Marine Transportation System

Posts Tagged ‘EPA’

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kindest and Other Trump Cuts

In Congress, Energy/Environ, Federal Government, Infrastructure, Ports, Security, Transportation Policy on March 20, 2017 at 11:44 am

President Donald Trump’s 62-page “skinny” budget proposal — he calls it his budget “blueprint” — is devastatingly consequential for most departments and agencies. (See my prior post.) It tells you, for example, that the State Department will take a 28 percent hit should Congress concur in this first Trump Administration budget request, but it is short on how the programs at State and most other departments will be affected. For that we will have to wait a few more months until the main budget document is to be released — or leaks emerge — and the various budget experts do their analysis.

Will Congress adopt the president’s idea of winners and losers? Maybe not. His proposal is hardly a strictly partisan expression to which all Republicans will faithfully adhere, even if it is in the direction that they want to support. Moreover, as much as he wants to see a big defense build-up, dealer Donald Trump’s budget has to be seen as his opening gambit in an appropriations process that is only just getting started. Meanwhile, the budget document and agency press releases provide some information. Here is what we know.

Corps of Engineers
The USACE civil works program proposed number of $5 billion is $1 billion less than current year funding — a 16.3 percent reduction — but, historically, that’s not so bad. That is actually higher than the Obama FY17 budget. Every White House low-balls the Corps budget. The annual fiscal dance is for the president to bid low because he knows Congress will respond high. There is no more detail to report at this point. If there is a caution here it is that the Corps budget can’t be viewed in isolation from the total Federal budget. This clearly is not a normal year. If the Defense Department and Homeland Security are going to benefit in the substantial way that the White House proposes, the competition will be for your program to lose less than the others. If Congress were to provide the civil works program with more than $5 billion, as it has in recent years, that might come from other parts of the budget that are already proposed for stiff reductions.

Transportation
The budget blueprint shows a $2.4 billion reduction in spending over current year levels — a cut of 13 percent — and contains enough detail to identify some major programs targeted for elimination. Not surprisingly, the $500 million, multimodal TIGER grant program is prominent in that category. The White House would remove this most reliable source of funding for non-navigation port projects, including inside-the-gate improvements. (About $51 million was awarded to six port-related projects in FY2016.) TIGER, started in 2009, has survived past Republican efforts to eliminate funding but it has had strong support from Democrats and even Republicans. The White House is not alone in suggesting that TIGER is to some extent duplicated by the FASTLANE grants program that was created in the FAST Act and is dedicated to freight projects. (The Trump budget retains FASTLANE.) However, that part of the five-year FASTLANE program that most interests ports is the multimodal portion that is not limited to highway projects. Much of the total $500 million multimodal authorization was allocated in just the first year of the $900 million annually authorized spending for FASTLANE. There is no such modal limitation in TIGER. We will see if appropriators allow TIGER to end.

The DOT budget also would also eliminate funding for long-distance Amtrak operations, start down the path to private sector management of the air traffic control system, end the Essential Air Service program that is a major benefit for rural states, and close out a transit capital grant program.

Secretary Elaine Chao issued a statement on the budget blueprint announcement. It includes an oddly incongruent description of a national budget that the OMB itself acknowledges does not address deficit reduction. It also references an Administration talking point that, while proposing to reduce spending on transportation infrastructure, the budget is consistent with whatever will be the promised trillion dollar infrastructure initiative. The Secretary’s statement explains that the “strategy behind” the DOT capital spending cuts “is to move money out” of existing programs and into “more efficient programs” in the still undefined Trump initiative. We will have to see how that manages to end up being a net plus for transportation projects. From Chao’s statement:

This is a strategic document that looks to the future, and is designed to send a clear message on deficit reduction. For DOT, it addresses the department’s discretionary programs, which make up about one-quarter of the Department’s total resources. These proposed savings are largely geared towards future program investments, so they will not have an immediate direct impact on our DOT colleagues. This is just the beginning of the budget process, not the end. We will see the more complete picture when OMB releases its final FY 2018 budget in May, and as the President’s infrastructure initiative takes shape. In fact, OMB Director Mulvaney noted yesterday that the strategy behind the savings in the DOT budget is to move money out of existing, inefficient programs and hold these funds for more efficient programs that will be included in the infrastructure package under development.

