget requests and enacted amounts, see the table on Page 2.)

One noteworthy provision in the House bill dealt with the huge overrun in the cost of constructing Olmsted L&D near the mouth of the Ohio River.  The subcommittee specified that no more than 50 percent of the FY 2013 funding for this project (which won’t be known until next week) may be allocated until the Corps completes a review of the project including the “method of construction,” develops “a plan for the expeditious completion of project construction,” and the findings of the review and completion plan have been forwarded to the Congress.

In a news release, the Appropriations Committee noted that the legislation provided more than $1.89 billion for navigation projects and studies, including $1 billion in funding from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, “to help increase commerce through the nation’s ports and waterways.”  The President had requested $848 million from the trust fund for dredging ports and access channels.

 

 

Senate Panel May Move Civil Works Funding Bill

The Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development is ready to mark up its FY 2013 appropriations bill.  Tentatively, the mark-up is planned next Tuesday, April 24.

 

 

Corps ‘Under-Funded,’ Solons Advise Officials

At hearings last month before House and Senate subcommittees, lawmakers heaped criticism on Administration officials for under-funding the Army Corps of Engineers’ civil works program.  “For too long, this Administration has short-changed and mis-prioritized the projects and programs of this agency,” said Congr. Bob Gibbs (Ohio), chairman of the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee.

“To my mind, the Administration has grossly under-funded you again this year,” Congr. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (New Jersey), the Appropriations subcommittee chairman, told Corps officials.  He said the Administration had “once again... avoided some of the tough choices necessary to provide adequate resources for your critical missions, perhaps... assuming Congress will do it instead.”

Said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (California), who chairs the Senate’s counterpart appropriations subcommittee: “While... we are going to be operating under austere budget caps... we should not under-fund agencies that provide tangible benefits and create jobs.”  She told the Corps witnesses:  “Based on my review, I believe your budget request needs some adjusting.”

 

 

Lack of investment.  A study which the Transportation Research Board’s executive committee has under consideration includes “an assessment of the current lack of investment in the inland waterway system and identification of what policy makers would need to know to reverse current trends.”

“Such a policy study would identify what is known and not known about the full benefits and costs of the system and other issues that policy makers would weigh in deciding whether to reinvest in the system at adequate levels,” TRB said.  “By all appearances... capital investments in recent years are on a 400-year cycle...”

 

 

Corps’ ‘Responsiveness’ Questioned at Hearings

At its March hearing, the House appropriations panel rebuked Corps officials for not providing information which it requested on how some FY 2012 funding decisions were made.  The issue over the agency’s “level of responsiveness” arose after Congress provided “additional funds” in its current-year appropriations, leaving the project evaluations and actual allocation decisions to the Corps, with instructions “to inform us of those decisions [in work plans within 45 days] and supporting evaluations,” Chmn. Frelinghuysen said at his panel’s hearing.

“You should have had these project evaluations to provide [to the Congress] along with the list of projects since, theoretically at least, you needed these evaluations in order to determine which projects would receive funding,” he said.  “The lack of explanatory information makes these decisions look, to some, that [they] were political and I think raises many questions about how the Administration really makes its decisions.”

At the Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing, Sen. Feinstein noted that only 46 of the 95 construction projects funded in the FY 2013 budget request had benefit/cost ratios.  “This means more than half of the projects proposed for funding utilize a much more intangible set of budget criteria,” she said. 

“A skeptic might even say that these budget decisions were arbitrary or politically based.”

 

 

T&I Committee Favors ‘Focused’ Corps Funding

In its annual “views and estimates” report to the House Budget Committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee said it supported Federal investment in the civil works program “at the total level” recommended by the President.  “While aquatic ecosystem restoration is an important mission of the Corps,” the report stated, “those projects do not typically generate long-term jobs nor as high an economic return on investment as do navigation and flood damage reduction projects.”

Pointing out that about 30 of the Corps’ on-going studies are taking 10 years or longer to complete, the Committee recommended that the studies either be expedited to completion or terminated.  The budget request cuts spending for project construction by 13 percent below the FY 2012 enacted level, leading the committee to stress the need for “properly” targeting available funds.

Inland construction projects are constrained because of a lack of matching funds in the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. With O&M spending also reduced in the FY 2013 request, the House panel urged that available funds be focused on navigation and flood damage reduction projects “so that the economic benefits of those projects can be more fully realized.”

