Construction and upkeep on locks and dams on navigable rivers and other water resources project improvements could see additional federal funding under a bill that moved closer to passage with a recent deal between House and Senate transportation leaders.
Members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works emerged last week from months of meetings with a compromise version of the 2024 Water Resources Development Act, a bill typically passed by Congress every two years to authorize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to carry out new transportation, flood mitigation and ecosystem restoration projects.
The House passed the bill on Tuesday afternoon, 399-18, sending it to the Senate for approval.
The bill, unveiled last week by Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and House members Sam Graves, R-Mo., and Rick Larsen, D-Wash., would require a greater share of annual payments for inland waterways projects to come from the U.S. Treasury general fund, which currently provides 65% of such project costs. That would be upped to 75%, while the remaining 25% would come from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, made up from barge fuel taxes. The trust fund currently supplies 35% of annual funding for waterways projects.
Tracy Zea, Waterways Council
"This bill will lead to improved ports, levees, navigation channels, flood protection, and more," Graves, the House committee chair, said in a press release. "WRDA also makes policy and programmatic reforms to streamline Corps processes, reduce cumbersome red tape, and get projects done faster.”
Funding for waterway projects used to be split 50-50 between the general fund and the trust fund, but lawmakers changed it in 2020 to 65-35. Upping the federal share to 75%, as proposed in the new compromise, will expand the Corps of Engineers' annual construction budget, said Tracy Zea, president and CEO of the Waterways Council, a group representing barge shippers.
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While the current 65-35 system allows only for around $330 million annually for construction, the 75-25 ratio would increase that to some $450 million a year, Zea told Agri-Pulse. This will allow the Corps to work through a backlog sooner, allowing earlier completion of projects with benefits for agricultural shippers, like the Mississippi River's Lock and Dam 25 near Winfield, Missouri.
“Under the current funding scenario, you’ve got multiple decades to be able to get all of these projects done,” said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition. “What this will do is accelerate it.”
The new ratio also was welcomed by Illinois Corn Growers Association President Garrett Hawkins, National Association of Counties CEO and Executive Director Matthew Chase, Fertilizer Institute President and CEO Corey Rosenbusch and National Grain and Feed Association President and CEO Michael Seyfert.
"This cost-share change will allow these projects to advance more efficiently and quickly, reducing the overall costs and accelerating the return on investment,” Kirsten Wallace, executive director of the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association, wrote in a letter Friday. The association is made up of state officials from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin.
Kirsten Wallace, Upper Mississippi River Basin AssociationThe agreement comes after months of negotiating by the two committees. The House passed its version of the bill, which did not contain the inland waterway payment updates, on July 22. The Senate, meanwhile, passed its version, which did include the updated model on Aug. 2.
“Through a very collective coalition effort we were able to keep it in the final negotiated bill,” Zea said of the proposed inland waterway funding updates.
The WRDA agreement also allows the Corps to fund 75% of the costs to dredge harbors between depths of 20 to 55 feet, a change lauded by Cary Davis, president of the American Association of Port Authorities. This funding previously stopped at 50-foot depths. Davis called the change “much-needed” in a press release that pointed out the changes will allow ports to better accommodate ships, which are increasingly growing in size.
Tom Saunders, chair of the board of directors for the National Association of Waterfront Employers, also praised the change in a letter to House and Senate leaders on Friday.
“Over the past several years, cargo vessel sizes have increased, necessitating deeper navigation channels,” Saunders wrote. "Adjusting these depth thresholds will make it more feasible for non-federal sponsors to construct and maintain deeper navigation channels, thereby enhancing the efficiency of U.S. import and export transportation."
The WRDA proposal would authorize 21 new projects, including widening turning lanes in the Oakland seaport and widening a channel in the Baltimore seaport. The Corps has already completed a technical review of the projects, which come with recommendations by William Graham Jr., the agency’s chief of engineers, according to a section-by-section summary.
The bill would also direct the Corps to oversee a study on water supply and drought resilience on land over the Ogallala Aquifer, which is being depleted in part due to heavy agricultural use.
It also would make water supply and water conservation a primary mission of the Corps of Engineers in planning, designing, constructing, modifying operating and maintaining water projects. That was lauded by National Water Supply Alliance executive director Dave Mitamura.
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