WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Kit Bond today praised the House and Senate conferees for reaching an agreement on the critical Water Resources Development Act (WRDA).

“Without a competitive transportation system, the promise of expanded trade for our farmers and commercial growth is empty, job opportunities are lost, and we will be unprepared for the global challenges of this new century,” said Bond. “Today’s agreement is a critical step in ensuring the United States is not left behind. This bill will make the needed investments to modernize our nation’s waterways.”

WRDA authorizes the nation’s flood control, environmental restoration, and navigation projects. Bond, who has pushed for the bill’s passage since 2002, emphasized that WRDA is bipartisan and has broad support. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 91 to 4 in May. With the agreement reached today, the bill now goes back to the Senate and the House for a final vote.

Bond stressed that with congestion on the nation’s roads and rails, which is expected to double in the next quarter-century, and high energy costs, modernizing our water transportation infrastructure is essential. The current water transportation system is nearly 70 years old. Despite the age of the system, traffic on the Upper Mississippi River over the past 35 years has grown from 27 million tons to 84 million tons, which is system capacity.

The WRDA bill includes Bond’s lock and dam provision, critical to farmers who depend on the lock and dam system to move their products to market. This provision authorizes $1.95 billion in federal funds for seven new locks and an additional $1.72 billion for environmental restoration.

This modernization will give our farmers and producers a critical edge in the international marketplace, said Bond. The 1,000 miles of Missouri and Mississippi River shoreline and inland ports serve as the Midwest’s arteries to world markets. These improvements will help farmers and shippers more efficiently bring their products to market.

In addition to replacing the aging infrastructure and environmental restoration, this bill is a critical jobs initiative, creating 48 million man-hours of construction work.

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