Marine Transportation System

Posts Tagged ‘USDOT’

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We’re Just Getting Started

In Marine Highway, MTS Policy on October 8, 2010 at 10:04 am

[This first appeared in the America’s Marine Highway website and newsletter.]

Advocating for the AMH: We’re Just Getting Started

If we’ve learned anything about the developing American marine highway it is that it is developing incrementally and slowly.  A few nice-sized steps but no big leaps.

I have little doubt that the market will eventually demand greater use of the marine mode for domestic goods movement as the limits of landside capacity reach an economic tipping point and the imperative strengthens to use less fuel and produce fewer emissions. But the question to ask is whether it is wise to wait.  In 2007 Congress answered the question…sort of.

In a multi-faceted “energy independence and security” bill the energy efficiency of the marine mode was recognized. With the signing of Public Law 110-140 Washington said that it would be to the nation’s benefit to make greater use of coastwise and inland marine transportation. The U.S. Department of Transportation was handed a program outline and a few tools. It was told to return to Congress with recommendations as to any additional things that might be done to make it work. (No report as yet.) Then in 2009 Congress gave its approval to a grant program and appropriated a modest sum of $7 million.  [Note: since this writing grants were awarded.]

This year USDOT finally stepped up to implement that new policy and program. In August some projects were designated as eligible for grant funding and others were identified as “initiatives” to be encouraged.

The starting gun sounded on the American Marine Highway program…thus also signaling one of very few opportunities to improve the outlook for U.S. flag shipping.

There’s much to be done here in Washington. Federal funding is not the be-all and end-all of the marine highway program but it is crucial. Funding is how policy intent is measured in Washington. Is the $7 million the start of a serious effort or just flash-in-the-pan funding? Without an AMH budget for the Maritime Administration it will not have the program and staff resources to do much of anything in the next years. Without funding for AMH grants the Federal program will seem toothless. States and other transportation planners will ignore it. Start-ups may go only a short distance for lack of resources to secure that needed barge or crane.

Likewise, the policy provisions signed by President George W. Bush in 2007 are just a toe in the door. The next Congress should look more deeply into how marine highways can contribute to the overall transportation system and then decide what to do about it and the shipyard infrastructure needed to support it. I think there is plenty the legislature and this change-minded administration can do about it.

The next year or two will be a critical period that will decide if the new marine highway policy is to be taken seriously. Grant funding in FY 2011, commencing October 1, is unlikely, but it need not be a serious blow to the marine highway effort. For starters, we need to work to secure funding in the FY2012 budget and strengthen interest among policy makers.

Progress in the next years may continue to come in small increments along with an occasional large step. It is not easy to turn around business thinking about logistics or change attitudes in government about the role of domestic waterborne shipping but it can be done. Whether the marine highway effort in Washington falters or advances will depend on how strong and effective is the advocate crew…those of us who want to see more stars and stripes flying on the water.  Pbea

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What Are We Doing?

In Efficiency, Infrastructure, Intermodal, Surface Transportation Policy on October 7, 2010 at 10:09 pm

Canada announced a waiver of its 25 percent import tariff on general cargo vessel, tankers, and ferries longer than 129 meters.  The decision will save shipowners $25 million per year over the next decade.

“This duty relief will accelerate the renewal of the Canadian marine fleet across the country and will help replace aging vessels with cleaner, safer and more efficient ships,” said the Chuck Strahl, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.  “All the while, it will build on unprecedented investments our Government has made in Canada’s infrastructure and gateways by contributing to the upgrading of marine transportation links across the country.”  (Marine Log, October 4, emphasis added)

The announced tariff initiative should bring into the Great Lakes newer and more efficient competition for the existing commercial fleet flying the US flag.  Perhaps it will stimulate new shipping activity on the Lakes, which would be good.  Ships will move goods more efficiently to the benefit of energy savings and air quality.

If you have the feeling that our friends to the north are thinking and acting strategically, with an eye to the large American market, it is because they are…as they should.

Will Washington watch and learn?  Or will the dusty ol’ status quo continue to be good enough  for US?  In using this most recent example of Canadian initiative I refer to nothing so specific as Jones Act requirements but, broadly, to the insufficient attention and action to address the glaring need here, especially on the marine transportation system.

Much is known as to the general direction of the Obama Administration’s thinking on transportation policy—passenger rail, public transit, livable communities, sustainability, etc.—if not about detailed proposals.   But when it comes to goods movement little has been said.

