While US Congress approached experts to propose solutions to the congestion last year, a study on the future of US transportation, prepared under  “Section 1909” of the Safe Accountable Efficient Transport Act- A Legacy for Users (“SAFETEA-LU”), the legislation that authorises funding for highways, is about to hit the scene and could be the fillip needed.

The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission, chaired by Mary Peters, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DoT), has been working on its report since mid 2006. Though the study will focus on surface transportation, seaports are within its purview if they connect to highways and provide origination and destination points for truck traffic.

The Commission’s timing coincides with other another important initiative that has come out of Washington, DC. A small section of H.R. 6, an energy bill two years in the making signed into law in early December, contains language that goes beyond merely promoting short sea shipping, and, instead, opens up potential funding avenues for “lift on, lift off” and “roll on, roll off” cargo around the coastlines, in the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

The operative wording is the DoT’s new mandate, through H.R. 6, to establish, “short sea transportation routes as extensions of the surface transportation system to focus public and private efforts to use the waterways to relieve landside congestion along coastal corridors".

The DoT, along with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), offered a warm-up for the discussions that will likely ensue regarding funding of port and terminal infrastructures to support improvements related to “short sea” and other projects. In a day-long meeting at the New York Yacht Club in mid-November, a panel of two dozen experts from the port management, financing, carrier and cargo communities collectively thrashed through some of the knotty issues that have bedeviled infrastructure investments for ports in the US. An executive summary provided by DoT said: “Perhaps most importantly, all parties agreed that an opportunity for a public-private partnership (PPP) occurs when no one entity wants to fund the project on its own. A delicate balance, as well as interdependence among parties, is essential to the success of such a partnership.”

Attracting private sector investments, into a PPP or other investment role, was a recurring theme, albeit with ongoing questioning and few answers at the DoT session. A representative of Maher Terminals - recently acquired by a Deutsche Bank investment fund - raised the question of what might be impeding private sector investments. Answers around the room centered on the uncertainty of financial returns where port and terminal infrastructure is part of a larger system. One example, concerning a West Coast port, described a private investor willing to fund a terminal and a stevedore willing to enter into a long-term lease. But, responsibility for rail and highway links to the overall “logistics grid” could not be determined.

Another major financing challenge, also part of that big picture framed at the Yacht Club, is simply sorting out the respective roles for the Government and the private sector, which is tied to the difficulties in identifying exactly who benefits from a particular project. According to the DoT summary, “…the Federal Government does not have a comprehensive agency to address responsibilities for maritime industry or transportation systems.” The summary further describes the inability to identify benefits results in the industry’s difficulties in communicating with politicians, who can direct money to projects impacting maritime supply chains.

Further, a January 2008 report on Freight Mobility and Congestion, by the Government Accountability Office - a watchdog on US Congress’s spending habits - identified yet another problem. The report - which touches briefly on the PIDN, short sea shipping generally, and even “virtual” container yards - offers the following: “Although freight transportation is international and national in nature, state and local planners control the planning and project identification process for improvements to enhance freight mobility.” This underscores the challenge for many port executives- who may see the goals - the bigger logistics imperatives - but lack ways to link their local marketplace into that bigger picture.