Prepared Remarks for

Julie Nelson

Deputy Maritime Administrator

9^th Annual National Harbor Safety Conference

Chicago, IL

Thursday, May 10, 2007

12:00 P.M.

It’s a great pleasure to be with you at the 9^th Annual National Harbor Safety Conference. I am honored to be with so many people who care for America’s waterways, ports, and shipping infrastructure. I also am fully aware that, at this moment, we all share a more basic human feeling—HUNGER—so I appreciate your attention and sacrifice, and as such I will be as concise as possible.

I first want to thank the Transportation Research Board for hosting this conference along with the U.S. Coast Guard. I bring you all greetings from President Bush and Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and on their behalf I want to extend our appreciation for your continuous efforts to promote innovation and progress in transportation through research.

Your expertise in identifying qualified partners within the transportation industry and bringing new technologies into the infrastructure is crucial to the viability of American commerce—and we at the Department of Transportation thank you.

The city of Chicago is certainly an appropriate venue when speaking about our nation’s commerce, shipping, and network of inland waterways--the Windy City is the focal point of America’s Midwest and a powerhouse of economic production and transportation.

The Port of Chicago has always been the main link between the inland river system, the Great Lakes and America’s global marketplace. In the global intermodal transportation system we have now, Chicago is in a very real sense a Pacific port, an Atlantic port, and a Gulf of Mexico port—containers that come in on the West Coast often come straight to Chicago and are opened or distributed here. Barge traffic moves from Chicago, through the Upper Miss / Illinois Waterway, down the Mississippi to the Gulf. Deep-draft commercial ships reach Chicago through the St. Lawrence Seaway. Soon, with the completion of the Heartland Rail Corridor from Norfolk, Virginia, Chicago will become even more of an Atlantic Ocean port. The task of balancing vital security and safety concerns with the need to keep freight and passengers moving becomes more demanding every day.

As a leading “general cargo” port , the Port of Chicago moves over 26 million tons of natural resources. In addition, the city’s transportation infrastructure provides over 100,000 jobs for local area residents.

I am sure that most people here today are aware of Chicago’s ranking position within our national economy. (And if you drove the Dan Ryan Expressway this morning,) I’m sure you know that the wealth generated by trade has come at a cost, and that cost is congestion.

Transportation system congestion is one of the single largest threats to our nation’s economic prosperity and way of life.  Whether it takes the form of trucks stalled in traffic, cargo stuck at overwhelmed seaports, or airplanes circling over crowded airports, congestion costs America an estimated $200 billion a year.  Americans lose more than 3 billion hours, and more than 2 billion gallons of fuel sitting in traffic. Congestion affects the quality of life in America by robbing us of time that could be spent with families and friends and in participation in civic activities.

It also robs us of freedom of movement, the freedom of the open road, that is so much a part of America. President Bush wants to keep transportation synonymous with opportunity and help give back a little of the freedom we lose each time we sit in traffic. That is why as part of his energy plan, the President provides 175 million dollars to support the Department’s on-going congestion relief efforts. These new funds will supplement monies that have already been committed to helping state and local governments find fresh and innovative ways to reduce gridlock.

The Maritime Administration is looking forward to playing an important role in the Bush Administration’s Congestion Relief Policy. We have begun researching and developing new methods that will allow us to use our shoreside and waterborne transportation infrastructure to move freight and passengers in more cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and efficient ways—in other words, get vehicle traffic off America’s congestion-prone highways, and on to what we now call America’s Marine Highways.

Through this initiative, my agency is promoting the use of barge traffic to offset the steadily increasing strain placed upon America’s land routes.

Right now my agency is considering lending support to a new plan to utilize barges to transport cargo containers up and down the James River to facilitate and expedite the shift of cargo from roads to waterways.

We are also identifying those parts of the country where the use of America’s Marine Highways has been most successful.

To manage congestion and promote trade upon our waterways, we have signed a declaration with the governments of Canada and Mexico to foster the use of inland and coastal operations.

An outgrowth of this partnership is the development of the North American Short Sea Shipping Electronic Information Clearinghouse. This interactive website will provide information, encourage business communications, and facilitate agreements between shippers and operators to foster the expanded use of America’s Marine Highways, allowing for “one stop shopping”, if you will.

We have heard a great deal about one item of concern—the Harbor Maintenance Tax. The Bush Administration has been taking a serious look at the HMT, and now there is Congressional interest in changing the structure, including the possible total elimination of the tax for domestic movement of cargo containers on the Great Lakes.

The Maritime Administration was one of the founding members of the Heartland Intermodal Partnership. We are very proud of our role in HIP, and of the work it does.

The Heartland of America has the intermodal and maritime resources to help cope with the unprecedented demands on the Nation’s transportation system. This area is endowed with natural and developed waterways, multiple rail and truck connections, and existing intermodal hubs--its ports.

HIP is an effort to cope with the coming transportation crisis systematically--not a piece at a time--but in partnership. It is a partnership of federal, state, and local governments as well as industry and its modal components of rail, highway, and maritime. That is the way it must be done to have the seamless, global transportation system we need and deserve.

The Maritime Administration recently underwent a complete reorganization to keep the agency current and in touch with America’s transportation needs, now and in the future.

Our Intermodal System Development Office will be devoted to addressing port and shoreside transportation system development in order to enhance freight mobility and reduce congestion.

We will be establishing a new office that will be dedicated to the environment and regulatory compliance. This office will be a hub between our current assets and industry leaders to develop the best management practices and implementation strategies on related issues such as safety, security, and the environment. One thing this new office will do is to carry on environmental work of particular interest to the Great Lakes, which is the management of ballast water and dealing with invasive species. The Great Lakes have long been identified as harboring major water contaminants and hosting aggressive species of plants and animals that have deleterious effects on those species indigenous to these magnificent freshwater lakes.

My agency is actively involved with the establishment of a technologically advanced shore-based ballast water treatment testing facility in the Duluth-Superior area. In fact, we supplied the start-up capital and engineering advice that led to the construction of this state-of-the-art facility.

In the reorganization of the Maritime Administration, we will continue to focus on what we call the legacy areas: maritime asset development, cargo preference, the promotion of American shipping, the training of mariners, and national security.

We are also establishing new Gateway Offices, which will focus on intermodal transportation. One of the key Gateway Offices will be in Chicago.

Our ports provide vital links: between waterborne trade and American business, between the United States and Canada, between the United States and the rest of the world. Our ports serve as arteries for goods and people we want to bring in or take out, and as filters for people and things that we want to keep out. As we strive for a flexible and efficient national transportation system that meets “just-in-time” inventory management requirements, improved access to our ports by land modes must also receive greater attention at all levels of government. We must also continue to balance the needs of access and flow with those of security.

I can assure you that the Maritime Administration stands ready at all times to cooperate and assist in port and harbor projects. We will continue to turn our attention to matters and methods of doing business in our ports and terminals to assure that better efficiency leads to less port congestion and better service to shippers and freight forwarders.

Our challenge is to work together so that ports can continue to serve our country in the future as they have done so ably in the past.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

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