Press Releases

Tonight, Congressman Bill Huizenga (MI-02) released the following statement after H.R. 3080, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), passed the House by a vote of 417 to 3.

"I am glad to see WRRDA included provisions of the legislation I authored with Rep. Candice Miller and Dr. Dan Benishek that directly impact West Michigan and the Great Lakes Region. In addition to making significant and necessary cuts to bureaucratic red tape, this bipartisan measure will improve the dredging of harbors across the Great Lakes, help shorten the dredging backlog, and boost economic activity for both recreational and commercial harbors.

"WRRDA classifies the entire Great Lakes Navigation System as a unified body and instructs the Army Corps to count the 160 million tons of cargo shipped throughout the various ports in the Great Lakes Region as a single entity rather than forcing all 140 harbors to compete against one another. By classifying the Great Lakes like other major shipping waterways, harbors spanning from the St. Lawrence River Basin to Lake Michigan will be able to compete for funds needed to alleviate the over $200 million dredging backlog throughout the Great Lakes.

"It is estimated that 18 million cubic yards of sediment clogs ports and waterways throughout the Great Lakes. This has reduced the amount of cargo shipped by 500,000 tons over the course of the navigation season. To put this number into perspective, a standard dump truck holds around 15 cubic yards of material, so 18 million cubic yards of sediment would fill the equivalent of 1.2 million standard dump trucks. That number of dump trucks would span a distance greater than the distance between Muskegon, Michigan and Beijing, China."

"Lastly, H.R. 3280 takes an important step toward ensuring the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund is used for its intended purpose by requiring 80% of the monies collected by the fund to actually go to U.S. Army Corps operation and maintenance of our harbors by fiscal year 2020. More must be done to ensure these dollars are used as they are intended and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the future to make sure that happens."