Tired of waiting on the federal government to take action, Republican members of the S.C. General Assembly will propose spending $180 million during the current fiscal year to begin work on the deepening of Charleston Harbor.
The one-time appropriation – which budget writers plan on unveiling this week – would pay for roughly half of the estimated $300-$400 million project.
“We want to show Washington we’ve got skin in the game,” one state lawmaker familiar with the proposed expenditure tells FITS.
Another lawmaker told us that the move comes in response to S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s recent “Savannah River Sellout,” a controversial permitting decision that gift-wrapped a major victory for the Port of Savannah’s expansion plans – and helped secure federal funding for Georgia’s port.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” the lawmaker said. “We have no choice but to act now in order to maintain Charleston’s competitive advantage.”
As evidence of the unanimity of opposition to Haley’s sellout, both the S.C. House and the State Senate voted unanimously within the last month to undo the decision reached in November by the governor’s appointees to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC). Despite receiving not a single vote in support of her administration’s decision, Haley has pledged to veto this measure and called lawmakers “out of touch.”
The apparent willingness of state budget writers to spend one-fifth of the coming fiscal year’s estimated $900 million surplus on a single project attests to the dire straits (pardon the pun) in which Haley has placed the state. A year ago, lawmakers couldn’t even agree on spending $400,000 to pay for a portion of the $3.4 million harbor deepening study. In fact a proviso that would have appropriated this money was withdrawn before lawmakers even had an opportunity to vote on it.
After three years of refusing to fund the study, U.S. President Barack Obama finally included the funding in his FY 2013 spending plan.
Both Savannah and Charleston are working feverishly to deepen the waterways leading to their ports in the hopes of accommodating the next generation of super-sized container ships, and while South Carolina may not be able to stop Georgia’s plans – its ability to delay them has been an important point of leverage.
Unfortunately, Haley surrendered that leverage when she struck her deal with Georgia. More importantly, she guaranteed that the last deep water port site on the Eastern Seaboard (located in Jasper County, S.C.) would be used as a dump site for the spoil from Georgia’s dredging.
Once the fourth-busiest port in America, Charleston has seen its competitive position plummet over the last seven years. In fact, Charleston has slipped all the way to No. 12 in the nation according to rankings published by the American Association of Port Authorities.
Why the decline? Well, as we’ve noted on literally dozens of occasions, South Carolina continues to operate its port system under a 1950s-style “total state control” model – one that forbids private investment in public infrastructure. Meanwhile our competitors – like Alabama and Virginia – have dramatically expanded their port infrastructure (and created thousands of new jobs) by leveraging private investment.
Our state’s leaders – including House Speaker Bobby Harrell and Senate President Glenn McConnell – were specifically warned in July 2006 that South Carolina’s restrictions against free market investment were “counterproductive” and would “discourage investment” in our facilities.
If state leaders want to spend such a huge sum on harbor deepening, then we would humbly recommend that they require the S.C. State Ports Authority to lift its longtime ban on public-private partnerships like the one recently reached by the Port of Long Beach.
We also propose that they use whatever leverage our state has left to get the easement lifted from the Jasper County site so that private capital can be used to construct a port there.
***
By ? February 22, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Someone remind me why we didn’t privatize the port again please.
By Waterfront commentator February 22, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Because you, Mister Question Mark, are allowing your state senator to maintain the status quo at the SCSPA. Read on.
Because the SCSPA’s board of directors does not include anyone with marine terminal operation experience and have FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about allowing private MTOs to operate their terminals.
Because the SCSPA’s board — mostly real estate developers/investors and lawyers (plus ONE RETIRED COLLEGE FOOTBALL COACH — go figure), takes the SCSPA staff’s advice.
Because the SCSPA “post-office-mentality” staff enjoy healthy salaries and benefits.
Finally, ultimately, blame the GOVERNOR and the STATE SENATE.
The reason is that BOTH are ignoring the “SPA Board Restructuring” bill whose primary sponsor was Sen. Larry Grooms, based on “the New Orleans Model” of having actual, real, genuine marine terminal operator experts on SPA’s board.
