Port directors unhappy with stimulus bill

Port directors unhappy with stimulus bill    The chief executives for several large U.S. ports believe the maritime sector is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to infrastructure funding proposals for an $800 billion-plus economic recovery package being hashed out in Congress.
   And one contrarian suggested that the feeding frenzy among state and local governments to get their share of the proceeds is likely to result in money wasted on unnecessary projects.
   Last week House Democrats released their version of a plan for job creation and economic stimulus that included $30 billion for highway construction projects and $10 billion for transit and passenger rail. States, cities and counties have submitted thousands of infrastructure projects, heavily weighted towards road and school construction, to the Obama administration and Congress for funding consideration. The House proposal also includes billions for improvements to the electric grid, weatherizing homes, modernizing federal buildings, public housing repairs, flood control, wastewater and drinking water systems, science and technology investment, broadband Internet connections and other items.

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   Ports have funneled funding requests for projects through the American Association of Port Authorities, state departments of transportation, the Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, members of Congress and other avenues. The House bill includes a new $200 million grant program to electrify the transportation sector. Among the potential beneficiaries are projects for shore side electrification to run equipment on commercial ships at berth, but industry officials concede that their best hope for other aid is in the form of landside access projects.
   “We still to this day continue to get stepchild treatment from Washington,” New Orleans Port Director Gary LaGrange lamented last week at the Transportation Research Board annual conference in the nation’s capital.
   House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar previously proposed an $85 billion infrastructure spending plan, about two-thirds of which was devoted to transportation-related projects and programs. That $60 billion is about $20 billion more than in the overall House plan.
   LaGrange continued his rant three days later at a workshop hosted by the AAPA in Tampa, Fla., where he again expressed regret at the paucity of money for port projects even in the larger Oberstar transportation proposal. He counted $1.2 billion in the chairman’s proposal for the maritime industry, of which less than $500 million is directly related to port infrastructure improvement. The non-infrastructure component included $734 million for the Coast Guard ($153 million for an Guard icebreaker, $100 million for shore facilities and $481 million for a bridge alteration program designed to remove obstacles from navigable waterways), $45 million for the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. and $55 million for the Maritime Administration ($45 million for Title XI loan guarantees for construction of short-transit coastal ships, terminals and equipment, and $10 million for maritime education and job training).
   “It’s appalling,” he said.
   “We’re basically subsidizing the federal government,” the port chief complained, pointing to the $4.7 billion surplus in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. The account’s revenue comes from a tax based on the value of cargo entering U.S. ports.
   He wondered why the highway, aviation and inland waterway trust funds are consistently drawn down but ports can’t access money they helped raise. By comparison, the government in 2007 collected $1.4 billion for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, but spent only $751 million for dredging and jetty projects.
   The lion’s share of money in the House stimulus proposal is to be distributed through existing formulas to cities, counties and states, prompting him to advise ports to use any local government connections to get a piece of the action.
   The Port of New Orleans is pushing six projects — including reconstruction of the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal, on-dock rail, a container yard, and a new riverfront cold storage facility — with an estimated price tag of $205.2 million that could be started by April.
   Houston Port Director Thomas Kornegay said in Washington that lawmakers don’t seem to appreciate that ports are economic engines.
   “I don’t understand why it’s not happening. We’re totally dependent on ports to get us the products that we need, want and use every day,” Kornegay said.
   LaGrange said another opportunity to capture funding for ports will occur in March when the omnibus appropriation bill for fiscal year 2009 comes up for a vote in March. The government has been operating under a continuing resolution at 2008 budget levels because Congress did not complete appropriations bills for most departments by Sept. 30. LaGrange noted that earmarks will be allowed in that process and that ports may get lucky if they can tie projects to job creation.
   But Richard Wainio, head of the Tampa Port Authority, said the rush to throw money at projects to create jobs and economic activity is counterproductive.
   The House bill and the Obama administration are targeting ready-to-go projects that have been planned, permitted, designed and can be contracted out in the span of a few months.
   “I’m getting really tired of hearing the word ‘shovel-ready.’ That to me is the same thing as saying, ‘First horse to the trough’ or ‘First bite by the shark.’ That’s absolutely the wrong approach,” he said.
      The Tampa port director said the government needs to think about sustained, long-term funding because any recovery is going to take years beyond the recession, the end of which only marks that the bottom has been reached.
   “We’ve gone down so far that to come back at much slower growth rates that are anticipated, it’s going to take years and years and years.
   “This is not an overnight thing. You don’t need to rush forward tomorrow with billions of dollars and just pour it into shovel-ready projects. Obviously you need to get big projects going to stabilize the economy and stimulate. But you don’t have to do it all at once. You’ve got to look beyond the next six months and spread that money over a period of time,” he said. “It’s not a quick fix.”
   The list of projects submitted by Tampa includes terminal expansion, grading and dredging.
   The AAPA is working with Congress and the Obama administration to make sure that stimulus spending on infrastructure is a “first step to deal with structural needs” in the surface transportation reauthorization bill later this year rather than just a one-shot deal, said Jean Godwin, the organization’s executive vice president. ' Eric Kulisch