Editorial: Transport Infrastructure Should Be Above Politics

Like any country, the United States and its voters face issues that should be above politics. Health care, for example, should be above politics and it should be the best we can make it. Another of these issues is meeting transportation demand. Political parties should bury the hatchet, sit down and solve the problems together.

The issue of the water transportation infrastructure should be above politics. Unfortunately, the matter is tangled in a web of concern over what should or should not be done to enhance the U.S. waterway system and who will control the purse strings.

Transportation demand in the U.S. is growing exponentially. At the same time, our railroads have nowhere to expand and our highways are becoming clogged with trucks. Nothing that Congress does will change the fact that navigable rivers have been neglected, that water transportation is being delayed due to an outmoded system, and that we are in competition against the world when it comes to delivering our products.

Unless the U.S. House and Senate agree upon and pass a sensible Water Resources Development Act, there will be nothing it can do to meet mushrooming transportation demands. As we just explained, railroads have no place to expand, and trucking companies can only operate more trucks, further increasing pollution, clogging highways, and exacerbating danger to other vehicular traffic. And nothing will change the fact that water transportation is less costly, more conservative of natural resources, and more environmentally friendly than rail and truck modes.

Our major trade competitors around the world are not oblivious to these facts. Foreign leadership shakes its collective head in wonder, perplexed at why the U.S. does not take advantage of such a promising system and does not modernize it. Comparisons with other navigation systems show that our waterways are underutilized. In Europe, the full-court press is on to get shippers to switch to water transport to improve the environment. The goal is to save natural resources and improve safety on the highways. In the U.S., our effort is directed at determining who will or who will not tell the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers how to run its business. Those wanting to effect that sort of change are often against water transportation in general.

In the meantime, U.S. transportation requirements increase and we don’t improve a system that would help us to meet them. Instead, we wage an endless, idiotic war over control while the navigation system deteriorates and the nation is denied a mechanism that would improve the environment and help meet those needs.

The issue of modernizing and maintaining the water transportation infrastructure of the U.S. surely should be above politics. But for more than five years, we have gone without passing a Water Resources Development Act. Crucial construction projects have been delayed and maintenance put on hold while antagonists strive to gain control of the civil works purse strings.

Well, the general election is over. The wailing, gnashing of teeth and even celebrating are underway. But none of this will do spit to help solve our growing transportation demands if Congress doesn’t pass a sensible WRDA that keeps project evaluation in the hands of the Corps.

Most of the hard work has been done. But if Congress fails now to finish the job, we may not see a WRDA again for years. We may never see one!

Right now, the demand for new barges in the U.S. is rising at a blistering speed. Container-on-barge operations are gaining a foothold. The river system holds all kinds of promise. But like Nero, are we going to fiddle while Rome burns? Are we going to skip a magnificent opportunity to pull together and do what we know needs to be done?

If ever there is a time and a reason for bipartisan cooperation in Congress, it is now—for the purpose of restoring our stagnating navigation system and meeting transport demands that we cannot hope to meet otherwise.

Water transportation leaders are asking that congressional leaders be made aware of this need. When the conference is held and WRDA details are worked out, committee members should put the transportation demands of the nation above partisan politics. Growth in U.S. transportation demand mandates a sensible, far-reaching conclusion that will better serve its people.

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