New federal money promises dramatic impacts throughout the United States’ inland waterways system in 2022 and beyond. This report focuses on America’s central rivers; the Western rivers will be covered in a future report. These central rivers reach 11,000 miles, from Pennsylvania to Florida and from Texas to South Dakota.Consider the money within the U.S.
Adm. Linda L. Fagan has been confirmed as the 27th Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, clearing way for her to be the first woman top officer in one of the military services. The Senate on Wednesday approved Fagan’s promotion, along with those of five other senior Coast Guard officers, by unanimous consent.Nominated for the role by President Joe Biden in April, Fagan will succeed Adm.
Waterway traffic is coming back. November 2021 saw 52.1 million tons moving on the U.S. inland waterway system, the highest monthly tonnage since October 2019, a few months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the shutdowns and stoppages of early 2020. Flows estimated by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), part of the U.S.
Tanker and barge shipments in and out of Europe's biggest oil hub have been delayed by up to a week as four storage companies scramble to resume operations after cyber attacks, sources familiar with the matter said.Since the end of last week, storage company Oiltanking and oil trading firm Mabanaft, both owned by Germany's Marquard & Bahls, have been hit by hackers.
The Biden administration on Wednesday said it will fund $14 billion in projects to improve the country's ports and waterways in an effort to increase climate resilience, improve drinking water sources and bolster the U.S. supply chain.The funds, for fiscal year 2022, target more than 500 projects in 52 states and territories, including Florida's Everglades and the Port of Long Beach in California
Partners Group, a global private markets firm, has agreed, on behalf of its clients, to buy North Star, a UK-based operator of emergency response and rescue vessels, which has recently also dived into the offshore wind sector with several orders made for essential offshore wind maintenance services vessels, from Basalt Infrastructure Partners for an undisclosed price.
Houston, Texas-based Kirby Inland Marine agreed to pay $15.3 million in damages and assessment costs to resolve federal and state claims for harm to natural resources resulting from a 2014 oil spill from a Kirby barge in the Houston Ship Channel, the U.S. Justice Department said.In a related enforcement action in 2016, the United States secured a settlement with Kirby for $4.
The $1 trillion infrastructure package headed to President Joe Biden to sign into law will provide a welcome funding injection for America’s inland waterway infrastructure.The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was approved by Congress on November 6 and is expected to be signed by President Biden next week.
As 2022 appears on the not-so-distant horizon, we asked inland waterways executives to reflect on the major issues impacting their industry. Just how those issues evolve – and whether they present as challenges or opportunities – is, of course, unknown. Answers to some future questions will be relatively straightforward, confidently based on industry knowledge and experience.
Nippon Yusen and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Japan's biggest and third-biggest shipping companies, reported record quarterly profits as they benefited from higher freight rates amid the chaos hitting global supply chains.The logjams and bottlenecks in the world's trade system, which threatens to derail a recovery from the worst health crisis in a century
Among transportation planners, “resilience”, describing the ability to bounce back from adversities, both economic and other, has become a top consideration as we increasingly must “expect the unexpected.” The U.S. waterway system, covering the network of inland rivers and coastwise waterways, has seen a mix of good and not so good.
All signals from Washington, D.C., indicate that Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 could be a record-breaking year for inland port and waterway investment. The successful opening of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, a recording-breaking United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) budget request, positive improvements to the Port Infrastructure Development Program