Posted on August 25, 2016
By Andrea Rumbaugh, Houston Chronicle
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz pledged his support Tuesday for allocating more money to maintain the depth of the Houston Ship Channel, which is essential for large ships ferrying goods to and from the Gulf Coast port.
“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got the resources devoted to keeping the port functioning well and effectively and actively maintained,” Cruz told a room full of local officials and media.
The former presidential candidate was talking specifically about the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. Thirty years ago, Congress established an import tax for ports. This money was supposed to be used for maintaining ship channels, but for many years less than half of that fund was put toward dredging and related activities.
Recent legislation has increased the amount allocated to ship channels, but it’s not yet at 100 percent, said Mark Vincent, director of channel development for the Port of Houston Authority.
“It doesn’t make any sense that you guys pay a lot more into it than you take out of it,” Cruz said. “And that has been an inequity that has been the case for much too long, and it’s something that I intend to continue to keep working to try to remedy.”
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By the numbers
$600 billion-plus: Port of Houston’s estimated economic impact nationwide.
$265 billion: Estimated economic impact in Texas
2 million-plus: Jobs sustained by the port activity nationwide.
1.17 million: Jobs supported in Texas.
2 million-plus: Number of twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) of containers handled for 2015, a record.
Sources: Port of Houston Authority; a 2015 study by Martin Associates
Houston is not a naturally deep port, so dredging is an ongoing concern. Without it, the Ship Channel would become shallower, and ships would not be able to carry as much cargo.
Cruz hailed the Port of Houston’s economic benefits and called it “a critical part of keeping this country safe.”
Port officials told Cruz about other federal needs. The authority wants to extend gate hours for trucks at the container terminals, for instance, but it needs additional Customs and Border Protection funding to staff those hours.
“Our partnerships with the federal agencies, with CBP and the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers, are very good,” Port Authority executive director Roger Guenther said. “We need to make sure we have been actively talking to the people in D.C. about making sure that our Customs and Border Protection is resourced. They’re critical.”
“It was tremendously gratifying to have Sen. Cruz come to the port and see the facilities and strategies that we have,” chief infrastructure officer Rich Byrnes added.
Cruz later toured the Bayport Container Terminal and received a helicopter tour of the Houston Ship Channel. He joked about the wisdom of putting a politician in the air like that.
“You just wonder if they’re going to throw you out in the Ship Channel or not,” Cruz said.
U.S. Coast Guard personnel present assured Cruz that he was in good hands.
Source: Houston Chronicle