E&E News reported that OMB Director “Mick Mulvaney said the cuts to federal funds for transit and roads would be balanced by an infrastructure package coming to Congress in the fall. The grants proposed for elimination in yesterday’s spending wish list were targeted “in anticipation” of a more fleshed-out White House plan…”

The lead Democrat on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Peter DeFazio (D-OR), was not complimentary, and not without irony, in commenting on the Trump planned cuts for USDOT.

The skinny budget exposes that as a big, fat lie. These are real investments. They could be putting people to work this summer. It’s infinitely stupid for Republicans who have just taken over everything to give up TIGER grants, which are at the discretion of the Republican Secretary of Transportation, and I’m sure they’ll use them much more politically than the dunces at the Obama administration did. [E&E News]

Homeland Security
DHS is proposed to get 6.8 percent more in the coming year to benefit the construction of a southern border wall and heightened enforcement of US immigration law through technological and human resources. Significant additions of personnel — 500 more in Customs & Border Patrol (CBP)  and 1,000 more for Immigration Control & Enforcement (ICE), plus support staff — also are intended to strengthen border security. Another $1.5 billion is slated for cybersecurity activity to protect Federal networks and critical infrastructure.

The budget proposes to cut State and Local security grants by $667 million. Earlier reports suggested a probable 40 percent reduction in the Port Security Grant Program but analysis by the Democrats of the House Appropriations Committee concludes that the budget means a 25 percent reduction in the program, from $100 million to $75 million.

According to prior releases of information the budget includes a cut in the Coast Guard, but that is not highlighted in the materials released by the White House and DHS yesterday. Instead, the DHS release simply says that the budget “sustains current funding levels [for the Coast Guard]…which allows for the continuation of day-to-day operations and investments in the Acquisition, Construction, & Improvements account.”

The budget document also states that the Transportation Security Administration will experience the elimination and reduction of “unauthorized and underperforming programs.” Details presumably to follow.

Environmental Protection
Of all the Federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency is targeted by the Trump Administration for the deepest cut — a 31 percent spending reduction. The budget statement offers an ironic compliment (kindest cut?) in suggesting that the “budget for EPA reflects the success of environmental protection efforts…” as if to say, “job well done.” The EPA section appears to be the only one of the two-page department and agency sections that specifically notes the anticipated reduction in personnel — “3,200 fewer positions.”

The proposed budget provides “robust funding for critical drinking and wastewater infrastructure” that is comparable to current levels. It ends funding for Obama’s “Clean Power Plan, international climate programs, climate change research and partnership programs, and related efforts…” It reduces the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance budget, reduces Categorical Grants funding, and “eliminates more than 50 EPA programs that are “lower priority,” “poorly performing,” and “duplicative.”

The budget document proposal to end funding for multi-state regional efforts such as restoring Chesapeake Bay. The proposal to end funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative  is no partisan matter. Nine senators led by Rob Portman (R-OH) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) sent a letter to the White House expressing their concerns, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) joined them in opposing the cuts.  Pbea

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Budget Like None Other?

In Congress, Federal Government, Leadership, President on March 20, 2017 at 9:31 am

A budget that puts America first must make the safety of our people its number one priority — because without safety, there can be no prosperity.   [President Donald Trump in the introduction to his FY18 Budget Blueprint]

President Trump defines public safety in a way that accommodates a substantial reduction in environmental enforcement, diplomacy, and foreign assistance in order to spend more on the Pentagon and border enforcement. His zero sum approach adheres to current, statutory limits on overall Federal spending, thus there are clear winners and clear losers in his “blueprint” for the FY18 budget that was sent to the Hill last Thursday.

Donald Trump’s top-line budget — most details still months away — is the sort that Congress has not been seen in my 45 years working in Washington…and probably not for many decades prior that. Certainly not since some of those departments were created. Threats to cut the budget to some extent, yes. Largely empty campaign promises to eliminate departments, sure. But not a 10 percent increase for the single largest department that already has the equivalent of all other government agencies’ discretionary spending, combined.

Defense would see a $54 billion increase while the Transportation Department would see a 12.7 percent reduction, Labor Department 20.7 percent, State Department 28.7 percent, and Environmental Protection Agency 31.4 percent. Of the 13 Cabinet departments that are proposed for cuts only three are targeted for drops less than 10 percent. Only Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs are slated to see increases.

Consistent with the President’s approach to move the Nation toward fiscal responsibility, the Budget eliminates and reduces hundreds of programs and focuses funding to refine the proper role of the Federal Government. [from “Budget Highlights”]

The proposed budget does nothing to reduce spending in the aggregate. In fact, it challenges Republicans in Congress to set aside their first opportunity in a while for two legislative chambers and the White House to cut overall spending.

