Harbor Maintenance Finance and Funding
John Frittelli
Specialist in Transportation Policy
September 12, 2013
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R43222
Harbor Maintenance Finance and Funding
Summary
The federal government has assumed principal responsibility for maintenance of the nation’s
harbors and shipping channels. Harbor maintenance activities are overseen by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (the Corps or USACE) and largely funded through the harbor maintenance
trust fund (HMTF), which receives revenue from taxes on waterborne cargo and on cruise ship
passengers. The future of the HMTF is a major issue in consideration of the Water Resources
Development Act (WRDA), which is now pending in Congress. Legislation passed in the Senate
(S. 601) and under consideration in the House (H.R. 3080), if enacted, would significantly
increase, but by differing amounts, annual spending from the HMTF. Each bill would make a
variety of other changes in the way federal harbor maintenance funds are allocated and spent, but
there are notable differences between the two bills.
The debate over harbor maintenance is occurring in the context of heightened interest in the cost-
effectiveness of industrial supply chains. In 2010, the U.S. Departments of Transportation and
Commerce launched the Competitive Supply Chain Initiative, which seeks to strategically
improve the nation’s marine transportation system and its connecting infrastructure. Most sea-
borne imports and exports move through a relatively small number of ports, but a significant
proportion of HMTF spending is used to cover the cost of dredging harbors that have relatively
little or no cargo. One reason for this is that the Corps still maintains navigation channels and
harbors authorized a century or more ago, when maritime commerce was carried by smaller
vessels utilizing a larger number of harbors and coastal channels protected from the open ocean.
One key issue for Congress is the extent to which the HMTF, which is funded mainly by a tax on
cargo, should give priority to improvements that do not benefit commercial shipping.
Other key policy questions for Congress include the following:
• Should the HMTF continue to finance dredging only of channels, which benefits
mainly ports with shallow natural harbors, or should the scope of allowable
activities be increased to benefit ports with deeper harbors, including some of the
nation’s largest cargo ports?
• Should there be a relationship between the amount of revenue collected from a
port through harbor maintenance taxes and federal spending on that harbor?
• Does the harbor maintenance tax, as presently levied, pose an obstacle to
domestic shipping, and particularly to transshipment of international freight
aboard coastal vessels?
• Should the government be required to spend annual harbor maintenance tax
collections when received rather than accumulating them in a trust fund, which
would result in more spending for harbor maintenance but also increase the
federal budget deficit?
• Is the Corps compiling the necessary information to further improve the
efficiency of the nation’s maritime supply chain and to ensure the efficient
allocation of available resources?
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Harbor Maintenance Finance and Funding
Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Putting the HMTF to Use................................................................................................................. 2
Allocation of HMTF Spending .................................................................................................. 5
Opportunity Cost ....................................................................................................................... 7
Cost-Sharing and Expanded Uses of Funds .............................................................................. 9
Public Safety Harbors .................................................................................................................... 10
Debate over Harbors with Little Commercial Cargo ..................................................................... 11
Funding Recreational Harbors ................................................................................................. 12
Missing Information ...................................................................................................................... 13
The Impact of the HMT on Shipping Costs ................................................................................... 14
Harbors in a Competitive U.S. Supply Chain ................................................................................ 16
Tables
Table 1. Corps Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Activities and Funding for Coastal
Navigation .................................................................................................................................... 3
Table 2. O&M Costs at Selected Harbors, 2011 .............................................................................. 8
Table 3. HMT Collections and Expenditures at Selected Harbors ................................................. 10
Table 4. HMT Average Payment for Containerized Cargo ............................................................ 15
Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 17
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Harbor Maintenance Finance and Funding
Introduction
More U.S. merchandise trade (measured in tons) is carried by oceangoing vessel than by
airplanes, trucks, freight trains, and pipelines combined. About half of U.S. merchandise trade by
value and nearly 80% by volume enters or leaves the United States through a seaport.1 Harbor
maintenance thus has a critical role in facilitating U.S. foreign trade. It is also important in
minimizing the cost of trade between the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, and U.S.
island territories. A limited amount of coastal shipping (e.g., Houston to Tampa) also relies on
waterways and harbor channels maintained by the U.S. government.
Congress has chosen to make the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps or USACE)
responsible for maintaining federal navigation channels. The Water Resources Development Act
(WRDA) is the principal legislative vehicle for altering the Corps’ Civil Works Program; its
consideration offers Congress an opportunity to revisit harbor maintenance policy.2 In 1986, when
Congress established current harbor maintenance policy, merchandise trade accounted for 14% of
GDP. It now accounts for 25%, so decisions on harbor maintenance may have greater impact on
the U.S. economy than was the case in 1986.3
Under existing law, the cost of harbor maintenance is supported by a harbor maintenance tax
(HMT) on imported and domestic waterborne cargo and cruise passengers. The tax rate is 0.125%
of the value of cargo shipped or cruise tickets sold, representing $1.25 per $1,000 of cargo or
cruise ticket value. The tax is generally assessed at coastal and Great Lakes ports.4 Almost all of
the collected revenue is generated by imported waterborne cargo.5 Revenue from the tax flows
into the harbor maintenance trust fund (HMTF), which is used to cover the Corps’ cost of
dredging channels, maintaining jetties and breakwaters, and operating locks along the coasts and
in the Great Lakes.
Unlike some other federal trust funds, such as the highway trust fund, the HMTF may be drawn
on only with an appropriation by Congress. Under congressional budget rules, HMT revenue is
scored as federal receipts, and expenditures from the HMTF are scored as current-year
expenditures; thus, a surplus of HMT receipts over expenditures reduces the federal budget
deficit. In recent years, a little more than half of the HMT collected annually has been spent on
harbor maintenance. Unexpended HMT collections remain in the trust fund, and the fund balance
is credited with interest from the Treasury. The balance in the trust fund was $8.5 billion as of
July 2013.6 In FY2014, the Corps expects the HMTF to receive $1.8 billion from the harbor
1 David Long, International Trade Administration, “Our Marine Transportation System: The Competitiveness Context,”
Coast Guard Proceedings, summer 2011, pp. 36-39.
2 For further information on WRDA, see CRS Report R41243, Army Corps of Engineers: Water Resources
Authorizations, Appropriations, and Activities, by Nicole T. Carter and Charles V. Stern.
3 http://www.data.worldbank.org.