 

 

Few Details Yet Known About Proposed User Fee

Last September, the President recommended a new “vessel user fee” to supplement the existing waterway fuel tax, with the details left to the Secretary of the Army.  In testifying last month before the House Appropriations Subcommittee, Asst. Army. Secy. Jo-Ellen Darcy said “the mechanism for collecting that new fee is one that we are developing, hopefully with stakeholders, to determine what exactly that fee should be, how it should be assessed, how it should be managed and... directed by the Secretary of the Army.”

In the seven-plus months since the new fee was announced, there has been little action (that we know about) in fleshing out the fee proposal.  It is presumed to involve a two-tier system, with barge tows transiting one or more locks paying a certain fee while tows which do not have to pass through a lock paying a lower fee – with total fee collections amounting to $1.1 billion over the first 10 years.

In its “views and estimate” report, the House T&I Committee said it “disagrees with the Administration’s proposal to place an additional tax on those who utilize the inland navigation system...”  Because barge transportation is more economical, more fuel efficient, and less polluting, the committee said it “continues to express reservations regarding any proposal to raise the cost of shipping goods” by waterway.

 

 

10 Members Sponsoring Capital Development Plan

To improve the Corps’ management and on-time delivery of its projects, inaugurate a 20-year capital investment program based on objective national criteria, and provide additional funding, Congr. Ed Whitfield (Kentucky) and Congr. Jerry Costello (Illinois), together with five co-sponsors, introduced H.R. 4342 on March 29.  The legislation bears the title, “Waterways Are Vital for the Economy, Energy, Efficiency, and Environment Act of 2012” – otherwise known as WAVE-4.

Original co-sponsors of the legislation are Congr. Robert B. Aderholt and Terri A. Sewell (both Alabama), Congr. Russ Carnahan (Missouri), Congr. John J. Duncan, Jr. (Tennessee), and Congr. Timothy V. Johnson (Illinois).  Since then, three other lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors: Congr. Stephen I. Cohen (Tennessee), Congr. Peter G. (Pete) Olson (Texas), and Congr. John M. Shimkus (Illinois).

The House bill, which implements the inland waterways capital development plan formulated two years ago by a joint Corps of Engineers/Inland Waterways Users Board team, was referred to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as well as the Ways and Means Committee.  Among its provisions, the bill would increase the waterway fuel tax, now 20 cents a gallon, to 26 cents a gallon.

Other provisions. The legislation would preserve existing 50 percent industry/50 percent Federal cost sharing for new construction and major rehabilitation costing $100 million or more but require that expenditures under that amount be paid by the Federal government in recognition of the benefits received by non-navigation beneficiaries.  The bill would prohibit project funding in excess of the amount originally authorized by Congress.  (For an executive summary of the legislation and a list of its supporters, please visit our website: www.waterwayscouncil.org). 

 

 

Address Funding Issue, Congr. Young Suggests

“A major structural reform is needed to address the financing shortfall of the inland waterway system,” Congr. Todd C. Young (Indiana) recently wrote Chmn. Gibbs.  He suggested that Congress should make “important decisions such as what expenditures will the General Fund and the Inland Waterways Trust Fund be responsible for and at what level.”

“Without major changes to the current user revenue stream or the Federal/non-Federal cost-share requirements, I fear the inland waterway system will be left in a perilous position,” he said.  It is “far too important to allow it to continue to languish with inadequate resources and crumbling infrastructure.”

“Specifically, I believe Congress would benefit from exploring the reasons why the United States appears to have lost the ability to build waterway projects in a timely and cost-efficient manner and to discuss potential reform proposals,” he said, requesting Chmn. Gibbs’ assistance in examining the current state of the inland waterways infrastructure.

 

 

Bill’s Introduction Called ‘Starting Point’ in Debate

“Efficient and reliable transportation of goods on our inland waterways is essential to economic development, job creation, and remaining competitive in the global marketplace,” Congr. Whitfield said in a statement last week.

“Our aging infrastructure jeopardizes efficient waterborne commerce and highlights the need for the WAVE-4 Act,” he continued.  “This bill is a starting point for that debate, and all of us involved in [development this legislation] have cast it in that light.”

