{"id":791,"date":"2015-06-08T15:32:44","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T20:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aapaseaports.naymicrosite2.wpengine.com\/?p=791"},"modified":"2019-06-06T12:12:03","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T17:12:03","slug":"wrrda-one-year-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/08\/wrrda-one-year-later\/","title":{"rendered":"WRRDA One Year Later"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The MSC Judith at berth at Boston Harbor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The legislation, passed in May 2014, opened the door to new infrastructure projects and job growth<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Nina Rao<\/em><\/p>\n

When the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) was signed in May 2014, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and organizations from AAPA to the Business Roundtable to the Seafarers International Union applauded its passage and lauded it almost more as a jobs engine than as an infrastructure boon.<\/p>\n

But WRRDA 2014 actually creates no jobs at all; it only opens the door to job creation \u2013 provided federal funds appear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of opportunity for job creation in WRRDA,\u201d said Whit Remer, senior manager of federal government relations for the American Society of Civil Engineers. \u201cIt\u2019s now up to Congress to appropriate for it. It\u2019s easy to authorize; it\u2019s hard to appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, for many projects, appropriations stall or never come through at all, making it difficult to plan, and that\u2019s where some ports have forged ahead on their own, increasing their own competitiveness and creating jobs in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you really have to realize is the amount of (non-federal) investment going on in getting ready for post-Panamax,\u201d Remer said. \u201cThe ports invest and then keep their fingers crossed\u201d that they\u2019ll get some of the money back from the federal government.<\/p>\n

WRRDA 2014 authorizes 34 projects and $12.3 billion in spending across the Corps\u2019 business lines. Nine of these projects are in navigation, but only four of the projects (Port of Savannah, Jacksonville Harbor, Boston Harbor and Freeport Harbor) have funds appropriated in the federal budget for fiscal year 2015. So far, two (Port of Savannah and Boston Harbor) have funds included in the administration’s budget request\u00a0for fiscal year 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are far more needs than we have funds for,\u201d said Jeff McKee, chief of the navigation branch of the Army Corps of Engineers.<\/p>\n

But there is a cost \u2013 in both dollars and jobs \u2013 to not investing.<\/p>\n

In its 2012 report, Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Airports, Inland Waterways, and Marine Ports Infrastructure<\/em>, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that 738,000 jobs would be lost by 2020 if the U.S. continued at current levels of investment in its marine and inland waterways. By 2040, the estimate is for 1.4 million jobs lost.<\/p>\n

The loss of jobs would be both direct and indirect, caused, for example, by the increasing cost of imports due to inefficiencies at ports.<\/p>\n

Boston Harbor got a taste of this type of inefficiency in November 2014 when the MSC Judith<\/em>, a 1,065-foot, 8,000-TEU ship, docked at Conley Container Terminal. The MSC Judith<\/em> is the biggest container ship ever to call on Boston Harbor, and since Boston Harbor is not yet big-ship ready, accepting the Judith<\/em> was a logistical challenge.<\/p>\n

The containers had to be loaded in such a way that the harbor\u2019s low-profile cranes could unload them. The ship itself had to ride the 9-foot tide to move in and out of the harbor.<\/p>\n

But the Massachusetts Port Authority is working hard to get Conley Terminal big-ship ready, and it is one of the lucky few in WRRDA 2014 to be on track for federal funds. This is thanks in large part to a high benefit-to-cost ratio for the deepening of its channel from 40 feet to 51 feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project definitely has a really high net economic benefit,\u201d said Chris Morris, senior project manager for maritime at the Massachusetts Port Authority.<\/p>\n

In both fiscal years 2015 and 2016, Boston Harbor is slated to receive money for pre-construction engineering and design. The Massachusetts Port Authority is also pushing to have funds for construction in the 2016 budget.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the port is building a dedicated freight corridor out of Conley Terminal to streamline the movement of cargo, which is expected to double from 205,000 TEU-equivalents in 2014 to 434,000 in 2034. It plans to expand the container terminal and construct new berths and bulkheads.<\/p>\n

All of this means jobs \u2013 temporary jobs in construction, design, and engineering, but also long-term jobs at the port.<\/p>\n

“We expect jobs to grow with container volume,\u201d Morris said. \u201cI don’t want to say we expect them to double, but we expect them to grow. \u2026 And these are good-paying, blue-collar jobs.”<\/p>\n

Boston Harbor is moving through the WRRDA process in the traditional way \u2013 waiting for federal funds to be appropriated before proceeding \u2013 but other ports are choosing not to wait for federal funds. They are funding their own projects and creating jobs at the same time.<\/p>\n

