WASHINGTON — The Obama administration snubbed the Port of Savannah on Tuesday in its annual budget request, signaling a delay for the groundbreaking of the state’s top economic development priority and drawing the ire of political leaders.
The port expansion project received just $1.62 million for continued study, and the Army Corps of Engineers said the project cannot yet begin with money the state already has set aside. Georgia’s Congressional delegation thought it had won language to authorize the project in a recent spending bill, but the administration disagrees, placing an additional hurdle for a project a decade in the making.
Tuesday’s announcement was expected to be a landmark moment for the long-delayed $685 million quest to deepen the Savannah River from 42 feet to 47 feet to accommodate bigger ships coming through an expanded Panama Canal.
Georgia has hoped for about $400 million from the federal government over the next several years and expected President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget request to be the first big commitment of federal dollars.
But Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, said the Savannah project cannot move forward until Congress passes a long-delayed water resources bill, which has been stuck in a House-Senate conference committee since November.
Congress must authorize the project at its current price tag in order for work to begin and federal funding to flow, and the water resources bill would do that.
via Budget surprise angers Savannah port backers | www.myajc.com.
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