The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Plan shortchanges Savannah port work
Boosters say $49M allocation will delay project, add expenses.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration shortchanged one of Georgia’s top economic priorities on Monday after it proposed funding work to deepen Savannah’s harbor at half the rate boosters wanted for in the upcoming budget year.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called on Congress to appropriate $49 million for the dredging project in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. That’s far short of the $100 million the port and Georgia’s congressional delegation were aiming for in fiscal 2019.
Ryan Fisher, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said the proposed funding level for the Savannah port reflected “tough choices” in the federal budget.
“You look across the spectrum of the budget, performance-based criteria, what is affordable and the appropriate amount of investment at this time, which is what I believe this reflects for the Savannah harbor,” Fisher said.
He added that the Trump administration did not have any concerns with the roughly $1 billion project’s viability.
The proposed funding level disappointed the Georgia Ports Authority, which is nearly halfway done with dredging work to deepen the harbor from 42 feet
to 47 feet to accommodate larger container ships.
“It’s not the high-water mark the delegation has requested that we obviously were supportive of,” said Jamie McCurry, the chief administrative officer of the ports authority.
The federal government is supposed to cover the bulk of the project’s $973 million price tag, but the most the state has ever received from Washington in a single year has been $50 million. That came from Trump in his first budget proposal last spring, but that money has yet to be approved by Congress.
The Savannah port did come out of Monday’s budget rollout in better shape than many similar projects to deepen harbors, including those in Boston and Charleston, S.C. Overall, the Trump administration called for reducing the corps’ construction budget by 50 percent compared with current spending levels.
The White House said it would like to focus on investing in projects with “high economic or environmental returns while addressing
public safety.” It proposed halting any new projects in order to finish ongoing projects such as Savannah “faster for less cost, allowing the affected communities to see their benefits sooner.”
Congress is likely to fund the corps at a higher overall level than that proposed by Trump given that such projects are politically popular. But lawmakers are prohibited from singling out specific projects for additional funding under the earmark ban. That means the funding levels the executive branch proposes for individual projects such as Savannah are generally what Congress will approve.
Georgia lawmakers previously warned that keeping funding flat at $50 million
would delay the project’s completion by five years, cost an additional $56 million because of inflation and generate an “irretrievable, cumulative loss” of $1.4 billion in annual economic benefits.
Even though Monday brought unwelcome news for the Savannah project, there is still a chance the port could see more federal money in the months ahead.
Congress is expected to finalize fiscal 2018 funding by the end of March, including $50 million for the dredging project. As a way to get around the earmark ban, lawmakers sometimes beef up funding for a broader construction account at the corps — extra money bureaucrats could decide to give Savannah later. With the new budget agreement setting aside more than $130 billion in new domestic spending, it’s possible some dollars could trickle down to politically popular agencies such as the corps.
“Congress has made a point that infrastructure is a priority, and we feel like with the new budget deal we will hopefully see the type of number in the work plan that will reflect all that talk,” McCurry said.
Savannah’s backers aimed to put a positive spin on Monday’s news. Even though the Trump administration proposed setting aside less money than port boosters had desired, it was still more money than the White House proposed for other ongoing construction projects, Gov. Nathan Deal noted.
“I am encouraged to see that (Savannah) was President Trump’s top priority when it comes to port investments,” the Republican said in a statement.
The Trump administration on Monday also unveiled a new $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan. Details about which specific types of projects could qualify for the $200 billion in proposed federal funding were not available, but it’s possible Savannah could see money under such a plan if Congress were to approve it.