4 There are some exceptions, including an exception for domestic cargo at ports in non-contiguous states. See 19 C.F.R.
24.24 for details on tax assessment. In this report, “coastal” includes Great Lakes harbors.
5 In FY2012, imported cargo generated 92% of revenue, domestic cargo 7%, and cruise passengers less than 1%. See
http://www.savingsbonds.gov/govt/reports/tfmp/hmaint/hmaint.htm. The HMT as applied to exports was declared
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. United States Shoe Corp., 523 U.S. 360 (1998).
President Clinton proposed a replacement fee designed to meet the Supreme Court’s definition of a user fee, H.R. 1947,
106th Congress. It was not adopted by Congress.
6 See http://www.savingsbonds.gov/govt/reports/tfmp/hmaint/hmaint.htm.
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maintenance tax and $247 million of interest, for total income of $2.05 billion. The
Administration’s budget requests $923 million for harbor maintenance.7
Bills in the 113th Congress, S. 601 (approved by the Senate in May 2013), S. 218, and H.R. 335, if
enacted, would nearly double annual spending on harbor maintenance and related activities,
requiring that HMT revenues be spent for harbor maintenance rather than accumulating in the
trust fund account. H.R. 3080, introduced by the leadership of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee and Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, would
increase HMTF expenditures every year, so that by FY2020 and thereafter, 80% of the HMT
collected the prior fiscal year would be spent on harbor maintenance. Increasing spending from
the HMTF has the potential to reduce funding for other Corps activities, such as harbor
construction or flood control, or other activities funded under the Energy and Water Development
Appropriations acts.8 Congress could compensate for increased funding from the HMTF by
allocating more funds to the energy and water development appropriation, but this would require
less funding for activities outside this appropriation to stay within total federal budget caps.
Putting the HMTF to Use
When Congress established the HMTF in the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 (WRDA
1986; P.L. 99-662), it specified that the funds were to be used to pay for “the eligible operations
and maintenance costs assigned to commercial navigation of all harbors and inland harbors within
the United States.”9 Congress defined “harbors,” in part, as “capable of being utilized in the
transportation of commercial cargo in domestic and foreign waterborne commerce by commercial
vessels,” and defined “inland harbors,” in part, as “used principally for the accommodation of
commercial vessels and the receipt and shipment of waterborne cargoes on inland waters.”10 A
key distinction in these definitions is that “inland harbors” must be currently handling cargo,
while coastal or Great Lakes harbors need only be “capable” of handling cargo. In both
definitions, “commercial cargo” includes passengers transported for compensation but excludes
fresh-caught fish. Ferries are excluded from the definition of “commercial vessel.”11 These
definitions have not been substantively changed since 1986.12
The Corps did not conduct a rulemaking to implement the harbor maintenance provisions in
WRDA 1986, so there is no Federal Register record of its interpretation of the act. According to
its annual reports to Congress on the status of the HMTF (the most recent of which covers
FY2006), the Corps interprets the term “commercial navigation” to mean any project authorized
by Congress with commercial navigation as an authorized purpose.13 According to the Corps,
most harbor projects are authorized as “single-purpose” commercial navigation projects, and
7 United States Budget for FY2014, Appendix, Corps of Engineers—Civil Works, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
budget/Overview.
8 For activities funded under this appropriations bill, see CRS reports at http://www.crs.gov/pages/subissue.aspx?cliid=
2343&parentid=73&preview=False.
9 P.L. 99-662, §210; 100 Stat. 4106; codified at 33 U.S.C. 2238.
10 P.L. 99-662, §214; 100 Stat. 4108-4109.
11 P.L. 99-662, §1402; 100 Stat. 4266-4267.
12 They are codified in current law at 33 U.S.C. 2241 and 26 U.S.C. 4462.
13 See USACE, Annual Reports to Congress on the Status of the HMTF. Reports available online cover FY1993 to
FY2006; http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/Library/IWRLibrary.aspx.
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therefore all operations and maintenance (O&M) costs at those harbors are payable from the
HMTF. If a project is authorized as a “multi-purpose” project, aiding commercial navigation
along with purposes such as recreation or flood control, only expenditures on behalf of
commercial navigation and joint-use costs allocated to commercial navigation are eligible for
recovery from the HMTF.14
Based on information Corps personnel recently presented to the ports industry, the 59 ports the
Corps defines as “high use”—those handling more than 10 million tons of freight per year—
accounted for 90% of maritime commerce (by tonnage). These ports received approximately two-
thirds of HMTF spending in FY2013. Almost all the high-use ports had operations and
maintenance (O&M) activities scheduled (see Table 1). “Moderate use” ports, those handling
between 1 million and 10 million tons of cargo, accounted for 9% of maritime commerce but
received 19% of HMTF spending in FY2013, and about half had O&M projects planned. Some
7% of “low use” ports had federally funded O&M projects planned; the low-use ports collectively
handled 1% of all maritime commerce, but received 5% of HMTF spending. A roughly similar
pattern prevailed in FY2012, according to the Corps.
Table 1. Corps Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Activities and Funding for
Coastal Navigation
Share of
FY13 O&M
FY13 O&M
FY12 O&M
FY12 O&M
Category of
Number of
Commerce
Projects
Funds
Projects
Funds
Port
Ports
(by tons)
(number)
($ millions)
(number)
($ millions)
High Use
59
90%
56
66%
54
62%
(483)
(499)
Moderate Use
100
9%
52
19%
61
25%
(139)
(201)
Low Use
908
1%
63
5%
41
6%
(37)
(48)
Other
10%
7%
(73)
(56)
Total
1067
100%
171
100%
156
100%
(732)
(805)
Source: USACE presentation to the American Association of Port Authorities, March 18, 2013, modified by
CRS. The USACE presentation did not include dol ar amounts. CRS added this information using Corps budget
documentation.
Note: “Other” includes navigation research and development, project condition surveys, and other items.
This table encapsulates an important part of the HMTF debate, also reflected in differences
between S. 601 and H.R. 3080, over how HMTF funds should be allocated. Seen from one point
of view, the vast majority of harbors—those classified as “low use” or “moderate use”—receive
little or no federal funding, perhaps limiting their ability to receive cargo, fishing, and
recreational vessels, and thereby damaging local economies. Seen from another point of view,
harbors used by big commercial vessels, which generate almost all HMT revenue, receive a
smaller share of HMTF spending than their economic importance justifies, while a
14 Ibid.
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disproportionate share of funding goes to harbors that receive little or no commercial traffic.15
H.R. 3080 specifically directs the Corps not to allocate harbor maintenance funds solely
according to tonnage, while S. 601 appears to favor funding of large, commercial cargo ports.
