Monday, 24 September 2007

The 7 year wait is over … the Water Resources Development Act passes Congress!

Earlier this evening, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to approve and send the long-overdue Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) to the President by a margin of 81-12. The House voted by a margin of 381 – 40 to adopt the authorization bill's conference report on August 1. Bush will likely veto the bill; however, WRDA supporters appear to have more-than-enough votes to override his veto. Passage of the bill comes almost 7 years after the enactment of the last WRDA bill in 2000. The water resource measure is supposed to be enacted by Congress every two years.   EPW Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer's statement upon Senate Passage.  EPW Ranking Member James Inhofe's statement upon passage.


In a letter to Senators on Friday, ASCE urged the Senate to pass the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 (WRDA) with enough votes to signal its clear intent to override any veto.  “Any veto discussed based solely on the bill’s overall projected cost of approximately $20 billion would be extremely unwise.”
It has been almost seven years since Congress last authorized federal water resources projects, and $20 billion represents a modest down payment toward covering the nation’s staggering waterways investment gap.  Moreover, H.R. 1495 contains a number of programs of paramount importance for the nation’s economy and environment, including funding to restore the Louisiana coastal ecosystem, the destruction of which had such catastrophic consequences for the country during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and critical projects to bring back the Florida Everglades.
Posted by Brian P at 10:00 PM in water resources/
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Texas Transportation Institute Issues Urban Mobility Report. Congestion is Getting Worse and We Are Paying More -- $78 billion a year!

In its national urban mobility report released this week, the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) found that the nation’s drivers spend an average of one work week a year stuck in traffic. In all, Americans spent about 4.2 billion hours in 2005 in congestion, an increase from 4 billion hours in 2004. Those hours spent in gridlock waste about 2.9 billion gallons of fuel and $78.2 billion a year the report estimates. Click here for the Urban Mobility Report.

Statement of U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters on the TTI 2007 Urban Mobility Report, “The daily frustration of drivers on our roadways is ample evidence that our current transportation model is broken, and that bold thinking and leadership are needed.  We’re never going to solve congestion with higher federal gas taxes or additional earmarks; instead, we need fresh approaches like new technology, congestion pricing and greater private sector investment to get American moving again.”

Bill Marcuson, III, Ph.D., P.E., Hon.M.ASCE, President of ASCE stated the following upon release of the report, “The problem on our roadways is complex, and will require a multifaceted solution. However, while it is true that bold thinking and leadership are part of the solution, that bold thinking and leadership must also extend to making hard decisions when it comes to infrastructure funding. The administration’s continued refusal to acknowledge that a gas tax increase must be part of the answer—despite its high-level results and minimal long-term impact on the taxpayers themselves—is at best, disheartening and shortsighted.  For example, a modest ten cents per gallon increase would raise more than $17 billion a year, while costing the average motorist less than $10 a month.  Click for the full statement.

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