This isn’t the first time Republicans control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, of course. But it is as if it takes someone with no experience in government to know what are disposable missions and programs across the Federal government. Or, perhaps, it takes such a person to simply not care. Nineteen agencies — many small and obscure but among them the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Art, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Institute for Peace — are specifically identified for elimination. Other unidentified agencies apparently would be substantially weakened by cuts.

The president’s first budget message faces a predictably rocky road ahead. His own party may be in charge of Congress but that doesn’t protect Trump’s “skinny” budget — an average of two pages per department — from also being called “dead on arrival.” DOA is the usual label legislators apply to any president’s budget submission. However, it may be no more apropos than it is for Donald Trump’s first budget policy expression. A representative counter expression on Capitol Hill is that of fellow Republican Hal Rogers (KY) who served for six years as chair of House Appropriations.

While we have a responsibility to reduce our federal deficit, I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the president’s skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive. … As General [Jim] Mattis [and now Secretary of Defense] said prophetically, slashing the diplomatic efforts will cause them to have to buy more ammunition. There is [sic] two sides to fighting the problem that we’re in: There is military and then there’s diplomatic. And we can’t afford to dismantle the diplomatic half of that equation.”[The Washington Post]

House and Senate members of the president’s party have found a lot not to like. Favored programs and agencies would be cut, if not eliminated, on the non-defense side of the ledger. Some Republicans have also criticized Trump’s trumpeted “10 percent” hike in defense spending as misleading and insufficient. The chairs of the Armed Services committees claim that in actuality the proposed increase is only three percent greater than what Congress funded for the current year. They want more. Then there are the Republicans whose firm ambition to reduce and ultimately end deficit spending is not served by the White House proposal. (The president’s new Director of the Office of Management & Budget, former House Member Mick Mulvaney, was in that camp just months ago.) Intentionally, the new president’s budget does not propose to change the existing multi-year agreement in law that sets an overall spending limit.

Suffice it to say that the Democrats see a document that is easy to oppose. They promise to leave to the majority party the job of approving some form of it, gladly wanting the GOP to be on the record as cutting popular programs. The minority party members already are positioning themselves as not responsible for a government shutdown should the GOP not have the votes to keep the government funded. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s statement warns, in so many words, “don’t count on us to help pass your budget.”

If Republicans insist on inserting poison pill riders such as defunding Planned Parenthood, building a border wall, or starting a deportation force, they will be shutting down the government and delivering a severe blow to our economy. [Chuck Schumer (D-NY)]

As telling as the 62-page White House document is, the skinny budget will be followed in May by something resembling a full budget with greater detail that should formally indicate, for example, if the Diesel Emissions Reduction Grant program is proposed for elimination and how much less would be available for Port Security Grants. The May document might also be expected to cover other crucial detail that budgets normally provide.

The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes that “by focusing only on discretionary spending, this budget effectively ignores 70 percent of spending and 90 percent of its growth over the next decade.” That is a reference, substantially, to the defense and national security portion of the Federal budget and the Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid entitlement programs.

As stated earlier, the slashing and shrinking of domestic Federal programs and agencies is proposed to benefit the Defense Department with a $54 billion increase, in addition to plus-ups for the nuclear program and border security. Nowhere in the budget document is there a reference to the substantial sums that various independent reports have identified as being in reach with the adoption of Pentagon reorganization and other efficiencies. Might that come later?

Last note, to complete the picture: The Trump blueprint for FY18 is accompanied by a supplemental request for the current FY17 that includes an extra $33 billion for the Defense Department, the border wall, and the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

To read the Trump budget “blueprint” find it here. The 56th page has a table that provides a quick look as to how the proposed budget compares with current year levels.  Pbea

 

, , , , , , , , , ,

LNG: Ports as a Catalyst?

In Energy/Environ, Green Transportation, MTS Policy, Ports on October 10, 2013 at 8:47 am

MTS Matters welcomes a well-known and regarded figure in D.C. transportation circles. John Graykowski, a Principal of Maritime Industry Consultants, served as Deputy Administrator of the Maritime Administration, and for two years as Acting Administrator, during the Clinton Administration. He is an attorney with experience in both private and public sectors. The subject of LNG-fueled transportation and how it might develop in the context of maritime policy and port communities has been a focus of his attention in recent years. This is the first of his contributions to this blog’s musings on port/maritime policy—present and future.

