WRRDA Vote

This week the House will vote on the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, known as WRRDA. What's unusual is that the bill actually has bipartisan support.

WALMSLEY: It's a piece of legislation that updates our locks and dams, our our inland waterway infrastructure, along with providing the necessary funding for our ports and harbors. One of the most important things about this legislation is that it is bipartisan. It is the core of what Congress should be doing, making sure we have the appropriate infrastructure that ensures the flow of commerce.

American Farm Bureau transportation specialist Andrew Walmsley says the Senate passed its version of the bill back in May, also with strong bipartisan support. There's a good reason both sides of the aisle support it.

WALMSLEY: Forty-one different states are served by inland waterways. So it has a huge impact on our lives For agriculture, 60 percent of our grain goes through the inland waterways. Nearly 95 percent of our exports and imports go out of a port. So ensuring that these critical infrastructure are up to date, properly funded, properly dredged, to be utilized to their full potential has a huge impact on the economy and on jobs.

The legislation also approves reforms to the inland waterways and harbor maintenance trust funds, so that the money in them goes for what it was intended, to keep this infrastructure updated and working efficiently.

WALMSLEY: Some of the locks and dams were built in the 1920s. I mean there's barge operators that go to work utilizing equipment the equivalent of a Model T.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.