Read the “membership requirement” section below. The Governor AND the Senate are IGNORING the “expertise requirement” in the law, which is “not worth the paper it is printed on.”
Most SCSPA board members are millionaires and campaign contributors to both the Governor and the Senators.
Several board memberships are due for renewal in 2012, and YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR OWN SENATOR TO GET RID OF THE DEAD WOOD AT THE SCSPA BOARD.
THESE SCSPA BOARD MEMBERS SHOULD BE REPLACED WITH FRESH BLOOD, AND I WOULD RECOMMEND SOMEONE WITH REAL LIVE MAJOR INTERNATIONAL OCEAN SHIPPING EXPERTISE.
A BIG PLUS WOULD BE A RETIRED (REPEAT, RETIRED) EXECUTIVE FROM A:
*** CLASS I RAILROAD (E.G., CSX OR NS);
*** MAJOR SHIPPER (E.G., ABITIBI-BOWATER, CATERPILLAR, HOME DEPOT, CARRIER CORP.);
*** LONG-HAUL TRUCKER (E.G., YELLOW FREIGHT, SCHNEIDER, LANDSTAR-RANGER, PENSKE LOGISTICS);
*** FREIGHT FORWARDER/CUSTOMS BROKER (E.G., INTERNATIONAL FORWARDERS OF CHARLESTON, INC., PANALPINA, KUEHNE+NAGEL, DB SCHENKER, C.H. ROBINSON CO., EXPEDITORS INTN’L.); OR
*** STEAMSHIP LINE (THEY NEGOTIATE WITH MTOs !!!) (E.G., MAERSK, MSC, WALLENIUS, HAPAG-LLOYD, ZIM-ISRAEL, CMA-CGM, MATSON, HOEGH-UGLAND).
################################
S.C. Legislature
S* 351
(Rat # 64, Act # 73 of 2009)
General Bill, By Grooms, McConnell and Ford
Effective date 06/16/09
QUOTE:
(B) In addition to the requirements in subsection (A), each board member must possess a background of at least five years in any one or any combination of the following fields of expertise:
(a) maritime shipping;
(b) labor related to maritime shipping;
(c) overland shipping by truck or rail, or both;
(d) international commerce;
(e) finance, economics, or statistics;
(f) accounting;
(g) engineering;
(h) law; or
(i) business management gained from serving as a chief executive officer, president, or managing director of a business or any upper level management position with a business that is equivalent in duties and responsibilities to the positions listed in this item.
UNQUOTE.
By Howard February 22, 2012 at 6:50 pm
I can relate. I get FUD everytime I use one of Catherine Templeton’s park rubbers.
By ? February 22, 2012 at 9:44 pm
“Because you, Mister Question Mark, are allowing your state senator to maintain the status quo at the SCSPA.”
Ahhhh…that’s right…I knew it was ultimately my fault.
:)
By Really? February 22, 2012 at 3:20 pm
I’ve defended her in the past, but what’s Nikki’s justification for her position, and for calling lawmakers out of touch. I know the reason behind-the-scenes, but what’s her public reason?
By Cid February 22, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Where is Mick Zais when you need him?
Isn’t there one “principled” Republican to speak up and decline this federal money?
Come forth ye!
By shifty henry February 22, 2012 at 3:47 pm
“HAUL ON THAT BOWLINE-
WE SANG THAT MELODY-
LIKE ALL TOUGH SAILORS DO-
WHEN WE’RE FAR AWAY AT SEA”
Bob Dylan
By Ezekiel February 22, 2012 at 4:06 pm
In America you’ll get food to eat
Won’t have to run through the jungle
And scuff up your feet
You’ll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day
It’s great to be an American
Ain’t no lions or tigers ain’t no mamba snake
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
Ev’rybody is as happy as a man can be
Climb aboard little wog sail away with me
Sail away sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
Sail away-sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
–Randy Newman, “Sail Away”
By Anna_Nimmitty February 22, 2012 at 4:40 pm
In regards to this:
“Unfortunately, Haley surrendered that leverage when she struck her deal with Georgia. More importantly, she guaranteed that the last deep water port site on the Eastern Seaboard (located in Jasper County, S.C.) would be used as a dump site for the spoil from Georgia’s dredging.”
