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Forty percent of the United States drains into the Mississippi. It's agriculture. It's golf courses. It's domestic runoff from our lawns and roads. Ultimately, where does it go? Downstream into the gulf.

Barge traffic on the Mississippi River represents the most efficient, most cost-effective, most environmentally sound means of transporting commodity goods from this region of the country to market.

Illinois corn farmers are the Nation's number two exporter of feed grains.

Folks have a common misconception that Mississippi is strictly a rural, outdoors state. While we are famous for our hunting, sport fishing and year-round golf, we also have leading manufacturers like Peavey Electronics and Viking Range Corp.

In the underlying bill, I think the authors of the legislation, those in support of it, understand the use of the Mississippi River. Yes, there is commercial navigation on it, and there will be tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, Delaware River's regional ports handle approximately 58 million tons of cargo yearly.

In Wisconsin, we have got a lot of agricultural products that are exported. We have a lot of manufacturing products that are exported. I don't want to engage in a trade war.

Yet, in 1850 nearly all the railroads in the United States lay east of the Mississippi River, and all of them, even when they were physically mere extensions of one another, were separately owned and separately managed.

Preserving a river or a creek can bring a lot of revenue.