The Waterways Journal

“Two years ago, America was importing about two thirds of its oil. Today, according to the Energy Information Administration, it imports less than half. And by 2017, investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts the US could be poised to pass Saudi Arabia and overtake Russia as the world’s largest oil producer.”

And cheap energy will do more than anything the Fed can do to fight inflation.

The Corps of Engineers has almost finished rebuilding the Birds Point levee in southern Missouri—but at a lower height than before it was breached. Local communities want the previous height restored.

The Missouri River has been reopened to navigation—but the going is slow.

Metal Shark Aluminum Boats—which also makes workboats—won a Coast Guard order for $13 million for 38 small response boats.

The contract allows for the procurement of up to 500 boats.

Kenny Chauvin, the chief executive officer of Gulf Island Fabrication, tells Houma Today that between its ongoing projects (including for several towboats) and new projects, the company expects to add up to 700 jobs in Texas and Louisiana in the next few months.

A former assistant Treasury secretary in the NYT on “overrlooked” trade and exports as a way to climb out of the recession.

“It is clear that our economy can no longer rely on consumer borrowing, housing bubbles, government deficits and super-low interest rates. The United States must start selling much more to other countries, especially China and other emerging markets that are growing at 6 percent or more per year.

Mr. Obama has set a goal of doubling the nation’s exports over five years. But his administration has done little to achieve that goal, which is inadequate to begin with. For one thing, the focus should not be the level of exports but the overall deficit — the difference between what we import from abroad and what we sell overseas.”

The author stresses exports of services and intellectual property, but surely farm exports will be an important part of any adjustment to the balance of trade—and for that, we need waterway and port infrastructure.

In what is becoming a sad and frequent litany up and down the rivers, especially in smaller ports, officials in Hickman, Kentucky, say the Corps’ dredging cutbacks threaten the port’s continued existence.

Well, the Obama administration came up with its answer to the Inland Waterways User Board’s plan to reform spending on the waterways; massive new fee increases, but with no spending reform.

The White House fee plan would give the secretary of the Army authority to raise or adjust fees each year. Critics of the plan, such as the Waterways Council Inc., are questioning the constitutionality of that provision, saying it arrogates Congress’ tax-raising power to the executive branch.

The Coast Guard says about 4,500 barrels (189,000 gallons) of oil escaped from the land-based tank on September 2, with about a fifth of that escaping into the river. They’ve recovered 160,000 gallons of “oily mixture.”

Brownsville Marine plans to use its Small Shipyards Grant from MarAd (its second) to leverage major expansion plans.

As the city of Paris, France, gets ready to restrict, then ban movements of car-carrying trucks into the city by 2016, a barge company demonstrates a car-barge service into the city.