[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 4, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H56]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           FUNDING OUR PORTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, during this last Presidential election 
year, there was a tremendous amount of discussion about the Nation's 
infrastructure and the need for investment to make America more 
competitive and move goods and our citizens more efficiently.
  There wasn't a lot of particular discussion about ports, but they are 
an incredibly important part of our infrastructure. More than $470 
billion of exports went through America's ports. Three-quarters of our 
exports are waterborne through these ports around the United States.
  Now, the Corps of Engineers says that, of our 59 busiest ports 
depicted here, they are fully available less than 35 percent of the 
time, and that is even before we begin to deal with the larger cargo 
ships that are going to be coming through the expanded Panama Canal to 
the Southeast and other ports in the United States, and that is because 
of a lack of funding.
  Now, obviously, that is a very difficult problem. We are estimating 
about a $20 billion shortfall over the next 10 years in funding. Where, 
oh where, could Congress find that money? Actually, we already have it.
  Now, Congress, in its wisdom in 1986, with the cooperation and 
consent of shipping interests, imposed a tax, an ad valorem tax, on the 
value of imports. It is a very small tax, but it adds slightly to the 
cost of any good that any American buys every day that is imported.
  Now, Americans are paying the tax and Congress is stealing the money. 
Yep, that is true--for stupid purposes, no less. We are pretending to 
make the deficit smaller by collecting twice as much tax as we invest 
in our ports.
  Meantime, we are forgoing the investment that is needed in those 
ports to become even more efficient and more competitive in the world 
economy. Congress is collecting the tax, yet the Budget Committee and 
the appropriators here in the Republican House are saying: Let's hide 
that money over here. We will put it in the Treasury harbor maintenance 
trust fund. Don't worry. It's there. Some day we might spend it.
  Nine billion dollars today--$9 billion--that would address half of 
the long-term shortfall in our ports. This could be an incredible boon 
for shippers, for American competitiveness, and for jobs in this 
country. We don't have to levy a new tax. All we have to do is spend 
the tax that is being collected from the American people by jacking up 
the price of imported goods for the purpose for which it is lawfully 
intended.
  Now, the appropriators don't like it because, hey, they don't get to 
mess around with it, and the Budget Committee doesn't like it because 
that means they either have to look like they have another half a 
billion dollars a year of deficit or they would have to raise some 
funds somewhere else to spend somewhere else.
  But the point is this money should be spent as intended. So today I 
am sending a letter to President-elect Trump. He has said time and time 
again he wants to invest in our infrastructure. Obviously, it is going 
to be a little longer term before we get to surface because we are 
going to have to raise additional revenues there to deal with our 
crumbling roads, bridges, and transit systems.
  But for our ports, we don't have to wait. Day one, he can send a 
message to Congress saying: Hey, get off your butts down there and 
spend that money for the purpose for which the tax was collected. Stop 
gouging the American taxpayers and shorting our ports.
  It's time to do things a little differently around here, and I am 
hopeful that the President perhaps will tweet about this and get some 
action out of the Republican majority like he did yesterday in 
reversing them on a rather drastic change to the rules of the House.

                          ____________________