(Washington, DC) On Tuesday, June 10th, 2014, Congresswoman Corrine Brown attended the White House signing ceremony where President Obama signed The Water Resources Development Act into law. Following the ceremony, Congresswoman Brown made the following statement:
“The Water Resources Development Act Conference report is a perfect example of how government is supposed to work. I want to thank Senators Boxer and Vitter and Congressmen Shuster, Gibbs, Rahall and Bishop for their commitment to producing a comprehensive and bi-partisan bill supported by all stakeholders. I also want to thank President Obama for his leadership in improving and expediting the process for completing projects at the Corps of Engineers and encouraging Congress to complete the WRDA Conference. I hope this bi-partisanship continues as we reauthorize Surface Transportation Programs.
This legislation includes a lot of positive provisions that are going to help improve, expand, and accelerate Corps of Engineers projects. These projects, in turn, will improve the safety of the American public, generate billions of dollars in economic activity, create hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs, and benefit the nation’s economy as a whole.
We certainly had an outstanding team effort in Florida, where we have a group of transportation stakeholders who, along with Jacksonville Mayor, Alvin Brown, Chamber President Daniel Davis, Port Director Brian Taylor, Congressman Ander Crenshaw and other local leaders, worked as a team to make sure Florida wasn’t left behind.
The improved policy and programs in The Water Resources and Development Act is great news for the nation and my home state of Florida. Along with the Authorization for both Mile Point and JAXPORT channel dredging that I championed, WRDA includes authorizing language for numerous critical water infrastructure projects throughout Florida, and allows for federal assumption of Operations and Maintenance for projects paid for by non-federal sponsors, a provision that will allow ports to utilize more of the Harbour Maintenance Tax, and allows local sponsors to fund and seek future reimbursement for any project that receives its Chief’s Report. And all of this language is essential because there are still several critical projects that will be ready to go long before we do another reauthorization.
Today’s signing of WRDA into law is a great step forward for our nation’s water infrastructure and for our economic development as a whole. I am so glad to have been at the White House to partake in today’s ceremony and look forward to working towards obtaining the necessary federal funds to carry out these critical projects.”