[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13195-13197]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            PORT OF SAVANNAH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, thank you for yielding me the time and for 
being down here with me today.
  I hate that you can't see my charts today. They are not particularly 
colorful or exciting, but they are important in that they are going to 
tell the story of something that we have gotten done together.
  Now, I don't want you to think I am just making something up down 
here on the floor of the House, Mr. Speaker. I know you are probably 
thinking about 326 bills that we have passed here in the House that are 
still sitting over there in the Senate gathering dust, having received 
no action whatsoever.
  You might be thinking about the work going on in the Rules Committee, 
where we are suing the President for his failure to implement the law 
as he crafted it, drafted it, and signed it. You might be thinking 
about the border crisis that is happening right now that has been 
marked by so much inaction.
  I don't mean to say that there are not lots of things that need to be 
worked on in this body. There are.

                              {time}  1415

  I wanted to take just a few minutes this afternoon to talk about some 
of the rare successes that we have had, and it is a success that is a 
long time coming.
  I represent Metro Atlanta, Mr. Speaker, kind of the northeastern 
suburbs there in Metro Atlanta, and right down I-75 and then down I-16, 
you get to the great and historic city of Savannah. Folks think about 
Savannah for all sorts of different things. Whether it is Oglethorpe 
and his arrival, whether it is dyeing the river green on St. Patrick's 
Day, or whether it is the birth of the Girl Scouts in Savannah, lots of 
things do bring it to mind. But folks don't often think about the 
economic driver that the Port of Savannah is for the entire 
southeastern United States.
  So often we talk about constituent interests on the floor, Mr. 
Speaker, what is good for this one district in Alabama or this one 
district in New York. What I want to talk about is the impact of the 
Port of Savannah on the economy of the entire southeastern United 
States.
  You might not know, Mr. Speaker, from your part of the world, that it 
is the fourth largest container terminal in the Nation, and the largest 
single terminal operation in all of North America, the single terminal, 
one long dock there in Savannah. It handles 3 million container 
equivalents absolutely every cycle. Volume is up 7 percent this year 
alone.
  When we talk about the number of folks it impacts, Mr. Speaker, we 
are talking about 21,000 companies from

[[Page 13196]]

