The U.S. Senate is expected to take up a controversial water resources bill this week that boosts the Port of Rochester.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., added a provision to the bill in committee that gives priority for dredging smaller harbors such as Rochester and Oswego.
Most of the controversy over the bill involves issues far from Lake Ontario’s shores, so the provision is likely to be at the mercy of other forces.
Budget watchdog groups are criticizing the overall measure for making significant new commitments of federal spending. Boosters say the bill better prepares East Coast ports for deeper draft cargo ships when huge new locks open in the Panama Canal in 2015.
Much of the new commitment involves dredging, including a new federal responsibility for dredging berths next to piers. Generally, there’s less local cost sharing for dredging in favor of letting Uncle Sam pick up the tab.
Congress also would require the Army Corps of Engineers to use all the money in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund each year. Much of the harbor trust fund revenue is generated by the use of deep harbors that don’t require much dredging, such as Los Angeles, Long Beach, Tacoma and Seattle.
The trust fund collects about $1.5 billion annually and has been running a surplus of about $700 million that helps to reduce the federal deficit, according to Steve Ellis of the budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
“There’s maintenance dredging that always needed to be done,” said Brian Pallasch, managing director of government relations for the American Society of Civil Engineers. “We’re collecting money and not using it for its intended purpose. There are enough projects where you could use the full amount of money.”
Almost 20 percent of the trust fund money was spent in Louisiana between 1999 and 2008, with Texas ranking No. 2 and Florida No. 3.
The state of New York ranked No. 7.
Over that same 10-year period ending in 2008, the $56.9 million spent on New York City’s harbor ranked behind 24 other projects, including the Cape Cod Canal.
Trust fund money is not used for increasing the depth or width of a channel, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. That work is funded out of the federal government’s general treasury.
Written by: Brian Tumulty, Gannett Washington Bureau
Original Publication URL: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20130506/NEWS01/305060011/Gillibrand-dredging-Port-of-Rochester?nclick_check=1
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