The Waterways Journal
11 February 2008
President Bush's proposed 2009 budget ignores locks and dams, despite landslide passage of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 by both houses of Congress. It is a scenario that has been played and replayed for years in Washington, and it is nauseating. It is little solace that one Associated Press writer said the budget had gas much chance of approval as he [the president] does of serving a third term.h
A waterway system that serves the entire nation is not pork. The proposed budget also proposes a huge decrease for the Department of Homeland Security's Port Security Grant program, while requesting $588.3 billion for defense spending. Perhaps President Bush never read about how, during World War II, Navy ships were built in the heartland and driven south to tidewater by the Cat Fish Navy. Has he never read about how strategic cargoes were moved over waterways to the Great Lakes and to the East Coast to make them less vulnerable to attack at a time when enemy submarines were operating in great numbers off our East Coast? Has he never learned that some of the men who are fighting in Iraq and elsewhere were trained, in many cases, on equipment that was moved to the training region via barge to reduce costs and improve timing? Has he not learned well, perhaps not!
The president recently asked Congress to present an economic stimulus package to his liking. The House did. The Senate then followed up with a barrage of unrelated legislative measures many choose to call gpork.h The measure ballooned in cost by nearly $30 billion, and to this day, the issue is the center of a Washington struggle between Congress and the president. The problem with this scenario is that the fight over the stimulus package is pretty much Congress doing what Congress always does. But the issue of the locks and dams and WRDA is not. Congress had not passed such a bill since 2000. Passage by such a large margin on this last go-around could be judged as standard only if it were to be compared to the years previous to the last successfully passed WRDA. Bush's treatment of waterways can be considered a real slap in the face to Congress.
What happened with WRDA 2008 was that members of Congress recognized the damaged state of our water transportation infrastructure, which also serves numerous other needs of present-day society. They were convinced that something finally had to be done, and passed the bill overwhelmingly.
Unfortunately, President Bush has never exhibited an inclination to favor waterways and water transportation. His administration, as many foolhardy administrations before, always spoke against spending money on waterways whether money was scarce or not. The Office of Management and Budget has not had a kind word to say about water transportation and necessary infrastructure for decades.
Congressional members on both sides of the political fence are complaining. A whole string of delegates expressed their concerns to the AP. Still, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) signaled ga major clash with the administration over funding for everything from the war in Iraq to home heating assistance for low-income people.h
Sen. Christopher gKith Bond (R-Mo.) hit the nail right on the head when he said that Bush provided gnot one dollarh to update the gDepression-erah locks and dams on the Mississippi River and elsewhere. Bond issued a statement saying he was disappointed in the President's action.
There were lots of items axed\perhaps some truly pork. Nevertheless, our waterway system has suffered too long under poor governmental stewardship. We are talking about an infrastructure that provides benefits for every state in the union to one degree or another and provides passage to and from our nation's heartland. World trade is influenced by the proper or improper upkeep of our waterways. Everything from barge transportation to recreational boating to hydroelectric facilities to municipal and industrial water supplies to irrigation to wildlife and the environment depend on the system's proper upkeep.
Ignoring the waterways reflects too accurately a policy in which government mandates responsibilities but ignores the financing required to help meet them. In recent days, we learned that the Food and Drug Administration is critically hamstrung by a lack of funding, and cannot carry out the inspections required of it. The U.S. Coast Guard, though it has been bailed out occasionally because it is now part of the Homeland Security Department, is still frightfully lacking in funds. We have seen continuing deterioration in the services to brown-water navigators for decades. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers got additional funding after Hurricane Katrina struck, but the agency is still critically short of money. Our U.S. Forest Service is so short of money that many areas cannot properly be maintained to prevent forest fires. The list goes on and on.
There is little solace in the knowledge that the proposed budget probably won't pass, because it only hints at the struggles ahead. No matter which political party wins the White House this year, there needs to be attention paid to the needs of the citizenry and all of our critical infrastructure. Good stewardship is lacking.