Bud Shuster: “I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I…”

“I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of H.R. 8, the Water Resources Development Act of 2018. This is the product of many months of hard work by members of the committee and staff, and I particularly want to congratulate the chairman. This will be his last WRDA bill, but until his leadership, water resources bills had languished for, I believe, a decade. So this has been a tremendous achievement. This is a good bill. However, it could be better. In the last Congress, I offered an amendment in committee to take the harbor maintenance trust fund off budget, allow the Corps to spend the proceeds in the trust fund every year, and draw down the surplus that deals with a backlog on all of our ports. Ports affect the entire Nation, any time you have an import or an export, which covers virtually all of the States of the union. These red dots are harbors that are critical to our infrastructure. On a daily basis, our major ports are at about 35 percent of their authorized depth. 35 percent. Why is that? Well, because we don't have the money to fix them. And the jetties are falling apart. We don't have the money to fix them. Well, actually, we do have the money to fix them, but some very shortsighted people around here want to play games.…”