Officials at USDOT acknowledge having been slow to focus on the subject of freight.  Early on there was the view that the heavy volume of international cargo ramping onto US highways and rails was the sort of thing not meriting Federal attention–“making imported flip-flops even cheaper” was the oft quoted line–as if that were the sum total of goods movement pressures in the country.   The thinking since last year boiled down to the notion that the freight sector will take care of itself, as Transportation Under Secretary for Policy Roy Kienitz acknowledged last week.  The private sector nature of goods movement could lead one to that view, I suppose.

However, Roy Kienitz went on to indicate that more thought is going into the subject now.  He said that a presentation by Canada’s ministry of transportation on their gateway strategy made a strong impression on him.  The strategy is a public/private initiative.  He noted it is intended to attract more North American import/export trade through their British Columbia and Atlantic ports and thus make Canadian operations significant players deep into the American Midwest market.

In the Canadian initiative he can appreciate how government can play an important role working with the freight sector.  Hopefully USDOT also understands that the American transportation sector can lose business if we just sit and watch while others press ahead.

In fairness, a good percentage of USDOT-issued TIGER grants went to rail, marine highway and other freight related projects earlier this year.  We take that as a positive sign.  But the longer it takes official Washington to actually do something structural about America’s aging infrastructure, the capacity to handle growing freight volumes, and a listless maritime sector the more ground we lose.

The examples of strategic planning and investing abound around the world including just north of here.

What are we doing down here?    Pbea

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Raising the U.S.-Flag

In Marine Highway, MTS Policy, Surface Transportation Policy on September 7, 2010 at 11:13 pm

The lead on the June 21st American Shipper story caught the eye.  The chair of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation “says government programs aimed at helping the U.S.-flag fleet ply foreign trades have been a failure.”

“We have frankly struggled to find the policy that would truly improve and strengthen the U.S. marine transportation system…that would ensure we continue to have a robust merchant marine,” said Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) in a private session with the Federal Maritime Commission.

On July 20th Chairman Cummings held a hearing on the subject.   He repeated his concerns about the state of the American industry in international trade and told MARAD Administrator David Matsuda that something should be done.

Some of the witnesses focused their testimony on the existing U.S.-flag programs—the Maritime Security Program (MSP) and the cargo preference program.

Administrator Matsuda cited numbers that summarize the industry’s decline.  He noted that the once substantial U.S. merchant fleet “created many of the technological innovations now used by the rest of the world” then stated this depressing fact:  “However, U.S. maritime programs have not been successful in inducing or even maintaining capacity within the Nation’s domestic merchant marine. “

Chairman Cummings told Matsuda, “We…should work to formulate a meaningful U.S. maritime policy that will revitalize our merchant marine and expand the percent of U.S. trade carried in U.S. ships.”  He wanted the MARAD to return with some ideas.

Given how long it is taking USDOT to unveil long overdue surface transportation recommendations–in part due to the White House aversion to talking revenue measures–one might imagine the subcommittee chairman waiting a little while for a new administration maritime initiative.

Here’s an idea.  Suggest to Congress that the place to start revitalizing the U.S. merchant marine is here in U.S. waters.  Rather than try to formulate a new policy by which U.S.-flag shipping can be competitive in the Asian trade, we should develop an ambitious initiative for the nascent and inadequately resourced American Marine Highway program here at home.

It is good to hear Chairman Cummings raise his concerns.  Whatever can be done to invigorate the U.S.-flag sector is worth considering.  It certainly is long overdue.

I will borrow words used by former Secretary Norman Mineta in a December 2007 speech about the broader U.S. maritime sector.  “Compared to the resources and focus that we have devoted to surface transportation and aviation,” Mineta said after having left the cabinet office, “I believe we must quickly and dramatically increase our attention, our funding, and our national purpose with respect to maritime issues.”

If there is an obvious opportunity to revitalize the maritime sector–one of this country’s earliest industries–it is in the short sea market, primarily the Jones Act trade, as part of a smart energy/environment/transportation policy framework.  If there is a way to give new life to the merchant fleet and bring U.S. shipyards to produce vessels for a new, greener generation it is through an expanded domestic market and a policy that takes the maritime sector half as seriously as Washington has taken other sectors of the economy.  Many of us would settle for half.   Pbea

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Our Friend and Partner, Mr. Truck

In Efficiency, Intermodal, Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on May 12, 2010 at 12:16 am

Everyone who thinks there are too many rigs on the roads, raise your hand.  If today you used something that arrived on a truck, raise your other hand.