Nikki “Benedict Arnold” Haley is one Beotch of a traitor, is married to Judas, and a Cl3m$on Grad on top of that.
If you voted for her, then God forgive you, ’cause the rest of us in this state sure as hell aren’t.
Anna
By cash February 22, 2012 at 4:53 pm
She’s seriously mentally ill and needs help.
By Dr. Spock February 22, 2012 at 6:53 pm
But she killed all funding for that.
By scmajor February 22, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Perhaps the christian part of the conservative Christians running this state should consider reinstating funding to some of the handicapped/mentally retarded assistance to families programs that were cut recently.
By scmajor February 22, 2012 at 6:53 pm
I mean god forbid we help the poor recently cut off before diverting those funds to benefit foreign shipping conglomerates at our expense.
If they want to bring in bigger ships than the port will allow let them pay or move on somewhere else.
Let the FREE MARKET decide without state intervention. I thought that was what all the teabag nonsense was about?
By garden city gnome February 22, 2012 at 8:09 pm
“After three years of refusing to fund the study, U.S. President Barack Obama finally included the funding in his FY 2013 spending plan”.
I’ll stand corrected if wrong, but was not the administration’s refusal to include the funding based on the lack of unanimity of the SC delegation, notably Sen. DeMint’s holdout?
By Cid February 22, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Hey man
Don’t confuse these Republicans with the facts!
By No Pledge. February 22, 2012 at 8:51 pm
The study should have been paid for years ago by an EARMARK since that’s a correct and ethical use of NATIONAL resources for a project of NATIONAL benefit and NATIONAL security. (Military mobility includes hundreds of thousands of ISO containers and other maritime freight. Airlift moves a tiny fraction!)
Business is war, so use both public and private resources to win. Works for the Chinese, so we have no excuse for failure to compete.
By Waterfront commentator February 22, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Dear No Pledge,
Since the Army established the ACE in 1802, many harbors and rivers didn’t require dredging because of the shallow draft of vessels, even at mean low water, kept them afloat.
Large, deeper draft, steel-hulled vessels were built in the late 1800s, creating a legal dilemma, especially for non-liner, or “tramp” vessels that were leased from an owner to a charterer pursuant to “charter party” agreements standardized by the “Baltic Exchange” in London.
Charter parties were “voyage charters,” “time charters,” “bareboat/demise charters” or “space charters.”
In all but “space charters” (which sometimes involve simply a “contract of affreightment” and a “bill of lading”), charter parties include an “always afloat” clause to compel the charterer to always keep the vessel off of the bottom of the navigation channel and/or the berth.
In chartering, the vessel owner ALWAYS has HIS OWN agent (“the owner’s agent”) and the charterer TYPICALLY has HIS OWN agent (“the charterer’s agent”), although some charterers forego the extra expense (these days, $300 per vessel call plus $75 per day) of hiring his own agent.
For centuries, worldwide, the local ship agent is the expert who knows what is the real, true draft of the navigation channel and the vessel berth. Nothing has changed in that regard.
The agent’s job includes noting the draft of the vessel upon arrival and determining, every day, if the vessel is loading or discharging, if it is “always afloat.” When an agent informs an owner that the vessel is sitting on the bottom, the charterer has violated the charter party and a major lawsuit typically ensues because of damage done to the hull.
The dredging projects funded and assigned to Corps of Engineers have been mostly pure pork for decades, and have gotten “more pork-ish” in recent decades as ocean-going breakbulk cargo vessels have gone from the standard 32′ to 38′ MLW draft (30,000 DWT vessel) in the early 1970s to 50′+ MLW required by the largest container ships (158,000 DWT) today.
In the SCSPA’s never-ending attempt to keep one step in front of its steamship line customers, it theoretically takes the lead in “prying the pork” from Congress.
