Water Resources Development Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. Mr. Chair, I am offering this amendment because Great Lakes ports and harbors are facing a crisis. I want to thank the chairman of the committee for his willingness to work on this situation, not just in this bill but in previous bills as well.

The Great Lakes navigation system is a critical international waterway that extends from the western end of Lake Superior to the Gulf of St. Lawrence Seaway on the Atlantic Ocean, a distance of over 2,400 miles. The U.S. portion of the system includes 140 harbors and over 600 miles of maintained navigation channels. This system can handle 200 million tons of cargo that generate and sustain around 130,000 good- paying jobs and an $18 billion support to our economy in the eight Great Lakes States and around the country.

However, 16 million cubic yards of sediment clogged these ports and waterways in the Great Lakes. It is estimated that it would cost nearly $200 million to make them fully functional.

In addition, the critical Soo Locks, joining Lake Superior and Lake Huron, require $115 million to complete maintenance rehabilitation while Great Lakes breakwaters and jetties need $250 million for repairs. We must act before the crisis in the Great Lakes grows even worse.

Just 2 years ago, the House overwhelmingly passed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act 412-4, and it was later signed into law.

WRRDA 2014 included a provision that temporarily set aside 10 percent of Army Corps priority funding for the Great Lakes navigation system.

Consistent with the spirit of WRRDA 2014, my amendment provides the 140 federally maintained commercial and recreational Great Lakes ports and harbors with access to dependable funding by ensuring that the set- aside does not expire. These Federal harbor channels, like Pentwater, White Lake, Ludington, Muskegon, Holland, and Grand Haven in my district, are the lifeblood of these communities.

The Federal Government must meet its obligation to communities across the Great Lakes region. These ports and harbors are engines of economic growth that create jobs for American workers, farmers, and manufacturers.

As the chairman knows, it would be my preference to ensure that ports and harbors across our Nation are properly maintained by using the harbor maintenance trust fund for its intended purpose: harbor maintenance.

By working together since 2011, we have made significant progress. In fiscal year 2011, only 47 percent of the harbor maintenance tax that was paid into the HMTF was used to dredge and maintain our harbors because this trust fund was raided, frankly, to pay for unrelated projects.

Because of the progress we have made, the harbor maintenance trust fund will retain 76 percent of the revenues that are intended for water infrastructure improvements and harbor dredging under this year's Appropriations Committee-passed funding bill. This is a huge win for coastal communities in all of these different States and, frankly, for our entire Nation.

I look forward to building on the success in the future and would like to thank the chairman for working with us.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, this is going to be from the heart. My family is originally from Flint, on my mom's side. I have had very many fond memories growing up as a child going and visiting aunts and uncles and cousins. I have recently visited those who have been affected, and it is tragic.

Mr. Chairman, the simple fact is that if these were folks that had been affected by the breach of a dam or by a nuclear plant meltdown, we would not be turning our backs on them; we would be taking care of them. We should be doing the exact same thing with the folks in Flint.

These folks have experienced failure of government at all levels for decades: local, State, and the Federal Government. That has been well acknowledged. But what we have not talked about is how we are going to then care for those citizens.

Let's fix the management issues, but, more importantly, let's care for our fellow citizens and make sure that those children, especially, are going to have the same opportunity as every other child in Michigan and the United States.

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