1nc- t

Interpretation: investment does not include maintenance

Lemer 11 - worked at The National Academies and studied at Harvard University Andrew, How Much
Infrastructure Spending Is Enough?, http://www.andrewlemer.com/2011/02/26/how-much-infrastructurespending-is-%E2%80%9Cenough%E2%80%9D/

What has been neglected in all of the analyses that I have seen is an explicit consideration of maintenance spending, as distinct from investment. Infrastructure, like most engineered systems, requires periodic care to keep it functioning properly. Leaves, trash and other debris clog drains
that channel rainwater away from roadways must be cleaned out. Filters that remove silt and bacteria from drinking water must be flushed. The costs of such maintenance effort typically are accrued in different accounts from

those the represent investment.

But if maintenance is neglected, the quality of services and longevity of facilities will be impaired. My discussions with people who manage maintenance in public works agencies suggest that maintenance budgets are often squeezed, forcing neglect.

Violation: Port dredging is maintenance

Robert Nolin 12, 10/19/12, Dredging project will keep port channels deep, Sun Sentinel, http://articles.sunsentinel.com/2012-10-19/news/fl-port-dredging-project-20121019_1_port-everglades-port-channels-largest-cargoship, SA
Starting early next year, boaters

traversing Port Everglades Inlet should see a dredge biting into the channel bottom as part of a multi-million dollar project to keep the port deep enough for massive commercial vessels. The dredging is simple maintenance to remove shoaling at the port's
entrance and two other areas to ensure the channel stays at its authorized depth of 42 feet, port officials said. The last time the channels had to be dredged was seven years ago.

Standards: 1) Limits- allowing for affs that do minor repairs to infrastructure creates an impossible research burden 2) Ground- small affs that make minor repairs kills negs burden of responseforces us into reading generic offsets CPs and Ks that lead to un-educational debates A. Interpretation an aff defending the US should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment must quantify the investment monetarily B. Violation the plan text only says substantially increase, it doesn't quantify how much money and/or resources the USFG will allocate to TI. C. Key to having the best debates D. Vote on underspecification neg ballot leads to better plan text and research, forces aff to develop their case better and defend against more specific neg arguments Text: The United States federal government should privatize expedited port deepening
projects in the United States.

Government ownership of transportation infrastructure has been a disaster. The private sector is the solution

Randal OToole 10, Senior Fellow of CATO Institute on public policy and transportation issues, 11/10/10, Fixing Transit: The Case for Privatization, http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/fixing-transit-caseprivatization, SA

Americas experiment with government ownership of urban transit systems has proven to be a disaster. Since Congress began giving states and cities incentives to take over private transit systems in 1964, worker productivitythe number of transit riders carried per workerhas declined by more than 50 percent; the amount of energy required to carry one bus rider one mile has increased by more than 75 percent; the inflation adjusted cost per transit trip has nearly tripled, even as fares per trip
slightly declined; and, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies, the number of transit trips per urban resident declined from more than 60 trips per year in 1964 to 45 in 2008. Largely because of government ownership, the

transit industry today is beset by a series of interminable crises. Recent declines in the tax
revenues used to support transit have forced major cuts in transit services in the vast majority of urban areas. Transit infrastructure especially rail infrastructureis steadily deteriorating, and the money transit agencies spend on maintenance is not even enough to keep it in its current state of poor repair. And transit agencies have agreed to employee pension and health care plans that impose billions of dollars of unfunded liabilities on taxpayers. Transit advocates propose to solve these problems with

even more subsidies. A better solution is to privatize transit. Private transit providers will provide efficient transit services that go where people want to go. In order for privatization to take place,
Congress and the states must stop giving transit agencies incentives to waste money on high-cost transit technologies.

