[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 14, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3423-S3424]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I come to the floor today to speak on the importance
of passing the Water Resources Development Act or, as we know it around
Washington, the WRDA bill.
In my State they know it as a bill that is good for our harbors,
rivers, and the flood protection we need in the Fargo-Moorhead area or,
as I like to call it in Minnesota, the Moorhead-Fargo area.
The bill advances a critical front to protect the Red River of the
north to Moorhead, MN, and Fargo, ND. I visited this region twice over
the last year, and I have been back literally every year I have been in
the Senate because of flood threats--these years more than ever.
This is literally an every-year occurrence now to the point where
people have major sandbag operations filled with volunteers, seniors,
and people from the prisons. Everyone is working together, but there
must be a better way to do this. Just because we do it so well in North
Dakota and Minnesota and have such an incredible spirit of voluntarism
doesn't mean there is going to be one year where the flood is too great
or that we should continue on this path when, in fact, we have the
opportunity to have long-term flood protection.
The river has been above major flood stage 6 out of the last 8 years.
In 2009, the year of the record flood, the river rose to more than 40
feet.
I will remind the Presiding Officer of the Grand Forks flood and what
happened there. It was literally just about an hour away from Fargo. So
we were that close to that happening in Fargo and Moorhead.
In Minnesota and North Dakota, the Red River doesn't divide us, it
unites us. It is in that spirit of solidarity that we drive our efforts
to help the Red River Basin. This year we were fortunate that the
flooding was not nearly as severe as it had been projected. A week
before the crest went down, it was projected to be the second biggest
flood in history with the late snow.
In 2009 and 2010 homes and farms with ring dikes around them looked
like small islands floating in the floodwaters. If anyone thinks this
lasts for a day or week, it literally lasts for months. Entire towns
create ring dikes, and they can only get out of them with boats. That
is what is happening near the Canadian border in Minnesota and North
Dakota. The town of Georgetown, MN, is threatened every time the Red
River rises and the Buffalo River overflows.
The volunteer who was working at the emergency center--I went up to
him and said: It is so nice that you are making lunches for people. He
said he lost his entire home.
I said: And you are here?
He said: Yes, this is the only thing I could think of to do to help
other people who had the same bad experience as me. That is the spirit
of voluntarism in our States.
I think we can do better. The annual threat of flooding in the Fargo-
Moorhead area underscores the need for permanent flood protection. We
know about the devastating impact of floods. The flood diversion
project, which is authorized in the WRDA bill, is critical to safety
and economic development.
I have enjoyed working with Congressman Peterson on flood diversion
efforts, including retention, which he cares a lot about, and we did
get some funding for that. I was able to get funding in the farm bill
today to help with that. I have also worked with Senator Hoeven,
Senator Heitkamp, and Senator Franken on this long-term project to have
actual permanent solutions to our flooding project in Fargo and
Moorhead.
We have a problem, and the WRDA bill is the beginning of a solution.
Also included in this bill is a Roseau River project, which is at a
critical point. The WRDA bill helps address flood protection for
Roseau, MN. Roseau has recovered from a flood in 2002 that caused
widespread damage, but the area needs flood protection to reduce the
flood stages in the city. The next phase of the plan will include a
diversion channel, a restriction structure, and two storage areas
designed to remove the city from the regular 100-year regulatory
floodplain and reduce future flood damages by nearly 86 percent.
The WRDA bill also advances our Nation's water infrastructure, which
is something the Presiding Officer knows a little bit about in
Massachusetts. It is clear that our 21st-century economy demands 21st-
century infrastructure, and we cannot afford to sit back any longer and
allow it to crumble. No place knows this better than Minnesota.
I lived six blocks from that 35W bridge, which is an eight-lane
highway. One day, in the middle of a summer day, the bridge fell down
in the middle of the Mississippi River. As I said that day, a bridge
just shouldn't fall down in the middle of America, but it did.
We are seeing the same crumbling infrastructure and problems with
many of our ports across the country. Failure to take action will have
consequences no one likes. According to the American Society of Civil
Engineers, inefficiencies in infrastructure are estimated to drive up
the cost of doing business by an estimated $430 billion, and that is
just in this decade.