across the United States of America bring their commerce in and out of 
the Port of Savannah. Here is what is so important about our ports, Mr. 
Speaker. I don't know if everyone internalizes their values. Savannah 
is a great example. Forty-eight percent of the container traffic in 
that port are imports coming into America, goods and services that 
American consumers want to buy, but 52 percent of the traffic coming in 
and out of that port are exports. Forty-eight percent are things that 
we are buying from folks overseas, but 52 are goods that were 
manufactured with American hands, putting paychecks into Americans' 
pockets and shipping those goods right back out overseas--48 percent 
imports, 52 percent exports.
  Now, why am I talking about that? We have got an exciting opportunity 
going on in this hemisphere, Mr. Speaker. You may have heard the term 
Panamax ships. The new Panama Canal--and you won't be able to see these 
numbers, Mr. Speaker, so I will just go through them briefly. The new 
Panama Canal is going to accommodate ships that carry not twice the 
number of containers that ships carry today, not three times the 
containers, but almost 3\1/2\ times more containers than ships carry.
  What does that mean? That means if you are the fourth largest 
container port in the country, as Savannah is, if you are the fastest 
growing container port in the country, as Savannah is, you had better 
get to work making sure that your equipment--your port, your docks, and 
your channel--can accommodate the newer, larger ships.
  Today, the draft on the ships coming through the Panama Canal, Mr. 
Speaker, is just under 40 feet. The new drafts of these Panamax ships 
are going to be 50 feet--10 feet more, 25 percent more. It requires 
major changes and renovations in our ports. And guess what. When the 
State of Georgia recognizes that we have a critical economic engine 
driving our economy, a critical economic engine to the entire 
Southeastern United States, we can't just get together as the State of 
Georgia and decide we are going to do some dredging and make sure that 
our port is ready for these newer, modern, larger ships. We are not 
allowed to.
  Why? Well, it has a lot to do with this building, the one down at 
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and a couple over in southwest D.C. at the 
EPA and our friends over at the Corps of Engineers. There is Federal 
law after Federal law after Federal law that says to the State of 
Georgia, no, you cannot expand your port without our permission.
  Now, that would be a source of great difference of agreement in this 
body about whether we ought to have the kind of Federal regulatory 
burden that we do in order to make those decisions, but, in fact, that 
is the law of the land today and so we must deal with it.
  We are talking about deeper channels, and we are talking about wider 
docking berths. We are talking about trying to move, again, not twice 
as many, not three times as many, but three-and-a-half times as many 
containers tomorrow as we were moving yesterday. And we have been 
battling as Georgians--as folks from the Southeast United States, as 
people trying to grow the economy--we have been battling the Federal 
red tape machine not for a week, not for a month, not for year, but 
almost a decade.
  I say ``almost a decade.'' It has really been more than a decade, Mr. 
Speaker. But it has been going on for a decade in earnest, and we have 
finally gotten to the finish line. We have finally gotten to a place 
where the paperwork has been signed and the checks are being written, 
where we are going to be able to do the kind of dredging and 
modernization that is necessary to continue the economic engine here in 
the country.
  What we are going to do is deepen our port from 42 feet to 47. Now, I 
mentioned to you the draft of these ships is 50 feet. We couldn't get 
permission to dredge deep enough to actually handle the 50-foot depth 
there. If we can't handle that draft, then these boats are going to 
have to unload some of their cargo either in Charleston or down in 
Jacksonville, and they are going to have to come into Savannah light.
  I couldn't make it happen that we could organize our port to actually 
handle the fully loaded ships in the new Panamax model, but we are 
going to deepen to 47 at a cost of about $700 million. Now, that is 
real money. It is real money, and it is real money that is coming in a 
cost share agreement. The State of Georgia is picking up more than $200 
million of that. The Federal Government is also picking up a share, 
recognizing the importance of economic development across the region.
  Cost shares are important, Mr. Speaker. I have been talking to some 
of our colleagues, and you may have had the same conversation. There is 
really no limit to the number of folks who are willing to take free 
money. If you offer free money, if there is a grant proposal that is 
just going to give you something, folks are willing to raise their hand 
and say: Yes, give it to me.
  If you ask people to put some skin in the game, then it creates a 
completely different dynamic for who is on board and who is thinking 
they want to opt out this time around.
  Georgia is on board to the tune of $200 million because it is 
important. When things are important, we ought to be able to come 
together and get those things done. Again, this Port of Savannah, this 
Corps of Engineers project, this bit of the WRDA bill authorized in the 
WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act, a rare episode of folks 
coming together and getting things done.
  When we talk about what this means, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 
11,000 jobs nationwide--11,000 jobs nationwide. I say ``nationwide,'' 
Mr. Speaker. Only about 2,400 of those jobs are going to be local jobs 
there around the port. But we can't get wrapped up in what is good for 
me and what is good for my community to the exclusion of what is good 
for us. We are all in this together.
  Is Savannah going to have a disproportionate benefit for the 
investment in this port? Of course it is. They are also going to be 
disproportionately burdened. Their streets are going to be more 
crowded, and their housing prices are going be to affected. Everything 
is affected. But this is not a local concern. This is a national 
concern.
  Mr. Speaker, the world is changing. The world is a dynamic place. 
Again, it doesn't take much to see that what was the amazing 
engineering marvel that was the Panama Canal has been set aside now as 
being too old, too antiquated, and too small to handle modern needs. We 
are now talking about this Panamax canal that is going to bring ships 
the size of which you and I have never seen, Mr. Speaker, to American 
ports in record time, saving fuel, making a difference to the energy 
economy, and making a difference to price for American consumers.
  I am a conservative Republican from the Deep South, Mr. Speaker. I 
have a vision of what this country ought to look like, and it is a 
vision of a country where every man or woman can follow his or her own 
hopes and dreams, wherever those hopes and dreams may take them. It is 
a vision where the government doesn't put its foot on the throat of 
those young Americans who want to pursue those dreams.
  But it doesn't mean that there is no role for government at all. When 
it comes to big infrastructure projects, the interstate highway system, 
for example, that transportation bill that just passed this House 2 
short weeks ago, when it comes to our ports, when it comes to those big 
issues of infrastructure that matter to us all that aren't just about 
jobs in our local area but about jobs across this country, we have to 
come together to make a difference in those ways.
  For those of us in Georgia, for those of us in the Southeast, this 
brought Democrats and Republicans together, Mr. Speaker. This brought 
State legislators together with the executive branch. This brought 
folks together from Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and more. We can 
do those big things that matter. They are not easy. Sometimes they take 
a year or 2 or 3. But in my 3 years of service in this institution, Mr. 
Speaker, I have never

[[Page 13197]]

seen anything get done that was worth doing that didn't involve someone 
working awfully hard to make it happen. And more times than not, it 
wasn't one person working awfully hard, it was two of us or three of us 
or ten of us or 100 of us who got together to make these things happen.
  I am grateful to my colleagues for working with me to make sure the 
Port of Savannah is a success--again, not just a success for the city 
of Savannah, not just a success for the State of Georgia, but a success 
for the United States of America. It is an example of the kinds of 
partnerships that we can create and the kinds of differences we can 
make in the pocketbooks of families back home.
  There are going to be families who receive paychecks that would not 
have received those paychecks otherwise because of our cooperation and 
success. There are going to be consumers who are saving money at the 
cash register each and every day because we were able to come together 
and build this much-needed infrastructure project.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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