Political Quotes

“I speak in support of the Great Lakes Short Sea Shipping Act of 2007. This legislation will exempt from the harbor maintenance tax certain commercial cargo loaded or unloaded at U.S. ports in the Great Lakes Saint Lawrence System. In recent years, transportation planners have been struggling to identify ways to move people and goods more efficiently. Congested highways, particularly at the Detroit, Michigan/Windsor, Ontario border crossing, the busiest border crossing in North America, acts as a huge constraint to economic growth. The purpose of the Harbor Maintenance Tax, HMT, is to generate revenue from port users for port maintenance conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps maintains Federal shipping channels by conducting periodic dredging, which is necessary to remove sand and silt that occur naturally in shipping channels. The bill would provide a narrow exemption to the HMT for the movement of nonbulk only commercial cargo by water in the Great Lakes region, which includes the movement of freight and people between the U.S.…”