Over the past year, LNG as a marine fuel has gone from novel concept to an accepted alternative fuel here in the United States. Some LNG-capable vessels are operating and more will be under construction as appreciation is growing for the environmental, economic and energy security benefits offered by LNG. This transformation of a marine cargo commodity to emerging marine fuel in here and elsewhere might lead one to conclude that the broad deployment of LNG throughout the U.S. is underway and faces no challenges or constraints—but this is not the case. Lagging behind LNG-fueled vessel development here are the necessary market and regulatory structures that promote its widespread development.

The most common platitude in any discussion of LNG is the “chicken and egg” problem. Ship owners are loathe to make the large capital investment in LNG technologies absent certainty of supply.  Meanwhile gas suppliers are averse to spending $150 million or more on bunkering infrastructure without firm, long term purchase contracts by ship owners. This reflects the lack of historic relationships between the gas supply industry and marine operators, who purchase bunker fuel in virtually every port on a spot basis and never needed long term contracts.

Compounding that is a lack of understanding and knowledge about each other’s industries. Marine operators are not familiar with gas production, transportation and market dynamics and gas suppliers have little direct knowledge about the marine industry practices, requirements, and the like. Emblematic of the divide between the two industries is the simple fact that marine operators purchase fuel on the basis of metric tons or barrels of oil, while the gas industry sells LNG on the basis of million BTUs. Potentially complicating this market disconnect, are increasingly stringent accounting rules that likely require a long term LNG contract to be carried as a contingent liability, thus impairing a balance sheet and constraining future capital expenditures for a marine company.

Beyond these market issues are significant regulatory challenges related to both operational procedures for bunkering vessels and, more importantly, the siting, permitting and operation of small and medium sized LNG marine terminals. It may come as a surprise to some, but there are no existing uniform federal regulatory structures that apply specifically to LNG marine fueling terminals.

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration (PHMSA) each have regulations that apply to LNG fueling terminals. These regulations, however, were developed with large scale export and import facilities in mind and thus are largely inapplicable to a small marine fuel terminal and the fueling of other than LNG carriers. In many cases these regulations may conflict, which creates a large area of potential regulatory confusion and will most likely result in ad hoc development of LNG regulations. Adding to this uncertainty is the probable requirement that these facilities will be subject to local permitting actions, which can provide opponents of LNG the opportunity to intervene and delay the project.

Where do ports fit in this puzzle of a marketplace?

Ports can and should be a catalyst to spur LNG development throughout the transportation industries since they are at the center of marine activities in the United States. They provide a ready-made, multi-modal market for LNG expansion beyond large oceangoing vessels, which includes ferries and harbor craft, trucking, and rail operations. Port agencies may have some degree of jurisdiction, and even control, over property where LNG operations will occur. Depending on the port, it may have a role in the siting, permitting, financing, development, or even operations of an LNG fueling terminal. As a responsible economic development agency, a port can also play a critical role in the public education and promotion of LNG and the mitigation of local opposition to such projects.

Public port agencies generally understand this is a constructive role they are in a position to play. We are seeing that in isolated initiatives, notably on the West Coast, as well on an international scale with Antwerp leading a working group that includes the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The expansion of LNG and compressed natural gas (CNG) as a replacement fuel in port related operations, already showing benefits, is also a powerful tool that ports can use to achieve significant emissions reductions and thus reduce the cost and impact of increasingly more stringent environmental regulations or measures to meet local community demands. If LNG is used to fuel vessels’ auxiliary generators while in port there may be no need to install costly shore power systems for cold ironing since equivalent emissions results could be obtained with LNG.

Collectively, ports can be in the forefront of a “Green” initiative, leading to the expansion of LNG as a transportation fuel throughout the nation. Individually, ports that facilitate LNG bunkering operations could find them to be a competitive factor in attracting and retaining liner business as those companies bring LNG-capable vessels on line to meet IMO global standards by 2020.

