Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to thank my colleagues for passing America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 and to discuss the importance of it to the State of Washington. This legislation is going now to the President's desk, and it is very needed to help make our ports more competitive, to protect thousands of jobs, and to help protect our salmon habitat in the State of Washington.
This legislation means the ports of Seattle and Tacoma will be able to deepen their harbors to allow them to meet the much larger cargo demands to compete with other ports on the west coast, specifically in Canada.
This legislation also improves the critical habitat for salmon and waterways like the Puget Sound and the Columbia River, and it also helps utilities make commonsense investments for the future and helps to protect our ratepayers and the environment.
I am proud to have worked on this legislation with our colleagues because we need to keep moving forward on investments that help make our region competitive.
Our ports are essential to our economic growth in the Northwest. I always say ``ports are us'' because we have so many along the Columbia River and on the west coast, and trade is a cornerstone of our economy, with $95 billion in exports and $92 billion in imports each year.
The fact that this legislation helps us on important maintenance and operations for both large and small ports and for locks, dams, and waterways is so important to our future. It also helps us with the important alliance that Seattle and Tacoma formed together to help our marine cargo operations at the ports, which generate $4.3 billion in economic activity and on which 48,000 jobs are dependent.
What happened is that as the world market changed and large containerships could double in size the amount of products they were shipping, it was so important for our west coast ports to be competitive and to be able to serve these large ships. These megaships, which are twice the length of the space needle and wider than a football field, carry twice the number of containers compared to ships that typically call on west coast ports and need deeper waterways.
To maintain a top-grade lane through the Pacific Northwest and to compete with the Canadian ports, the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma have to deepen their ports and make the navigational changes to address the large container ships.
The Army Corps and the Northwest Seaport Alliance teamed up with the Seattle Harbor Navigational Improvement Project study, the Tacoma Harbor Navigational Improvement Project study, and many other partners to make sure we were making the right investments.
In this legislation, the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma are big economic winners. They are economic winners because we are authorizing over $29 million to deepen the East and West Waterways in the Port of Seattle to 57 feet. When the project is completed, the Port of Seattle will be the deepest in the country. It will allow us to serve those megaships. Instead of having just 1,000 to 12,000 cargo containers, it will be 18,000 cargo containers or more. We are expecting to complete a feasibility study at the Port of Tacoma, which is currently at 51 feet.
These two projects are going to help us continue to build the reputation of the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma, moving our products throughout the United States to Asia quickly and reliably and reaching critical markets.
We don't want our shippers to have to pay more because we haven't made these infrastructure investments. Moving freight is what we do.
This bill is about making it in our waterways as well. Deepening the waterways in the Ports in Seattle and Tacoma will ensure they can compete with Canadian ports. It will help us to continue to grow our jobs in the maritime sector, and it will help us to continue to be a gateway from North America to Asia and around the world.
This legislation also helps us in restoring waters adjacent to Puget Sound and helps us with our salmon recovery efforts. For the last 18 years, the Puget Sound Adjacent Waters Restoration Program has focused on protecting and restoring habitat within the Puget Sound Basin.
Using this program, the Army Corps was able to work with places like the city of Burien to remove a seawall on the Seahurst Park shoreline. Now that shoreline is a habitat for endangered salmon and the home to bald eagles and osprey, and it is attracting visitors to the park.
The Army Corps was also able to use the program to work with the Tulalip Tribe to restore critical habit along the Snohomish River. That was lost in the early 20th century. The estuary now provides access to spawning, rearing, and feeding areas for salmon.
Puget Sound--the second largest estuary in the United States--is home to thousands of species that this bill will also help. Over a dozen of these species are listed as endangered or threatened, and our helping by making these improvements to clean up Puget Sound and restore habitat is so important to the viability of the Pacific Northwest.
The bill increases funding for the Puget Sound Adjacent Waters Restoration Program from $40 million to $60 million and the per-project funding from $5 million to $10 million.
These are just expanded numbers, but they mean everything to meet the goals of the projects around Puget Sound. We are returning to Puget Sound waterways that are unblocked and providing cleaner habitat for salmon--for threatened juvenile salmon--and opportunities in areas like Spencer Island in the Snohomish River estuary near Everett, WA.
Another project will restore tidal flows and create open coastline inlets at the creek originating near Joint Base Lewis-McChord, in South Puget Sound. This will help us to restore spawning habitats for forage fish, support salmon recovery, and improve those shoreline conditions that are so important.