Corps data provided to CRS identify a total of 1,228 waterways or segments of waterways on
which operations and maintenance are eligible to be reimbursed by HMTF funds.16 Of these, 752
waterways or segments (61% of the total) carried no cargo from FY2005 to FY2009, and 100
handled less than one truckload of cargo per day (8,030 tons per year).17 An additional 50
waterways eligible for HMTF spending handled less than the equivalent of one Panamax18
shipload per year (52,000 tons or about 2,400 truckloads). Thus, almost 75% of the eligible
waterways handled little or no cargo.
While the Administration’s budget requests for the Corps in recent years have directed the
majority of HMTF spending to high-use harbors, “high use” is defined by the volume of cargo, as
measured in tons, rather than the value of cargo that is the basis of the tax. The volume-based
metric tends to favor ports that handle tankers carrying oil and chemical products and bulk ships
that carry grains, ores, and coal. Alternatively, if a value-based metric were to be used, budgeting
might direct a greater share of HMTF funds to ports that handle containerships, whose cargo is of
much greater value on a per-ton basis. This would tend to concentrate harbor maintenance
funding, as the five largest container ports—Los Angeles, Long Beach, New York/New Jersey,
Savannah, and Oakland—collectively handled about 56% of U.S. maritime container shipments
in 2012.19
Ports defined by the Corps as “high use” received only about half of the O&M funds requested by
their Corps district engineers in FY2011.20 (It is not known to what extent the district engineers’
requests represent a genuine “needs list” versus a “wish list.”) Moderate-use ports received about
30% of the funds their district engineer requested, and low-use harbors received 10%. The total
amount requested for low-use harbors, $766 million, nearly approached the amount requested for
the busiest harbors, $922 million.21 Once again, from one point of view, small harbors received
only one-tenth of the funds their local Corps official thought they needed, but from another point
of view the most economically significant ports received only half of the funds requested—a
shortfall all the more problematic because, according to the Corps, the 59 busiest commercial
15 A Panamax vessel—the largest ship currently able to pass through the Panama Canal—can carry about 52,000 tons
of cargo. Thus, a harbor could be classified as “moderate use” by the Corps if it were to handle the equivalent of one-
and-a-half Panamax ships per month, implying that there might be many days on which such a harbor has no
commercial vessel traffic. The two largest U.S. harbors, in tonnage terms, handle the equivalent of more than 300
Panamax ships per month.
16 E-mail communication from the Corps, June 2013.
17 For this purpose, a truckload is 22 tons (44,000 lbs.), which is about the maximum load a 5-axle truck (“18-wheeler”)
can carry given federal interstate highway weight limits.
18 Refers to the size of ship that can transit the Panama Canal locks.
19 Statistics on container traffic by port are from the American Association of Port Authorities, http://www.aapa-
ports.org/Industry/content.cfm?ItemNumber=900&navItemNumber=551.
20 Kenneth Ned Mitchell, A Review of Coastal Navigation Asset Management Efforts within the Coastal Inlets
Research Program (CIRP) Part 2: The Channel Portfolio Tool, USACE, April 2012, p. 2. The author notes that his
analysis used unofficial budget development data obtained from Corps headquarters.
21 Ibid.
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shipping channels functioned at their authorized widths and depths only 30% of the time in 2008,
the most recent year for which data are available.22
Allocation of HMTF Spending
A 2012 National Academy of Sciences study stated the following about how the Corps allocates
funding:23 “Financial stresses placed on the Corps to provide safe and efficient operation of all
infrastructure leads to partial investments across many facilities, rather than larger investments in
more critical facilities.”24
When measured in terms of ship capacity, harbor traffic is more concentrated than when
measured in tonnage. Under this measure, 90% of ship traffic occurs at the top 35 ports, and the
top 10 ports account for 60% of commercial ship calls.25 If national economic benefit were to be
the principal criterion for HMTF spending, the Corps might be justified in further concentrating
its O&M funds on high-use harbors while reducing spending on low-use harbors. However, this
could preclude moderate-use ports from eventually developing into high-use ports, as they might
lack the channel depth to accommodate many commercial vessels, and could hinder the
functioning of some ports with significant fishing and recreational vessel traffic.
The Corps’ FY2013 “Federal Program Inventory” states that it maintains more than 900 coastal
channels and harbors.26 Many of these may require maintenance only once every several years.
Based on funding provided to HMTF-eligible projects from FY1999 to FY2008, the most recent
data available from the Corps, in any given year the Corps performed maintenance work on 400
to 500 harbors and channels. A 2012 Corps study states that the Corps is authorized to maintain
more than 1,400 coastal navigation projects but that it actively maintains only 360 of them.27 It is
not clear whether the Corps is definitively maintaining fewer projects than it did a few years ago,
and, if so, whether this is a matter of policy, funding levels, or maintenance needs.
A 2001 letter from two Members of Congress to the Corps questioning the need for continued
maintenance of several Corps projects, including harbor projects, prompted a Corps study
released in 2003. The study made a number of pertinent observations concerning harbor
maintenance funding:28
22 The authorized width and depth were measured at the center 50% of the channel. Full availability decreased from
38% in 2005 to 30% in 2008. USACE, Five-Year Development Plan, FY2011 to FY2015, pp. 23 and 25;
http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Budget.aspx.
23 National Academy of Sciences, Corps of Engineers Water Resources Infrastructure: Deterioration, Investment, Or
Divestment?, 2012, p. 6.
24 For further analysis of this issue, see CRS Report R41961, Army Corps Fiscal Challenges: Frequently Asked
Questions, by Nicole T. Carter and Charles V. Stern.
25 U.S. Maritime Administration, “Vessel Calls at U.S. Ports,” data for 2011.
26 USACE, FY2013 Federal Program Inventory, May 2013.
27 Kenneth Ned Mitchell, A Review of Coastal Navigation Asset Management Efforts within the Coastal Inlets
Research Program (CIRP) Part 2: The Channel Portfolio Tool, USACE, April 2012, p. 2.
28 Report on Revitalization of Corps of Engineers Projects, prepared by William C. Holliday for Institute for Water
Resources, USACE, April 2003, IWR Report 03-PS-1.