Immigration reform will pass but fights are coming

Daniel Streuss 1/30/13, Schumer, McCain predict 'tough slog' for immigration reform bill, The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/280081-schumer-mccain-predict-tough-slog-for-immigrationreform-bill-, SA

Two members of the bipartisan Senate group that crafted a set of principles for immigration reform on Wednesday
predicted Congress faces a "tough slog" to pass a bill. But Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) both

predicted that immigration reform legislation would ultimately win significant support among both Democrats and Republicans and pass the Senate and then the House. "I think it could take three, four weeks," Schumer said Wednesday at an event sponsored by Playbook. "This is such an important issue to America, and it's so complicated, and it deals with every aspect, that I think we should have a full and robust debate. And by the way, the hope is that we could pass this with a nice, sizable, bipartisan majority. Because
that could set the stage make it easier for the House to pass it. "We don't want to have just four, five Republicans," Schumer added. McCain said "there won't be" only a small number of Senate Republicans supporting the bill.

"It's going to be a tough slog," McCain added. "It's going to be a tough, tough fight." The bill is still contentious and Obama is key

Jordan Fabian 1/25/13, Jordan Fabian is the political editor for ABC News-Univision. Prior to joining Univision in 2011, he worked as a staff writer at The Hill newspaper in Washington, DC where he covered Congress and the 2012 presidential campaign, White House, Senators to Begin Push on Immigration Reform, ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/white-house-senators-begin-push-immigration-reform/story? id=18315277, SA
The White House and a bipartisan group of senators next week plan to begin their efforts to push for comprehensive immigration reform. President Barack Obama will make an announcement on immigration during a Tuesday trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, the White House said on Friday. The Senate group is expected make their plans public around the same time, the Associated Press reported. For Obama, immigration reform is a campaign promise that has remained unfulfilled

from his first White House run in 2008. During his 2012 re-election campaign, the president vowed to renew his effort to overhaul the nation's immigration system. It has long been expected that
Obama would roll out his plans shortly after his inauguration. The president's trip to Las Vegas is designed "to redouble the administration's efforts to work with Congress to fix the broken immigration system this year," the White House said. Ever since November's election, in which Latino voters turned out in record numbers, Republicans and Democrats have

expressed a desire to work on immigration reform. Obama has long supported a bill that would make many of the
nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants without criminal records eligible to apply for an earned pathway to citizenship, which

includes paying fines and learning English. But

the debate over a pathway to citizenship is expected to be contentious. Other flashpoints in an immigration reform push could include a guestworker program, workplace enforcement efforts, border security, and immigration backlogs. In a
statement, the White House said that "any legislation must include a path to earned citizenship." Ahead of his immigration push next week, Obama met today with a group of lawmakers from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), including chairman Rubn Hinojosa (D-Texas) , Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and CHC Immigration Task Force Chair Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the latter's office said. CHC members are expected to play a pivotal role in the debate.

"The president is the quarterback and he will direct the team, call the play, and be pivotal if we succeed. I am very optimistic based on conversations with Republicans in the House and Senate

that we will do more than just talk about the immigration issue this year," Gutierrez said in a statement following the CHC meeting with Obama. "The president putting his full weight and attention behind getting a bill

signed into law is tremendously helpful. We need the president and the American people all putting pressure on the Congress to act because nothing happens in the Capitol without people pushing from the outside." The GOP will backlash at any spending

Pete Kasperowicz 13, 1/14/13, Rep. Bonner: Spending fight worth the price of an unpopular Congress, The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/276973-gop-lawmaker-fighting-obama-on-spending-worth-theprice-of-an-unpopular-congress, SA

it's worthwhile for Republicans to keep pushing for spending cuts, even if the fight with President Obama is leading to high unfavorable ratings for Congress. "I will continue to oppose any agreement that does not address the root cause of our government's historic debt rampant overspending," Bonner said Monday. "If doing so makes Congress less popular than the
Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) on Monday said

plague, that is a small price to pay for the futures of our children and grandchildren." Bonner was reacting to a study from Public Policy Polling (PPP), which found Congress is less popular than root canals, used-car salesmen and colonoscopies, with a favorability rating of just 9 percent. Bonner said the president is partly to blame for today's unpopular Congress,

because Obama is "absolutely opposed" to working with Republicans on trimming federal spending. Reform is key to competitiveness

Paul Guzzi 13,1/08/13, Paul Guzzi is president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Immigration reforms are key to winning the global race for talent, The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/01/08/podium-education/FOH9rk3bsRWETK9zXJZnYJ/story.html, SA

