Congressional Record, Volume 159 Issue 165 (Tuesday, November 19, 2013)

[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 165 (Tuesday, November 19, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H7242-H7247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE CREATES JOBS

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity.
At least once a week we come before the House to talk about jobs, that
little four-letter word that is so important on everybody's mind--can I
get a job, will I have a job, what does it take to get a job in
America. We still have far too high unemployment, and we still have a
great need to ensure that our jobs produce the kinds of wages and
opportunities that Americans really want. They want to be able to buy a
home, have a car, raise their families, provide the necessities, and
see their kids get a great education and opportunity.
We have a long way to go. We have come a long way, but we still have
a long way to go. One of the critical ways that America can and must
build jobs is build the infrastructure, to make sure that those
foundations of the economy will grow, upon which cities will be built,
those things that allow us to prosper, the critical investments. In
this case, the physical investments are the issue that we are going to
talk about today.
We have an opportunity. Beginning tomorrow, a conference committee
will be formed here in the Capitol made up of Senators, Republican and
Democrat, and Members of the House of Representatives, both Republican
and Democrat, sitting down together. Oh, yeah, together, actually at
the same table, tomorrow morning, 9:30, to beginning a conference
committee on the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, otherwise
known as WRRDA. If you are around here long enough, you know what that
means, but I guess the rest of the world really needs to know it is the
Water Resources Reform and Development Act.
And so 13 million jobs, 13 million jobs in America depend upon how
well that conference committee does its work. The House of
Representatives a few weeks back put out its version of the bill. The
Senate did several months ago. Senator Barbara Boxer from the State of
California, my colleague, will be chairing that committee. We have work
to do. We have the task of making sure that 13 million American jobs
that depend upon the Water Resources Reform and Development Act will be
secure. It is a big one.
So what is involved in the Water Resources Reform and Development
Act? Well, how about this: 99 percent of America's international trade
travels through our ports and waterways. That is a big number. I
suppose there is some 1 percent that travels on airplanes, and those
are probably very high-ticket, high-priced items. But if you are
talking about the great, almost the entire, majority of America's work,
that goes through our ports and waterways. This is what the Water
Resources Reform and Development Act is all about. It is about our
ports, the great ports of America. It is about the waterways of
America. It is about the locks and the dams on the rivers.
Let me put this up for just a second. This is an interesting map. I
don't know if many Americans have really considered the map of the
United States and the waters of the United States. Obviously, the
coastline, we don't have Alaska on this map, but it should be there
also. The great coasts, the east coast, the gulf coast, the Pacific
coast, and of course on and around Alaska. That is not all. Each of
these rivers also is a waterway upon which commerce flows; and
tomorrow, with the conference committee for the WRRDA bill, we will be
discussing how to make these rivers more attuned to the environment and
to commerce.
On the great Mississippi River, the Missouri, the Ohio, and the
Illinois Rivers and all the way up into Wisconsin, an enormous amount
of America's commerce flows along those rivers. And joining me in just
a moment will be Representative Bill Enyart from the State of Illinois,
and he will be talking about some of these issues as they relate to
that part of the world. But this great river system in the central part
of America is a major highway. There are interstate roads, to be sure,
and there are local and county roads, but most of them feed into this
great system that moves up and down the Mississippi River. The Water
Resources Reform and Development Act is all about that. It is all about
that commerce on that great river and about whether the locks and the
levees that are on that river are adequate to meet the needs of
commerce and the needs of public protection.
For those of us on the west coast and the east coast and even into
the gulf, it is about the ports. It is about the ports of America and
whether those ports are adequate for the commerce that we need to have.
So when you happen to go by a port and you see one of these tied up at
the dock, you can think about the American economy and about 99 percent
of the international trade that goes in and out of our ports. It is a
big deal. It is a very, very big deal, and most of America's ports are
antiquated. The shoals, that is the mud and sand at the bottom of the
ports, have been accreted, that is, built up over the last several
years; and it needs constant dredging. And so part of what we will be
dealing with at the WRRDA conference committee is the dredging of the
ports and quite possibly the shore side, what is going on there.