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• The Corps does not have a systematic or regular practice for reevaluating the
economic justification of continued federal investment in harbor projects.29
• Corps managers assume “that project authorizations equate to a mandate to
perpetually operate and maintain projects as authorized without regard to
changed circumstances. These views have contributed to passive stewardship of
vital resources.”30
• The Corps’ “present policies and management tools are insufficient for
identifying inefficient projects, curtailing maintenance and/or disposing of the
projects.”31
• “Policy guidance for harbors needs to establish explicit requirements and
procedures for confirming continuing economic viability of harbor projects, to
include economic reevaluation when selected indicators fail minimum threshold
value tests (or ‘triggers’).”32
The findings of the 2003 Corps study underscore that many harbor projects were initially
authorized many decades ago, in some cases before modern highways, railroads, pipelines, and
airports provided alternatives to waterways for the movement of passengers and freight. For
example, in the early 1900s “regular line boats” provided scheduled service at 50 Great Lakes
ports.33 A great proportion of cargo and passengers traveled in small vessels, and maritime
commerce was widely dispersed, utilizing many small harbors that today are bypassed by larger
cargo vessels. Many of these protected channels and small harbors are now used predominantly
by pleasure boats, but the Corps retains responsibility for maintaining them using funds derived
mainly from a cargo tax.
Over the years, Congress has allowed the Corps to divest a handful of inland waterways projects
no longer needed for carrying commercial cargo.34 The Corps has not been relieved of
responsibility for a harbor, but it has undertaken recent initiatives that tend to direct available
funds to harbor maintenance projects of greatest commercial importance. In 2008, the Corps
began development of a “Channel Portfolio Tool” that is intended to provide a more objective,
consistent, and justifiable basis for prioritizing its allocation of funds among harbors, using data
29 This is a long-standing criticism of the Corps. A 1944 study by the Board of Investigation and Research requested by
Congress (§305 of the Transportation Act of 1940) entitled Public Aids to Domestic Transportation (H. Doc. 159, 79th
Congress) concluded that there “is the need for more realistic and consistent traffic analyses of proposed projects and
for continuing economic appraisals of existing projects. Unless this is done ... there will probably continue to be wide
differences on many waterways between traffic estimates and results. It would be desirable, in this connection, to
require systematic reviews of every project at least once in ten years ...” (p. 72). Similarly, a 1951 study (Arthur Maass,
Muddy Waters: The Army Engineers and The Nation’s Rivers, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, p. 187) states, “The
Corps regularly collects commercial statistics on waterway traffic, but makes no use of these for the purpose of
reevaluating the economy of waterways. By failing to do this, the Corps avoids taking action that should lead both to
greater economic soundness and to continued planning in relation to shifting economic and physical conditions.”
30 2003 Corps study, p. 51.
31 2003 Corps study, p. 44.
32 2003 Corps study, p. 49.
33 USACE and U.S. Shipping Board, Transportation on the Great Lakes, 1926.
34 It appears that only one of the divested projects, the locks on the Lower Fox River Waterway in Wisconsin, may
have been or would be eligible for HMTF funding, while the remainder would have been funded from a separate trust
fund for inland river locks and dams.
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on commercial tonnage and value and on ship transits by draft for each harbor to assess dredging
needs.35
Recent Corps budget guidance also indicates that the Corps is using metrics or “triggers” to group
projects. Beginning with its FY2012 budget justification, the Corps has specified that it uses
“objective performance-based criteria to allocate O&M funds to Corps projects.”36 For
commercial navigation, the criteria include tonnage and cost per ton. Other criteria the Corps
uses, according to its budget development guidance, are support for commercial fishing and
public transportation (passenger ferries), public safety (harbors of refuge, subsistence harbors,
Coast Guard search and rescue, national security requirements), the current condition of the
infrastructure and its reliability, and legal requirements (court orders). Although this list appears
to address the concerns about the lack of criteria raised in the 2003 Corps study, the large number
of criteria leaves it unclear how many harbor navigation projects would be unable to qualify for
priority funding.
In a 2008 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that Congress
create an advisory committee, including payers of the HMT, to provide input to the Corps on
national harbor maintenance projects and priorities. No such committee has been created.37 A
2010 GAO report states that Congress is concerned that the Corps’ criteria to prioritize projects
are not transparent and may not be achieving the highest return on investment.38 The 2010 GAO
audit found that the overall emphasis of the Corps’ budget process was on the anticipated rather
than demonstrated performance of projects.39 But GAO clarified this finding, stating that the
O&M budget did reflect actual performance, after the Corps submitted comments to GAO
stating,40 “For completed projects in the Operation and Maintenance program, actual performance
over time is assessed against authorized project purposes and contributes to the determination of
budget priority. For example, in the navigation program, actual commercial use of projects
normally establishes the budget priority.”
Opportunity Cost
Opportunity cost is a significant metric for distributing O&M funds to harbors efficiently, but it is
not specifically mentioned in the Corps’ budget guidance. Opportunity cost, in this context,
concerns whether, with the finite resources available, providing maintenance to harbor “X”
results in a loss of potentially greater economic benefits from failing to fully maintain harbor “Y.”
A former Secretary of the Army asserted nearly half a century ago that “the Corps must
consistently be guided by the principle that what is desired is a definition of problems within a
35 For further information, http://chl.erdc.usace.army.mil/chl.aspx?p=s&a=Spotlight!9, and http://acwc.sdp.sirsi.net/
client/search/asset/1006662.
36 USACE, FY2012 Budget Justification, p. C-5; p. C-6 in FY2013 Budget Justification, p. CR-3 in FY2014 Budget
Justification.
37 GAO, Federal User Fees[:] Substantive Reviews Needed to Align Port-Related Fees with the Programs They
Support, GAO-08-321, February 2008.
38 GAO, Army Corps of Engineers[:] Budget Formulation Emphasizes Agencywide Priorities, but Transparency of
Budget Presentation Could be Improved, GAO-10-453, April 2010.
39 Ibid., p.13.
40 Ibid., p. 35.
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broad framework of national needs and optimum solutions to such problems, not merely
determinations that a given project is justified.”41
CRS calculations indicate that the costs of operations and maintenance activities funded from the
HMTF vary considerably among ports when measured on a per-ton or per-ship basis (see Table
2). In particular, the costs per ton and per vessel appear to be far higher at some smaller ports than
at major cargo ports. O&M at a particular harbor can vary considerably from year to year, so an
average over several years is a better indicator of O&M expense. However, the two datasets with
O&M expense and waterway usage apparently have not been jointly analyzed by the Corps, so
the data spanning several years are not readily available to Congress.