The civil engineers' 2013 report card gives our Nation's
infrastructure an overall D-plus grade. As someone who has taught
students before, I think the Presiding Officer knows that is not a good
grade. Our inland waterways infrastructure, which includes our locks
and dams on the Mississippi River, gets a D-minus, and our ports
received a C grade. We cannot be satisfied with those grades.
When people hear ``ports'' they think of places such as
Massachusetts, South Carolina, Florida, and California. But, in fact,
the Great Lakes--including Lake Superior, which we are so proud of in
Minnesota--have very significant ports.
In fact, when I first came to the Senate, I was assigned to the
Commerce Committee and somehow found myself on the oceans subcommittee.
I remember sitting at my first meeting thinking: What am I doing here?
I am on the oceans subcommittee. I wrote a note to the Senator from New
Jersey, Frank Lautenberg, that said: I am the only Senator on the
subcommittee who doesn't have an ocean. I kept the note he wrote back
to me. The note said: It is easy, next year just come back and ask for
one.
Well, in fact, I found out since then that the oceans subcommittee
included the Great Lakes so it gave me a platform to advocate for our
Great Lakes. The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, which is so important
to our ocean-bordering States, also includes the Great Lakes. The
Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund collects $700 million each year more than
it spends on dredging. In other words, it collects $700 million more
each year than it spends on dredging and maintenance.
Meanwhile, our ports and navigation channels wait for basic
maintenance. We need to correct this disparity and ensure the funds are
spent to address the needs of the shippers and ensure that the Great
Lakes system does not fall into further disrepair.
I was just up at the Port of Duluth-Superior to highlight the need
for dredging and maintenance on the Great Lakes. The Port of Duluth-
Superior is ranked among the top 20 ports in the U.S. by cargo tonnage.
It sees 40 million short tons of cargo and nearly 1,000 vessel visits
every year. I think people would be surprised by that since Minnesota
has lakes. In fact, we have 1 of the top 20 ports in the country.
We have 11,500 jobs that are dependent on cargo shipments in and out
of the port. The port is critical to the economy of northeastern
Minnesota where my dad was born and my grandpa worked as an iron ore
miner. Guess what. That is how they got the iron ore out of Minnesota
and out to the world.
It is critical that high-use ports like Duluth and Two Harbors get
dredged so they can support the ships. It is vital
[[Page S3424]]
that their trading partners throughout the Great Lakes system receive
maintenance as well. Both Duluth and Two Harbors, MN, ports are
considered deep-water ports, so they come into a classification which
has tended to get the funding, but, in fact, the entire Great Lakes
navigation system is in trouble.
The backlog of sediment due to insufficient dredging is more than 18
million cubic yards and estimated at $200 million. When ships on the
Great Lakes have to ``light load''--having to reduce the amount of
cargo they carry because channels are not deep enough--our economy
suffers.
At first some people might think: What does light loading mean? At
the end of 2012, the light loading to navigate the Soo Locks on the St.
Mary's River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron meant 10,000 tons of
cargo could not be transported on the final voyage. Think of it. These
are American goods that our workers produced, and we want them to make
more of it. Yet we literally cannot put them on the ships because we
have not maintained our ports the way we are supposed to.
The ships that are coming in cannot take the goods. They have to wait
until the winter is done. That is what happened this year and has been
happening many years.
We are an export economy. America's way forward is to make goods
again, invent, and export to the world. Well, that is not going to
happen if we cannot get our goods to market. That is why I have been
working so closely with Senators from across the Great Lakes to address
this backlog. We have been able to make some progress.
I cosponsored an amendment with Senator Levin to direct the Secretary
of the Army Corps to manage the Great Lakes navigation system as an
interconnected system. This would ensure that maintenance and dredging
is done throughout the system. There is much more to do. I will
continue to work with Senator Levin, Senator Stabenow, and other Great
Lakes Senators on this bill.
The WRDA bill will go a long way toward increasing the efficiency of
the shipping across the Great Lakes system, thereby strengthening the
economic standing of our agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and other
industries.