These projects are an example of the diversity that our region uses when it helps our ecosystem, known as Puget Sound, and in helping salmon recovery.
This legislation also helps in making sure those who make great improvements to water infrastructure, particularly our hydrosystems, get rewarded for doing that and ensures that they don't wait or hesitate to get that done. This legislation provides an early action provision for licensees on hydrosystems to make improvements and makes sure they will be recognized later. This provision would remove an impediment, and it encourages people to take corrective action sooner rather than later.
That is good for our environment, and it is good for taxpayers and helps us save on energy. Most importantly, it does not take away any regulatory oversight from the agency but simply rewards people earlier for doing the right thing.
I know that Chelan PUD is a good example of this and will take advantage of this as they plan to rehabilitate units at Rock Island hydro project--a significant investment of over $500 million. This area needs to have these upgrades, and this provision will help them get them done sooner.
In this legislation, we are also helping with one of the most challenging things we see in our waterways, and that is protecting the physical infrastructure and waterways in our hydro system from invasive species. The highly invasive Quagga and Zebra mussels have invaded our waterways in 20 different States. If invasive mussel populations invade the Pacific Northwest, it is estimated that it could cost our region over $500 million in annual costs. That would be devoting way more of our resources just to manage that infestation.
The Columbia Basin is the last major uninfected watershed in the United States, much of it to the credit of watercraft inspection stations on the Columbia River. The Columbia River inspection stations help inspect the boats that travel up and down the river for such invasive species, and an inspection of all watercrafts is required. I am pleased that this bill authorizes money specifically for the Columbia River inspection stations. This helps us because, as I said, with a river that hasn't seen these invasive species, the fact that we still do these inspections is critical.
Last year, over 9,000 boats were inspected throughout Washington, and because of the funding for the Columbia River, these invasive species were kept out of our waters. That means they were kept out not just in Washington but in other parts of the Pacific Northwest as well.
This legislation also continues the great downpayment on the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which was created in 1997 and has helped our State--millions of dollars in annual grants. This is so important. As we saw with the many problems in Flint, MI, and other places, many of our colleagues know that this Drinking Water State Revolving Fund is necessary for us to keep clean water in the United States.
These funds helped the city of Lynden replace its 1926 surface water treatment plant and ensured a reliable water supply to the Lynden community and surrounding area. The funds also helped the city of Prosser make improvements to its aging water system to ensure that communities have access to a clean water supply. At the end of this week, the city of Kelso will be celebrating the completion of the Minor Road Reservoir, which replaced two aging reservoirs that were leaking and that would have failed in the event of a natural disaster in the area. The city was able to complete the project with the help of the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, and I am so glad that is going to help secure more resources for that part of our State.
This also provides States and communities with additional financial resources to make investments in their economies for the future, and it also helps to right wrongs from the past.
I am pleased that the bill also delivers on an 80-year-old promise from the Army Corps to complete the Tribal Village Development Plan for four Tribes who were displaced when the dams of the Columbia River were constructed. The Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs Tribes all signed treaties with the Federal Government in the 1850s, and these treaties reserved the right of the Tribes to fish, hunt, and gather at ``all usual and accustomed fishing places.'' The Army Corps and treaty Tribes entered into agreements on fishing access. These sites were designed for day-to-day fishing, but out of need and the desire to be close to the Columbia River, they have turned into permanent housing. This has resulted in very challenging and unsafe living conditions along the river. I am so glad that my colleague Senator Murray and my colleagues from Oregon, Senator Merkley and Senator Wyden--that we have been able to make it crystal clear to the Army Corps of Engineers that we need to correct this problem. This bill ensures that those families will get what they were promised years ago.
In closing, I want to thank our colleagues Senator Barrasso and Senator Carper, as well as the leadership of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, for all the hard work on this bipartisan legislation.
When it comes to our waterways, infrastructure investment means jobs. It means the continued protection of clean water, and for us in the Northwest, it means helping us preserve our salmon populations.
I am so happy that we have finally taken another step to strengthen the competitiveness of our ports in the Northwest. These are real jobs. In the future--near future--with this deepening, we will be able to serve larger cargo container ships, which will help us keep our competitiveness in moving product.
While we move about $77 billion worth of products in Washington, we move much more than that from all States of the United States, moving through our ports. So while it sounds like an investment in two very large port infrastructures on the west coast, I guarantee you that it affects many Midwestern States and many products and the ability to cost-effectively ship to other parts of the world.
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