Table 2. O&M Costs at Selected Harbors, 2011
Foreign and
O&M Cost
FY2011 O&M
Domestic
O&M Cost
per Ship
Budget Request
Tonnage
per Ton
Call
($ millions)
(million tons)
($)
Ship Calls
($)
Harbor
(A)
(B)
(A)/(B)
(C)
(A)/(C)
Portland, ME
0.00
13.18
0.00
245
0
Seattle/Tacoma, WA
1.86
50.76
0.04
2,065
899
New York/New Jersey
17.15
139.17
0.12
4,661
3,679
Boston, MA
2.70
18.41
0.15
602
4,485
Savannah, GA
18.46
35.46
0.52
2,731
6,760
Gulfport, MS
3.88
2.15
1.80
237
16,380
Mobile, AL
23.56
55.55
0.42
1,065
22,122
Morehead City, NC
3.80
3.57
1.06
77
49,351
Grays Harbor, WA
10.55
1.65
6.39
9
1,172,222
Yaquina, OR
1.79
0
—
0
—
Saginaw River, MI
3.19
2.12
1.51
not available
not available
Buffalo, NY
1.17
0.94
1.24
not available
not available
Source: CRS calculations using data from the U.S. Maritime Administration (Ship Cal s) and USACE (Tons and
O&M Budget).
Notes: Ship Cal s are ships over 10,000 dwt (accounting for 98% of ship capacity calling at U.S. ports). The U.S.
Maritime Administration does not provide these data for Great Lakes ports.
41 Stanley R. Resor, Secretary of the Army, Letter of Transmittal of the Civil Works Study Board report, A Report to
the Secretary of the Army on the Civil Works Program of the Corps of Engineers, January 17, 1966, report dated
January 1965. Committee print submitted to the Committee on Public Works, U.S. Senate, 89th Congress, 2nd session.
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Cost-Sharing and Expanded Uses of Funds
The Corps maintains only federally designated channels. The HMTF is used to pay 100% of the
federal cost of maintaining harbors up to 45 feet in depth. For harbors greater than 45 feet, a non-
federal sponsor (for instance, a port authority) is responsible for paying 50% of the additional cost
of maintaining the harbor at that depth. S. 601 would change the non-federal cost share
requirement for O&M, so that local cost-sharing would be required only for maintenance of
channels with authorized depths of greater than 50 feet.42
New construction, such as deepening or widening a channel to a larger authorized dimension, is
not funded through the HMTF, but is paid for from general government revenues. The federal
share of the construction cost ranges from 40% for harbors greater than 45 feet in depth to 80%
for harbors less than 20 feet in depth. The general fund expenditures for construction at coastal
harbors, $175 million in FY2013, partially offset the HMT collections that are deposited into the
HMTF but are accumulated rather than expended.
Under current law, berths (where ships tie up at docks) and some private side channels are the
responsibility of port authorities or terminal owners, and may not be dredged or widened with
HMTF money. Some ports that already have very deep channels have objected that this deprives
them of the ability to draw on the HMTF, even though shippers using their ports pay the HMT. S.
601 would allow ports that generate significantly more HMT revenue than they receive, under
certain conditions, to use funds from the HMTF to dredge berths, remove contaminated
sediments, or possibly return HMT collections to the shippers who paid the tax at their port. If
this provision were to be adopted, the deepest ports, such as Los Angeles and Long Beach, the
nation’s leading ports for container traffic, would have increased ability to draw on the HMTF,
potentially reducing the amount of funds allocated to other ports. H.R. 3080 also expands use of
the HMTF for dredging of berths and contaminated sediments under certain conditions.
As Table 3 indicates, there is wide variation in the amount of HMT generated at harbors. In 2011,
New York harbor generated about $132 million, which was about 15% of total HMT collections
that year. The harbors of Los Angeles and Long Beach generated about a quarter of total HMT
collections.43 The top 15 harbors in terms of tax receipts collect more than 75% of total HMT
revenue.44 The disparity between individual ports’ share of HMT revenue and their O&M costs
may raise concerns about equity and efficiency.
42 For a listing of harbors and their current depths, see pp. 49-51 at http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/Portals/70/docs/
portswaterways/rpt/June_20_U.S._Port_and_Inland_Waterways_Preparing_for_Post_Panamax_Vessels.pdf.
43 The harbors of Los Angeles and Long Beach are geographically distinct, but figures on HMT collections provided to
CRS by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) do not distinguish between the two.
44 Most of these are also the top container ports.
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Table 3. HMT Collections and Expenditures at Selected Harbors
2011 Data
FY2011 O&M
HMT Collections
Budget Request
Harbor
($ millions)
($ millions)
Portland, ME
2.71
0.00
Boston, MA
12.29
2.70
New York/New Jersey
131.73
17.15
Morehead City, NC
0.77
3.80
Savannah, GA
43.84
18.46
Mobile, AL
8.72
23.56
Gulfport, MS
1.90
3.88
Yaquina, OR
0
1.79
Grays Harbor, WA
0.06
10.55
Seattle/Tacoma, WA
36.18
1.86
Saginaw River, MI
0.04
3.19
Buffalo, NY
0.20
1.17
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and USACE.
Public Safety Harbors
For public safety reasons, the Corps maintains harbors or channels that may have little or no
cargo activity. These include “harbors of refuge” for small craft, with consideration for distances
between harbors and prevailing sea state conditions. It appears that almost all of these harbors
were originally authorized by Congress between 1850 and 1950.45 The Corps makes the
distinction of “critical” harbors of refuge when allocating O&M funds.
Harbors that support Coast Guard search and rescue stations, “subsistence harbors” that provide
the principal means of supply to isolated communities,46 and channels used by passenger ferries
may also receive priority from the Corps even if they have little or no cargo. In the Corps budget
justifications for FY2011 through FY2014, the Corps identified 30 different harbors as being
subsistence harbors or critical harbors of refuge to justify O&M funding. (No harbor is likely to
be funded solely for one of these purposes, so a subsistence harbor might also be listed as a
harbor of refuge.)