The Corps must calculate a “cost-benefit” number for every dredging project it evaluates, but it is sheer smoke and mirrors, entirely political, based on presumptions, assumptions, guesses, wild guesses, and (would you believe) political realities in Washington, DC.
Your suggestion that “earmarks” be used for dredging is problematic now because lots of congressmen (and people like me) are philosophically opposed to them because they perpetuate a “climate of corruption,” and the Corps, which stinketh, has been in the pigsty dredging business for 100 years.
A google search of “pork” and “harbor dredging” yields 2,780 hits.
No, what the Corps does now is sheer brass knuckles.
Bonne chance, copain.
By Capt. Howdy February 22, 2012 at 10:58 pm
The Corps. has been bureaucratic cover for “Pork” for decades…go to a library and check out John Ferejohn (1974) “Pork Barrel Politics”.
Plus ca change….plus ca meme chose. (I will freely forfeit my “freedom fries” for THAT one).
By No Pledge. February 24, 2012 at 6:29 pm
The entire United States is and will remain a corporate racket.
Business is war and we need access for large container ships however it may be got. We are a corrupt people by nature, our country was expanded and enriched by corruption, not principle. We must have wealth, without which “principle” is worthless. Every competing State is an opponent.
If SC gets the “waterway modifications” it requires I could care less if the Mafia gets a vig off the top. I’m fine with whatever gets that done. Screw the rest of the country. They don’t care about SC and I don’t give a fuck about them. We should get government money by hook or crook. If our Lords and Masters want us Serfs to serve them, they can shit the cash to pay for it.
By Waterfront commentator February 24, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Dear No Pledge,
The State Ports Authority is the “applicant agency” for all Corps dredging in the “Charleston Gateway” and must wait for the Corps’ Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”), which will take about five years.
The Corps has completed the EIS for the “Savannah Gateway” and the Southern Environmental Law Institute and other plaintiffs have filed suit in Federal District Court challenging it. That litigation will probably take about two years.
Assuming the GPA prevails and proceeds with its dredging, remember that GPA ONLY requested 48′ MLW (an increase from 45′, or 3′).
The SCSPA will request 50′ MLW (an increase from 48′, or 2′).
Ironically, nobody here, or in the mainstream media, has commented on this “small detail” — that the GPA, with requested dredging completed, will still lack two feet of under-hull clearance for the post-Panamax, 50′ MLW draft container vessels.
The Savannah Corps office this week told me, casually, that if GPA wants to dredge 2 additional feet, then it will simply have to go back to congress for that. And that is all political.
I believe that an excellent use can be made of the Jasper Terminal as a huge Ro-Ro terminal. Ro-Ro vessels have high air drafts but remarkably shallow water drafts (43 feet would be extraordinary; 40 feet is average, fully loaded to its marks — the Plimsol Line).
Why doesn’t the SCSPA investigate THIS proposal for the use of the Jasper Terminal?
Because, as someone said about the cause of the 9-11 attacks, they “lack imagination.” They also lack knowledge of the shipping industry. The “highest and best use” of the Jasper Terminal could indeed be a 7,000 acre Ro-Ro terminal akin to those in Baltimore, Jacksonville, Brunswick, Barcelona, Bremen, Amsterdam, etc.
The beauty of such a development is that a shipper, such as Nissan, Toyota or Ford, would sign the 99-year operating lease and would operate it themselves (no SPA or GPA government bureaucrats need apply, thank you). Such shippers often sign subcontracts with marine terminal operators to actually do the work, and these include Wallenius-Wilhelmsen Logistics, the Pasha Group, American Ports International, and others who specialize in autos, trucks, rolling farm and construction equipment, as well as out-of-gauge cargoes like 80-foot long wind turbine blades, 70-ton locomotive engines, etc.
These ideas will never be considered until citizens insist that the Governor appoint, and the Senate confirm, individuals with shipping expertise.
I am not holding my breath and fully expect that the lawyers and real estate moguls on the board now will get routine rubber-stamp approval by Sen. Grooms’ SPA Oversight Committee.
Why don’t you request to be notified about the next nominee hearing and express yourself THEN and THERE when it counts?
(Stop the madness.)