Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1747) to authorize appropriations for the design, acquisition, and construction of a combined buoy tender-icebreaker to replace…
Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1747) to authorize appropriations for the design, acquisition, and construction of a combined buoy tender-icebreaker to replace icebreaking capacity on the Great Lakes.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 1747.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Despite all of the concern about global climate change and climate warming and of the melting of the glaciers--and the last great glacier did melt and retreat some 10,000 years ago--every November, it makes a comeback in the northern tier States, especially on the Great Lakes. As the cold winds sweep down from the Arctic regions across Canada and as the ice gathers on the shores and extends across, still occasionally, although it has been several years, Lake Superior does freeze completely over.
When it doesn't freeze completely over, an ice sheet extends a long distance out from the shoreline, clogging the navigation channels, making transit difficult on the Sault Sainte Marie, on the St. Mary's River and down into the lower lakes where, from mid-November through mid-January and then again in early spring, our Great Lakes' bulk carriers must make that transit to deliver iron ore to the steel mills in the lower lake ports and coal from the Potter River Basin in Wyoming-Montana that comes by unit train to the ports of Duluth and Superior; and they must transit that coal to lower lake coal facilities. The lowest cost, most energy-efficient and most environmentally friendly means of moving bulk commodities are by waterway, and this great waterway of the Great Lakes is absolutely critical.
During the 2006-2007 winter season, 10.5 million tons of iron ore moved during the winter shipping season. That ore supports 100,000 jobs at lower lake steel mills, 300,000 jobs at associated industries. In the same winter months, some 6.5 million tons of coal were shipped on the Great Lakes to supply the power plants in lower lake communities with their coal facilities, but we don't have enough icebreaking capacity to keep those channels open, to keep the ports open, to escort vessels through the heavy ice era in the fall and in the early spring.
The Coast Guard, which does its very best with the Mackinaw and with some smaller harbor icebreakers, has made a valiant effort, but the shippers on the Great Lakes, in particular in this past season, said they have frequently had a laker moving out but impeded by ice. The Mackinaw could break a channel, but then it would be on call in the lower lake ports, and the smaller harbor icebreakers couldn't keep the channel open for those 60,000-ton vessels to move iron ore or aggregate or sand and gravel or limestone as needed in the iron ore production process.
So the clear call from Great Lakes' port and shipping and shipper interests has been add an icebreaker, a real companion to the Mackinaw. The previous Mackinaw icebreaker was built in 1940 and served 60 years and, finally, was gracefully retired; but its replacement simply can't be in two places at once. If we're going to keep our economy moving and our economy functioning effectively, we need that icebreaking capability in the upper lakes and in the lower lakes, often at the same time on the same days. So with two icebreakers, our Great Lakes economy will be able to function effectively.
I reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker, I am very grateful to the gentleman from Texas for his strong support and for his thoughtful statement about the Great Lakes icebreaker. I want to assure the gentleman, Madam Speaker, that we'll be happy to assure that the only ice you ever have to break in the Texas ports will be at cocktail hour, because you don't want to have to deal with the ice as we see it and as we experience it in the Great Lakes where I grew up and lived most of my life.
But I know the needs for the Houston ship channel, which I strongly supported. It's going to need more dredging, more improvement, as the Panama Canal, the second Panama Canal, is completed in the next few years and those 1,000-foot carriers carrying 12- to 13,000 containers make their way through Panama and into the gulf ports--all the ports in Texas and Louisiana and Alabama are going to need a channel deepening and port upgrades to accommodate those vessels. And we're going to support that activity in our committee. We're going to make sure that the gulf region is competitive in this ever-changing world of international commerce.
With regard to the polar icebreakers, the Recovery Act stimulus funding has provided for refurbishing and reintroduction in service of one of the polar icebreakers. I would advise the gentleman, Madam Speaker, the Coast Guard is doing an evaluation of the costs and how the costs of the polar icebreaker fleet can be contained. We have received testimony in the 110th Congress and information updated this year that the cost per icebreaker might run in the range of $1 billion. It seems to me that the Coast Guard ought to be able to contain that number and bring it down to something much more manageable.
Those original polar classes, the Polar Wind, the Polar Star--I remember very well serving with Mr. Young, our former committee chairman on Transportation and Infrastructure, and we both served on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee in the seventies when those vessels were commissioned and then when they set out on their first voyage. My recollection is it was less than $100 million, and the cost has escalated enormously; and we have to be sure that the Coast Guard-- and they, too, want to be sure they can contain those costs and assure a multimission activity for those icebreakers.
Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers.
I reserve the balance of my time.
If the gentleman will yield?
It is not only the silt from the rivers but the hurricanes that have devastated and in the last 5 years have brought enormous amounts of silt into those harbors. And we have worked with the Corps of Engineers to accelerate dredging. We had, actually, funding for an accelerated dredging program for the Corps of Engineers in the Recovery Act, and those funds have not yet been released by the Office of Management and Budget, but I am very hopeful that some of those funds, Madam Speaker, will be directed to the gulf coast ports to alleviate the adverse effects of hurricane movement of sand into the shipping channels.
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks. We look forward to moving the Water Resources Development Act bill through the committee this year and addressing in that legislation whatever accelerated dredging needs may be beyond those we already have in the recovery program to address the imminent issue facing us, and that is vastly increased vessel capacity and size that needs to move into those gulf ports. And meanwhile, maybe the Coast Guard can get started--if the other body will move this bill--get started on an icebreaker replacement.
I yield back the balance of my time.