The bill also makes critical reforms to our Nation's rivers and
waterways. The inland waterway system in this country spans 38 States
and handles approximately one-half of the inland waterway freight.
Farmers and businesses in my State transport soybeans, corn, and other
commodities from Minnesota to other terminals in the South. From there,
ships are loaded and the commodities are eventually delivered to
trading partners.
Again, if we want to produce and export to the world, we have to have
the transportation system that supports it. With many maintenance and
construction projects years overdue, the inland waterways are in dire
need of major rehabilitation. The Inland Waterways Trust Fund, which
funds these projects, is in steady decline. If we don't make the Inland
Waterways Trust Fund sustainable, the industries that are so heavily
dependent on the inland waterways will suffer, and this means jobs
suffer.
I cosponsored the RIVER Act with Senator Casey and Senator Landrieu
to help move forward major construction projects on the inland waterway
system. That bill is also supported by Senator Lamar Alexander. It is a
bipartisan bill, and it includes much needed rehabilitation of the
locks and dams along the Mississippi River.
This bill includes a number of reforms to the project management
process that will ensure that waterway projects are completed on time
and minimize cost overruns.
I also, by the way, support the amendment to increase the inland
waterways user fee. I am a cosponsor of that amendment. Let me
emphasize that the users who pay this fee have asked for it. We have a
situation where the industries are willing to pay more so we can
improve the locks and dams so they can get their goods to market. That
is what is going on here. They understand we are having budget issues,
and they are willing to pay a higher fee to pay for the changes.
Industry partners from farmers to shippers to companies, such as
cargo companies in my State, strongly support this user fee
increase. The increase was, in fact, their idea. They realized that the
government wasn't going to fund these and that they were having trouble
doing business, and they have agreed to pay for this increased fee. To
me, it is the perennial no-brainer that we get this done. They know
this modest change would go a long way to making our Nation's rivers
and waterways viable for years to come.
While the fee increase will not advance, sadly, in the WRDA bill
because it is considered a tax provision, it sends an important message
that industry and shippers are at the table and volunteering more to
help build the infrastructure our economic future requires. We plan on
advancing this part of the river act in another bill--in tax reform or
standing on its own--because we think it is so important to be able to
fund these improvements to the locks.
Finally, in Minnesota, the fishing and boating industries contribute
around $4 billion to our State's economy each year. Sometimes I like to
tease people and ask them how much money do they think we spend on
worms in Minnesota every year. Well, it is literally tens of millions
of dollars. People come to our State and buy worms and bait and other
forms of fishing tackle because of their importance to our economy. In
fact, for last weekend's Minnesota fishing opener, sadly, cold and ice
covered many lakes, but people were still out there looking for that
empty hole where there wasn't ice so they could put their line into the
water.
In Minnesota, we also know how important it is to address invasive
species problems, especially when they threaten our lakes and rivers.
In our State the problem of Asian carp is literally swimming and
jumping into our lives. Anyone who hasn't seen the YouTube video should
look at it. You can see Asian carp literally jumping out of the water
and hitting fishermen in the head. We are very concerned because we
have seen problems with them downriver in southern Minnesota. They are
coming our way, and we do not want them to ruin our way of life in
Minnesota, nor do we want them to hurt our jobs and our $4 billion
fishing and gaming industry.
I believe we need an ``all-of-the-above'' solution to this challenge
that includes research, carp barriers, as well as authority to close
the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock. I am very glad the provision was
included to allow for greater coordination between Federal agencies
when it comes to Asian carp, and this also includes rivers and not just
the Great Lakes.
So we are continuing to work on this bill when it comes to Asian carp
and other invasive species, but I think there are some other good
provisions in this bill as well.
I wish to commend Senators Boxer and Vitter for their great work to
put together this bipartisan legislation. I support its passage, from
fighting to protect towns from flooding to critical waterway
infrastructure. This legislation is vital to our economy, to our
environment, to our cities, and to our towns. I am excited to be a part
of it. I hope my colleagues support it and we can get this done.
Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.
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