You can put both hands down.

Bill Graves, President of the ATA, has taken umbrage at some of the recent rhetoric in Washington.  Not much love is being heard.  Just “take trucks off the road.”

It must have hurt to read this sharpened lead in a recent Journal of Commerce cover story:  “The Obama administration is forming a national freight transportation policy that can be boiled down to one concept: Get more trucks off the roads.”

In his April 30, 2010 letter to Secretary Ray LaHood Mr. Graves points to USDOT’s favorable references to, and funding of, intermodal rail and marine highway as ways to “take trucks off the road.”  The Trucker-in-Chief disagrees.

Of course Secretary LaHood has good reason to point to rail and water.  We all know intermodal rail is more fuel efficient than moving packages downhill on a Soap Box Derby special.  (That’s the only image the RRs have yet to use in their non-stop ads.)  So much more efficient that environmental organizations have become the railroads’ best advocates here in town.

And barges can carry even more tonnage on a whiff of what is in a locomotive’s fuel tank.   Too bad far fewer people know it (although the barge industry is trying to do something about that).

There are great efficiencies to be realized in the rail and marine modes.  Moving some truck loads to rail and water routes can be both good business and policy.

But here’s a shocker.  Trucks aren’t going away.  Not unless you want to have to trek down to the docks to pick up your new flat screen.  Or to the farm to get your cabbage.

The “off the road” talk is shorthand.  Not the full story.  The policy talk doesn’t single out just trucks.  It’s just that one doesn’t hear politicos say “take cars off the road” nearly as much.  Yet that also is part of USDOT’s “livable community” message.

Under Secretary Roy Kienitz said in his March testimony about the TIGER-like National Infrastructure Investments program that it  “focuses funding on investments in whichever modes are most effective in achieving our national transportation goals…”

The policy talk is about making the most of each of the modes.  Using the modes where they are most efficient in moving the goods.  Where possible make the long haul on rail much as trucking increasingly is hopping the freight…much as trucks will become customers of freight ferries and other coastal services.  Maybe even become owners.

And notwithstanding some of the words used by short sea advocates, the marine highway effort is not about putting trucks and their drivers off the road and out of business.  It’s about giving trucking logistics another route to take and an opportunity to rationalize operations.

Bill Graves is right to complain about glib “off the road” talk.  There are better ways to describe the future role of trucks, water and rail in the national transportation system.   Pbea

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Good Things to Hear — Pt. 2

In Efficiency, Infrastructure, Intermodal, Surface Transportation Policy on May 1, 2010 at 11:34 pm

This except from the opening of  “A National Intermodal Shift” by W. Cassidy and J. Boyd of the Journal of Commerce, April 5, 2010:

The Obama administration is forming a national freight transportation policy that can be boiled down to one concept: Get more trucks off the roads.

Key officials are increasingly making it clear they want to move a larger percentage of the nation’s intercity freight by rail or water, to take pressure off congested and crumbling highways and to help improve the environment.

“We want to keep goods movement on water as long as possible, and then on rail as long as possible and truck it for the last miles,” Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari said at a March 24 Senate committee hearing. [emphasis added]

In a single sentence, Porcari described what appears to be the most sweeping change in a generation in the federal government’s approach to shipping and transportation, promising an ambitious and concerted effort to redirect the way freight flows through the country’s long-standing supply networks.

The JOC cover story is intriguing to the reform minded (and unwelcome to the road-minded).  It builds on recent statements made by DOT officials in interviews and Hill hearings.  The view that is emerging from the Secretary’s office is a policy perspective that adheres less to modal stovepipes (and whether there is a pot of money devoted to a stovepipe) and more to intermodal efficiency.  It first asks if a project would provide public benefit and secondarily whether the infrastructure is in public or private hands.  Under Secretary for Policy Roy Kienitz testified at a March 17 House hearing.  He opened by outlining the principles that are guiding the Administration’s developing transportation policy.

Secretary [Ray] LaHood has decided to focus on five key strategic goals as priorities in our national transportation policy – safety, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, livability, and environmental sustainability.  Our policy on freight transportation grows out of our focus on these five key strategic goals. We want a freight policy that will allow us to target our investments on projects that are most effective in allowing us to achieve these goals.