These are subjects that we will come to in the next few minutes as we
talk more about how we can build jobs in America and simultaneously
build the American economy by building the great infrastructure.
One more issue I want to put up here before I call on Mr. Enyart is
this one. You see all of these rivers here; they are critically
important. They are critically important for commerce and trade and
obviously water and agriculture and all the rest. But sometimes--
virtually every year--they are also a major problem for America.
This happens to be a picture of a levee break on the Sacramento River
system. I happen to represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River. This
break is all too common across America; and so the Water Resources
Reform and Development Act, which will be up tomorrow in the conference
committee--it is not going to be finished but at least it will make
some progress toward completion--will deal with the levees.
The Army Corps of Engineers is the responsible Federal agency for the
maintenance of the rivers, for the waters of America, whether they are
in the rivers or along the shore. They are responsible for the ports,
that is, for the maintenance of the ports, not the ports themselves.
And in my district, the Army Corps of Engineers plays a major role in
public safety because it is their responsibility to make sure that
these levees are adequate to the challenge of a flood. When those
levees are not adequate, great damage is done across America. It is
approximately $22.3 billion of annual unspent American treasure that is
still in the pockets of America and the governments of America when
these levees work. When they fail, it is a huge expense--floods, flood
damage, and the like.
I would like now to call on the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Enyart)
to share with us his view of the necessity for the Water Resources
Reform and Development Act and the way it protects and helps his
district.
Mr. ENYART. I thank the gentleman from California for this time to
speak about the importance of the Water Resources Reform and
Development Act.
Mr. Garamendi was talking about the coast, the east coast and the
west coast and the great coastlines of our Nation. I always like to
tell folks out here that I represent the west coast of Illinois. I
always get a strange look when I say that, and sometimes a chuckle. But
I represent the western-most counties of Illinois, the river counties,
reaching from Alton, Illinois, just north of St. Louis, all the way to
Cairo, the very southern tip of Illinois. That piece of Illinois
encompasses the great maritime highway that is the economic backbone of
our inland agriculture industry, indeed, all of our inland industries.
Just north of my district, the Illinois River, which transits from
the Mississippi up to the Great Lakes, flows into the Mississippi.
Directly across from my district, the Missouri River feeds into the
Mississippi; and then as you go downstream, the Mississippi and the
Ohio converge at the very southern tip at Cairo, Illinois.
So we understand in southern Illinois the importance of these river
systems. We understand the importance of port

[[Page H7243]]

authorities. Port authorities aren't just limited to Los Angeles and
New York and the east coast and the west coast or the gulf coast, but
they are very important to our inland maritime industry also.
Back when I served as the adjunct general or the commanding general
of the Illinois National Guard, I had the unfortunate problem of
dealing with floods on the Mississippi and on the Ohio. Back when I was
a young officer, we had the terrible flood of 1993. We had the flood of
2008 and then the flood of 2011. And then just last winter, we had the
terrible drought that wound up dropping the river levels in the
Mississippi so low that it nearly stopped navigation on the river. So
we need to work on this infrastructure for the three reasons that I ran
for Congress. When I ran for Congress, I said I ran for jobs, jobs, and
jobs. And that is what this is about.
When the rivers started drying up and when that drought hit and those
barges couldn't transit the Mississippi and were having to go up and
down the Mississippi with significantly lighter loads, it did several
things to impact our economy. First, the barges couldn't transport
nearly as much corn or as much soybeans; and at one point, the world's
corn supply was down to less than 30 days, 30 days for the entire
world. The world needed that corn from Illinois and from Iowa, the
Dakotas and Missouri. That corn gets shipped on the Mississippi River
and the Missouri River. When that river was drying up, that corn didn't
flow.