 

 

Depth reduced.  The Corps of Engineers, after studying a deeper shipping channel serving the Port of Savannah, said it would be more cost-effective to provide a 47-ft. channel than one a foot deeper.

Shippers said the one-foot difference could translate to 800 containers per ship.  But the Corps maintained their study showed an extra foot of channel depth would add less than $2 million in annual economic benefits.  The channel is now 42 feet deep.

 

 

Fear of Unreliability Scaring Barge Users

Earlier this week, the House Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, which Congr. Gibbs chairs, held a hearing which underscored the urgent need to restore greater accountability and reliability in the inland waterways system.  The towing industry is “losing customers because of fear of unreliability,” testified Mark K. Knoy, president and CEO of American Commercial Lines. 

“We are seeing the diversion in the small shipper category first, but larger shippers are questioning more often the continued investment in waterside facilities,” he said.  “How inefficient does our government want our waterways to be when replacing one 15-barge tow would require addition of new capacity of 216 rail cars plus six locomotives or 1,050 tractor trailer trucks to an already clogged surface transportation system?”

“Where is the outrage, where is the accountability when a seven-year project will now take 32 years to construct, or perhaps longer?” he asked, referring to Olmsted L&D.

“As a result, we have lost faith in the technology and in the investment in this project.  Remember please that we have absolutely no control over the decision-making for this project, but we are expected to write a check for one-half of the project cost.”

 

 

Increasing Lock Outages Agonize River Shippers

Martin T. (Marty) Hettel, a senior manager for AEP River Operations, also expressed system reliability concerns.  “Within the last few years, we have seen what had been a very reliable [water] transportation system deteriorate more and more each year to the point that we now experience lock outages on a regular basis,” he told the House subcommittee.

Noting that his company moved 74.4 million tons of cargo last year, Mr. Hettel emphasized “the extraordinarily serious problems [involving numerous lock closures] within the Ohio Basin.”  The outages, he said, have cost his company millions of dollars.

“If both chambers at Willow Island Lock fail, as the Corps predicts [may occur by] 2015, the cost to get the fuel to our power plants via truck, rail, and trans-loading barges around the lock, and to purchase coal on the spot market, would be over $22 million per month,” he said. 

Mr. Hettel put in a plug for the WAVE-4 legislation, calling it “one critically important step that Congress should take... to put in place what we believe is a balanced, comprehensive, workable 20-year inland waterway system modernization and investment program for the nation.”

 

 

More Obstacles Keep Users Board Inactive

With the Inland Waterways Users Board still in limbo, the Administration lacks a major stakeholder group with which to negotiate on shallow-draft waterways issues.  The board last met in New Orleans in April 2011, and the terms of all the board’s members expired last summer.  Since then, designation of board members has been held up, apparently because of a bureaucratic wrangle between the Departments of the Army and Defense over how board members should be classified.

Earlier this year, the issue was reported to have been resolved, and the Army began notifying most of the 10 companies which had officials serving on the last Users Board (plus a few other firms), requesting that each nominate a representative to serve an interim one-year term on the new board.  (The board is supposed to have 11 members, but it was one member short last year.)  After next February, terms would be two years, but members could serve a second term if they were re-nominated.  Representatives may serve subsequent terms but only after being off the board for at least two years.

Before the new 10-member board could be announced, other sticking points are said to have emerged over meeting arrangements.  Whether these new problems have been worked out is not known.

 

 

‘Representatives’ Invited to Join New Users Board

A notice published this week in the Federal Register announced that future Users Board members, “as determined by the Department of Defense, shall be representative members” of waterways companies (“commercial users and shippers”) – an exception to DOD policy.  In the past, the Users Board had to obtain annual waivers for a requirement that its members be classified as “special government employees” (SGEs), who have an obligation to “exercise their own individual best judgment on behalf of the government.”

“Representative members,” as described in an “action memo” earlier this year from Army Secy. John M. McHugh addressed to the Secretary of Defense, “serve as the voice of groups or entities with a financial or other stake in a particular matter.”  Mr. McHugh indicated they would have “to comply with the Obama Administration’s rules on lobbyists.” Previous board members were never regarded as lobbyists.