In FY2012, FY2013, and FY2014 (reported but not yet enacted), the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees have provided an additional $30 million above the President’s
45 A search of the Statutes at Large under “harbor of refuge” and “refuge harbor” and their plural forms results in 64
hits for years 1850 to 1899, 73 hits for years 1900 to 1949, and 10 hits since 1950. The harbors authorized since 1980
are in the Great Lakes and Southeast Alaska.
46 A handful are in Alaska. In the lower 48, examples include Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay; the Channel
Islands off the coast of California; Block Island, RI; and Ocracoke Island, NC.
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request for the maintenance of “small, remote, or subsistence” harbors.47 The committees
explained in their FY2014 reports:48
[T]he administration’s criteria for navigation maintenance do not allow small, remote, or
subsistence harbors and waterways to properly compete for scarce navigation maintenance
funds. The Committee urges the Corps to revise the criteria used for determining which
navigation maintenance projects are funded in order to develop a reasonable and equitable
allocation under this account. The criteria should include the economic impact that these
projects provide to local and regional economies, in particular those with national defense or
public health and safety importance.
Debate over Harbors with Little Commercial Cargo
Federal maintenance of harbors predominantly, and, in some cases, solely used for recreational
purposes has been a contentious issue between prior Congresses and Administrations. President
Clinton proposed a two-year phase-out of federal funding for harbors that did not contribute to
the HMTF, identifying 501 such harbor projects totaling about $63 million in annual expenditures
(about 13% of HMTF annual expenditures at the time).49 The Clinton Administration proposed
that state and local governments take over responsibility for maintaining these harbors, refocusing
the Corps’ role on water projects of national significance, including the 236 harbor projects it
identified as contributing tax revenues to the HMTF.50 Earlier, President Reagan had proposed
terminating funding of harbors with federal maintenance costs exceeding $1 per ton of cargo.51
The Reagan Administration estimated that this threshold would save about $150 million in annual
federal harbor maintenance expenditures. The HMT was enacted as a user fee during the Reagan
Administration after Congress refused to approve the Administration’s original proposal to permit
local port authorities to assess their own fees on ships to cover the costs of harbor maintenance
and construction.52
Debate over maintaining harbors with little or no commercial cargo dates back to at least the
1950s. At that time, the Corps’ stated policy was not to maintain harbors not extensively used by
commercial navigation, regardless of recreational use or local benefits.53 In 1954, the House
Committee on Appropriations endorsed this policy:54
47 See S.Rept. 112-75, p. 53; S.Rept. 112-164, p. 51; H.Rept. 112-462, p. 61; H.Rept. 113-135, p. 65; S.Rept. 113-47, p.
59.
48 H.Rept. 113-135, p. 65; S.Rept. 113-47, p. 59.
49 Senate Hearings Before the Committee on Appropriations, Energy and Water Development Appropriations: Fiscal
Year 1996, 104th Congress, 1st Session, S. Hrg. 104-407, May 2, 1995; and Hearings Before A Subcommittee of the
Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, 104th Congress, 1st Session, Subcommittee on Energy and
Water Development, Energy and Water Development Appropriations for FY1996, February 21, 1995.
50 At this time, the HMT was still being collected from exported cargo.
51 Hearings Before A Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, 97th Congress, 2nd
Session, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Energy and Water Development Appropriations for
FY1983, February 17, 1982. Note that this was prior to enactment of the HMT and HMTF in 1986.
52 See S. 809 and H.R. 2959, 97th Congress. For a history of WRDA 1986, see USACE (Office of History), Reshaping
National Water Politics: The Emergence of the Water Resources Development Act of 1986, IWR-91-PS-1, October
1991.
53 Report on the Analysis of the Economic Justification of Waterway and Projects Being Maintained, January 4, 1954.
The Corps’ policy is essentially restated in hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
(continued...)
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While the federal government may have an obligation to maintain navigable waterways, it
has no such obligation to maintain those whose use is no longer economical. Minimum
appropriations in the past several years have served to prevent the use of funds on too many
obsolescent waterways. This, at best, is a temporary expedient. There is a need for an
analysis of the need for continued maintenance of specific waterways and harbors.
However, a 1956 audit by the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability
Office) found that, contrary to the Corps’ stated policy, it was maintaining channels
predominantly used by recreational boaters or used by a single shipper.55 Based on this finding,
GAO recommended that Congress establish specific continuing policies and criteria for
determining which navigation projects are to be operated and maintained at federal expense. In its
report, GAO identified 11 coastal navigation projects that it considered of questionable value. In
2011, those 11 projects received $12 million in O&M spending and generated HMT revenues of
$1.5 million. Only two of the projects still carry cargo.
One project highlighted in the 1956 GAO study was the 155-mile Okeechobee Waterway in
Florida. GAO recommended that this cross-Florida waterway be reclassified as a flood-control
project because it offered negligible navigation benefit. Reclassification would have made the
waterway ineligible for HMTF expenditures. The waterway was not reclassified, and from
FY1999 to FY2008 it received about $30 million from the HMTF. In 2012, it handled 21 barges
(loaded and empty) and a total of 2,000 tons of cargo, along with 3,997 recreational vessels.56
Another HMTF-supported project criticized by GAO in 1956, the Anahuac Channel and Trinity
River project in Texas, received about $17 million of HMTF funds from FY1999 to FY2008.57
No cargo has moved on this waterway in recent years. Recent budget requests have assigned
O&M expenses to flood risk mitigation and not navigation.
Funding Recreational Harbors
Recreational harbors can have a positive local economic impact. A 2008 study by the Corps found
that the 911,000 recreational boaters on the Great Lakes spent $2.4 billion per year on boating
trips and $1.4 billion per year on vessels, equipment, and supplies, and that they created 60,000
jobs.58 A similar Corps study of 18 recreational harbors in Oregon found that recreational boating
supported 1,700 jobs.59
Recreational boaters do not contribute to the HMTF, but they pay federal fuel taxes used for
restoring fish habitat, administering boating safety education programs, and building boat ramps
(...continued)
U.S. Senate, Civil Functions, Department of the Army Appropriations, 1955, 83rd Congress, 2nd session on H.R. 8367,
pp. 92-93, 1382.
54 House Committee on Appropriations, FY1954; H.Rept. 450, 83rd Congress.
55 GAO, Review of Operation and Maintenance of Navigation Projects[:] Corps of Engineers (Civil Functions)
Department of the Army, January 1956.