{time} 1800

Coming upstream is the oil that goes into the refineries at Wood
River, Illinois, the steel that gets processed at the steel mills in
Alton, Illinois, and Granite City, Illinois, and the fertilizer that
goes on the fields throughout southern and central Illinois.
There are several provisions in this bill that have passed through
the Senate that we think need to be added to the House bill that would
help those navigation requirements on the Mississippi River.
Additionally, we have provisions in the bill that, as Mr. Garamendi
talked about, would improve the levee system. The levee system is
critical not only throughout my district, but, indeed, up and down the
rivers because of the problems with flood insurance. I have families
who have lived for generations in homes located near the Mississippi
River and other contributory rivers who, because of the potential rise
in flood insurance rates, will be unable to afford to pay the insurance
and unable to sell their homes, to relocate as necessary. We need to
improve those levees.
By the way, while we are improving those levees, what are we doing?
We are putting people to work.
This bill is supported by multiple groups throughout our Nation. It
is truly a bipartisan bill. It passed the House 417-3 and the Senate by
a vote of 84-14. You can't get much more bipartisan than that.
Let's look at the supporters of this bill. Labor supports the bill
because they understand the importance of these jobs, and they
understand the importance of maritime industry along that river. The
Chamber of Commerce supports this bill. The National Association of
Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau, the Illinois Farm Bureau all
support this bill because it is important to all of those industries
and to all of those jobs. It is not just the local economy of southern
Illinois. It is the regional economy, the national economy, and,
indeed, even the world economy.
Remember when I was talking about when the world's corn supply was
down to less than 30 days. If we can't ship corn from Illinois and Iowa
and the Midwest and out to the world, we will have a very serious food
problem.
The bill provides provisions for the Corps of Engineers to maintain
navigation on the river, to improve the navigation aids that were
virtually useless during the drought. Some of those navigation aids are
simply lines painted on bridges. Those are navigation aids that date
back to the 19th century, back to Mark Twain. Today I think we can do a
little bit better than painting lines on bridge abutments to provide
navigation aids for our maritime industry.
Additionally, the Corps, at this point, is restricted to working in
the 300-foot congressionally mandated channels. So 300 feet going down
the river the barges transit through is the only place the Corps is
allowed to work. This bill would give the Corps more authorities to
work outside that channel to ensure that we have safe navigation for
those barges filled with oil and with fertilizer and other industrial
materials.
The bill would also provide for a Greater Mississippi River Basin
extreme weather management study. Today, we don't understand how the
river system operates, and we don't treat it as a system. When you look
at that map that Mr. Garamendi showed you of the river system, you see
an entire system. You see the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Missouri, the
Illinois. Those aren't separate entities. But today, in the law, we
treat them as separate entities. The Missouri River is governed under
completely different legislation than the Mississippi River is. And the
Corps of Engineers, even if everybody agreed, couldn't release water
from those Missouri River dams down into the Mississippi River to help
the navigation because they didn't have the authorities to do so. That
doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and I think we need a commonsense
solution to that: we treat the entire system as it is, indeed, a
system.
Another issue that we need to consider is the locks and dams. Many of
those locks and dams are 70 years old. They are in need of maintenance.
They are in need of improvement. Those locks and dams, many of them are
only 600 feet, and for efficiencies they need to be 1,200 feet in order
to get the barge tows through. That will do several things. It will
help the economy by lessening shipping costs, by making the cost of
transportation for that corn, for that fertilizer, for that oil that
gets refined into gasoline, dropping those transportation costs, making
it less expensive to process and to buy.
It would also be good for the environment, because by using bigger
tows, you are burning less fuel to ship the same amount of goods.
Shipping by barge in the inland waterways is by far the most fuel
efficient method of transportation compared to either rail or trucking.
Clearly, for all of those reasons, we need to get this bill passed.
We need it for my three issues: jobs, job, and jobs, for southern
Illinois, for the region, for the Nation.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much. Sometimes I want to call you
Congressman, and sometimes I want to call you General. Always we are
going to say that you really know the Mississippi. You served there in
the National Guard, providing the protection to the people, and to have
a very good sense of what is necessary in that part of Illinois and
beyond.
As you were talking about the issues of moving goods and services up
and down the great Mississippi River system--Ohio, Missouri, and the
other rivers--there is about $1.4 trillion of goods that move down that
river into the other ports across America and is shipped out across the
entire world. That is 30 million jobs. You were talking about that.
You also raised a point that is very important, and that is that it
is not just the ongoing jobs of the tugboats and the barges, the
granaries and all of that, but it is also the job of building the
infrastructure itself. The men and women that are going to get out
there and put together the new docks, the new levee systems--all of
those things require manpower. And we know that there is an enormous
benefit. Every dollar that is invested in infrastructure returns well
over $3 back into the economy immediately, to say nothing of the long-
term benefit that comes of having that new lock system in place, more
efficient, longer locks so, as you said, more of those barges than just
one towline can work their way through the lock and not have to be
broken up into smaller towlines.
So there are a lot of issues in this piece of legislation. It is
going to be an extremely important moment in moving the economy
forward. This is the first time in 6 years. It has been 6 years since
the Congress and the Senate got together to do a water resource reform
and development program. Why? I guess we just couldn't quite figure it
out, but we have to do it this time.

[[Page H7244]]

There is a need for very serious reform in this system. We know that
many of the projects that are undertaken, that the Corps of Engineers
is working on, are forever trying to get in line and get in place.
We know that many projects simply are derelict; they never should be
built. So the bill removes $12 billion of derelict projects that should
never be built and replaces them with new projects that are critically
important. Some of those are the locks along the Mississippi and the
Ohio system and some of the other dams that are out there.
For me in California, we know that these projects are critically
important. The city of Sacramento, Mr. Enyart, is one of the most
flood-risk cities--in fact, it is No. 2 in flood risk; probably No. 1,
now that New Orleans has had an opportunity to have its flood walls
rebuilt following the devastation of Katrina. Now it is Sacramento. It
is a huge population in a very risky area, a population that I
represent part of and share with Congresswoman Matsui, the city of
Sacramento.

