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The Water Resources Coalition was established in 2007 to promote the development, implementation and funding of a comprehensive national water resources policy. With member organizations representing state and local governments, conservation, engineering and construction, ports, waterways and transportation services, the Coalition works to ensure that a comprehensive, national water resources policy is developed, implemented and funded to provide a sustainable, productive economy; a healthy aquatic ecology; and public health and safety. For more information, visit the Water Resources Coalition Web site. |
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Administration Proposes Fees for Inland Waterways
The Obama Administration has released a proposal that would include new fees for shippers and others that use inland waterways. The fees would be part of an effort to raise a billion dollars over the next decade for lock, dam, and channel construction and maintenance projects. The American Society of Civil Engineers assessed in the 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure that the total investment needs to bring the nation's inland waterways infrastructure into a state of good repair over 5 years is $50 billion from all levels of government. Additionally, the report assigned the nation's inland waterway's system a grade of "D-" in that same report. The Inland Waterway Trust Fund, which historically pays for these projects, needs to be better subsidized in order to keep up with the ever growing investment needs for the industry. The current 20 cents per gallon fuel tax, which has not been increased since it was established in 1978, is no longer producing enough revenue to meet the needs, therefore other funding mechanisms are being assessed. The administration has proposed one fee that would apply to all waterways operators and a second fee that would apply to each use of a lock. Meaning the first tier of Obama's proposed fee would be levied on all commercial users of inland waterways and the second tier would be paid only by vessels using locks. This proposal differs from the Inland Waterway User Board plan, which has endorsed a six to nine cents diesel fuel tax increase to pay for investment needs. The administration's proposal would be instead of an increase, not in addition. For the full proposal please click here. |
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Senate Appropriators Make Major Cuts in FY 2012 Spending
The Senate Appropriations Committee met to divide the overall allocation of $1.043 trillion in discretionary spending for Fiscal Year 2012 among its subcommittees. The total is based on the spending cap for FY 2012 established by the Budget Control Act passed in August.
Less than $400 billion in new budget authority will be available for all domestic programs in FY 2012. "Our subcommittee [chairs] have received their respective recommended allocations and are in the process of preparing bills in compliance with these levels," said Sen. Daniel Inouye, chair of the full committee. "Each subcommittee has been cut dramatically below the amount sought by the administration. These cuts are real and are difficult to implement, but that is the will of the Congress and the charter of this committee."
The allocation is $6.8 billion below the level approved for FY 2011 and $79.2 billion below the president's FY 2012 request, Inouye said.
The Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, which funds the Environmental Protection Agency, will receive $29.2 billion, $2 billion less than the president's request. The Transportation subcommittee received $55.2 billion, $677 million less than the administration request for all federal transportation programs.
The Energy and Water Development subcommittee, which funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies, received $31.6 billion, almost $5 billion below the president's request. The subcommittee legislation would provide $4.864 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers. This is $291 million above the president's budget request and $101 million more than the House legislation.
Individual agency funding totals will be determined once the subcommittees begin writing legislation within their budget caps.
Under the Budget Control Act, the discretionary spending cap for FY 2012 is $1.043 trillion, which is about $24 billion more than the amount set by the House-adopted budget resolution for FY 2012. Of the FY 2012 cap total, $359 billion is for "non-security" spending and $684 billion for security programs. The cap for FY 2013 will be $1.047 trillion, with $361 billion for domestic "non-security" spending.
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ASCE Urges Congress to Refinance Inland Waterways System
Congress should enact an increase in the federal diesel fuel tax used to support the construction of locks and dams on the inland waterways system, ASCE, a WRC co-chair, told a House subcommittee this week. The revenue from the diesel tax should be placed behind a budgetary firewall to reserve all income for waterways and should be indexed to inflation to preserve the purchasing power of the Inland Waterways Trust Fund (IWTF), ASCE added.
"Forty-seven percent of all locks maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were classified as functionally obsolete in 2006," ASCE said in a statement to the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. "Assuming that no new locks are built within the next 20 years, by 2020, another 93 existing locks will be obsolete-rendering more than 8 out of every 10 locks now in service outdated. Most locks now are anywhere from 50 to 70 years old. The current system of inland waterways lacks resilience. Waterway usage is increasing, but facilities are aging and many are well past their design life of 50 years. Recovery from any event of significance would be negatively impacted by the age and deteriorating condition of the system, posing a direct threat to the American economy."
The current diesel tax of 20 cents has not been increased since it was established in 1978. The balance in the IWTF has been declining due to cost overruns and project delays, said a group of waterways users in testimony to the subcommittee. The users have proposed to require that one hundred percent of all waterways projects be funded by taxpayers at large rather than the waterways users. The users also proposed a diesel fuel tax increase of between 26 cents and 29 cents a gallon to increase total waterways' investments to more than $7 billion annually.
Testifying for the administration, Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said the White House favors a usage fee for boats and barges using the locks. She said the administration will submit legislation seeking this new revenue source this year.
ASCE gave the nation's inland waterways system a grade of D-minus in its 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure.
Complete testimony from the hearing is here: http://transportation.house.gov/hearings/hearingdetail.aspx?NewsID=1392
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FEMA Continues Drawing New Flood-Risk Maps
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is continuing to publish new maps that identify the risk of flooding in a 100-year floodplain. The program, called "Risk MAP," http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/fhm/rm_main.shtm is charting flooding threats to property next to approximately 900,000 miles of U.S. rivers, oceans, bays and other shorelines. An estimated 31 million Americans live in these special flood hazard areas (SFHAs). There are an estimated 10 million residential structures in all of the nation's floodplains.
To date, about 55 percent of the land near the 900,000 miles of shorelines have had risk maps completed, and approximately 70 percent of the people living in floodplains where maps have been completed have been warned on the potential danger of flooding.
Risk MAP, begun in 2009, may take until 2020 to complete under current budgets, FEMA officials estimate. The total cost of the program will be about $1.5 billion through FY 2020 at current spending levels.
"Risk MAP significantly improves the integrated flood risk management approach by weaving county-level flood hazard data into watershed-based risk assessments," according to a recent FEMA report to Congress. "These risk assessments serve as the basis for local Hazard Mitigation Plans and targeted risk communication activities. Risk assessments systematically analyze the people and property in a community or watershed potentially impacted by flood hazards to quantify physical and economic losses."
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University Reviewing National Dam Safety Program
The University of Maryland Water Resources Collaborative has been awarded a grant by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to conduct a review and evaluation of the National Dam Safety Program' s cost, effectiveness and potential for improvement and its relationship to related supporting and supported programs such as the National Inventory of Dams and State dam safety programs. The review will be conducted between August 1 and October 25, 2011. Individuals interested in providing comments on the NDSP should send these comments to Dr. Gerry Galloway, PE, at the University of Maryland (gegallo@umd.edu) as soon as possible. The review team will be also be meeting with representatives of associations, non-governmental organizations and federal and state agencies. Any questions concerning the review can be sent to Dr. Galloway. |
Sincerely,
Brian Pallasch and Marco Giamberardino
Co-Chairs
Water Resources Coalition
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