The Federal Register notice said the Secretary of Defense “shall invite primary commercial users and shippers of the inland and intracoastal waterways [to] designate an individual to represent the organization’s interests.”  So board members will no longer be “appointed,” which apparently invokes SGE requirements, but rather will serve as “representative members.”

 

 

New Users Board.  Companies invited to name representatives to serve on the next board include Alter Logistics, Inc. (formerly Alter Barge Line, Inc.); American Commercial Lines, Inc; AEP River Operations, LLC; Brownsville Marine Products, LLC; CGB Enterprises, Inc.; Consol Energy, Inc.; Ingram Barge Co.; Kirby Corp.; Parker Towing Co., Inc.; and Tidewater Barge Lines, Inc.

 

 

Change Cost Sharing for Olmsted L&D?

“Failing to address vital infrastructure projects like Chickamauga Lock would be catastrophic to our nation’s system of ports and waterways,” Congr. Gibbs said when the subject came up at the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, which he chairs.

Before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), the panel’s ranking member, suggested that the cost sharing for Olmsted L&D, now split between the Inland Waterways Trust Fund and the U.S. Treasury, might be changed from 50-50 to “something such as 90 percent from the Treasury and 10 percent from the... Trust Fund so that we could consider other priority projects.”

When Asst. Army Secy. Darcy responded that current law required the Corps to follow 50-50 funding and that to change this formula would require an Act of Congress.  “We are in a position to do that,” Sen. Alexander replied.

 

 

Olmsted L&D Delays Other Inland Projects

At the appropriations hearings, several Members of Congress complained about the lack of funding for projects in their districts.  For instance, Congr. Chuck Fleischmann (Tennessee) said the FY 2013 budget request “zeroed out” funding to continue constructing a new Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River, which he called “completely unacceptable.”

Because the cost of Olmsted L&D on the Ohio River has ballooned from its original $775 million price tag to $3.1 billion, or more, this one on-going project consumes 78 percent of the entire FY 2013 civil works budget request for inland navigation construction.

“No other meaningful investment in modernization of our aging inland waterways infrastructure will be made for a decade, or more, if the Olmsted project continues down its current path,” WCI Pres./CEO Michael J. Toohey has warned.

 

 

Barges Can Move a Ton More Miles on Less Fuel

The National Waterways Foundation (NWF) has just released an updated revision of its 2007 study comparing the environmental, energy and safety impacts of inland barge transportation to that of highways and railways.  The new document incorporates data through 2009, the latest year for which statistics are available for all three modes.

Texas Transportation Institute’s Center for Ports and Waterways at Texas A&M found that river tows can move a ton of cargo 616 miles on a single gallon of fuel.  For the same amount of fuel, trains can move a ton of cargo 478 miles and trucks only 150 miles.  As for personal safety, the study determined that for each member of the public injured in a barge accident, 95 are hurt in rail accidents and 1,610 in truck accidents.

Each standard 15-barge tow has the same capacity as 1,050 trucks or 216 rail cars.  A summary of the new modal comparisons may be found in a new NWF brochure, “Waterways Working for America.”  For a copy, contact Medina Moran at (703) 373-2261 or e-mail her at mmoran@vesselalliance.com.

 

 

Pirates’ cost.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been keeping tabs on pirates, mainly those operating out of Somali.  In 2011, pirates attacked 439 ships and managed to hijack 45 of them. The ships were then held for ransom.

The chamber said the economic losses to shipping companies last year amounted to at least $7 billion and might run as high as $12 billion.

 

 

Corps Studying Options to Finish Olmsted Dam

The Corps of Engineers is currently reviewing construction methods and other aspects of the Olmsted project, Maj. Gen. Merdith W.B. (Bo) Temple, the Acting Chief of Engineers, told a House subcommittee last month. He said the Cincinnati-based Great Lakes and Ohio River Division as well as the Louisville District had been directed to “take a look at the full venue of possibilities with respect to construction techniques, contracting techniques, plans and [specifications] to see what other options we may have with respect to finishing this important project.”

Col. Luke T. Leonard, commander of the Louisville District, told the Paducah Sun that the Corps had “ordered improvements” that “may result in a quicker and less expensive completed project.”  But the newspaper went on to predict, in an editorial, that “whichever construction method the Corps selects, the project won’t be quicker or less expensive than current projections.”