US immigration policy has proven inadequate to address the needs of companies competing in a globalized, 21st century economy. There have been numerous failed efforts by both congressional Democrats and Republicans to address the shared goal of reversing the international brain drain. This inaction has sent a message to tens of thousands of highlyskilled foreign workers, graduates and entrepreneurs that the United States is closed for business. However, a path forward for such immigration reform has begun to unfold in recent weeks. Following Novembers
national elections, President Obama and congressional leaders have stated that tackling immigration reform in a more comprehensive manner will be a priority in new Congress. The likelihood of a broader-based immigration

overhaul presents an ideal opportunity to advance issues important to our economic competitiveness. The Greater Boston Chamber has recently launched Business for Skilled Worker Immigration, a coalition of
25 leading Chambers of Commerce from across the country, working together to advance skilled worker immigration reform as a means of driving job creation, innovation, and overall economic growth. Following up on the recommendations of the Chambers Global Talent Index last year, we believe the time is right for immigration reform that will improve

employers ability to access a deeper talent pool and create pathways for more entrepreneurs to launch businesses in this country. The coalition will urge Congress to include three specific proposals, as part of
broader-based immigration reform expected in the new congressional session: 1. Skilled Worker Visas Increase the availability of temporary, skilled worker (H-1B) visas. The annual H-1B visa quota has proven insufficient to meet the demands of the US labor market. This shortage has led companies to leave key positions unfilled or to hire staff to perform

such work in overseas locations. H-1B visas are of particular importance to Massachusetts economy, given its
concentration of health care and life science, technology, and financial institutions. 2. STEM Graduate Green Cards Create new, permanent resident visas (green cards) for foreign students who graduate from a US university with an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The United States continues to experience a brain

drain among such highly educated and highly sought-after graduates due to a lack of available employment-based visas. The impact to our talent pool is significant, considering that one-third of PhD recipients and onequarter of masters degree recipients in science and engineering in the United States are foreign born. Unless new visas are made available, many of these graduates including thousands who are attending Massachusetts universities will be

forced to take their extensive training and skills back home to compete against us. 3. Entrepreneur
Visas Create new startup visas for immigrant entrepreneurs who launch businesses in the United States and meet certain employment and financing goals. US immigration law does not currently provide an entrepreneur visa.

This glaring policy gap is leading Massachusetts and the United States to cede critical startup activity to our economic competitors overseas, many of whom have rushed to adopt new laws to attract foreign entrepreneurs. Brain power is Massachusetts calling card and our competitive edge in a fiercely competitive global marketplace. Its what drives so many leading companies and
groundbreaking startups to call our state home. This talent pool is the result of decades spent educating and training an outstanding homegrown workforce. It also the result of our ability to attract some of the brightest and most innovative minds from across the globe to live, learn and work here. Yet, outdated and restrictive federal immigration policies are jeopardizing this critical inflow of international talent. Americas competitors are actively and aggressively revising their immigration

policies to welcome the worlds best and brightest to their shores. We must do likewise. Enactment of these skilled worker immigration reforms in the next Congress will help to secure Massachusetts global economic competitiveness by ensuring continued access to the best domestic and international
talent the world has to offer.

Competitiveness prevents great power war --- now is key Sanjaya Baru 2009 is a Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School in Singapore Geopolitical Implications of the
Current Global Financial Crisis, Strategic Analysis, Volume 33, Issue 2 March 2009 , pages 163 - 168

Hence, economic policies and performance do have strategic consequences.2 In the modern era, the idea that strong economic performance is the foundation of power was argued most persuasively by
historian Paul Kennedy. 'Victory (in war)', Kennedy claimed, 'has repeatedly gone to the side with more flourishing productive base'.3 Drawing attention to the interrelationships between economic wealth, technological innovation, and the

