[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[House]
[Page 29412]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2007

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HULSHOF. Mr. Speaker, I look at the time, it is about 13 years 
ago exactly at this moment that I was standing at the altar saying, ``I 
do'' to the love of my life. So I must begin by wishing a happy 13th 
anniversary to the most beautiful woman in the world, with all respect 
to those ladies that are here present. I guess every marriage has 
obviously some high points and some disappointments.
  And the other reason for me coming to floor is to actually speak 
about the disappointment that I have with the White House, particularly 
with its veto of H.R. 1495, the Water Resources Development Act, often 
referred to as WRDA. This veto, if I must say so, was ill advised and I 
expect will be overridden by this House tomorrow and the Senate in the 
coming days.
  I acknowledge that the President, during the veto message, mentioned 
that when the WRDA bill left the House, it was about $15 billion. The 
Senate's version was at 14 billion. And the final version of the water 
resources bill was somewhere around 23 billion. Yet certainly the White 
House understands that the bill that left the House had different 
priorities emphasized, different projects were being considered by the 
Senate and as such when the conference was convened, those bills had to 
be combined. The President, in his veto message, said, in essence, I 
fully support funding for water resources projects.
  Respectfully, I must point out that the President's budget each year 
woefully underfunds the Army Corps of Engineers budget in my view, the 
operations and maintenance budget. And the White House went on with its 
veto message to say, My administration has repeatedly urged Congress to 
authorize only those projects that provide a high return on investment.
  Well, I share the White House's belief that taxpayers deserve a 
dollar's worth of services for every dollar they remit in taxes. But 
just looking at water resources projects in terms of dollars and cents 
is what caused us to only have category 3 levees in New Orleans. We 
have seen how short-sighted that decision was. In fact, I would suggest 
that over the last 25 years, every dollar that the Corps has invested 
in flood control has been returned six-fold in potential damages that 
had been averted.
  A WRDA bill has not been passed by Congress in 7 years. Communities 
around this Nation are now in desperate need for projects such as 
levees and protective coastal wetlands. Moreover, in the past 7 years, 
our water-borne transportation infrastructure has continued to crumble. 
There are 192 active locks on navigable waterways in this Nation. The 
average age is 60. The President, by his veto, is choosing to ignore 
these needs, possibly harming the lives and certainly the livelihoods 
of millions of people in this country.
  One of the most important projects for the Missouri-Illinois 
delegations is the much-needed modernization of the five locks on the 
upper Mississippi River and two on the Illinois waterway. This is 
something that we helped author back in the 108th Congress. And 
certainly I acknowledge my good friends and supporters of this, the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell), the dynamic duo from Illinois, Mr. 
Costello and Mr. Shimkus on our side of the aisle, and also Chairman 
Oberstar and Ranking Member Baker have been instrumental in bringing 
this project to fruition.
  Look, these locks are vital to farmers, manufacturers and many other 
industries in Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. These locks 
on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers facilitate the movement of 100 
million tons of cargo every year. While almost 50 percent, half of this 
is cargo, is agricultural, the river also transports asphalt for road 
construction, coal for electricity. In fact, did you know that every 
gallon of jet fuel that is used at O'Hare and Midway Airports in 
Chicago is transported on our navigable waterways?
  The shipments of these products via the river saves the American 
public between $800 million and $2 billion over other modes of 
transportation. Certainly I would suggest that while not every farmer 
in the region uses the river to ship crops, all growers are impacted by 
it. Every day the price of grain a farmer receives at his home market 
is based on the price of grain that moves on the Mississippi River to 
export markets. The lower the cost of transportation here within our 
own borders, the lower the cost of U.S. grain is on the world market, 
the more grain the United States is able to sell to our foreign trading 
partners.
  As some in this Chamber know, I have a personal experience shipping 
on the river. I grew up in the shadow of the levees along the 
Mississippi in southeast Missouri. Lock modernization, I can assure 
you, will ensure that farmers in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, 
Wisconsin and elsewhere continue to have the same benefit that my 
family had growing up on our family's farm, the ability to ship crops 
to international markets via the most cost-effective method.
  Now, many of these locks, unfortunately, are being held together with 
bailing wire and duct tape. Our senior Senator, Senator Bond, is fond 
of saying that these locks belong on the National Register of Historic 
Places. He is actually mistaken. They are already on the National 
Registry of Historic Places.
  I urge this House to override the President's veto.

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