To be able to construct the dam without temporarily diverting the river or installing cofferdams (which would have been very expensive because of fluctuations of as much as 45 feet in river levels), the Corps elected to use an innovative (but previously untried) method: fabricating dam segments on shore and then barging them to the dam site.  The system worked – but it has turned out to be both very costly and very slow.

 

 

Around the Great Lakes Asian Carp Make News

To help keep invasive Asian carp from reaching streams in northern Minnesota, two Twin Cities-based river excursion vessels, the Minneapolis Queen and Paradise Lady, have stopped transiting the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock on the Mississippi River.  “We’re stepping up to the plate because it’s river first,” said the owner of one of the boats.

It turns out that Asian carp do not have to swim to reach Canada.  They can go by truck.  Border patrol agents recently confiscated 14,000 pounds of live carp on their way to Toronto markets, where the fish are considered a delicacy.  In the last year, agents have stopped four other illegal carp shipments, which originated as far away as Arkansas.

According to the Chicago Tribune, scientists working for the U.S. Geological Survey in La Crosse, Wis., believe they are close to perfecting a poison that will kill carp without harming other fish.  Designed to mimic food and containing a couple of carp enzymes, the micro-size “bio-bullet,” no wider than a human hair, would deliver toxins affecting only silver and big head carp.

 

 

Reduced Funding Slows Mon L&D Replacement

One of the on-going inland construction projects that has been deprived of adequate funding because of the massive Olmsted cost overrun is Monongahela L&Ds 2-4, the Corps’ No. 2 priority.  When authorized in 1992 at an estimated cost of $556.4 million, the project was supposed to be completed in 2004.

If Olmsted’s cost is not reduced and the Lower Mon project must await Olmsted’s completion, most of the remaining construction work on Lower Mon won’t even resume until the early-to-mid-2020s.  Stephen R. (Steve) Fritz, who manages the Lower Mon project for the Corps, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that if it receives only minimal annual funding, the work will drag into the 2030s and cost upward of $1.7 billion.

Braddock Dam at Mon L&D 2, originally built in 1906, was recently removed and replaced with a fixed-crest dam.  New and larger lock chambers are under construction at Charleroi to take the place of those built in 1932.  When the new Charleroi locks are completed, L&D 3 at Elizabeth, dating back to 1907, is scheduled to be removed.

 

 

QUOTES IN THE NEWS...

“The precarious status of the waterway system stems from what government and industry officials agree is a broken method of maintaining and replacing aging locks and dams,” said the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a hard-hitting, four-part series by reporter Len Boselovic published last month. “Congress... has not fully funded projects up front.  The piecemeal funding... generates significant cost overruns and construction delays counted in decades, not months or years.” ...

“The four-fold increase in price [of Olmsted L&D] has created a dam of its own.  Because Olmsted devours the lion’s share of the $170 million available to the Corps each year to replace or repair aging river infrastructure, work on other projects... proceeds at a snail’s pace.”...

“The Corps has resorted to a triage system for maintaining [locks and dams] long past their 50-year life expectancy.... And statistics indicate the Corps is losing the fight to keep the old structures working.  Unscheduled lock closures nationwide have spiked in recent years...”  (The entire series is available in the “media center” at our website: www.waterwayscouncil.org)

 

 

Shipyard grants.  The Maritime Administration has made $9.98 million in grants to 15 small shipyards which Transportation Secy. Ray LaHood said would pay for modernizations that will increase productivity and help them compete in global markets.

Among the yards receiving grants: Bludworth Marine in Houston; Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport, La.; Conrad Shipyard in Amelia, La.; Leevac Shipyards in Jennings, La.; and Trinity Industries, Inc., in Caruthersville, Mo. 

 

 

Close Down Army Corps, Cato Institute Proposes

In a report last month, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, slammed the Corps of Engineers as “an unparalleled pork-barrel machine” and an agency “grossly mismanaged over the decades.”  Many of its projects “have been economically or environmentally dubious,” the report claimed, “often [subsidizing] private interests at the expense of Federal taxpayers.”

“Fortunately,” the Institute reported, “most of the Corps’ activities do not need to be carried out by the Federal government.”  Flood control and recreational sites should be turned over to state and local entities, it said, and other activities “such as seaport dredging” should be transferred to the private sector. 