Much has been written of the significant impact that domestically produced natural gas and its liquefied form will have on our on our nation. Ports are where all surface modes of commercial transportation intersect and where LNG distribution will naturally occur. They are in a position to be influential in the development of national policies that promote and accommodate the broad deployment of LNG as a transportation fuel.
John E. Graykowski

 

, , ,

When State Regulation is Invasive

In Federal Government on September 1, 2009 at 5:24 pm

Non-indigenous species carried in ballast water (graphic by Patterson Clark of the WPost)

Non-indigenous species carried in ballast water (graphic by Patterson Clark of the WPost)

The Coast Guard issued on August 28th a proposed rule for the regulation of ballast water discharges (BWD).  This is the Nagging Problem (NP) that has plagued the maritime sector, particularly vessel operators.  That problem is both the habitat devastation caused by non-indigenous aquatic species unwittingly carried here from foreign ports and the  patchwork of regulation that can confound those responsible for ships in commerce.

Two Federal agencies claim jurisdiction.  The EPA does, per the Clean Water Act, and through that several states  exercise delegated authority to protect their waters.   So states like California, Michigan, Washington, and New York set their own requirements for vessels to meet.

But the vessels in question don’t just putter around Lake Erie, so to speak.  They transit international waters in international commerce and call in multiple ports.  The proposed Coast Guard rule takes a national approach with an international foundation for starters.  The proposed regs  would establish a standard for allowable concentrations of organisms in BWD.  The standard and schedule are consistent with the applicable IMO convention.  In the next decade, the standard would tighten significantly–assuming you think 1000x is significant–if currently unavailable technology would become available.  (Comments on the regulations are due November 27th.)

Still, there is that other NP.  The complication of multiple standards courtesy of the states.   At present Federal law doesn’t preempt non-Federal standards though that would be a good idea.  Who is to say that the means to meet one standard can also satisfy a second or a third standard as a ship moves from port to port?  And what if the State standard isn’t…well…carefully considered?

New York’s regulation, effective 2012, will put a ship’s pilot in violation of the law if the ship, lacking a means to meet the standard, crosses New York waters (without discharging) on its way to a terminal in New Jersey.  As frustrating  is the stricter-than-IMO standard for which ships must have onboard environmental technology that has yet to be devised, not to mention shown to be safe and effective.  NYDEC does not allow for an absence of applicable technology.  Take this enlightening discussion from The Washington Post story of August 31

Steve Fisher, executive director of the American Great Lakes Ports Association, called different regulations in each state a “nightmare scenario.” He said current technology cannot meet New York’s standards, which are 100 times stronger than the IMO treaty, and he expects that the state will have to close ports or relax its rules.

Jim Tierney, assistant commissioner for water resources at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, disagreed. “It’s not that hard to kill things,” he said. “You can heat them up, crush them, pressurize them, put a chemical on them. We think this is a problem that can be solved in a very economical fashion.”

Well, there ya go, naval architects, biologists and others who have been working this question for a good many years.  Maybe it’s not so difficult after all.  Maybe just a big hammer, goggles, and a trash bag will get ‘er done.   Pbea

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Walking the Dock and Talking the Talk

In Federal Government on August 16, 2009 at 9:19 pm

CMTS group

This week Federal agency folks caught the bus to Baltimore to see a port.   It was organized by Helen Brohl and staff of  the Committee on the Marine Transportation System (CMTS) and facilitated by Frank Hamons and colleagues of the Maryland Port Administration.  The civil servants from NTSB, ITA, OMB, MARAD, NOAA, USACE, USCG, EPA and  perhaps other offices and agencies left Washington to see elments of the MTS first hand.

Terminal operations, a NOAA survey vessel, a Ready Reserve Force ship, an intermodal yard, and a tugboat tour of the cargo and quiche sides of the waterfront.   They met with public and private sector people who keep the working port working.

From time to time one reads complaints about taxpayer money spent on public employee field trips and conference-going…as if it’s always a pleasure jaunt and never of professional value.  I’m sure that this same-day hop, just an hour up the parkway, will spark no such carping.  But that’s beside the point.  It’s a fact that trips like this one  to  the Maryland port instill more understanding than does the reading of a report.  Even one with lots of pictures.   When one is in the field the senses absorb.  The mind muses.   The discussion flows.

Washington is paying much more attention than ever to ports, shipping, and our system of logistics.   EPA regulates ballast water.   The Corps maintains channels.  TSA checks dock worker backgrounds.  NOAA decides when the dredges can work.  OSHA sets new container lift standards.   The Senate ratifies standards to lower ship emissions.  CBP scans cargo for radiation.   OMB reviews regs and budgets.  Fees are collected and new fee proposals abound.

Taking one day to take in the context for all of the above is a day and money well spent.  Kudos to CMTS and the folks in the picture.   Pbea