ability of states to efficiently mobilize economic and technological resources for power projection and national defence, Kennedy argued that nations that were able to better combine military and economic strength scored over others. 'The fact remains', Kennedy argued, 'that all of the major shifts in the world's militarypower balance have followed alterations in the productive balances; and further, that the rising and falling of the various empires and states in the international system has been confirmed by the outcomes of the major Great Power wars, where victory has always gone to the side with the greatest material resources'.4 In Kennedy's view, the geopolitical consequences of an economic crisis, or even decline, would be transmitted through a nation's inability to find adequate financial resources to simultaneously sustain economic growth and military power. The classic 'guns versus butter' dilemma. Apart from such fiscal disempowerment of the State, economic under-performance would also reduce a nation's attraction as a market, as a source of capital and
technology, and as a 'knowledge power'. As power shifted from Europe to America, so did the knowledge base of the global economy. As China's power rises, so does its profile as a 'knowledge economy'. Impressed by such arguments, the China Academy of Social Sciences developed the concept of Comprehensive National Power (CNP) to get China's political and military leadership to focus more clearly on economic and technological performance than on military power alone in its quest for Great Power status.5 While China's impressive economic performance, and the consequent rise in China's global profile, has forced strategic analysts to acknowledge this link, the recovery of the US economy in the 1990s had reduced the appeal of the Kennedy thesis in Washington, DC. We must expect a revival of interest in Kennedy's arguments in the current context.

Cap K

Transportation infrastructure is the life-blood of the capitalist system.

Sheppard 90, (Eric Sheppard, American geographer and Regents Professor of Economic geography at the University of Minnesota, Ph.D in Geography at University of Toronto., currently in the department of geography at the University of California Los Angeles, "Transportation in a capitalist space-economy: transportation demand,
circulation time, and transportation innovations" Environment and Planning A 22(8) 1007 1024)

Transportation, as the service of moving commodities between places, plays a unique role in a fully competitive capitalist space-economy. The commodity of transportation is consumed as a part of virtually every economic transaction, linking the production and consumption of a commodity; demand for transportation is derived from spatial configurations
rather than being fixed by socially necessary techniques and real wages; and the circulation time taken in transportation is a deduction from capitalists' profits. The impact of circulation time on profits may be calculated precisely. The derived nature of the demand for transportation adds a level of uncertainty to the impact of cost-reducing technical change on profit rates. Given this, cost-reducing and time-reducing technical change in the transportation commodity is one of the few ways of

ensuring an increased rate of profit for capitalists, ceteris paribus. The public nature of transportation improvements and the high investments in fixed capital

that

are required help to explain the central role of the state in capitalism in the improvement of transportation and thus in underwriting capital accumulation. 3. Capitalisms pursuit of infinite growth leads to ecodoom and extinction this outweighs and turns the case Joel Kovel, Alger Hiss Professor, Social Studies, Bard College, THE ENEMY OF NATURE: THE END OF CAPITALISM OR THE END OF THE WORLD, 2002, p. 5.
As the world, or to be more exact, the Western, industrial world, has leapt into a prosperity unimaginable to prior generations, it has prepared for itself a calamity far more unimaginable still. The present world system in effect has had three decades to limit its growth, and it has failed so abjectly that even the idea of limiting growth has been banished from official discourse. Further, it has been proved decisively that the internal logic of the present system translates growth into increasing wealth for the few and increasing misery for the many. We must begin our inquiry therefore, with the chilling fact that growth so conceived means the destruction of the natural foundation of civilization. If the world were a living organism, then any sensible observer would conclude that this growth is a cancer that, if not somehow treated, means the destruction of human society, and even raises the question of the extinction of our species. A
simple extrapolation tells us as much, once we learn that the growth is uncontrollable. The details are important and interesting, but less so than the chief conclusion that irresistible growth, and

the evident fact that this growth destabilizes and breaks down the natural ground necessary for human existence, means, in the plainest terms, that we are doomed under the present social order, and that we had better change it as soon as possible if we are to survive.

