Water Resources Development Act of 2007--Conference Report

Floor Speech

WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2007--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - September 24, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007. We have waited a long time for this bill, almost 7 years.

I thank Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member INHOFE for their hard work on this legislation and getting this bill through a conference and here before us today.

The bill authorizes navigation, ecosystem restoration, and flood and storm damage reduction projects all over the country. Most significantly for Illinois, the bill will increase lock capacity and improve the ecosystem of the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

The Mississippi River is the backbone of our waterway transportation system and transports $12 billion worth of products each year, including over 1 billion bushels of grain to ports around the world. This efficient river transportation is vital to Illinois. Shipping via barge keeps exports competitive and reduces transportation costs. That is good for producers and consumers. More than half of Illinois' annual corn crop and 75 percent of all U.S. soybean exports travel via the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

There are huge cost and environmental benefits to shipping by barge as well. Barges operate at 10 percent of the cost of trucks and 40 percent of the cost of trains. They release much less carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbons, and use much less fuel to operate.

But the system of locks and dams along the Upper Mississippi that make travel possible are in desperate need of modernization. The current system was built 70 years ago and needs to be updated to account for modern barging. Many of the older locks are only 600 feet in length, while most current barge tows using the waterway are twice as long. That means these goods take twice as long to get down river and into the marketplace. The conference report before us today authorizes replacing and upgrading many of the locks and dams along the Mississippi.

The legislation authorizes $2.2 billion for replacing and upgrading locks and dams and another $1.7 billion for ecosystem restoration along the river.

As we have seen in the tragedy that occurred along Minnesota's 35W Bridge, our country's infrastructure is aging and overburdened.

The projects included in the bill are sorely needed to shore up our waterway system, a vital component of our national infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the President has threatened to veto the WRDA bill. This bill is years overdue, and a veto by this Administration will mean yet another delay for important projects in Illinois and across the country.

The WRDA conference report passed the House this August by a vote of 380-40. And when the Senate originally considered the bill earlier this year, there were only four dissenting votes.

The bill will be sent to the President with broad bipartisan support from both the House and the Senate, and he should reconsider his threat to veto this bill.

I encourage all of my colleagues to support this bill and yield the floor.

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