Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to rise today in support of H.R. 1380, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2013. I commend Chairman Shuster, the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Gibbs, and our ranking member, Mr. Bishop, for the superb bipartisan way in which this legislation and the whole process has been handled.

This legislation does provide important direction to the Army Corps of Engineers to meet its mission objectives and reform their planning and construction processes while also investing in our water transportation infrastructure and creating jobs.

It has been 6 long years since we have passed Corps of Engineers water resources legislation. While Congress has had its back turned on our water infrastructure, Mother Nature has not been complacent. Since passage of the last WRRDA in 2007, the Nation has been challenged with floods, hurricanes, and droughts. Our aging locks, dams, and ports have too often been neglected. This bill before us today stops the ``finger in the dike'' solutions to our water infrastructure challenges and instead invests in these corridors of commerce.

It should be pointed out that H.R. 3080 is not your traditional type of WRRDA. It does not contain Member-directed projects, the traditional earmarks, but at least the bill does take a step forward in reclaiming our constitutional authority.

It is clear that in today's challenging fiscal times we have to find innovative ways to get water projects funded and completed. The pending measure identifies the role of non-Federal sponsors in supporting and moving projects ahead. It provides a process to address the $60 billion construction backlog--that is with a ``B,'' billion--and addresses initial reform to the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund program.

At its core, though, as the chairman has stated, this is a jobs bill. The investments contained in H.R. 3080 mean jobs in our maritime economy, as larger containerships will be able to call at our deepened ports to offload their cargo while filling their decks with American exports. It creates jobs moving commodities from farms, coal mines, and steel mills more efficiently down the inland waterways that crisscross our Nation. These investments also help protect our flood-prone complainants so that homes and businesses remain safe when the rivers unexpectedly rise.

I would like to thank, again, all members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on both sides of the aisle: Chairman SHUSTER, Subcommittee Chairman GIBBS, and especially our ranking member on our side of the aisle, Representative TIM BISHOP, who has worked very hard on this legislation and knows its intricacies very well. Their hard work and dedication has developed a collaborative and bipartisan bill of which we all can be proud. I hope it is a model for future pieces of legislation. It certainly should be a model for this entire Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support the pending measure.

Without maintaining our waterways and harbors the Nation's ability to meet the global challenges for trade and commerce will be severely restricted. The only way to protect our citizens and avoid falling behind global trade competition is to invest in our water resources and infrastructure by passing H.R. 3080 today.

As I mentioned, this is not the bill that I would have written. But I would add that this is not the exact bill that Chairman Shuster would have written either had he acted alone. He chose instead to bring before the House a bill that received unanimous support in our Committee. As a result, many of the provisions in H.R. 3080 are likely to eventually feel the weight of law instead of serving as just another exercise in rhetoric on the House floor.

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Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, as we conclude this debate, I want to once again commend Chairman Shuster, Subcommittee Chairman Gibbs, and our ranking member, Mr. Bishop of New York, for the tremendous effort that has been made to bring this legislation where it is today.

It started out with Chairman Shuster's leadership early on in this Congress at the Member level. It spread to the staff level, and it has continued every day. It has been a transparent process and a process in which we have been in communication with one another. And as I said in the very beginning, I hope this will be a signal of how this committee will bring future pieces of legislation to the floor, and I just hope that it will be a signal to the entire Congress how we should be working closer together in a bipartisan fashion.

This legislation has a wide array of supporters. I have a list here of some five pages of labor, industry, and business supporters that have written members of our committee in strong support of the pending legislation. They include: the American Coal Ash Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Home Builders, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Friends from labor, including carpenters, transportation trades, AFL-CIO, Laborers' International, and many other labor organizations have come together in support of this legislation.

And as I summarize and conclude my comments, I want to quote the president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, Mr. Ed Wytkind. He wrote members of our committee:

Real investment in harbor maintenance is vital to the health of an industry that supports 500,000 jobs, plays a critical role in expanding U.S. exports, and is the gateway to international trade and humanitarian aid. H.R. 3080 will help improve our maritime infrastructure and keep pace with our international competitors, and will also create thousands of good-paying construction and maritime jobs during what remains a slow economic recovery. I urge you to vote in favor of this important legislation.

I will conclude by again thanking Chairman Shuster for his superb leadership and join with all my colleagues in urging passage of this vital piece of legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, this amendment reflects the good work of many Members from both sides of the aisle and, again, reflects a bipartisan process followed by Chairman Shuster in assembling this important legislation.

It includes thoughtful language related to control of aquatic invasive species at the bipartisan request of several Members from the Great Lakes area and the west coast, language relating to promoting government efficiency and communicating potential risk of flooding, as well as several important requests for additional information related to the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and how Congress can continue to address the backlog of unconstructed Corps projects.

I support the amendment and reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, throughout the process of developing this water resources bill, Chairman Shuster has done a remarkable job of maintaining a balance between addressing future water resource needs of the Nation and coming to terms with those legacy projects and studies of the Corps of Engineers that may have languished over the decades. Unfortunately, the pending amendment would upset that balance, and it seeks to deauthorize a massive amount of projects that I would suggest continue to have strong local, congressional, and potentially administrative support.

While addressing the unconstructed backlog is an important issue, I urge opposition to this amendment that seeks to wipe away much of the good work of this body over the decades simply to make a point on fiscal conservatism. We all want to address the debt. It is a worthy goal. I agree with the gentleman's comments about passing that debt on to our children and grandchildren, but I suggest this is not the proper manner in which we are fair to our entire country and to the future infrastructure of this Nation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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