Political Quotes

“The reason I'm here tonight is to talk about the efforts that are being used to divert Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund monies to purposes other than what Congress intended, and that is dredging and maintenance of our harbors. I'm talking about fairness, and I'm talking about commerce. We've all known for years that we have a problem when funds are collected for an intended purpose, that sometimes they don't get used that way. So we have money in, but money does not come out for its intended use. There are a number of reasons for this happening. But until we get more funds for their intended purpose, Mr. Duffy and I oppose expanding the authorities for the use of this funding. {time} 2030 This is a matter of fairness. The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund has carried a surplus since 1997. At the end of fiscal year 2012, the trust fund had an estimated $7 billion surplus that was not spent on harbor maintenance. Yet our harbors are under-maintained. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that full channel dimensions at the Nation's busiest 59 ports are available less than 35 percent of the time. That's unacceptable. Just from an economic standpoint, it should be unacceptable to us. Ships, especially those in my district and throughout the Great Lakes, are light-loading. When that happens, American productivity is lost. Light-loading--we can't even load the ship to their capacity because we haven't maintained our harbors. We haven't dredged our harbors.…”