Talking Points

Mississippi & Illinois Rivers Transportation Infrastructure Improvements

· The American Soybean Association (ASA) supports Economic Alternative 6, which calls for seven new locks (20-25 on the Upper Mississippi River and the LaGrange and Peoria Locks on the Illinois River); 5 lock extensions at locks 14-18 on the Mississippi River; switchboats at Mississippi River locks 11-13; and mooring cells at Mississippi River locks 12, 14, 18. 24, and LaGrange.

· U.S. exports of soybeans topped 1 billion bushels for the third straight year in 2003. Roughly 75% of U.S. soybean exports move through the Port of New Orleans via the Mississippi waterway and its tributaries. Locks and dams on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers are deteriorating at an alarming rate, severely jeopardizing these foreign markets that ASA worked hard to develop.

· Grain transportation on these rivers relies upon a 60-year-old lock and dam system that was built to last 50-years and designed to handle 600-feet barges. Today’s barges are 1,200-feet long, requiring the barge to be split and sent through one section at a time – a process known as "double locking". The delays caused by the double locking process are costing U.S. soybean farmers millions of dollars a year in higher transportation costs.

· Higher transportation costs equate to lower commodity prices or fewer international sales for U.S. farmers. Failure to modernize our river infrastructure could lower soybean exports by 10 million bushels per year below 2020 projections, according to the Evans Study of the economic consequences of lock congestion on the Upper Mississippi River.

· Our South American competitors are investing heavily to improve their transportation infrastructure. In the past decade, Argentina’s government and private investors have undertaken a number of projects to improve grain transportation. At the same time, Brazil is reviving its water transport network to significantly reduce shipping costs for soybeans.

· River navigation is environmentally friendly and safe. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), towboats emit 35% to 60% fewer pollutants than trains or trucks. A Department of Transportation (DOT) study reveals that a gallon of diesel fuel in a towboat can push a ton of freight two and a half times farther than rail and nine times farther than truck. An average tow and barge replaces more than 800 semi-trucks on our nation’s congested highway system.

· River navigation means jobs. Navigation on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers supports over 400,000 jobs, 90,000 of which are considered to be high-paying manufacturing jobs. However, the Evans study estimates that 20,000 of these jobs could be lost without lock modernization.

· The long-term competitiveness of the U.S. soybean industry is at stake. What makes us competitive is our transportation infrastructure system. We have the ability to preserve this advantage, but we must be willing to act in a decisive manner. The time is NOW to modernize our transportation infrastructure on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers!