RESTORE Act Fines Could Provide Job Opportunities
Jackie Prince Roberts, director of sustainable technologies for Environmental Defense Fund, said thast a study of Everglades restoration by Mather Economics, based on data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, estimates that every USD1 million of public investment in restoring the Everglades would create about 20 jobs. The study helps Florida residents understand where those jobs can be created, and the opportunity Florida has to be a leader in this new industry sector that provides ecosystem restoration services to the Gulf, and to meet emerging global demand.
The study's release is timely because the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has diarised a hearing Wednesday 7th December 2011 to examine bipartisan legislation, the RESTORE Act (H.R. 3096), that would dedicate 80 percent of the estimated USD5-21 billion in Clean Water Act fines from the 4.9 million barrel spill to restoring the Gulf. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee already has approved the Senate version of the bill (S. 1400), cosponsored by nine of the ten Gulf state senators, including Florida'sBill Nelson (D) and Marco Rubio (R).
The report maps the suppy chain, showing that the growth in jobs is increasing more than immediately at the projects. Restoration projects activate a full supply chain linking materials providers, equipment manufacturers, shipbuilders, machinery repair firms, engineering and construction contractors, and environmental resource firms. Many of the firms are based in the Gulf Coast region. Having long worked in the marine construction industry building oil and gas industry infrastructure, they can apply the same skills and equipment to coastal restoration, thus finding new markets and a more diverse client base.
Two-thirds of the firms sampled have offices in the Gulf Coast and qualify as small businesses, according to Small Business Administration guidelines on number of employees. One of the firms is Taylor Engineering, an employee-owned design firm that restored seven miles of critically eroded beaches battered by hurricanes in Walton County and the city of Destin in Okaloosa County and has full-service offices in Jacksonville and West Palm Beach, and local-service offices in Tampa and Destin, FL,Savannah, GA, Baltimore, MD, and Columbia, SC. The firm has provided a life-cycle commitment to the art and science of delivering sustainable solutions in the water environment since 1983.
James Marino, P.E., president of Taylor Engineering expects that if their customer base picks up in response to RESTORE funding, there would be a positive and sustainable long-term impact on the company's hiring.
The BP oil disaster worsened the damage to the badly degraded Mississippi River Delta wetlands, a resource that "sustains the Gulf region's unique people and cultures and brings the U.S. economy billions of dollars each year in energy, fishing, shipping and tourism," the report states. "At stake in the loss of coastal wetlands is not only the environmental health of the Gulf region, but also several of the nation's vital industries."
The report notes that a robust coastal restoration sector has been developing in the marine construction industry, but recent budget cuts have stalled many authorised restoration projects. The report concludes that coastal restoration is needed in Florida, California, the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes. If U.S. markets expand, the firms that serve them will be well positioned to sell to international markets as they develop in the future. For example, several countries in Asia are developing integrated coastal management programmes, and recently India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam have undertaken hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of coastal restoration projects. The RESTORE Act would continue to build this promising new sector.