It is a little different than New Orleans. When Katrina came through,
it was flooded, to be sure, and terribly damaged. Many lives were lost.
But the water was warm. In Sacramento, if the levees were to break on
the American River or the Sacramento River system and flood that
system, we are talking about very cold water, water that people would
not survive in for more than a few minutes because of the temperature
and hypothermia. So we really need to build those levees.
As I go into this task of being on the conference committee where I
will serve as one of the representatives of the House of
Representatives, I will be looking at those kinds of projects that are
really about human life, the safety of my constituents and the safety
of constituents all around this Nation where these levees need to be
built to a high standard. Many of them need to be repaired in my
district, the delta of California. Many of the levees are over 100
years old and were never built to standards that would be applicable
today.
So we have work to do. We have levees to build. We have ports to
build. We have channels to dredge. We have jobs that will be created
when we pass this bill and adequately fund it.
One other thing that is possible here is not only will we create jobs
directly in building the ports, dredging the rivers and channels,
building the levees and repairing them--those are direct jobs. Not only
will we do that. We will also have the long-term foundation, the
investment necessary for future economic growth. We will also, if we do
one more thing--and I hope to get this into the legislation. That is to
make sure that there is a strong buy America provision.
This is going to be American taxpayer money that is going to be used
for the steel in the locks, for the cement, for the pilings in the
piers and probably the dredges that will be used for the channel. This
is all American taxpayer money that will be used to buy and maintain
that equipment. If it is American taxpayer money, then, by golly, you
ought to be buying American goods. So buy American. Use our taxpayer
money to build the rest of the manufacturing sector of America. Build
our steel industry by buying American steel for the locks and for the
piers and for the cement and for the other work that needs to be done.
Make it in America. It is very simple. Use American taxpayer money to
make it in America and to buy American goods.
So I am going to be working very diligently on that conference
committee to make sure that this buy America provision is strongly
embedded in the legislation. I know that if we are able to do that, we
will not only improve our levees, dredge the channels, build the ports,
but we will also have the opportunity to make American jobs in the
manufacturing sector.
Mr. Enyart, you may have some additional thoughts that you would like
to bring to our attention. If so, please have at it.
Mr. ENYART. Thank you, Mr. Garamendi. Actually, I do.
I would like to point out that the Democratic motion to instruct
conferees--as you pointed out, you serve on that conference committee--
passed on November 14 with bipartisan support. That motion encouraged
the conferees to reauthorize an effective dam security program.
The goal here is to reduce risks to people, to life and property from
dam failure. With the age of some of these dams and the aging
infrastructure in place, the potential loss of life and limb and
property is astronomical. By putting money into maintenance now, we are
saving not only lives and property, but saving money downstream because
we know that sooner or later, with the age of that infrastructure, that
it is going to fail. That is one of the important things that the
Democratic motion to instruct conferees did.
Additionally, Mr. Garamendi, I signed the bipartisan letter to the
House leadership of both parties requesting a speedy conference report.
We need to move this conference report. As you pointed out earlier, Mr.
Garamendi, this has been waiting for 6 years. We can't afford to wait
another 6 years. So we need a speedy conference report between the
Senate and between the House so that we can merge that legislation, add
the items that we believe are on the House bill that need to be part of
that Senate bill and vice versa so that we can begin bringing these
jobs back to America and bringing the use of these American products to
our districts.
That letter emphasized the importance of WRRDA, not only to the
district, but also the difficulties which it imposes on business and on
labor and on the trades if this bill is not moved in a prompt manner.
One of the other important aspects of the bill for my particular
district--you were talking about the Sacramento River. But one of the
particular parts of bill that we want to see added that has passed the
Senate establishes the Metro East Flood Risk Management Program. What
we are talking about there is the urban industrial area in southwestern
Illinois across from St. Louis, running all the way from Alton, down
through east St. Louis, south to Columbia, Illinois.

