By AP/KWMU
Washington, DC – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed a long-delayed bill that would authorize massive new locks on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers. The move sends the bill to a conference committee, which is as close as it has ever come to final passage in Congress.
Farmers and barge operators have pushed the measure for years as a way to help speed grain shipments to ports. But the bill has been repeatedly held up over its massive cost and concerns about past fraud and abuse in the Army Corps of Engineers.
The $14 billion Water Resources Development Act, approved 91-4, contains more than 600 projects spread among nearly every state to improve flood protection, modernize waterways and restore the Louisiana coastline devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
"This bill is long overdue and much needed," said Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo), who has been a driving force behind the measure for years. "We cannot afford to delay a bill that provides for our nation's critical navigation, flood protection and environmental restoration projects."
The bill contains $1.95 billion to double the size of seven existing locks so barge tows can pass through without being broken up, a process that means costly delays. An additional $1.6 billion would go toward ecosystem improvement along the rivers.
The measure now heads to conference after the House passed a similar bill last month.
While the legislation passed both chambers of Congress last year, lawmakers ran out of time to reach an agreement in conference before the end of the session. But supporters are more optimistic this year that the bill will finally become law.
"This is a great victory that's long overdue," said Paul Rhode, a vice president at Waterways Council Inc., an advocacy group of shipping interests, farmer groups, organized labor and economic development organizations.
David Conrad, a senior water resources specialist at the National Wildlife Foundation, called the plan for new locks a classic example of pork barrel-driven politics, noting that barge traffic on the Mississippi has declined for years.
"The project was not justified several years ago when the corps plan started forming," Conrad said. "If anything, the need for expanded locks is shrinking by the day. With the explosion of new ethanol plants, we know that grain exports will be dropping and certainly not growing, which the Corps assumed for this project."
Stephen Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, calls the locks project a "well documented boondoggle" that will not justify the huge investment.
But supporters like Bond argue the increased efficiency of new locks will encourage more barge traffic as a cheaper alternative to using trucks and trains. Bond also touts the bill as a "critical jobs initiative" that will create 48 million man-hours of construction work on the locks alone.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) also voted for the measure, calling the locks project a good example of wise investment of federal dollars.
"The Missouri projects I supported are authorized projects that are public and transparent, and for the benefit of the entire state," she said. "That's a far cry from the secret back room earmark process I'm trying to stop."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) voted for the measure, but Illinois' other Senator, Barack Obama, did not vote.