Budgets as Clear as Mud

There is federal money available to dredge silted-up Bay Area waterways, but boaters will have to act fast, before April 28!  

The Petaluma River, San Rafael Canal and the Richardson Bay Channel have all been designated by Congress as Federal Navigation Channels. In 1986, Congress created a funding mechanism to pay for the maintenance of these channels. The Harbor Maintenance Tax is an ad-valorum tax on imports into the United States that arrive by vessel. This tax is supposed to pay for 100% of the cost of navigation maintenance. Of course, when working with Congress, nothing is the way one would assume. Congress has to appropriate the funds every year and they have not been appropriating all of the tax collected. The estimate is that there is nine billion dollars’ worth of taxes and interest on the taxes collected that Congress has not appropriated.

In California, more than $400 million per year of Harbor Maintenance Tax is collected. The President, in his Budget Request, has asked for less than 25% of the taxes to be returned to maintaining Federal Navigation Channels in California.

The current Federal Fiscal Year, which ends on September 20, 2017, has only been funded by Congress until April 28, 2017, meaning that in one week Congress has to take action to appropriate more money.

If boaters and their friends are interested, in addition to contacting their individual Members of Congress, I heartily recommend they contact the House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and the House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. The phone number for the Congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

The message is simple:  We want Congress to appropriate 100% of the Harbor Maintenance Tax for its intended purpose of maintaining Federal Channels. There is no reason for such a disparity in the amount of taxes collected in California versus the taxes returned, especially when Congress has not spent up to nine billion of taxes and accumulated interest.

This is a case where there just hasn’t been enough mudslinging in Congress.