POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Congressional lawmakers deal with more than tax reform

While revamping the U.S. tax system drew the lion’s share of attention last week, congressional lawmakers representing Southwest Georgia were involved in other issues as well just before the Christmas break.

Congress kept from playing the Grinch — at least for another month — with a continuing resolution to fund U.S. government spending, averting a possible partial government shutdown that would have been particularly ill-timed.

While House lawmakers also passed an $81 billion package assisting communities impacted by storms, fires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, the Senate did not follow through on that bill.

The CR extending federal government funding is “not a long-term, comprehensive measure, as I would strongly prefer,” U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany, said Thursday, but includes “a much needed extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).”

Gov. Nathan Deal stressed to the Georgia delegation disastrous consequences that would be faced by Georgia children if CHIP was not extended, Bishop said, adding it provides health insurance for 9 million U.S. children. The continuing resolution also includes funding for the Veterans Choice Program, which provides additional health care options for our nation’s veterans, his office said.

Still, the issue will be back on Congress’ plate after the holidays as another possibility of a government shutdown comes up in January.

“It is vital that Congress completes its work when it returns in January and enacts a robust full-year funding measure that provides certainty to families, businesses, agencies, and communities,” Bishop said.

The House last week also passed an $81 billion disaster assistance bill that would have supported recovery of communities impacted by recent storms, including communities in Georgia, but that measure — supported by both Bishop and Rep. Austin Scott, R-Tifton, didn’t make it through the Senate.

The disaster bill also would have identified cotton seed as a named commodity, which would have made it eligible for Title I Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs.

Food Security

U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Marietta, on Thursday introduced bipartisan legislation to continue for another five years food security programs under the Feed the Future Initiative. He introduced the bipartisan Global Food Security Act reauthorization legislation with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. The two senators introduced the original Global Food Security Act that was signed into law in 2016.

“The Global Food Security Act has not only helped our neighbors abroad, but also has been an investment in our own national security,” Isakson, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said. “The strategy helps ensure that every dollar that’s invested in our foreign assistance is getting a maximum return for the American taxpayer, including Georgia’s farmers. I’m proud to introduce legislation to reauthorize this program that has already saved lives.”

Reauthorization would continue the program through 2023.

Savannah Harbor

Also Thursday, Isakson and the Georgia congressional delegation asked the Trump administration to include at least $100 million critical funding for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project in the president’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget request.

In their letter to Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, the lawmaker called for the inclusion of the funds to ensure the project stays on schedule, avoids cost overruns and meets the federal government’s project partnership agreement with Georgia.

The project “will deliver the highest benefit-to-cost ratio of any pending deep-draft project in the nation (7.3 to 1) and produce annual economic benefits to the nation of $282 million,” the letter states.

Georgia has invested nearly $1 billion in infrastructure over the past decade and double that is planned for the next 10 years.

“All of this work and all of this money cannot deliver any new value to the taxpayers and our national economic growth until the channel construction is completed,” the letter said. “Continued funding of the project at the [fiscal year] 2018 level of $50 million annually is estimated to delay the project for five years and cost an additional $56 million due to inflation while generating an irretrievable, cumulative loss of $1.4 billion in annual economic benefits.”

The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project was authorized in the Water Resources and Development Act of 1999 to deepen the Savannah River from its 42-foot depth to as deep as 47 feet. That would allow the harbor to benefit from the expansion of the Panama Canal that will increase the maximum draft of vessels travelling to and from the East Coast from 39.5 feet to as much as 50 feet. Dredging started in mid September 2015.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the harbor deepening project will bring $282 million in annual net benefits to the United States, Isakson’s office said.