Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. RICE of South Carolina. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, so many things we do here in Washington are nonsensical. Our tax system is not competitive; our immigration system is not competitive; our regulatory system is not competitive, and our infrastructure is deteriorating. Our ports are certainly a very, very critical part of our infrastructure.

When we have a situation where it takes 15-plus years to get environmental permitting done for the Port Everglades, when we are on the fourth year of studying the Charleston port--one of the most efficient ports on the East Coast--and when it has been 10 years since we have had dredging funds for the small Port of Georgetown in my district, our infrastructure continues to deteriorate; the country becomes less competitive, and thousands more American jobs are lost.

With limited funds, it is increasingly difficult for small harbors to compete with larger projects. Given this competition for scarce funds, very few small projects make the President's budget and receive funding.

What my amendment proposes to do, Mr. Chairman, is to remove $4.5 million from the Army Corps' regulatory budget, which the regulatory division of the Army Corps of Engineers continues to grow and promulgate more regulations that make our country even less competitive, such as the expansion of the Clean Water Act that are currently proposed.

This would take money from that regulatory division and put it into the operating and maintenance division so that these moneys can be used to actually make our ports work again.

The bottom line is our harbors are showing, and we need to increase money to maintenance accounts so that our harbors can compete. In my district, the Port of Georgetown has not received maintenance dredging in over a decade. This is a port that handled 1.7 million tons of cargo in the year 2000. The economy in the area is largely dependent on the port, and the port is getting more and more shallow each year.

The State of South Carolina has pledged $18 million for port dredging. The ports authority in South Carolina has pledged $5 million, and even the Georgetown County voters have passed a referendum that will apply $6 million to dredge the harbor. Currently, Georgetown is waiting for the President or the Army Corps of Engineers to realize its importance and fund the Federal portion of this project.

It is vitally important for the Corps' maintenance account to be sufficient, which is why my amendment transfers $4.5 million from regulatory activities to maintaining our harbors.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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