[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3447 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3447

   To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to implement on-going 
appropriations for withdrawals from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, 
                        and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 31, 2009

Ms. Richardson introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the 
Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined 
 by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as 
        fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to implement on-going 
appropriations for withdrawals from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, 
                        and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Reform 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) According to the Army Corps of Engineers Fiscal Year 
        2008 Contract Dredging Program, only 160 contracts for 
        America's over 300 harbors were awarded last year at a cost of 
        $710,841,061 to dredge 146,747,977 cubic yards of sediment.
            (2) Vessels are increasing in tonnage, requiring deeper 
        drafts and making the dredging of America's harbors vital to 
        keep America's ports globally competitive.
            (3) According to the Department of Transportation, 
        approaches and alongside depths in several key ports must be 
        increased to as much as 45 to 50 feet to allow increasingly 
        larger vessels to access America's ports.
            (4) The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund has a current surplus 
        of approximately $4,600,000,000.
            (5) In fiscal year 2009, $1,626,426,155 was deposited into 
        the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, yet only $710,841,061 or 
        43.7 percent of the revenue generated in the Harbor Maintenance 
        Trust Fund was appropriated out to fund the dredging of 
        America's harbors.
            (6) Each of the 22,975,000 businesses throughout the United 
        States are suffering as many of our Nation's harbors are 
        inadequately dredged, creating the need to use smaller and less 
        cost-effective vessels to access American markets.
            (7) Ports, States, and municipalities are utilizing sparse 
        resources on dredging instead of funding critical 
        transportation infrastructure or health and education programs.
            (8) The expansion of the Panama Canal has serious economic 
        consequences to the United States economy as increased cargo 
        diversion will occur due to the increased amounts of cargo 
        entering the Unites States via foreign port use.
            (9) According to the United States Census Bureau, United 
        States ports handled some $3.95 trillion in international trade 
        for an all-encompassing range of goods and services in fiscal 
        year 2007, with nearly 1.4 billion tons, valued at $1.4 
        trillion, in waterborne imports and exports alone.
            (10) According to the United States Census Bureau, United 
        States ports generated more than $23.2 billion in United States 
        Customs duty revenues in fiscal 2007, representing 70 percent 
        of all Customs duties collected.

SEC. 3. HARBOR MAINTENANCE TRUST FUND REFORM.

    (a) In General.--Section 9505(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 
1986 is amended by striking ``shall be available, as provided in 
appropriations Acts,'' and inserting ``shall be available, without 
further appropriation,''.
    (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall 
apply to fiscal years ending after the date of the enactment of this 
Act.

SEC. 4. HARBOR MAINTENANCE EXPENDITURES.

    (a) Availability of Amounts From Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.--
            (1) In general.--Section 210 of the Water Resources 
        Development Act of 1986 (33 U.S.C. 2238) is amended--
                    (A) in the section heading by striking 
                ``authorization of appropriations'' and inserting 
                ``funding''; and
                    (B) in subsection (a) by striking ``are authorized 
                to be appropriated'' and inserting ``shall be 
                available, without further appropriation,''.
            (2) Effective date.--The amendments made by paragraph (1) 
        shall apply to fiscal years ending after the date of the 
        enactment of this Act.
    (b) Annual Report to Congress.--Section 210 of such Act (33 U.S.C. 
2238) is amended by adding at the end the following:
    ``(c) Annual Report to Congress.--Not later than 180 days after the 
date of enactment of this subsection, and annually thereafter, the 
Secretary of the Army shall submit to the Committee on Transportation 
and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives and the Committee on 
Environment and Public Works of the Senate a report that--
            ``(1) describes the progress of making expenditures from 
        the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to meet requests for funding 
        projects;
            ``(2) analyzes the benefits dredging projects have to the 
        overall economy of the United States;
            ``(3) analyzes how critical each dredging project is to the 
        local, State and Federal economy; and
            ``(4) addresses the sufficiency of balances in the Harbor 
        Maintenance Trust Fund to meet anticipated project requests.''.
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