President Bush recently suffered the first veto override of his presidency when the Senate enacted a $23 billion water resources bill despite his protest that it was filled with unnecessary projects. The House also voted to override the veto earlier in the same week.
The bill authorizes the construction of navigation improvements for the Upper Mississippi River, at an estimated federal cost of $1.9 billion, and an ecosystem restoration project for the Upper Mississippi costing $1.7 billion.
“This is a tremendously important bill to the Upper Mississippi River Basin,” U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, said in a statement after the House vote. “It will allow a number of infrastructure and environmental improvement projects to move forward, including new locks and dams on the Mississippi and a barrier to protect the river from harmful invasive species.”
It was also a bill that was long in the making and included a lot of work and thought by many people in the Upper Mississippi region.
The Big River is both a commercial navigation route and the largest wildlife reserve in the country. Hearing after hearing was held to blend those two seemingly conflicting uses of the river.
By no means is the bill perfect, but it will provide needed federal dollars for a good start on maintaining the navigable portions of the river while also bringing back the environmental quality.
.
Thirty-four Republicans joined in the Senate vote for override. Bush’s spokeswoman portrayed the issue as a divide between a budget-conscious president and a big-spending Congress.
“The president is standing up for the taxpayers,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said. “No one is surprised that this veto is overridden. We understand that members of Congress are going to support the projects in their districts. Budgeting is about making choices and defining priorities — it doesn’t mean you can have everything. This bill doesn’t make the difficult decisions on every idea out there. That’s not a responsible way to budget.”
But, many argue that spending money on perhaps the most important river basin in America is more responsible than spending money on infrastructure projects in Iraq and elsewhere.
The bill does not only deal with the Mississippi. It also funds hundreds of Army Corps of Engineers projects, such as dams, sewage plants and beach restoration, that are important to local communities and their representatives. It also includes money for the hurricane-hit Gulf Coast and for Florida Everglades restoration efforts.
Of course, of most interest in the Western Wisconsin region and elsewhere along the river are funds for the construction of seven new river locks on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers, a part of the critical Mississippi River system.
Midwest farm and agribusiness interests have pressed for the locks for decades. Nearly 60% of U.S. exports of corn, soybeans and wheat, overall, are shipped via barges down the Mississippi River. The new locks will allow strings of 15 barges, 1100 feet end to end, to pass through without having to be separated — twice the current length limit.
Jacqueline Taylor of the National Corn Growers Association says that a string of 15 barges can transport the same volume of grain as 870 semi-trucks. So, creating the locks would take a lot of truck traffic off the highways and save on diesel fuel needed to run the trucks, she notes.
Many concerned about the environmental quality of the river also want to make sure locks and other structures are added or updated without damaging the eco-system too badly. Some oppose locks completely, but the bill strives for a balance between the business concerns and the environment. That’s why the funding for eco-system restoration is so important.
Wetlands will be restored in several places along the river. Protection against invasive species, such as flying carp and others, will be put in place.
These environmental protection projects are not only the right thing to do for the eco-system. Tourism also is big business, as thousands come to the Mississippi River for recreation of various kinds that are dependent on a clean environment.
So, while national media coverage of the over-ride concentrated primarily on the politics of the action, folks in Western Wisconsin and throughout the Mississippi River basin should be happy Congress did the right thing for many other reasons.