The deepening of the Port of Savannah, for example, is moving into the construction phase thanks to money appropriated by the state and frontloaded into the process. The Corps is using the 40 percent that Georgia is contributing, a total of $266 million, to start construction as it waits for the 60 percent federal share to be appropriated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can do a lot of construction with all that money. It\u2019s definitely a benefit to proceed as quickly as possible to construction so that you can start accruing the benefits,\u201d the Corps\u2019 McKee said. \u201cBut obviously that\u2019s an incredible investment to make, and there\u2019s no guarantee of when the federal government can provide its share.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project is expected to allow for an additional 3,600 cargo containers in each transit, an increase of 78 percent, which will, again, lead to more jobs.<\/p>\n

In another example, the deepening of the Port of Miami was authorized in WRRDA 2007, but because of a low benefit-to-cost ratio, it has received no federal funding as yet.<\/p>\n

Miami didn\u2019t let that stop them. The port provided both its share of the needed money and the federal government\u2019s share and contracted with the Corps to manage the project. Though Miami is eligible for reimbursement of the federal share, there is no guarantee that it ever will be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey went ahead and built it themselves,\u201d McKee said. \u201cObviously they felt it was important to get started and have 50 feet (of depth) by the time the Panama Canal opened.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Miami will be ready in time.<\/p>\n

The deep dredge is scheduled to be completed in July, and the overall project has already provided more jobs that just from the channel deepening. In preparation for post-Panamax ships, the Port of Miami has dug the PortMiami Tunnel, which created 970 direct jobs and more than 6,700 indirect jobs. It has reintroduced on-port rail service, a $50 million investment. It has purchased four additional post-Panamax gantry cranes, and to support these new cranes, it is strengthening its bulkheads, a $65 million investment.<\/p>\n

There are no specific job numbers attached to these deepening projects, but the projects affect jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is clearly an impact on those doing the construction. The dredging contractors are obviously going to have more work,\u201d McKee said. \u201cBut if you\u2019re moving more containers each year, more people will have to operate the cranes, more trucks will need to haul the containers. There is certainly forecast to be some increase in commercial activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to authorizing new project starts, WRRDA 2014 makes substantive changes to how the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund should be spent, changes that could impact jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can get more money out of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, then you can get more guys out there dredging, and that\u2019s more jobs,\u201d said Whit Remer, senior manager of federal government relations for the American Society of Civil Engineers.<\/p>\n

WRRDA 2014 demands that Congress appropriate 69 percent of collected HMTF funds in fiscal year 2016, scaling up to 100 percent by 2025. But Congress still has to appropriate those funds, and there\u2019s the rub.<\/p>\n

The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund was established in 1986 to fund the maintenance of the nation\u2019s inland and coastal waterways based on an import tax, but year after year, the collected funds have not been spent on their intended purpose, leading to a surplus of more than $7 billion in the fund. In 2014, for example, more than $1.6 billion was collected, and only $979 million was spent.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the \u201c59 busiest commercial shipping channels functioned at their authorized widths and depths only 30 percent of the time in 2008, the most recent year for which data are available,\u201d according to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report about the HMTF.<\/p>\n

Using the collected HMTF funds each year for needed dredging and maintenance projects could lead to thousands of jobs, estimates the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Fairness Coalition, a coalition of maritime companies and ports.<\/p>\n

Not using the money on waterways and channels does the opposite.<\/p>\n

Not maintaining authorized channel depths \u201cprevents those channels from being properly used. It contributes to delays if ships have to, for example, be in the center of the channel rather than having two-way traffic,\u201d Remer said. \u201cTalk about lost jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

But despite overwhelming Congressional approval of WRRDA 2014, the HMTF looks like it will be underappropriated again. The 2016 Energy and Water appropriations bill that is under consideration provides funding for $76 million below the 2016 WRRDA target level.<\/p>\n

\u201cFailing to hit the WRRDA target this year establishes a dangerous precedent. If we do not hit the target this year, it is likely we never will,\u201d wrote Reps. Janice Hahn (D-Calif.) and Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) in a joint opinion piece posted in April 2015. \u201cWe will veer off the sensible path laid out to reach 100 percent usage of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund in 10 years, and America\u2019s ports and economy will suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The legislation, passed in May 2014, opened the door to new infrastructure projects and job growth By Nina Rao When the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) was signed in May 2014, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and organizations from AAPA to the Business Roundtable to the Seafarers International Union …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aapaseaports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}