President Trump signed into law two massive spending bills on Dec. 20 that include healthy budgets for ongoing inland waterways construction and maintenance as well as port dredging and investment, while also signing a defense bill that supports shipyard grants and would ease the transition from military to mariner jobs.
The legislative action on 12 spending bills, coming just days after the president’s impeachment vote in the House, avoided a government shutdown over the holidays that would...
The inland waterways are enjoying a healthy infusion of federal support for building and maintaining an aging lock and dam system, but unprecedented Midwest flooding and an ongoing trade war with China are taking a toll on river transportation, the head of the Waterways Council Inc. said on Monday.
As a result of a formula change made by Congress in 2014 to the Inland Waterways Trust Fund (IWTF), which covers the cost of new infrastructure spending on the rivers, more money has become available...
A week after top Democrats and the White House reached a tentative accord to repair the country’s transportation system, the bipartisan gesture seems to be in trouble, putting into question whether promises made by President Trump two years ago on the Ohio River to repair the inland waterways system and other national infrastructure can finally move forward.
The $2 trillion deal reached last Tuesday between the president and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority...
The Inland Waterways Users Board will meet next month in New Orleans. The meeting is open to the public.
At the meeting, the Users Board will receive briefings and presentations on the projects and status of the U.S. inland waterways system and conduct discussions and deliberations. The Users Board is interested in written and verbal comments from the public. At this meeting the agenda will include the status of funding for inland and coastal navigation; status of the Inland Waterways Trust Fund...
https://www.workboat.com/news/coastal-inland-waterways/inland-waterways-users-board-to-meet-in-may/
Barge operators and users of the inland waterways are urging Congress to adopt a new cost-sharing formula that would make more money available for lock and dam construction.
The Inland Waterways Trust Fund, which pays for new lock and dam construction, is currently financed through a 50-50 match between diesel tax revenues paid by the inland barge industry, and funds from the U.S. treasury. Money is then dispersed to priority construction projects along the inland river system which are managed...