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Funding WRDA remains a mystery

Mike Steenhoek

The executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition says while Congress has made clear its priorities for investing in the nation’s inland waterway system, appropriating the dollars necessary remains a mystery.

Mike Steenhoek tells Brownfield there are no major differences between the House and Senate versions of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), legislation that authorizes the Army Corp of Engineers to maintain and improve water resources and infrastructure, including locks and dams essential to grain and fertilizer shipments.

While he expects passage and authorization of the WRDA bill following November’s elections, he says it’s much harder to predict how the appropriations process will play out.

“The appropriations can ok funding everything included in a WRDA bill, or they can fund nothing.  Usually it’s somewhere in between.”

The president can sign the WRDA bill into law with or without an appropriations component.

Steenhoek says committees on both sides are looking at a continuing resolution or omnibus bill to fund the legislation.

“Will there be some additional funding for inland waterways (or) will it be frozen at prior-year levels?  That’s a discussion that’s going to happen during the lame duck session.”

Steenhoek says it has become commonplace over the years for certain provisions within WRDA laws to go without funding, even after the bill is signed into law.

The Army Corps of Engineers still receives a funding allotment, but not every provision or priority included in the legislation receives funds.

The last WRDA bill was signed by President Obama in 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

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