56 See http://www.navigationdatacenter.us/lpms/lpms.htm.
57 This includes funding for the Wallisville Lake project, a related waterway.
58 USACE, Great Lakes Recreational Boating, December 2008; http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Portals/69/docs/PPPM/
PlanningandStudies/JohnGlenn/boating.pdf.
59 USACE, Economic Impacts of Recreation Activities at Oregon Coastal and River Ports, August 2003.
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and sewage disposal facilities at marinas.60 This use of boat fuel taxes dates to a time when harbor
dredging was funded from general revenues rather than from a cargo tax, which was enacted in
1986. In the past, some representatives of the recreational boating industry have supported use of
motorboat fuel taxes to pay for dredging of recreational harbors.61 The Corps has initiated a pilot
program involving several low-commercial-use waterways on the Atlantic Coast to investigate
the feasibility of greater local financing.62
Missing Information
Certain information that might be helpful in assessing the need for and effectiveness of increased
spending on harbor maintenance appears not to be publicly available. The unavailable
information includes the following:
1. Current HMTF expenditure reports. In 1992, Congress requested the Corps to
issue annual reports on the status of the HMTF, to include a description of
expenditures from the trust fund on a project-by-project basis.63 The most recent
such report listed on the Corps website covers FY2005 and FY2006.64 The Corps
has continued to request funds in its yearly budget justification to prepare and
distribute such reports to Congress.65
2. Data comparing harbor usage with O&M expense. The Corps has collected
cargo tonnage data from waterborne carriers since 1922.66 It therefore knows how
much tonnage (by commodity) and how many vessels (by type and draft) use
each of the channels and waterways it maintains. Since 1977, the Corps has kept
track of its O&M expenditures on each facility.67 However, the facility
nomenclature in its tonnage database does not match and is not mapped to the
nomenclature in its expenditure database.
3. A channel condition and performance report. Corps documents do not
compare the depth and width of shipping channels to their authorized dimensions
or to the dimensions needed to adequately serve modern vessels. The Corps also
does not publish estimates of the economic loss from such deficiencies or the
expected benefit and cost associated with correcting them.
60 See CRS Report RS22060, The Sport Fish Restoration and Boating Trust Fund, by Eugene H. Buck and M. Lynne
Corn.
61 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Subcommittee on Merchant Marine, Maritime
Policy and Regional Economic Development - Port Development, Port Development Oversight, 98th Cong., 1st sess.,
April 21, 1983, Serial No. 98-9, pp. 159, 160, 165; http://www.ncwaterways.com/businessassistance/Regulatory/
Dredging/MOAA_DredgingWhitePaper3-14-03.htm.
62 http://operations.usace.army.mil/nav/11OctWEDA/12_Oct_2011_WEDA_LOW_USE_PRESENTATION.pdf.
63 §330 of P.L. 102-580, enacted October 31, 1992, codified at 26 U.S.C. 9505.
64 http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/Portals/70/docs/iwrreports/Harbor_main_trust_fund_2005_2006.pdf.
65 See p. RIO-72, FY2014 Budget Justification; p. RIO-71, FY2013 Budget Justification; p. RIO-68, FY2012 Budget
Justification; p. RIO-66, FY2011 Budget Justification; p. RIO-63, FY2010 Budget Justification, etc.,
http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Budget.aspx. The Corps did not respond specifically to CRS’s
inquiry about the availability of recent HMTF annual reports.
66 Data collection is authorized in Section 11 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act of 1922 (33 U.S.C. 555).
The data are available at http://www.navigationdatacenter.us/.
67 Congressional Record, March 26, 1986, p. 6232.
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The Corps has established the “Navigation Economic Technologies Program” (NETS), whose
purpose is to develop a standardized and defensible suite of economic tools for navigation
improvement evaluation. The NETS website states that “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is
committed to spending the nation’s tax dollars wisely by investing in navigation projects that
provide the best value for the dollar long term. The NETS program supports this mission by
developing independently-verified economic models, tools and techniques.”68 NETS appears to
focus more on economic analysis of construction dredging projects rather than on the economics
of operating and maintaining existing harbors and channels at authorized dimensions, although
the majority of federal spending on dredging is for maintenance.69
In July 2012, Congress requested that the Corps estimate the nationwide average availability,
expressed as a percentage, of the authorized depth and width of all channels that are maintained
from the HMTF that would result from the amount requested in the annual budget request,
starting in FY2014.70 It also asked for an estimate of the average annual amount from the HMTF
needed to increase average availability to 95% over a three-year period. It appears that this
information was not submitted with the FY2014 budget request.
The Impact of the HMT on Shipping Costs
The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has estimated that the average HMT payment for a 40-
foot shipping container is $109.71 The HMT rate, 0.125%, is small compared to cargo value, but it
is more significant when measured against typical freight charges, particularly for containers
holding relatively valuable cargo. The cost of shipping a 40-foot container from an Asian port to
the U.S. Midwest is in the neighborhood of $4,000. A 40-foot container of imported electronics
may have, on average, a value of $117,606, and thus would be assessed an HMT of $147 (see
Table 4), raising port-to-destination shipping costs about 4%.
68 See http://www.corpsnets.us/index.html.
69 See http://www.navigationdatacenter.us/dredge/ddcosts.htm.
70 P.L. 112-141 (MAP-21), §1537.
71 FMC, Study of U.S. Inland Containerized Cargo Moving Through Canadian and Mexican Seaports, July 2012;
http://www.fmc.gov/assets/1/News/
Study_of_US_Inland_Containerized_Cargo_Moving_Through_Canadian_and_Mexican_Seaports_Final.pdf.
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Table 4. HMT Average Payment for Containerized Cargo
Commodity
$ Value/ton
$ Value/40’ container
HMT/40’ container
Electronics 12,104
117,606
$147.01
Apparel 14,517
114,274
$142.84
Hardware 7,096
107,916
$134.90
Autos and Auto Parts
6,452
90,248
$112.81
Footwear 11,745
84,310
$105.39
Toys and Sport Equipment
7,964
68,032
$85.04
Beverages, Spirits, Vinegar
2,128
49,546
$61.93
Plastic Products
3,421
37,168
$46.46
Furniture 3,268
27,210
$34.01
Woodenware 1,315
21,860
$27.32
Source: FMC, Study of U.S. Inland Containerized Cargo Moving Through Canadian and Mexican Seaports, July 2012, p. 42.
