While significant growth in foreign demand for U.S. steam coal is foreseen,
congestion at major U.S. coal exporting ports such as Hampton Roads,
Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland, could delay and impede exports.
My Administration has worked through the Interagency Coal Task Force Study,
which I created, to promote cooperation and coordination of resources
between shippers, railroads, vessel broker/ operators and port operators,
and to determine the most appropriate Federal role in expanding and
modernizing coal export facilities, including dredging deeper channels at
selected ports.
Some progress has already been made. In addition to action taken by
transshippers to reduce the number of coal classifications used whenever
possible, by the Norfolk and Western Railroad to upgrade its computer
capability to quickly inventory its coal cars in its yards, and by the
Chessie Railroad which is reactivating Pier 15 in Newport News and has
established a berth near its Curtis Bay Pier in Baltimore to decrease
delays in vessel berthing, public activities will include:
--A $26.5 million plan developed by the State of Pennsylvania and Conrail
to increase Conrail's coal handling capacity at Philadelphia;
--A proposal by the State of Virginia to construct a steam coal port on
the Craney Island Disposal area in Portsmouth harbor;
--Plans by Mobile, Alabama, which operates the only publicly owned coal
terminal in the U.S. to enlarge its capacity at McDuffie Island to 10
million tons ground storage and 100 car unit train unloading capability;
--Development at New Orleans of steam coal facilities that are expected to
add over 20 million tons of annual capacity by 1983; and
--The Corps of Engineers, working with other interested Federal agencies,
will determine which ports should be dredged, to what depth and on what
schedule, in order to accommodate larger coal carrying vessels.
Private industry will, of course, play a major role in developing the
United States' coal export facilities. The new Administration should
continue to work to eliminate transportation bottlenecks that impede our
access to foreign markets.