It concluded: “The civilian side of the Army Corps should be closed down.” 

The Cato Institute was founded in Wichita, Kan., in 1974 as the Charles Koch Foundation, named for the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc. The foundation’s name was changed to Cato Institute in 1976.  Last month, Charles and brother David Koch filed suit “to take control” of the group, according to Cato officials, and transform it into “an intellectual ammo-shop” for Americans for Prosperity Foundation, formerly Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, which was established in 1984 by Charles and David Koch.

 

 

Senate Bill Would Strip Projects From the Corps

Sens. David Vitter (Louisiana) and Bill Nelson (Florida) have introduced legislation (S. 2138) to establish a pilot program, funded with $200 million previously appropriated but not yet obligated, to evaluate “the cost-effectiveness and project-delivery efficiency” of transferring management of navigation and flood-control projects from the Corps of Engineers to state and local entities.

“Backlogs and red tape have plagued the Corps, especially since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and I want to start implementing necessary reforms that will cut through the red tape and speed up critical flood control and navigation projects,” Sen. Vitter said.  “Flood protection isn’t something we can allow to be backlogged for years on end.”

Sen. Nelson said he decided to co-sponsor the “Corps of Engineers Project Delivery Flexibility Act of 2012” after Sen. Vitter agreed to include navigation projects as part of the 12-project pilot program.  Under their plan, the non-Federal project sponsor would provide “full project management control for the design and construction” of each project.

 

 

Closure Could Cause Electricity Cost Jump

Because of the age and frail condition of Mon L&Ds 2-4 and the ever-present possibility that one of the locks and/or dams could fail, the Corps recently asked Leonardo Technologies, Inc., of Bannock, Ohio, to estimate the impact of a river closure on the area’s utility steam-coal consumption, sourcing, and transportation.

A redacted version of the firm’s report, deleting “business-sensitive information,” found that about 21 million citizens would be impacted by “plants of interest” in the Ohio River Valley. Without Mon river traffic availability, the cost of producing U.S. electricity could rise by $200 million in a single year, the researchers concluded.

Another conclusion: “The price paid for electricity goes up by an amount that could reach as high as $1 billion for that same single-year time period, depending on PUC (public utility commission)  pass-throughs of wholesale electricity purchases, because of significantly higher cost units being on the margin.”

 

 

House OKs Bill to Spend Trust Fund on Dredging

A modified version of the RAMP bill – H.R. 104, the “Realize America’s Maritime Potential Act,” sponsored by Congr. Charles W. Bostany, Jr. (Louisiana), with 189 co-sponsors – sailed through the House of Representatives yesterday.  It was an amendment to legislation providing a short-term extension for surface transportation pro-grams, which passed on a 293-127 vote.

During a short debate on the House floor, nine colleagues joined Congr. Boustany in urging passage of the amendment, which included “a guarantee that requires that the total amount available for spending from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund each fiscal year be equal to the trust fund receipts as estimated by the President’s budget for that year,” according to the Congressional Record.

“In the year 2011, the harbor maintenance tax that was collected was $1.4 billion, but only slightly over half of that was directed to the intended purpose,” he said, which is maintaining ports and access channels at authorized depths and widths, Congr. Boustany stated..  “Yet less than 35 percent of our nation’s top harbors and ports are dredged adequately.  This is hurting American competitiveness.  It’s hurting American exports.  It’s hurting American commerce.”

 

 

At Last, Senate Gets Chief’s Nomination

Almost one year after the President nominated Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick to be the next Chief of Engineers, the Senate Armed Services Committee has finally forwarded his nomination to the U.S. Senate.  He was one of 246 military nominees approved by voice vote, without any notice or discussion, at the start of a committee session on March 22.

As a result, Gen. Bostick’s name was placed on the executive calendar for Senate consideration – a process which has almost bogged down in recent months. However, under an agreement reached last month, the Senate confirmed 73 pending nominations on March 29.

Included were two Upper Midwest residents to be members of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation’s Advisory Board – David J. McMillan of Duluth, executive vice president of Minnesota Power, Inc., and Wenona T. Singel of East Lansing, Mich., assistant professor of law at Michigan State University. Not included in the confirmations was that of Kenneth J. Koposis, a long-time House staffer, who was nominated last June to be Assistant EPA Administrator for Water.

