S.Amdt. 2537

SA 2537. Ms. STABENOW (for herself, Mr. Peters, Ms. Baldwin, Ms.
Duckworth, Mr. Donnelly, Mr. Young, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Durbin)
submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 2282
submitted by Mr. Inhofe (for himself and Mr. McCain) and intended to be
proposed to the bill H.R. 5515, to authorize appropriations for fiscal
year 2019 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for
military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of
Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:

At the end of subtitle F of title X, add the following:

SEC. 10__. SENSE OF CONGRESS RELATING TO SOO LOCKS, SAULT
SAINTE MARIE, MICHIGAN.

It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, are of
critical importance to the national security of the United
States;
(2) the Soo Locks are the only waterway connection from
Lake Superior to the Lower Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence
Seaway;
(3) only the Poe Lock is of sufficient size to allow for
the passage of the largest cargo vessels that transport well
over 90 percent of all iron ore mined in the United States,
and this lock is nearing the end of its 50-year useful
lifespan;
(4) a report issued by the Office of Cyber and
Infrastructure Analysis of the Department of Homeland
Security concluded that an unscheduled 6-month outage of the
Poe Lock would cause--
(A) a dramatic increase in national and regional
unemployment; and
(B) 75 percent of Great Lakes steel production, and nearly
all North American appliance, automobile, railcar, and
construction, farm, and mining equipment production to cease;
(5) the Corps of Engineers is reevaluating a past economic
evaluation report to update the benefit-to-cost ratio for
building a new lock at the Soo Locks; and
(6) the Secretary of the Army and all relevant Federal
agencies should--
(A) expedite the completion of the report described in
paragraph (5) and ensure the analysis adequately reflects the
critical importance of the Soo Locks infrastructure to the
national security and economy of the United States; and
(B) expedite all other necessary reviews, analysis, and
approvals needed to speed the required upgrades at the Soo
Locks.
______