U.S. ports in proximity to the Canadian and Mexican borders assert that the HMT diverts inbound
cargo, particularly containerized cargo bound for the Midwest, to ports across the border because
no similar tax is levied in Canada or Mexico. A 2012 FMC study concluded that numerous factors
lead shippers to use ports in Canada or Mexico, including factors such as risk mitigation through
port diversification and rail rate disparities that have nothing to do with the HMT. The FMC
estimated, based on work by a consulting economist, that if U.S. importers were relieved of
paying the HMT or if an equivalent fee were imposed on cargo coming to the United States
through Canadian West Coast ports, shippers would divert roughly 59,000 to 72,500 40-foot
containers per year from Canadian to U.S. ports. “[I]t seems clear that removal of the HMT
would drive some U.S. discretionary cargo going through Canadian ports back to U.S. west coast
ports, but by no means all,” the FMC concluded.72
Senators Murray and Cantwell have announced that they intend to introduce legislation that
would replace the HMT with a maritime goods movement user fee that would be paid by shippers
bringing goods into the United States through ports in Canada and Mexico, as well as users of
U.S. ports, in order to reduce the incentives for shipment through Canada.73
The HMT may be a more serious obstacle to transshipment of import and export cargo by sea.
Waterborne cargo shipped domestically between two U.S. harbors only pays the HMT at one
harbor, if it is shipped on one vessel.74 However, if imported cargo is unloaded at a U.S. port and
reloaded on another ship, as in a coastal feeder vessel operation, the HMT is levied twice, once at
each destination port.75 Thus, the HMT as currently assessed may discourage coastal feeder
72 FMC, Study of U.S. Inland Containerized Cargo Moving Through Canadian and Mexican Seaports, July 2012, pp. 3,
55-57. The study estimates that the equivalent of 118,218 40-foot containers bound for the United States passed
through Canadian ports in 2010, implying that eliminating the HMT would cause around 40% of those containers to be
shipped through U.S. ports instead.
73 See http://www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsreleases?ContentRecord_id=f8e7e105-e9d2-45fa-a36f-
2615069173d0.
74 As mentioned earlier, the HMT is generally only assessed at coastal and Great Lakes harbors. Waterborne shipments
subject to a barge fuel tax on the inland waterways (rivers and intracoastal waterways) are not subject to the HMT.
75 See 19 C.F.R. 24.24.
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service, which has generally been unsuccessful in challenging road and rail for transshipment of
containers arriving at U.S. ports.76 On the other hand, CBP and the Corps estimated in 2011 that
as much as $500 million per year in HMT owed by domestic waterborne shippers goes
uncollected due to difficulties identifying and enforcing tax collection on these shippers.77
Unlike import duties, the HMT is not refundable under CBP’s “duty drawback” program, so it
affects the price competitiveness of some U.S. exports. Under the duty drawback program, import
duties paid on imported parts or materials used in U.S.-made products can be refunded when the
goods are exported. This is intended to ensure that U.S. import duties do not reduce the price
competitiveness of U.S. exports.78 Exporters do not pay the HMT for port use when exporting a
product, but they do pay the HMT on any materials and inputs transported through a coastal or
Great Lakes port and used in the production of an exported product.
Harbors in a Competitive U.S. Supply Chain
The debate over WRDA is occurring in the context of heightened interest in the cost-effectiveness
of industrial supply chains. The House and Senate Committees on Appropriations have expressed
concern that the President’s budget requests for FY2013 and FY2014 for Corps O&M have not
been sufficient to “ensure continued competitiveness in a global marketplace” and have directed
the Corps to use additional funds provided for harbors that, among other things, will promote
international competitiveness.79
The U.S. Departments of Transportation and Commerce have launched the Competitive Supply
Chain Initiative, which seeks to strategically improve the nation’s marine transportation system
and its connecting infrastructure as part of a larger effort to improve America’s overall national
freight infrastructure and national competitiveness. The Department of Commerce explains that
“in a world in which entire supply chains compete with one another, supply chain
competitiveness affects the cost of every single product made, moved, bought, or sold in the
United States, and whether we can meet global prices. It also determines where companies invest
and hire.”80 This assertion is consistent with a 2010 analysis of competition between the United
States and China, which contends that81
[T]he most important battleground for corporate competitiveness has become about the speed
and efficiency of supply chain management. In this environment it is imperative that
policymakers, management leadership and academicians understand and ensure that the
design and management of supply chains and transportation infrastructure are tightly aligned
with collective strategic priorities and direction ...
76 For further information on the prospects of coastal shipping, see CRS Report R41590, Can Marine Highways
Deliver?, by John Frittelli.
77 USACE, FY2011 Budget Justification, p. RIO-66.
78 See 19 C.F.R. Part 191.
79 See S.Rept. 112-164, p. 51; S.Rept. 113-47, p. 59; H.Rept. 112-462, p. 60; H.Rept. 113-135, p. 64.
80 David Long, International Trade Administration, “Our Marine Transportation System: The Competitiveness
Context,” Coast Guard Proceedings, summer 2011, p. 37.
81 Chris Carr and Ray Bowman, “US-China Trade and Transportation Infrastructure Challenges: A Strategic Primer for
Policymakers, Business Leaders and Academicians,” Journal of Transportation Law, Logistics, and Policy, 2nd quarter
2010, vol. 77, no. 2, p. 131.
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In March 2012, the Corps and the U.S. Department of Transportation signed a memorandum of
understanding to identify and capitalize on opportunities to improve transportation infrastructure
investments by developing consistent criteria between the two agencies for project prioritization
and by aligning waterside and landside infrastructure investment along national priorities. With
expansion of the Panama Canal scheduled for completion in 2015, President Obama announced in
2012 an initiative to expedite federal permitting for construction projects at five harbors.82 In his
FY2013 Budget, the President also noted the establishment of a Task Force on Ports, composed of
officials from five departments and five White House offices, in response to calls from state and
local governments, ports, and other maritime stakeholders for a more strategic framework for
allocating federal investments.83
Author Contact Information
John Frittelli
Specialist in Transportation Policy
jfrittelli@crs.loc.gov, 7-7033
82 The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, We Can’t Wait: Obama Administration Announces 5 Major Port
Projects to Be Expedited, July 19, 2012.
83 See http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/email-files/
Task_Force_on_Ports_Fact_Sheet_FINAL_7_19_12.pdf. As of September 2013, the task force has not issued any
public statements concerning its activity.
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