 

 

In Memoriam...

Maersk Mc-Kinney Moeller of Copenhagen, 98, who created the world’s largest publicly-held container shipping group, Maersk Sealand... Mrs. Helen M. Visclosky, 86, of Crown Point, Ind., mother of Congr. Peter J. Visclosky (Indiana), ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development...

William C. Nolan, Jr., 72, of El Dorado, Ark., chairman of Murphy Oil Corp.... Frank M. Cushing, 59, of Falls Church, Va., a long-time legislative assistant on Capitol Hill, who served in 2005-08 as staff director of the House Appropriations Committee... To their families and friends, we express our condolences.

 

 

In the Mainstream...

At its recent spring conference, the American Assn. of Port Authorities elected Adolph N. Ojard, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, as the next chairman of its U.S. delegation.  In 1995-97, he was president of the Warrior and Gulf Navigation Co., a U.S. Steel-affiliated bargeline operating primarily on the Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway...

C. Linn Peterson of Miami, Kirby Corp.’s vice president for Florida bunkering operations, took over the chairmanship of the American Waterways Operators (AWO) this week at the organization’s spring convention... In early May, Dennis J. Wilmsmeyer, executive director of the Tri-City Regional Port District of Granite City, Ill., will become chairman of Inland Rivers Ports & Terminals, Inc., succeeding Maurice S. Owen, port director of Owensboro (Ky.) Riverport Authority...

For his role in keeping barge traffic moving through the smaller auxiliary lock during the 27-day closure of the main lock chamber at Greenup L&D on the Ohio River in early 2010, Richard D. Kern of Huntington, W.Va., an operations manager for Ingram Barge Co., was presented the Coast Guard’s Meritorious Service Award.  Mr. Kern is also chairman of the Huntington District Waterways Assn.

ENR (formerly Engineering News-Record) named Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, the Corps’ Deputy Commanding General for Civil and Emergency Operations, as one of its top 25 “newsmakers” in 2011 for his successful management of the MR&T system during last year’s historic flood while he was commander of the Mississippi Valley Division... Bradley H. (Brad) Pickel of Beaufort, S.C., is the new executive director of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway Assn.  He is a senior policy advisor for Marlowe and Company, a Washington-based government affairs consulting firm... Robert R. (Bob) Rowe was named director of AWO’s Atlantic region.  A former Massachusetts state trooper, he more recently was vice president of the American Society for Industrial Security...

John W. (Jack) Lambert of St. Paul, long-time chairman and CEO of Twin City Barge & Towing Co., Inc., which is no longer in business, is the author of an autobiography, Troubled Waters: 30 Years in the River Business...

In the agencies.  EPA picked Benjamin B. (Ben) Scaggs, head of its Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, as director of its Gulf of Mexico program...  The President has nominated Michael P. Huerta as FAA administrator; he is a former director of DOT’s Office of Intermodalism...

Moving on.  Anne Davis Burns, AWO’s vice president for public affairs and communications for the last decade, has left the organization to join Susan Davis International, where she was named public affairs counsel.  It’s a strategic communications and public affairs firm launched by an older sister in the mid-1980s...

Teri H. Goodmann, development director of the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium and National Rivers Hall of Fame (1995-06) and more recently director of national development, is leaving the Dubuque-based Hall of Fame and river museum to devote her ener-gies to another job she has held since 2007 – that of Dubuque’s assistant city manager...

Engaged.  Sen. Susan M. Collins (Maine), 59, plans to marry Thomas A. Daffron, 73, COO of a Washington lobbying firm, Jefferson Consulting Group, this summer. He is also a former COO of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.  It will be her first and his second marriage...

At the ports.  Capt. Michael J. Mierzwa, formerly deputy port director, was promoted to the director’s post at the Port of Galveston, replacing Steven M. Cernak, who became port director at Port Everglades, Fla.... David R. Koch is the interim CEO at the Port of Coos Bay, Ore., succeeding Jeffrey T. (Jeff) Bishop, who left to become city manager of Blanchard, Okla....

Retiring.  David E. Lichy, since 2005 director of the Corps’ Navigation Data Center, part of the Institute for Water Resources... George J. Jageman, Jr., chief of construction at the Louisville District... Armand J. (Pete) Reixach, Jr., after 26 years as executive port director of the Port of Freeport, Tex.  Phyllis Saathoff, managing director, is serving as interim port director...