{time} 1815

It encompasses three counties, with a population of about 600,000
folks. So it is very significant. It includes oil refineries, steel
mills, chemical plants, residential areas, and many of the bridges,
both rail and passenger car, that transit the Mississippi there. So it
is critical that we get this taken care of.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, we also, Mr. Enyart, in California we have those
same issues. Let me swap places with you. I want to put up one of the
maps here of California.
Mr. Enyart, you were talking about the central part of America. You
certainly can see it here, as you were discussing the Mississippi River
system and your area, up here in the Illinois area.
In California, we think we are a real big State and we have got a lot
of people, and this legislation is extremely important for California.
I am going to just point out some of the--San Francisco Bay, one of the
great maritime bays in the world. We would argue there is none more
beautiful nor more important than the San Francisco Bay.
In and out of this Bay flows a vast amount of commerce to the Port of
Oakland, and also up to the rivers, into the central part of
California, through the delta on the Sacramento and the San Joaquin
River, where trade now goes, international trade, to the Port of
Sacramento and the Port of Stockton.
Very, very important because, like Illinois and the great Midwest, we
have a vast agricultural economy here in the central valley of
California, and a lot of that, particularly rice from my district, goes
out of the Port of Stockton and Sacramento.
Both of those ports now have channels that are of insufficient depth
to bring in the large ships, and so it becomes much more expensive. The
issue you raised, Mr. Enyart, about the cost of shipping, if you have
small ships that can't carry a full cargo because of the depth of
channel, it gets more expensive.
So in this area, channel maintenance at the Port of Oakland, channel
maintenance for the Ports of Sacramento and the like and, of course, up
along the Contra Costa County area, where the refineries and the oil
tankers come and go.
As you move further south, we have got the ports, mostly fishing down
here along the coast and, of course, Monterey, which is famous, Pebble
Beach and the Monterey Bay area.

[[Page H7245]]

Then you get down to Los Angeles, and the two great, great harbors of
America, side by side, together form the largest harbor system in this
Nation, and you can argue whether it is the largest in the world, but
it is surely big, the Port of Los Angeles, represented by Congresswoman
Hahn, and the Port of Long Beach, side by side there in the Los Angeles
area, Long Beach represented by Mr. Lowenthal.
Those ports are really one of the major engines of international
trade and economic growth, and of course, from those ports, those great
cargos move in and out, all across America on the railways and
highways. So we have that.
Then of course you can get down here to San Diego, some other harbors
along the way in Orange County, and then the harbor of San Diego, which
is extremely important for the military. Any time you happen to get to
San Diego, you will see the aircraft carriers there from the U.S. Navy
and other critical equipment and ships of the U.S. Navy. All of that is
important.
Here in my district--I am going to put up another map, and this is
where I really get involved. This is a map of, obviously, San Francisco
Bay here, with the harbor of San Francisco, the Port of San Francisco,
the Port of Oakland, Alameda in here and up along the Contra Costa
coast.
As you get into the delta, this is the largest inland delta, or the
largest delta on the west coast of the Western Hemisphere, and one of
the great inland deltas of the world. There are more than 1,000 miles
of waterways here in this delta area.
I represent about half of that area, the Sacramento River going up
here and the San Joaquin River coming here, and then down into the
great San Joaquin Valley. These areas are all protected by levees, and
so the rivers are confined within those levees, and many of those
levees, as I said a while ago, are more than 100 years old, and they
need protection.
The water system of California, water flowing from the north, across
these, through these waterways that are channeled by the levees to the
great pumps down here, delivering water to southern California and the
San Joaquin Valley, depends upon these levees.
This is part of the WRRDA bill, and so these levees and protecting
the water system of California and the great agricultural enterprises
of the delta are critically important, and the Water Resource Reform
and Development Act provides money for the maintenance and the
continuing studies of these levees, as well as for many of the critical
environmental habitats in the area.
As you move up the Sacramento River, you will come to the great
metropolis of Sacramento, which I talked about, and here, the American
River coming in with the Sacramento River. Right in this area is,
arguably, the highest flood danger area in America, and there is a
project right here in the Natomas area that is absolutely crucial,
crucial to life and limb.
Then as you move on up in the rest of my district, going up 200 miles
from here to here, you have Yuba City and Marysville, again,
communities that have flooded in the past, with the loss of life, and
those too are dependent upon the success of the WRRDA bill.
Now, what we are going to do tomorrow, and in the days ahead as we
move through this conference committee--and my task, is to get the
policy set. But the other side of it is the money. Where's the money
coming from?
Well, the austerity budgets that have been such the prize of our
Republican colleagues really have stripped money away from the projects
that we have been talking about, stripped money away from the
maintenance of the ports, the dredging of the channels, and the
protection and enhancement of the levees. That money has been stripped
away.
So, with the first sequestration that took place about 8 months ago,
$250 million of money that the Corps of Engineers would have for the
ports, for the channels, and for the levees, disappeared. That was
Sequestration 1.
On January 15, Sequestration 2 hits, with another $90 billion hit,
and we are not sure exactly how much the Corps of Engineers will lose,
but they are going to lose a vast amount of money.
So all of the talk, all of the energy that we are putting into
writing the appropriate policies to reform, to improve, to put programs
in place for the American economy, aren't going to happen. Well, many
of them are not going to happen because of the austerity budgets and
the two sequestrations.
This is a critical problem, a critical problem, and I would reach out
to my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican, and say, but there is
money. There is money available, but we are not spending it in the
right place.
In the budget bill that passed the House of Representatives a few
months ago, there was an increase in the authorization well above what
the President wanted to build and rebuild nuclear bombs, over $12
billion over the next decade, for just one life-extension program on a
nuclear weapon, the B-61--$12 billion.

