Marine Log - February 2009 - (Page 23) BY NICK BLENKEY MARINEHIGHWAY WHAT’S ouldn’t it be nice if just a fraction of the money being thrown around in Congress for various stimulus packages was used to fund a Marine Highways initiative? America’s Marine Highway could offer the U.S., economy an easy and early boost in terms of cutting road congestion, reducing vehicle emissions and creating employment. Some advocates also suggest it could improve national security. While Europe ships over 40% of its domestic freight along “motorways of the sea,” the U.S. today moves an almost negligible 2% of domestic freight by sea (excluding river barges incapable of sailing genuine coastal routes and domestic cargo that must move by sea such as to Alaska or Hawaii). With a few notable exceptions, coastal shipping for cargo scarcely exists between U.S. ports in the lower forty eight states, despite the fact that the interstate highway system is at or near capacity. The benefits of shifting freight from roads to water have long been apparent and in 2007 the Energy Independence and Security Act, directed the Secretary of Transportation to establish a program aimed at expanding the use of America’s Marine Highways as an extension of the surface transportation system to mitigate landside congestion. The Department of Transportation published an interim final rule on October 9, 2008 that has four primary components: • Marine Highway Corridors: DesignatedCorridors will integrate Marine Highways as an extension of the surface transportation system and encourage the development of multi-jurisdictional coalitions to focus public and private efforts and investment. • Marine Highway Project Designation: Designating Marine Highway Projects is aimed at mitigating landside congestion by starting new or expanding existing services to provide the greatest benefit to the public in terms of congestion relief, improved air quality, reduced energy consumption and other factors. Designated Projects will receive direct www.marinelog.com W BLUE, GREEN & WET? support from the Department of Transportation. • Incentives, Impediments and Solutions: The Maritime Administration, in partnership with public and private entities, will identify potential incentives and seek solutions to impediments to encourage utilization of the Marine Highway and incorporate it, including ferries, in multi-state, state and regional transportation planning. • Research: The Department of Transportation, working with the Environmental Protection Agency, will conduct research to support America’s Marine Highways, within the limitations of available resources. Research would include environmental and transportation benefits, technology, vessel design, and solutions to impediments. As discussed in our December 2008 issue, this initiative is now trundling nicely along. At this point though, the question that has to be asked is that with, on average, currently 10,500 trucks per day per mile on the Interstate Highway System, why aren’t market forces simply forcing freight onto the water alternative? The answer is that in some cases they are. NEW SERVICES EMERGE The number of coastal shipping routes is already growing. Our map (taken from “America’s Deep Blue Highways,” a report published last year by the Institute for Global Maritime Studies) shows some of them. Since the study appeared some other routes have opened up, including a new containeron-barge service between Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia, that was originally conceived as the James River Barge Line but which now operates as 64 Express. The inauguration of 64 Express coincides with the shelving of a $400-million widening project along 25 miles of Interstate64 even though traffic demands in this corridor continue to grow. “This project serves as a model of how transportation planners can use waterborne transportation to help mitigate increased congestion and deferred highway projects, both of which are on the rise as states strive to deal with significant budget cuts,” said then U.S. Maritime Administrator Sean T. Connaughton. And in December 2008, SeaBridge Freight initiated a bluewater containeron-barge operation between the Port of Brownsville, Texas and Port Manatee, Fla. The company’s 600 TEU capacity barge takes approximately 300 truckloads of freight off the highways. TOXIC TAX What many critics believe is the major roadblock on America’s Marine Highway is a tax that most people outside of the marine industry are unaware of: the Harbor Maintenance Tax. The HMT is a levy that is imposed on the value of cargo that is imported to a port within the United States or that is transported between U.S. ports. The tax, which is assessed at a rate of 0.125% of the cargo value, including passengers, is assessed only once on cargo that is transported between one U.S. port and another (either at the point of departure or arrival but not both). However, cargo that is carried from a foreign port may be taxed twice, upon arrival at the initial U.S. port and again if transported to another U.S. port aboard a different vessel. Cargo that is transported along the inland waterways is subject to the Inland FEBRUARY 2009 MARINE LOG 23 http://www.marinelog.com
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