U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday he will convene a meeting in Washington to help the Port of Savannah find funds to deepen its harbor.
During remarks delivered as he received the National Industrial Transportation League’s 2011 Logistics Executive of the Year Award, LaHood decried political gridlock in Washington that is delaying transportation infrastructure projects.
But he said said the Obama administration was “not sitting on our hands,” noting that he had arrived in Atlanta to accept the award after visiting the Port of Savannah Tuesday morning to discuss plans to deepen its shipping channels with members of the Georgia Ports Authority, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
Deepening the port would both create jobs and make the port more competitive when the Panama Canal completes its expansion in 2014.
In a brief interview after his speech, LaHood noted that Savannah has grown to become one of the largest ports in the nation (figures from the American Association of Port Authorities rank it as the four largest container port in the country after Los Angeles, Long Beach and New York), and said he made a commitment to arrange a meeting between the Georgia Ports Authority, the governor, mayor, and the state’s congressional delegation with DOT, Army Corps of Engineers, and Coast Guard.
The goal, he said, would be “to begin a discussion about how we find the $400 million matched with almost $200 million from the state and port authority for a $600 million project that gets the port to about 47-48 feet deep.”
In wide ranging remarks, LaHood called for bipartisan cooperation on transportation issues, saying “this is more than an economic challenge, it’s an opportunity that we are wasting” because increased spending on infrastructure could help reduce unemployment.
“Highways are choked with congestion, bridges are crumbling after years of neglect, airports and seaports are not prepared to meet the new demands of the century,” said LaHood, who received the so-called “McCullough Award” at a luncheon closing the annual meeting of the NIT League, which is held in conjunction with those of the Intermodal Association of North America, Transportation Intermediaries Association, and the TransComp Exhibition.
“Congress should be working on that. This is our moment to connect people who need jobs with the jobs that need to get done,” he said, as he accepted the award which is presented by the league and Logistics Management Magazine. (The award is named after John T. McCullough, a former chief editor of Distribution magazine, a predecessor of Logistics Management.)
“All told, our our aging transportation infrastructure costs American businesses and families $130 billion a year,” said LaHood, who pointed to a study released this summer by the Carnegie Leadership Initiative on Transportation Solvency that said deferred maintenance adds $175 billion to the national deficit annually and that by 2035, the bill for deferred transportation maintenance will be about $5 trillion.
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LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, complained that “Congress doesn’t have the ability to get anything done. We need a transportation bill, we have gone two and a half years beyond the time of the last bill, we are operating on a continuing bill that doesn’t leave us any opportunity to do anything. We need an FAA bill. We have gone five and a half years beyond the time. We are on the 22nd extension of the FAA. We need to put America to work. We need to get our our friends and neighbors working building roads building bridges,” he said.
In his remarks, LaHood also noted there has been overwhelming demand for funding of transportation infrastructure in the the third round of TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants by states around the country.
LaHood said that there were applications for $14.1 billion in assistance, far in excess of the $527 million set aside for the program. He said DOT received 828 applications.
He said DOT hopes to announce the awards in mid- December, “way ahead of schedule because we know these TIGER grants will put Americans to work.”
LaHood said that DOT was partnering with the Army Corps of Engineers so that “we can focus our grant making more directly on freight, and I hope you will see the result in more support for ports, dredging and other waterside projects.”
Asked if he thought MarAd was doing a good job, LaHood pointed to its “marine highway plan.”
We are putting a lot of emphasis along our waterways and at our ports. I don’t know another time in the history of DOT when we have invested in 13 ports. I think this administration cares a lot about the marine highway, the ports, the opportunities that the expansion of the Panama Canal.”
LaHood also said that “no other secretary has ever taken the interest in the Merchant Marine Academy that I have” saying that he has gotten “millions of dollars to fix up the facilities.” –Chris Dupin