Later in the statement Roy Kienitz said this:

Whether freight infrastructure is publicly-owned or privately-owned, it produces a mix of public and private benefits. Shippers and other customers of the freight transportation system derive private benefits from freight transportation, and the Nation as a whole derives public benefits from our freight transportation infrastructure, whether that infrastructure is publicly or privately owned. Freight that moves on more energy-efficient modes – whether the right-of-way is publicly or privately owned – enhances our energy independence and reduces adverse climate change effects. Freight that moves on a lower-cost right-of-way – whether publicly or privately owned – enhances our economic competitiveness by preserving capital for hiring and additional capital investments. The most sensible freight transportation policy will be one that directs transportation infrastructure investment to where it will have the greatest impact on our desired outcomes, regardless of whether those modes are publicly or privately owned, or whether they have their own source of trust fund revenues.

Given the opportunity to initiate a  multimodal grant program DOT is applying principles like  transportation efficiency and public benefit.  It explains over $300 million in TIGER grants going to expanding double stack rail corridor capacity and to port improvements.

These are not your typical Federally supported projects.  Then again, what we are starting to hear out of 1200 New Jersey Avenue is not your typical transportation policy.   Pbea

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Good Things to Hear — Pt. 1

In Intermodal, Leadership, Surface Transportation Policy on April 22, 2010 at 11:20 am

This from Environment & Energy Daily reporter Josh Vorhees, his March 25, 2010 story shortened here:

A widely popular transportation program created by last year’s stimulus package could see new life in the next multiyear highway bill.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said yesterday that she wants to include a provision similar to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, program in the bill her panel is drafting.

The $1.5 billion grant program for innovative, long-term work is aimed at funding multimodal projects that have traditionally been difficult to fund through existing federal programs.

Boxer asked DOT officials for help in drafting the TIGER language that would be part of her highway legislation.

DOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari said his agency would be willing to work with the EPW Committee and called the TIGER program key to the administration’s transportation goals, specifically efforts to shift more freight off the nation’s roads to increase mobility, and combat congestion and the fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions that accompany it.

“I think the TIGER grants point the way to the future in intermodal transportation,” Porcari said.

I wasn’t at the hearing at which the exchange took place but on the basis of this story I hear what sounds like a change of heart.   Perhaps a change of heart that took place quite some time ago but it’s one that is worth noting nonetheless.

In early 2009 when the economic stimulus package was taking form Barbra Boxer spoke to attendees of a freight stakeholder gathering.  In strong terms Boxer rejected what was the $5.5B proposal of her colleague, Patty Murray, chair of the transportation appropriations subcommittee.  (Murray’s multi-modal discretionary grant proposal eventually was enacted at a $1.5B level and later dubbed TIGER grants by Secretary Ray LaHood.)

Barbara Boxer explanation included this: Murray’s discretionary grant proposal “takes Congress out” of the decision making.  Not to worry, she elaborated, her planned surface transportation bill–MAP 21–would take care of large infrastructure projects through a projects of national and regional significance approach, much as contained in SAFETEA-LU.

Barbara Boxer’s response was disappointing to reform minded freight folk in the audience but not especially surprising.  As chair of the Environment & Public Works Committee she would both write the next surface transportation bill and have great say over what projects to include in it.

So, here’s to Barbara Boxer for seeing the value in the TIGER experience and, apparently, trusting USDOT leadership to responsibly apply legislative and rulemaking parameters in the selection of projects.   Here’s to any other legislators who had misgivings about giving the Administration the “discretion” but now see how it can work.

Perhaps Chairman Boxer also takes comfort in noting that some  of the 51 selected projects in the first round are in districts and states of key transportation players in Congress.   And that’s okay.  We hardly expect grant selections to be done in antiseptic rooms totally devoid of political considerations.   Pbea

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What TIGER Tells Us

In Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on February 23, 2010 at 12:39 pm

No, not that Tiger.

The eagerly awaited TIGER grants were announced last week.  An experiment in government.  Against their better judgment members of the House and Senate gave $1.5 billion to the Administration and left it to the discretion of USDOT program managers, modal administrators, the Secretary (and perhaps the White House, just in case) to decide what projects were worthy.  (Egads! The bureaucrats!)

The multimodal discretionary grants program—later assigned a name and acronym at USDOT—was created a year ago in the cauldron in which Congress cooked up the economic recovery package.  The context was job creation in a failing economy.  But the genius of TIGER’s tenacious sponsors—most visibly Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)—was that it also was a good time to try something different.  Politics would always be lurking in the background (if not in the foreground) when doling out tax revenue for public works but this was not a time for the earmarking norm.

