[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 7702]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           INTRODUCTION OF THE BLUE WATER HIGHWAY ACT OF 2007

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                            HON. DAVE WELDON

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 26, 2007

  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Speaker, today I introduced the Blue 
Water Highway Act of 2007.
  As Members of this body know, the ability to cost-effectively 
transport goods to domestic markets is vital to our economy. It's 
becoming increasingly clear, however, that economic and population 
growth is far outpacing our ability to maintain and expand our existing 
transportation infrastructure, posing serious, long-term challenges to 
our current reliance upon land-based shipping.
  In Florida and around the country, roadway congestion and driver 
shortages are already making it difficult for trucking companies to 
expand capacity. Freight shipping by rail is encountering serious 
capacity problems in some regions, as well. And, recent estimates 
indicate that overall freight traffic will continue to increase 
exponentially in the coming years--up as much as 70 percent by 2020.
  Madam Speaker, we are presented with a choice as we seek to address 
this capacity crunch: We can try to engineer our way out of the current 
situation at hundreds of billions of dollars in new federal 
expenditures. Or, we can find alternate innovative modes of 
transportation that will help absorb some of the traffic our growing 
economy continues to create.
  While we must continue to invest in our surface transportation 
infrastructure, I believe that an alternative, environmentally sound 
mode of transportation is at our fingertips that will lessen highway 
congestion, save energy, and reduce air pollution.
  Short sea shipping, or what I call the ``Blue Water Highway,'' 
involves shipping cargo by sea between U.S. ports. By establishing a 
``highway'' along our coast where smaller cargo ships travel from port 
to port along the Eastern Seaboard, Gulf Coast, Pacific Coastline, and 
the Great Lakes, we have the opportunity to significantly reduce 
highway congestion in an environmentally friendly and economically 
sound manner. Additionally, sea-based shipping would mitigate against 
wear and tear on our highways, potentially delaying the need for 
expensive taxpayer-funded improvement projects and allowing such funds 
instead to be used to free traffic congestion.
  Though getting the Blue Water Highway up and running is no small 
task, I believe that a modest tax policy change provided in my 
legislation would significantly encourage the development of a short 
sea shipping industry.
  The Blue Water Highway Act of 2007 would amend the Internal Revenue 
Code to exempt cargo shipped between U.S. mainland ports from the 
harbor maintenance tax. This simple tax reform would remove the primary 
prohibitive cost to short sea shipping, allowing designated cargo 
vessels to travel from Port Canaveral in Florida, to Baltimore, and 
then onto New York and Bridgeport, Conn. making other port calls along 
the way without having to pay the cargo tax each time it enters a port.
  Madam Speaker, amending the harbor maintenance tax is a reasonable 
policy objective that would go a long way toward moving short sea 
shipping from the backwater of the shipping industry.

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