Friday, July 28, 2006

HANNIBAL, MO – U.S. Senators Kit Bond and Jim Talent today joined agriculture and labor groups in Hannibal to hail Senate passage of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) and to urge final approval of the critical bill.

“Without a competitive transportation system, the promise of expanded trade for our farmers and commercial growth is empty, job opportunities are lost, and we will be unprepared for the global challenges of this new century,” said Bond, Chairman of the Senate Transportation Infrastructure subcommittee and a key author of the bill. “I will continue to fight for the long overdue final passage of this bill and urge my colleagues to choose to invest in both our economy and environment for future generations.”

“The modernization of our water infrastructure is critical to our economy,” said Sen. Talent, a member of the Senate Waterways Caucus. “This legislation means jobs for Americans and it allows us to maintain our ability to efficiently move products and commodities on the Mississippi River while protecting the environment. I’m pleased the Senate passed this legislation and I hope the differences with the house bill can be resolved quickly so we can send a bill to the President’s desk.”

WRDA, which authorizes the nation’s flood control, ecosystem restoration, and navigation projects, passed the full Senate last week after years of delay. The legislation must now be reconciled with the House of Representatives before being signed into law.

The Senators stressed that with congestion on the nation’s roads and rails -- which is expected to double in the next quarter-century -- and high energy costs, increasing our capacity for water transportation is essential. Unfortunately, the current water transportation system is nearly 70 years old. Despite the age of the system, traffic on the Upper Mississippi River over the past 35 years has grown from 27 million tons to 84 million tons, which is system capacity.

The Senate-passed bill will provide the investments in water transportation infrastructure to meet future needs, said Bond and Talent. WRDA authorizes $900 million in federal funds for seven new locks, including Lock 21 in Hannibal. Also, the bill will allow for the expansion of capacity on Locks 20-25 on the Mississippi River and Peoria and LaGrange on the Illinois. New 1,200 foot locks on the Mississippi River will provide equal capacity in the bottleneck region downstream the 1,200 foot lock 19 at Keokuk and upstream locks 26 and 27 near St. Louis.

This modernization will give our farmers and producers a critical edge in the international marketplace, said Bond and Talent. The 1,000 miles of Missouri and Mississippi River shoreline and inland ports serve as the Midwest’s arteries to world markets. These improvements will help farmers and shippers more efficiently bring their products to market, the Senators said.

Bond and Talent also emphasized that in addition to replacing the aging infrastructure WRDA is a critical environmental initiative, providing $1.6 billion for ecosystem restoration, and a jobs initiative, creating 48 million man-hours of construction work.

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