Also lurking was the thought: if this works it could set the example for a change in transportation policy.

Lisa Caruso of the National Journal asks in her transportation “experts” blog if TIGER should be replicated in the surface transportation authorization bill.  Can it serve as a model for the revised policy and programs that many of us look for in the bill?

So far the respondents (scroll thru the page) generally agree there is benefit in the approach.  What’s not to like? Livable community folks liked the selection of street car and pedestrian path projects.  Goods movement was given a strong boost with around $300 million going to rail projects.  And it was good to see that at least one of the promising marine highway initiatives was granted $30 million.  (The first of many one hopes.)  That award illustrates how TIGER–and Secretary Ray LaHood–was open to more than the usual road, transit and bike path projects.

By and large, very good projects were selected.  But the question posed by Caruso is whether TIGER represents a policy approach worth continuing.

Some of the respondents think TIGER is a good starting point but that it is important to change the underlying policy.   In particular Steve Heminger notes it is not enough to create a grants program that is mode neutral.  An improved Federal policy and program should have a clearer, focused national perspective e.g., goods movement and metropolitan mobility.  It is a view I share.

Bob Poole raises an important policy question worth debating by suggesting an underlying weakness of a multimodal approach if a highway tax is the sole source of support.

One person’s response I would be interested to see is that of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).  In January 2009 the chair of EPW, which is to produce highway and other portions of the next authorization bill, flatly opposed the multimodal discretionary grants provision in the draft Senate stimulus bill, even as Heminger and other Californians welcomed the idea of a mode-neutral program and projects judged on their merits.  Boxer and others in the transportation leadership of Capitol Hill will decide whether the TIGER approach is just a brief detour from projects as usual.   Pbea

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Toward Developing MTS Related Policy

In Federal Government, Leadership, MTS Policy, Surface Transportation Policy on February 15, 2010 at 1:07 pm

Sitting the USDOT leadership in front of an audience has become a bit of a tradition each January.   Most of the brass, sans Secretary LaHood, appeared en panel at the recent TRB annual convention.  The policy and modal chiefs offered brief overviews as to what is on their plates.  Here are notes from two that have particular relevance to MTS related policy.

Under Secretary for Policy Roy Kienitz covered the big item — the next surface transportation authorization bill.   This year the Secretary’s office will pull together recommendations for the Obama White House to consider in preparing a package for Congress.

Roy stated the vision:  A renewed sense of strong federal leadership in transportation centered on meeting national needs.

He defined national needs: safety, state of good repair, economic competitiveness, livability, and environ sustainability.

The department’s priorities: organizing programs around those needs and recommending ideas to congress.

The challenges he described:  getting Americans excited about the vision and finding a politically acceptable way to pay for it.

David Matsuda, the Maritime Administration’s acting Administrator, is awaiting Senate confirmation.  He offered his take on what is what is driving the need to develop a vision for the marine transportation system as it applies to nation’s economic competitiveness.

The Panama Canal widening has the potential to significantly alter land and water routes.  Add to that potential changes relating to the use of the Suez, an Artic route, etc.    In short, we’re facing a whole new freight delivery market.

The Federal government must play an active role such as help “coordinate” investments in port access and intermodal connectors.  Few studies and data are available.  MARAD is commissioning a study to fully explore the impacts of a widened canal on our transportation system.

David said the study outcome is expected to shape national policies and help assess the capacity of channels, connections, etc.  He spoke of the need to factor in the capacity of port terminals and landside connections, the ingenuity of port authorities and terminal operators, and the competitive measures Canada and Mexico ports will take.  To understand how fuel prices affect freight economics.   And to identify marine highways to relieve surface congestion and move goods in a more energy efficient manner on the water.

There’s work to be done at the Department of Transportation.  And plenty reason for the freight community to plug into it.   Pbea

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The Next Maritime Administrator

In Federal Government, Leadership on January 27, 2010 at 11:50 pm

David Matsuda –the President’s pick to serve as Maritime Administrator–is ready to serve.

He returned to familiar turf this week when he appeared at his nomination hearing.  He worked for the same committee that will be voting on his nomination.  His work in the Senate had to do with railroads, ports, transit, trucking and aviation.  He worked for a senator whose state’s second largest employment sector is logistics and which is host to the New York Harbor and Delaware River gateways.

