Page 19: of Marine News Magazine (February 2015)

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S B -I included in the tax extender legislation, which arrived—

TAKEHOLDER UY N

This eleventh-hour increase in the fuel tax was almost even without help from FedEx or UPS—just in time for as surprising as it was welcome. For the past several years, the holidays.

the inland waterways industry has been recommending Toward the end of the year an initiative at the state level this increase. This recommendation was included in the got under way as well. This is an effort to take advantage of

Capital Projects Business Model prepared by the Inland public-private partnership provisions of WRRDA to pre-

Marine Transportation System Capital Investment Strat- serve the authorization of the Navigation and Ecosystem egy Team, which was unanimously approved and adopted Sustainability Program (NESP). NESP is a long-term pro- by the Inland Waterways Users Board in 2010. In 2013, gram authorized by Congress in the 2007 Water Resources the Waterways Council and a coalition of nearly 40 stake- Development Act for navigation improvements and ecolog- holders expressed their support for increasing the fuel tax ical restoration for the Upper Mississippi River System and to at least 26 cents per gallon in a letter to the House Ways the Illinois Waterway navigation system, following years of and Means Committee. study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, going back to

Early in 2014, Congressman Dave Camp (R MI), chair- 1989, and collaboration among Illinois and the other states man of the House Ways and Means Committee, included in the Upper Mississippi River System. The primary goal an increase of six cents in this tax in his draft of the Tax of NESP is to implement an integrated, dual-purpose plan

Reform Act of 2014, but his proposal to overhaul the tax to ensure the economic and environmental sustainability code made little headway in the House of Representatives. of the Upper Mississippi River System and the Illinois Wa-

Despite this discouraging track record in attempting to terway navigation system by reducing commercial traf