Now, it can be argued, and I would argue this, that that was an
extraordinarily inappropriate place to spend money. We don't need that
bomb for deterrence, I don't believe. The military may argue that we
do, but then they can never get enough of these things.
My argument is, we need to spend the money where real danger exists,
and that real danger exists on America's rivers when these levees are
not up to standard. When the levees protecting New Orleans were not up
to standard, people died, billions upon billions were lost.
When the levees in Sacramento are not up to standard, billions will
be lost and people will die, and that is an immediate threat.
We have got plenty of other nuclear weapons for deterrence, but to
spend $12 billion in a way that I believe would be better spent on
things that protect real people in real-life situations--so we are
making judgments here. First of all, we are making a judgment--well, I
wouldn't say either you or I, Mr. Enyart, are making this judgment, but
our colleagues, particularly on the Republican side, are making a
judgment that they believe you can build the American economy with
austerity; that is, to cut the Federal expenditures. I disagree.
There are critical investments that the Federal Government should and
must make. This is not new. Often we hear the talk around here, the
Founding Fathers.
Mr. Enyart, have you heard people talk about, well, the Founding
Fathers would do thus and so? We hear it all the time.
The Founding Fathers, let's take Washington and Hamilton, shortly
after he was inaugurated--
Oh, by the way, Washington refused to be inaugurated in a suit made
in England. He was inaugurated in a suit made in America. There was
only one tailor at the time that would do that, but he did it.
Then he told Hamilton, I want a policy to build the American
manufacturing sector. Hamilton came back some days later, probably 2 or
3 months, with a program, not 2,000 pages, but probably a couple of
hundred pages at the most, and he said: We need, in America, to do the
following things: to build the American economy and the American
manufacturing base.
He said, one, we need to build ports. We need to build canals, and we
need to protect American industry by using American taxpayer dollars to
buy American-made goods. He said, beware of trade policies.
Hamilton and Washington wanted trade policies that protected the
American manufacturing sector and American agriculture.
Interestingly, in the next few days, or in the next few weeks, we are
going to have the question of trade policy before us here in the House
of Representatives, and it is likely to be the Trans-Pacific Trade
Program.
What is it?
Well, they want to fast-track it, where not one person on this floor
will be able to say, wait a minute; we ought to change this, or we
ought to change that. So we ought to be paying attention to the
Founding Fathers who said, watch trade policy. Protect American jobs.
So as we go through all of this, in my district, we are going to have
to have the money, American taxpayer money, plus a lot of local
taxpayer money to protect the citizens in my district and the ports.

[[Page H7246]]

About $1.8 billion is collected at the ports to rebuild, to dredge,
and to maintain the ports. About half that money is siphoned off for
other projects.
Beware of austerity budgets. No more sequestration. This Nation
cannot afford that terrible policy of sequestration because it will rip
the heart out of the critical investments that America has to make.
I have rambled on here for a little while and went off to some other
things. Mr. Enyart, would you like to pick it up for a while?
Mr. ENYART. Thank you, Mr. Garamendi. I appreciate that.
You know, what we are really talking about here, Mr. Garamendi, it
seems to me is, are we spending money, or are we investing in America?
I like to tell folks at home that when that roof starts getting old
on your house, and you know those shingles need to be replaced, do you
want to replace those shingles?
Do you want to put a new roof on that house before it starts to leak?
Yes, you want to do that because you are going to save the money then
of the damage that is going to be caused when this roof does start to
leak.
We are really talking about the same thing. We are talking about
investing in America. We are talking about investing in our house,
investing in our home, protecting that infrastructure, protecting that
roof before it does begin to leak.
It is interesting you were talking about how money gets siphoned off,
and this bill does change that. This bill would increase--you know, we
have a special fund that is supposed to go to the maintenance of
harbors and of ports, and this bill would increase the investments in
improving our Nation's ports by increasing the percentage of the money
that is collected each year through the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.

