Senator Announces Proposal to Address Locks & Dams

By CnAgri2012-10-29 19:26:38 Print

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee announced his plans to introduce The American Waterworks Act, a new waterways funding proposal. While the full details of the proposal are not yet available, Sen. Alexander described the key components, including provisions to remove the requirement that Olmsted Lock be funded using Inland Waterways Trust Fund revenues. Currently Olmsted Lock on the Ohio River has been consuming the vast majority of all the annual funding available for inland lock construction and rehabilitation and removing it from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund will free up revenue to address needed lock and dam repairs across the country.

The measure would also provide full federal funding for maintenance of harbors up to 50 feet deep. Currently only funding up to 45 feet is authorized, but the Panama Canal expansion will accommodate ships with a 50-foot depth.

And it would establish an accounting method for revenues from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund that will allow those revenues to offset annual Harbor Maintenance spending, while speeding up construction permit approvals and provide states with the ability to appeal slow-moving regulatory decision making

Sen. Alexander says another provision in the bill would authorize a five-year construction program to expand harbors to accommodate the larger ships expected after the Panama Canal expansion; and increase revenue to Inland Waterways Trust Fund in a manner consistent with the agreement between the Inland Waterways Users and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Alexander, Sen.Lindsey Graham of South Caroline and a bipartisan group of senators will pursue additional co-sponsors, and possibly consider an effort to add the American Waterworks Act to legislation expected in the lame duck session, or the next Senate Water Resources Development Act bill.