Since mid 2009 David Matsuda has been running the Maritime Administration as the top political appointee at the modal agency.  He has the confidence of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood who first knew him as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy.

Importantly for MARAD–and for the marine transportation system–he has knowledge and experience to help shape a new transportation policy for the administration to recommend to Congress.  That transportation policy has to include, for the first time, a national freight policy.  And by rights it should put the marine transportation system squarely in that policy.

David Matsuda’s prepared statement for the hearing was brief and straightforward.  He reminded the committee that the “impacts of our nation’s maritime industry are not limited to coastal states.”

“Items brought in by ship make their way to store shelves and factory lines throughout the nation. Some raw materials we mine, goods we produce, and agricultural products we grow for export leave through our seaports or travel down rivers or across great lakes to distant markets.  In all, 36 states have a maritime port—whether it’s on a river, lake, gulf, or ocean. Merchant mariners live in just about every state in the Union, and midshipmen nominated by you and your colleagues to study at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy can claim home to all but one state. Some states have shipyards or marine manufacturers which can be the largest sources of jobs in an entire community or region.”

He noted acknowledged the challenges.

“Today’s industry is struggling with many tough challenges: a lagging economy, climate change, the threats of invasive species, piracy and other security issues, a greatly expanded Panama Canal opening in 2014, and an aging workforce, to name a few.”

One of the challenges facing the next Administrator is to make something of the marine highway program.  It is just getting started.  With no assurance of a reliable funding stream for the program, MARAD–hopefully with strong support from the Secretary’s office–will have to make the most of its modest resources to develop a credible and creative program that will be central to MARAD’s mission for many years to come.

“I feel my experience working within the federal government, and especially working in the Senate, has allowed me a broad understanding of how these challenges can be approached successfully: by working with all stakeholders in good faith and with transparency in decision-making.”

We wish him well.    Pbea

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Mile Markers on the Marine Highway

In Intermodal, Marine Highway, Surface Transportation Policy on December 18, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Since the notion of American marine highways helping to mitigate landside congestion took root early this decade–along with the call for Federal policy and program–voices have been heard to ask, “so, where is it?”   “What happened to those promised new short sea services?”  Why isn’t [big box retailer] using coastal shipping?

Cynics who habitually dismiss the competitiveness of U.S. flag shipping eagerly seize opportunity to validate their view.  Observers see their doubts re-enforced or just wonder if there is any there there.

Meanwhile, advocates are impatient for government to concur with the public benefits rationale by enacting major policy directives and funding game changing projects.  (There is also the understandable impatience of entrepreneurial risk takers whose initiatives could use a short term assist to help establish themselves in the market.)

I count among those seeking a decisive boost for new marine highway operations.  But expectations are tempered by the Washington experience.  To keep our sanity folks here learn to tolerate the tortoise pace of policy-craft.   We look for the smallish increments that represent progress, even as we look to accomplish greater things farther down the road.

So what  progress has been made?

Those are the highlights, added to by various research papers and reports.  It is worth noting that the above achievements are not the result of a well-funded, cohesive effort by a powerful maritime industry lobby.  (Indeed, one might argue that none of those modifiers apply, especially when compared to other transportation sectors.)  They largely were achieved by decision-makers coming to recognize the inherent advantages of domestic marine transportation, and with the encouragement of various labor, port, public agency and private sector advocates (as well as the Coastwise Coalition that I chair) who have validated that policy direction.

So what progress will we see in the coming year or two?

  • USDOT will announce the multimodal TIGER grants and we will learn if applicants whose projects would enhance new AMH services–such as Eco Transport (CA) and SeaBridge Freight (TX/FL)–are among the awardees.
  • MARAD will issue a final rule for the SST/AMH  program, designate AMH coastal and inland corridors, and call for projects.
  • USDOT will report to Congress on hindrances to AMH development and make recommendations, some of which may resemble recommendations made to the Secretary in 2009 by the Marine Transportation System National Advisory Council.
  • MARAD will issue a rule for the new grants program and, with the cooperation of the Secretary, will make every effort to award grants by October 2010.
  • President Obama’s FY 2011 budget will include a specific funding request for SST grants.
  • Congress will act on the legislation to exempt from the Harbor Maintenance Tax non-bulk cargo that moves between US ports and among Great Lakes ports.
  • Congress will consider new surface transportation policy that to some extent will recognize how AMH routes can benefit traditional users of congested land routes.

That’s what I see happening.    Pbea