 

 

Commanders Assigned to 13 Engineer Districts

It’s almost that time of the year again, when change-of-command ceremonies will be taking place at about a dozen Corps of Engineers’ Districts.  Getting new commanders, mostly in the June-August time frame:

Galveston – Col. Richard P. Pannel (replacing Col. Christopher W. Sallese).  Kansas City – Lt. Col. Andrew D. Sexton (replacing Col. Anthony J. Hofmann).  Little Rock – Col. Courtney W. Paul (replacing Col. Glen A. Masset).  Los Angeles – Lt. Col. Kimberly Marie Colloton (replacing Col. R. Mark Toy). 

Memphis – Col. Jeffrey A. Anderson (replacing Col. Vernie L. Reichling, Jr.).  Mobile – Lt. Col. Jon J. Chytka (replacing Col. Steven J. Roemhildt).  New Orleans – Lt. Col. Richard L. Hansen (replacing Col. Edward R. Fleming). Pittsburgh – Col. Bernard R. Lindstrom (replacing Col. William H. Graham).

St. Paul – Lt. Col. Daniel C. Koprowski (replacing Col. Michael J. Price).  Sacramento – Col. Michael J. Farrell (replacing Col. William J. Leady).  Savannah – Col. Thomas J. Tickner (replacing Col. Jeffrey M. Hall).  Tulsa – Lt. Col. Richard A. Pratt (replacing Col. Michael J. Teague).  Vicksburg – Col. John W. Cross (replacing Col. Jeffrey R. Eckstein).

 

 

Roundtable Suggested to Tackle Funding Issue

In breaking news this afternoon, Congr. Timothy H. Bishop (New York), ranking minority member of the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, called on the panel’s chairman, Congr. Bob Gibbs, to join him in co-hosting a “stakeholder roundtable” including waterway users and beneficiaries, lawmakers, Administration officials and others to discuss “pressing issues surrounding the deteriorating Federal assets” along the inland waterways system.

Congr. Bishop noted that their subcommittee had received “several competing proposals that attempt to resolve issues related to [inland waterways] project funding and delivery.” 

The next step, he said, “is for our subcommittee to talk directly with the stakeholder community, to evaluate the pros and cons of the varying competing proposals, and to work cooperatively towards a solution that improves project delivery on the inland system in a fashion that equitably benefits our nation, our economy, and creates jobs.”

 

 

IN THE COURTS...

 

 

On the Horizon...

April 25-27, Greater New Orleans Barge Fleeting Assn., New Orleans... May 1-4, Inland Rivers Ports & Terminals, Inc., St. Louis... May 8, Inter-national Propeller Club of the United States’ Salute to Congress, Bethesda, Md....

May 8-9, McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation Conference (Corps of Engineers/ Arkansas-Oklahoma Port Operators’ Assn.), Fort Smith, Ark.... May 9-10, Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, Washington... May 16-18, Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway Assn., Point Clear, Ala....

May 22, National Maritime Day...

May 31-June 1, Tri-Rivers Waterway Development Assn., Columbus, Ga.... June 7, Seamen’s Church Institute’s Silver Bell Awards dinner, New York... June 26-28, inter-departmental Committee on the Marine Transportation System/ Transportation Research Board research and development conference, Washington...

June 27-29, PNWA summer conference, Seattle... Aug. 15-17, Gulf Intracoastal Canal Assn., New Orleans... Aug. 27, PIANC USA annual meeting, Pittsburgh... Aug. 28-31, Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Opportunities Conference, Point Clear, Ala....

Sept. 10-12, National Coal Transportation Assn., Denver...

Sept. 19-21, NWC annual meeting, Tunica, Miss.... Oct. 21-25, AAPA annual convention, Mobile... Oct. 22-25, Dredging 2012 (PIANC/ASCE/COPRI), San Diego... Sept. 23-27, World Canals Conference, Yangzhou, China... Dec. 6-8, Mississippi Valley Flood Control Assn., New Orleans...

Sept. 23-27, 2013, PIANC-SMART Rivers 2013, Liege, Belgium, and Maastricht, the Netherlands (both are ports on the Meuse River about 15 miles apart)...

 

******

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