ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1985 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 1984 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m. in room SD-192, Senate Dirksen Office Building, Hon. John C. Stennis presiding. Present: Senators Stennis, Johnston, Hatfield, and Abdnor; also present: Senator Exon. NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES SUBCOMMITTEE PROCEDURE Senator STENNIS. The subcommittee will now come to order. We have a busy agenda here for the day. The first set of witnesses to be called will present testimony on the lower Mississippi River navigation projects, Mr. Herbert Haar, assistant executive port director, Port of New Orleans. Mr. Haar, you come forward and have a seat, please. You have certain additional witnesses with you, is that right? Ask them to come to the table as well. Mr. HAAR. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. Senator STENNIS. Now, in the absence of the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Hatfield, I have been asked as a member of the subcommittee to preside over today's session. Senator Hatfield regrets that he cannot be here. However, on his behalf, he is chairman of the full committee and this subcommittee, let me welcome each of you to the hearing today and I want to join in his welcome, too. We have a large number of witnesses in the course of the day. Therefore, it will take some self-restraint on the part of everyone to hold oral testimony to a minimum in order that all of you who have requested will have an opportunity to testify. So in keeping with the subcommittee's wishes, I ask especially that the detail of their statements that each of you have worked out very carefully be submitted for the record where they will be carefully reviewed. That is the record that the subcommittee will study in determining its judgment and the recommendations for the upcoming year. Also, in this way you will have a careful and detailed record so that anyone who is not present will be (2005) able to arrive at an independent judgment. Then if each witness will summarize or highlight the important points in his oral testimony, it will be most helpful. So again, welcome each of you and we will now proceed with our first witness. We are glad to have Senator Exon here from the great State of Nebraska. We have some football games but not all. Senator Exon is a valuable Member of our Senate and he will have something more in mind, but he wants to come a little later. All right. You proceed now in your own way, please. LOWER MISSISSIPPI RIVER NAVIGATION PROJECTS STATEMENT OF HERBERT R. HAAR, JR., ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE PORT DIRECTOR, PORT OF NEW ORLEANS ACCOMPANIED BY: SAM GIALLANZA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NEW ORLEANS STEAMSHIP ASSOCIATION CAPT. DANIEL R. MEYERS, JR., PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATED BRANCH PILOTS FOR PORT OF NEW ORLEANS Mr. HAAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I do have a full statement for the record and I will submit it in accordance with your admonition in the beginning for the record. I would like to give a few brief highlights and then use some computer graphics in a quick summary and then ask my two companions to make very brief statements. Senator STENNIS. All right; you proceed. Mr. HAAR. Sir, I am Herbert R. Haar, Jr., assistant executive port director of the Port of New Orleans. I am here today to testify on behalf of the board of commissioners of the Port of New Orleans, a unit of local government of the State of Louisiana and neighboring gulf States, the mid-America States, and the Nation as a whole. PORT GROWTH Growth commerce on the Mississippi River and tributaries system has been such that tonnages double every 10 to 12 years. Foreign trade means jobs and the Louisiana ports are handling 21.5 percent of the Nation's foreign waterborne trade. In the year 1971 that percentage share was only 9.6 percent. Sir, I would like to now turn to the red booklet that you have a copy of which contains the computer graphics which will allow us to just hit the highlights of our testimony. The very first part that you have in that with a graph on each side shows the growth of short tons foreign oilborne commerce from 1973 to 1982 and you can see a high before the current worldwide recession. We are getting up to close to 200 million tons which is off a little bit now in view of the worldwide recession. On the right-hand side of the page you will see that we were hitting at the peak before the recession up over $40 billion worth of trade on the lower Mississippi River in the most recent time period. |