{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsarticles?ContentRecord_id=d9b5e3d7-f0e4-4369-978c-c222736774c7", "Maryville Daily Times: Chickamauga Lock repair prospects boosted by House", "2014-12-05", "2014", "2014-12", "Republican", "House", "TN", "Lamar Alexander", "A000360", "www.alexander.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "The lock jam is breaking \u2014 finally.\r\nAs announced by U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and U.S. Reps. John J. Duncan Jr. and Chuck Fleischman, the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would help fund repairs to the Chickamauga Lock. And did so with bipartisan support.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe legislation, the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act, includes an industry-supported user fee provision that would provide about $260 million for inland waterways projects across the country over the next 10 years.\r\n\r\n\r\nThrough the Inland Waterways Trust Fund capital will flow to repair infrastructure, including the Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River at Chattanooga. The trust fund has been underfunded for years.\r\n\r\n\r\nPassage is a classic win-win-win. The fee increase \u2014 9 cents per gallon of commercial barge fuel \u2014 is paid for entirely by barge companies, at their request. It does not impact recreational boaters, who will still have free passage through the locks.\r\n\r\n\r\nIndustry is happy. Taxpayers are happy. And to top it off, environmentalists are happy.\r\n\r\n\r\nIt takes 58 large semi-trailer trucks to transport what a barge can carry. One 15-barge tow takes 870 large semi-trailer trucks off the road. That means fuel conservation and cleaner air with safer and longer-lasting highways. It also means jobs saved.\r\n\r\n\r\nAlexander, the top Republican on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development that oversees funding for the lock, said, \u201cReplacing Chickamauga Lock keeps good jobs flowing into Chattanooga and East Tennessee \u2014 including at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, nuclear facilities and manufacturing plants \u2014 makes it easier for recreational boaters to go through the lock at no cost, and keeps 150,000 trucks from clogging up I-75.\u201d\r\n\r\n\r\nUnless corrective measures are accelerated, closure of the lock is inevitable. The lock\u2019s days are numbered because of concrete growth resulting from the mix of water and aggregate that was used in the construction of its walls.\r\n\r\n\r\nA shutdown \u2014 which happened for 10 days in October \u2014 would block 313 miles of navigable waterways on the upper Tennessee River. It would be a barrier to waterborne travel from above Chattanooga to the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico and the world.\r\n\r\n\r\nA new, larger lock could give river access to 6.7 million tons of cargo annually. It is estimated that $200 million in paychecks and 3,000 jobs could be lost with the lock\u2019s closure. And those estimates are over two years old.\r\n\r\n\r\nAccording to Alexander, the House action was the third of three major steps in his long-term plan to replace Chickamauga Lock. The project will take several years to finish and is expected to cost more than a half-billion dollars.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe first two steps were passed into law as part of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014, including:\r\n\r\n\r\n\u2022 A change in the cost share for Olmstead Lock in Ohio from 50 percent of the Inland Waterways Trust Fund to 15 percent, to enable more existing money to be used for other projects, including Chickamauga Lock;\r\n\r\n\r\n\u2022 The prioritization of Chickamauga Lock as No. 4 in the federal government\u2019s priority list for inland waterways projects;\r\n\r\n\r\nThe third step is the enactment of the user fee increase commercial barge owners pay to use river locks and navigation.\r\n\r\n\r\nAlexander originally proposed all three changes to Chickamauga Lock funding as part of the American Waterworks Act in 2012. When Republicans take control of the Senate in January, Alexander is expected to serve as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. He says he\u2019ll use that position to help make sure Chickamauga Lock remains a construction funding priority.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe measure next goes to the Senate for approval before landing on the president\u2019s desk.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Senate vote should be swift and the president\u2019s signature should be sure \u2014 finally.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsarticles?ContentRecord_id=d9b5e3d7-f0e4-4369-978c-c222736774c7"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.484191045165062, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}