Rep. Mica urges action on HMT bill

Rep. Mica urges action on HMT bill

Mica

   Rep. John Mica this week asked House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar to consider a bill guaranteeing full expenditure of user fees for dredging when the committee next convenes to vote on various pieces of legislation.
   Money collected from the Harbor Maintenance Tax is put in a trust fund to pay the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge deepwater and inland shipping channels to their authorized depths. The HMT is assessed on ocean imports and domestic freight moves along the coast at a rate of 0.125 percent of the cargo's value. The maritime industry and shippers have complained for many years that Congress only appropriates a portion of the trust fund balance at a time when there is a huge backlog of dredging projects that are needed to provide vessels efficient access to the nation's harbors.
   The bill, H.R. 4844, was introduced in March by Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La.
   It calls for the funds made available from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) each fiscal year for dredging projects to be equal to the level of receipts, plus interest credited to the fund each year, instead of allowing the surplus in the fund to continue to grow. Critics charge that the surplus is used to mask the federal deficit so that general fund revenues can be used for other purposes. A companion bill exists in the Senate.
   The HMTF is expected to have a balance of more than $6 billion by the end of fiscal year 2011.
   Mica, the ranking Republican on the committee, said failure to adequately maintain maritime infrastructure is driving up transportation costs because many ships cannot transit ports fully loaded and will prevent the new class of mega-containerships from serving eastern U.S. ports once the Panama Canal expansion is completed at the end 2014.
   'At a time when the economy is stagnating, it is critical we make our products more competitive in overseas markets. America's producers and manufacturers depend on modern and efficient waterways and ports to get their products to market ' Unless we address this issue, the reliability and responsiveness of the entire intermodal system will slow economic growth and threaten national security,' Mica, the ranking Republican on the committee, wrote in a letter to Oberstar.
   Exports are particularly impacted by shallow depths because substantial portions of goods sold abroad are agricultural commodities such as grain and heavy machinery. The weight limits how much cargo some ships can carry.
   The Army Corps of Engineers' Operation and Maintenance account is only being funded at half the level that is needed to maintain current depths, said Kurt Nagle, president of the American Association of Port Authorities, at an at informal, fact-finding roundtable on maritime issues convened by Mica on May 25.
   Thirty percent of vessels are constrained from operating at maximum capacity by water depth, he added.
   Nagle said releasing money from the trust fund offers a quick infrastructure fix that can make coal and grain exports more competitive.
   The full committee needs to meet to mark up and vote on the legislation, though it hasn't been scheduled yet. ' Eric Kulisch