Graham: Coalition Needed for Port Improvements

Sen. Lindsey Graham hopes to build consensus to not only fund improvements needed at the Port of Charleston, but ports nationwide.

At an Easley Rotary Club meeting Tuesday, Graham spoke of efforts to deepen the Port of Charleston.

“If we don't get the port deepened, we're not going to be able to accept these big giant cargo ships coming through the Panama Canal in about three years,” he said.

“If we don't get to 50 feet, that's the end of the port as we know it, and that would bethe end of the economy as we know it,” Graham said. “Failure's not an option.”

He's said he's been working with a bipartisan group of legislators, including Lamar Alexander and Dianne Feinstein, on the issue.

“Since we don't earmark any more, how do you fix this problem?” Graham said.

He said the group's done something unusual for this Congress.

“We've sat down and talked with each other,” Graham said. “We looked at the system as a whole. Rather than just looking at Charleston or just looking at Long Beach, we kind of took a national inventory of where we're going.”

The goal is to inventory the ports on the East Coast and determine which ones would best benefit from being deepened to fifty feet, Graham said.

The bill would also address other shortfalls in the nation's port infrastructure.

“Our inland port system, to get the goods from the coast, to the interior of the country, is absolutely falling apart,” Graham said. “The lock and dam system, how you get things up the Mississippi and other rivers, there's one lock and dam that's taking 90 percent of the revenue that's generated from diesel taxes from people who use the inland waterways. It's deteriorated. There's never been a national vision.”

The East and West coasts have different problems concerning their ports.

“We're going to look at the West and East coast ports,” Graham said. “They need something different from us. They have a portside capacity problem. They're very crowded around the ports. They need more roads and railroads to get the goods off the ports into the interior of the country. They have deep ports, but they have a capacity problem. Our problem on the east coast is that we need to go deeper.”

Graham wants to form a coalition between the east and west coasts and the inland port states.

“That is the best way to fix Charleston is to have it a part of a national vision,” Graham said. “If we can fix our port situation in a comprehensive way, I think that'd be a great accomplishment for our Congress.”