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Council, other proposals for public-private partnerships, and the Corps of Engineers itself all recognize the cost savings and other advantages that come from borrowing against a future revenue stream to obtain full funding of a project up-front, rather than paying for it piecemeal. To return to the home mortgage illustration, no one buys a home one room at a time, year by year, as each year’s cur- rent income allows.

In a letter to Congress earlier this year, the Inland Wa- terways Users Board reported that, for the 10-year period 2005–2014, each penny of the fuel tax paid by carriers on the inland waterways generated $4 million each year for the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. This means that, in ef- fect, less than three cents of the current 29-cents per gallon fuel tax would need to be allocated to supporting a bond ? nancing of $150 million.

This alternative proposal would require some legisla- tive changes in order for it to be implemented, but so also would the imposition of some form of toll or lockage fee.

Each Water Resources Development Act that is passed by

Congress provides an opportunity to enact such changes, as most recently evidenced by the important steps taken in WRRDA 2014. There is currently pending in Con- gress a bill that will hopefully become the Water Resources

Development Act of 2016, and efforts are being made to have such enactments restored to a biennial schedule. Each of them will provide an opportunity to ? nd a way to use public-private partnerships to provide funding to restore and improve the inland waterways infrastructure. In this article, it can be seen that this would be feasible – without tolls or lockage fees.

James A. Kearns is a Partner at Bryan Cave LLP. Mr.

Kearns has represented owners, operators, ? nancial institutions (as both lessors and lenders), and end users for more than 30 years in the purchase, construction and ? nancing of vessels engaged in both the foreign and coastwise trades of the United States, including compliance with the requirements of the Jones Act for the ownership, chartering and transfer of vessels. Kearns has earned an

LL.M. (in Taxation), New York University, J.D. cum laude, University of Notre Dame, 1974, and a B.S.E.E., summa cum laude, University of Notre Dame, 1971.

Reach him at [email protected] 23 www.marinelink.com MN

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