S. 2729: Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Reform Act of 2016

114th Congress · introduced 2016-03-17 · Transportation and Public Works · Latest: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

federal

Follow this bill, step by step

Where it came from: introduced 2016-03-17 · official record
Who proposed it: Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA] · what a sponsor is
What happened next: no floor votes in our records yet. Why?
Where it stands now: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. Not final yet: this can still change. We check for updates every day.
If it becomes law and spends money: follow the money to money laws, then agencies and contracts and grants.

What does this mean?

Official title

Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Reform Act of 2016

Plain summary

Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Reform Act of 2016 This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to make certain amounts in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund available, without appropriation, for expenditures to pay: 100% of the eligible operations and maintenance costs of specified portions of the Saint Lawrence Seaway as well as those assigned to commercial navigation of all U.S. harbors and inland harbors; rebates of certain tolls or charges on the Seaway; and all expenses of administration relating to harbor maintenance tax incurred by the Department of the Treasury, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Commerce. The Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 is amended to: require allocation to certain donor ports and energy transfer ports of at least 20% of amounts made available each fiscal year from the Trust Fund, and authorize the Department of the Army to make the allocations equally between these kinds of ports. A "donor port" is a port, subject to the harbor maintenance fee, located in a state in which more than 2 million cargo containers were unloaded from or loaded on to vessels in FY2012, whose total amount of collected harbor maintenance taxes comes to less than $15 million annually, and which received less than 25% of the total amount of harbor maintenance taxes collected at that port in the previous five fiscal years. An "energy transfer port" is one, also subject to the harbor maintenance fee, through which more than 40 million tons of cargo were transported in FY2012, and at which energy commodities constituted more than 25% of all commercial activity by tonnage in that fiscal year.

Congressional Research Service summary (Introduced in Senate), quoted unchanged (nonpartisan). Read the source.

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A “Nay” vote

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What does this mean? (plain words)

Official text

Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Reform Act of 2016

Source: Congressional Research Service summary (Introduced in Senate)

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How did my representative vote? · This bill's floor votes

Officials and money

Sponsor: Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA] · 1 cosponsors

Cost estimate: No cost estimate published yet.

Cosponsors on this site

Maria Cantwell (D-WA)

Sponsor's campaign money: Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA] reported raising $3.6 million (2025–2026). Details. Shown for context only; it does not mean any donor supported this bill.

No linked floor roll calls in our collected records yet. This does not mean the bill has never had a vote. Check the official bill history.

Words on this page, explained (4)

Appropriation: Money a legislature sets aside by law for a specific purpose. Government agencies may spend public money only as it has been appropriated.
Authorization: A law that creates or continues a government program and says what it may do, often with a suggested spending ceiling. An authorization alone does not provide money; a separate appropriation does.
Bill: A proposed law. It becomes law only if it passes the legislature and is signed by the president or governor (or a veto is overridden).
Fiscal year: The 12-month period a government uses for its budget. The federal fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30 and is named for the calendar year in which it ends. Most states use July 1 to June 30.

Plain meanings written from linked sources. All words.

Sources

Congressional Research Service summary (Introduced in Senate)
Congress.gov
Data: GovInfo BILLSTATUS bulk data (Library of Congress), BILLSTATUS-114s2729.xml <https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS/114/s>

Record fed-us-cong114-s2729 · catalog fed-us-congress-bills-cong114 · updated 2026-11-15 by psicol fed-bills-cong114