{time} 1830

As you pointed out, it is unfortunate, but half of the money that is
collected to maintain harbors gets siphoned off and spent on other
things.
Now, I believe and you believe, we believe, and the folks who voted
for this bill believe that we should spend that money for the purpose
for which it is collected, and that is to maintain and improve our
harbors and our ports.
Now, you know, some of the Democrats on the committee have said that
the bill is a compromise. Some of the folks don't like the fewer
environmental reviews. But, you know, we voted for it. We pushed it
forward even though it was a compromise. And sometimes in this
business, you have to give a little to get a little. And it is like I
talk about at home. When you go buy that new pickup truck, the dealer
wants one price, and you want another price, you have got to meet
somewhere in the middle to get there.
Mr. GARAMENDI. But ``compromise'' is not a dirty word in my lexicon.
Compromise is absolutely necessary. There are things in the bill that I
would have written differently. In the conference committee, there are
going to be differences between the House and the Senate in how we do.
You have mentioned some of the issues. The environmental issues, some
of them are controversial. But there is a major part of this bill to
speed these projects forward and to hold the Corps of Engineers
responsible for getting things done. Part of it is they have got 3
years to do the initial study, and they have got $3 million to get that
study done, and their feet are going to be held to that commitment to
get these projects moving forward. So there is a lot of reform in here,
in the bureaucracy of the way this system has worked. There is also a
lot of reform in this on allowing the local partnerships.
All of these programs are partnerships. They are partners with the
local governments, ports, as you described earlier, local levee
districts, and the like. Those partnerships, under present law, have a
very difficult time to start a program early, to get it going without
the Corps' permission. So what we have, we call it ``crediting.'' And
that allows these local governments, local ports to begin a project.
Eventually, there is a whole new process in here for selecting which
projects will be done.
By the way, we are not going to do earmarks. There are no earmarks in
this legislation. No earmarks are allowed in the future. But there is a
process to prioritize projects across the Nation, and ultimately,
Congress is taking back some of its power to set the priorities for the
Nation.
But that crediting that allows the local governments to get started,
we are going to want to move that a little bit forward because in my
district, because of the austerity budgets and the sequestration, many
necessary projects are not allowed to move forward. But with a little
tweaking of this language, which I will be working to get done, it will
allow some of these projects to go forward. And the local share would
then be counted if and when--if and when the Federal Government, the
Corps of Engineers, actually decides to make that a national project.
So this is going to be very important. It is probably important in
your area, for some of the levees in your area that are maintained now
by the local levee districts and flood protection districts.
We spent a lot of time in the House and also in the Senate. We are
going to have to work out some of the differences, some of the
compromises. Not so much Democratic and Republican, but some regional
differences and some differences about how the system should work, so
we will work on that.
We have got about another 5, 7 minutes, so if you would like to wrap,
and then I will wrap. And then I am going to do something that is not
too common here. I am going to take this ball of some of this
international trade and I am going to toss it to my Republican
colleague, and we will let him bat it around for a while.
Mr. ENYART. Wonderful.
Well, you know, Mr. Garamendi, while you are working on that
conference committee, I would really appreciate it if you could see fit
to--and this goes back to the environmental piece a little bit.
The Senate bill includes the Middle Mississippi River Environmental
Pilot Program, which gives the Army Corps of Engineers authority to
restore and protect fish and wildlife habitat along the Middle
Mississippi River while they are undertaking navigation projects.
Right now, they are just constrained working on navigation. Well,
doesn't it make a lot of sense, by the way, while you are working on
navigation to also, when you can, improve the fish and the wildlife
habitat.
In southern Illinois, fishing is a big sport. We have a lot of
tourists come in. Hunting, goose hunting is a big sport and deer
hunting. And if you can improve that wildlife habitat, it is going to
help the environment as well as help our tourist economy in southern
Illinois.
Now, that was part of the bill that I introduced, but it got stripped
out before it passed the House. But it did pass the Senate. So as part
of your conference, if you could help me out with that, I would really
appreciate it.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, this is part of what we ought to be doing, and
that is looking at these issues and maximizing the potential and the
benefit that comes from a project. Let me give you another example of
the same thing, and it is along the environmental line.
Right now the Corps of Engineers, while dredging in the San Francisco
Bay area--let's just say the Port of Oakland over here. When they
dredge there, they have to use the cheapest way of disposing of the
dredging materials, called spoils, mostly sand and clay. They take it
out here to Alcatraz, and they dump it in Alcatraz, and the tide takes
it out past the San Francisco Golden Gate.
Well, we are saying, wait a minute. That is extremely valuable
material to build habitat in areas that have been despoiled over the
years. For example, down here in the southern part of the bay, these
were great salt flats where the salt industry used the bay and
evaporated the bay water to get salt. Well, those need to be restored.
And it is quite possible that the material from the dredging could be
used in that way or another habitat program, even up here into the
delta. But it is not the cheapest.
So we are looking at a little tweak here that would allow the Port of
Oakland or the other ports in the San Francisco Bay area and, really,
around the Nation to do an environmental project along with the
dredging project very similar to what you are talking about on the
Mississippi River.
So I see common cause here. I see common cause where we can maximize

[[Page H7247]]

the total benefit for the Nation. It could be an additional cost that
the port will have to pick up. Okay. But we get a twofer. We get
environmental benefits as well as the economic benefits to the port.
Have you got any other things on your list?
Mr. ENYART. I will just close out with saying, Mr. Garamendi, thank
you for the time this evening. I think this has been a true team effort
from manufacturers and business groups, labor unions, port authorities,
and the Agriculture Committee.

