SENSE OF CONGRESS ON CRITERIA FOR OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF HARBOR DREDGING PROJECTS.

SEC. 2029. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON CRITERIA FOR OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF HARBOR DREDGING PROJECTS. (a) Findings.—Congress finds the following: (1) Insufficient maintenance dredging results in inefficient water transportation and harmful economic consequences. (2) The estimated dredging backlog at commercial harbors in the Great Lakes alone is 16,000,000 cubic yards. (3) Approximately two-thirds of all shipping in the United States either starts or finishes at small harbors. (4) Small harbors often have a greater proportional impact on local economies than do larger harbors. (5) Performance metrics can be valuable tools in the budget process for water resources projects. (6) The use of a single performance metric for water resources projects can result in a budget biased against small and rural communities. (b) Sense of Congress.—It is the sense of Congress that the operations and maintenance budget of the Corps of Engineers should reflect the use of all available economic data, rather than a single performance metric.