[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15477]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1415
                        PROTECTING OUR RIVERWAYS

  (Mr. SMITH of Missouri asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, Missouri's Eighth District has 
more than 200 miles of the Mississippi River and is dependent on barge 
traffic to move our crops. This year, with one of the largest harvests 
on record, the Army Corps of Engineers closed a stretch of the 
Mississippi River that gets the harvest to market and did not 
adequately notify shippers.
  This is absolutely unacceptable. My colleagues and I sent a letter 
this week urging the Corps to notify industries in advance of 
construction, and also to take market factors into consideration when 
planning construction in the future. The work the Corps does protecting 
our river system is vital, and we need to work to secure the Corps more 
resources to complete its mission, but construction must be scheduled 
appropriately and not at the expense of America's farmers and shippers.

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