You know, I sit on the Agriculture Committee, and the ag community
knows how critical this legislation is for Illinois. And Congress needs
to get things done for the American people, and no job is more
important than keeping our economy strong right here at home.
Mr. GARAMENDI. General Enyart, Congressman Enyart, or Bill, thank you
so very, very much. I really appreciate working with you tonight on
this critical issue, the fundamental investment.
Let's remember, this is not new. The Army Corps of Engineers has been
around since the very earliest days of our democracy. The Army Corps
has been responsible for the waterways of America, and the Water
Resources Reform and Development Act is going to be an opportunity for
America to really move its infrastructure, particularly the trade.
Remember, just to review, we are talking 13 million jobs immediately
depend upon the Water Resources Reform and Development Act. We are
talking about 99 percent of our trade travels through our ports and
waterways, whether it is on the Mississippi, the Sacramento, the San
Joaquin Rivers, or the great ports and the coastal part of America. It
is critically important.
And as we do these things, we have the opportunity to reach back into
the history of America and remember what the Founding Fathers talked
about way back in George Washington's very early days: that these
fundamental investments in what they called canals and ports and roads
were critical to the growth of the United States at the very, very
outset. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton also recognized the
importance of international trade and that we get those trade policies
correct.
So as we get ready to do the Water Resources Reform and Development
Act, which is critical--and the conference committee starts tomorrow,
and I have the honor of being on that conference committee--we also
think about the way in which the trade of America is dependent upon our
work in getting sound policies in place.
And it is also critically important in dealing with the issue of
international trade agreements, whether it is the transpacific trade
program or the new one that is being worked on with Europe, we have to
protect our own jobs. We have to protect the American economy. And in
doing so, we must carry out our constitutional responsibility given to
us by the United States House of Representatives and the Senators. The
Constitution says that it is the legislature, Congress and the Senate,
that shall set trade policy, and that requires that we have the
opportunity to look at the details of every trade policy and not fast-
track trash through the House.
Joining me and taking up, as I wrap up my hour, is my colleague on
the Republican side. Why don't you take my last couple of minutes, and
then you can have your own half hour.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, first of all, let me thank the gentleman for
yielding to me. I know it is a bit unusual when Democrats and
Republicans come down and share portions of the time. I think it is
actually what the American people want a little more of. We should do
this more often.
I am giving a talk in a few moments on health care. You and I will
probably disagree to some fundamental philosophical approaches to that,
and that is fine. You are in one party; I am in another. You have your
own inclinations; I have my own inclinations and approaches. But to try
to work constructively toward problem solving, I think it would behoove
us all if we could figure out a better pathway to do that.
And that is why I am grateful to you for just leaving me a few
moments because as I was listening to your speech, you talked about
something I didn't know, that George Washington refused to wear a suit
made in England and went back and said, Give me a manufacturing policy
for this country. It was a very curious but good story to demonstrate a
particular dynamic that, as you rightly pointed out, is part of our
modern-day debate about how we do trade agreements in this fast-track
authority. I think we have to be very, very cautious about this.
Trade can have the potential benefit to raise all boats. It has to be
fair. It has an element of free, but it also has to be enforceable. And
there are other dynamics to trade other than just the economic benefit
that should be measured, such as the human cost of production in
various societies. And we have glossed over those things in the past.
So I just wanted to commend you and thank you for raising this issue
of giving, basically, over our authority by saying, we will vote to
deny our authority to review the fullness of a trade agreement should
one come through to us. I think that is a serious concern. So I want to
commend the gentleman for raising the issue.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, thank you so very much. And I look forward to
working with you on that issue. I know it is going to be coming.
Well, we don't know exactly when. But they are trying to wrap up. Our
trade rep, our ambassador is trying to wrap this up and present it to
us. And they are talking fast-track. And I am going, time-out, guys.
Time-out. We need to review. We need to make sure that it is fair
trade. Not just free trade, but fair trade--fair to the American
worker, fair to the American manufacturer, farmer, and the like.
Mr. FORTENBERRY. If I could add something, I think we ought to call
it ``smart'' trade.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I like that word, too. Can we compromise on that?
Mr. FORTENBERRY. Yes, sounds good.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield back the balance of my time.

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