Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. McALLISTER. Mr. Chairman, first, let me just say to Chairman Simpson that I appreciate all the hard work you all have done on this whole committee bill and appropriation process.

I know it is not an easy task, and there is a lot of juggling to offset prices on everything, but my amendment will increase the MR&T, the Mississippi River and Tributaries project, by $47 million, to bring it back to FY14 levels. The FY14 enacted $307 million, and FY15 committee was $260 million.

The offset for this is reducing the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by $127 million. This number is necessary to make it outlay neutral. This is less than 7 percent of the proposed spending by the committee. Budget authority will be reduced by $80 million.

The Mississippi River and tributaries are the main arteries of commerce for the Nation--as we see in the reports today, that we have flooding going on in the Mississippi River, starting from the north up above St. Louis, coming down.

This MR&T project is the largest flood control project in the world, providing protection for the 36,000-square mile lower Mississippi valley acreage.

The navigation features of the MR&T project seek to facilitate navigation and promote commerce on the Nation's most vital commercial artery. Waterborne commerce on the Mississippi River increased from 30 million tons in 1940 to nearly 500 million tons today.

Since the initiation of the MR&T project in 1928, the Nation has received a $24 return for every dollar invested. The remaining work to be completed will have an estimated 37 to 1 return on investment.

With the Panama Canal expansion project underway, we must continue to invest in this vital resource, not reduce funding. These waterways are too important to our Nation.

I just want to say how important the Mississippi River is to the Nation as a whole, not just to my district and those of us that border the Mississippi River and their tributaries all up and down the central United States.

It is very vital to the agriculture industry, to the commerce industry, to everything, and the flood control. It just has a tremendous impact that we all need to be aware of. I know that this $127 million looks like a lot in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, but we try to find different places that we can take it.

This is one that we found the less neutral, only reducing it 7 percent of its total budget. It was the largest that we found that we could take it from.

Again, I just want to commend the committee on the hard work they have done, and I know it is not an easy challenge at all for them to reduce and have to answer to certain parties for what was reduced and not reduced.

We have worked on this bipartisan--got a lot of bipartisan support on it throughout yesterday and today, and I appreciate your consideration and support on trying to make sure that we do everything we can to take care of the MR&T.

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