4. The alternative is nothing less than the only option we must abandon all belief in capitalism and any rush to action is doomed to failure Johnston 2004, interdisciplinary research fellow in psychoanalysis at Emory University
[Adrian, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, December v9 i3 p. 259] The height of Zizek's philosophical traditionalism, his fidelity to certain lasting truths too precious to cast away in a postmodern frenzy, is his conviction that no worthwhile praxis can emerge prior to the careful and deliberate formulation of a correct conceptual framework. His references to the Lacanian notion of the Act (qua agent-less occurrence not brought about by a subject) are especially strange in light of the fact that he seemingly endorses the view that theory must precede practice, namely, that deliberative reflection is, in a way, primary. For Zizek, the foremost "practical" task to be accomplished today isn't some kind of rebellious acting out, which would, in the end, amount to nothing more than a series of impotent, incoherent outbursts. Instead, given the contemporary exhaustion of the socio-political imagination under the hegemony of liberal-democratic capitalism, he sees the liberation of thinking itself from its present constraints as the first crucial step that must be taken if anything is to be changed for the better. In a lecture given in Vienna in 2001, Zizek suggests that Marx's call to break out of the sterile closure of abstract intellectual ruminations through direct, concrete action (thesis eleven on Feuerbach--"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it") must be inverted given the new prevailing conditions of latecapitalism. Nowadays, one must resist succumbing to the temptation to short-circuit thinking in favor of acting, since all such rushes to action are doomed; they either fail to disrupt capitalism or are ideologically co-opted by it. Perhaps the absence of a detailed political roadmap in Zizek's recent writings isn't a major shortcoming. Maybe, at least for the time being, the most important task is simply the negativity of the critical struggle, the effort to cure an intellectual constipation resulting from capitalist ideology and thereby to truly open up the space for imagining authentic alternatives to the prevailing state of the situation. Another definition of materialism offered by Zizek is that it amounts to accepting the internal inherence of what fantasmatically appears as an external deadlock or hindrance (Zizek, 2001d, pp 22-23) (with fantasy itself being defined as the false externalization of something within the subject, namely, the illusory projection of an inner obstacle, Zizek, 2000a, p 16). From this perspective, seeing through ideological fantasies by learning how

to think again outside the confines of current restrictions has, in and of itself, the potential to operate as a form of real revolutionary practice
(rather than remaining merely an instance of negative/critical intellectual reflection). Why is this the case? Recalling the analysis of commodity fetishism, the social efficacy of money as the universal medium of exchange (and the entire political economy grounded upon it) ultimately relies upon nothing more than a kind of "magic," that is, the belief in money's social efficacy by those using it in the processes of exchange. Since the value of currency is, at bottom, reducible to the belief that it has the value attributed to it (and that everyone believes that everyone else believes this as well), derailing capitalism by destroying its essential financial substance is, in a certain respect, as easy as dissolving the mere belief in this

substance's powers. The "external" obstacle of the capitalist system exists exclusively on the condition that subjects, whether consciously or

unconsciously, "internally" believe in it--capitalism's life-blood, money, is simply a fetishistic crystallization of a belief in others' belief in the socio-performative force emanating from this same material. And yet, this point of capitalism's frail vulnerability is simultaneously the source of its enormous strength: its vampiric symbiosis with individual human desire, and the fact that the late-capitalist cynic's fetishism enables the disavowal of his/her de facto belief in capitalism, makes it highly unlikely that people can simply be persuaded to stop believing and start thinking (especially since, as Zizek claims, many of these people are convinced that they already have ceased believing). Or, the more disquieting possibility to entertain is that some people today, even if one succeeds in exposing them to the underlying logic of their position, might respond in a manner resembling that of the Judas-like character Cypher in the film The Matrix (Cypher opts to embrace enslavement by illusion rather than cope with the discomfort of dwelling in the "desert of the real"): faced with the choice between living the capitalist lie or wrestling with certain unpleasant truths, many individuals might very well deliberately decide to accept what they know full well to be a false pseudo-reality, a deceptively comforting fiction ("Capitalist commodity fetishism or the truth? I choose fetishism").

1NC Dredging Bad Turn

Dredging causes oxygen shortage and ruins freshwater marshkills biodiversity Chapman 08Reporter at the Atlanta Journal Constitution (Dan, PORT'S FUTURE, RIVER'S FATE: Savannah

dredging adrift in sea of studies: Bigger ships will require making the river deeper, but how to do it without hurting ecology, economy is up for debate, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 7/1, ProQuest, http://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login? url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/337549643?accountid=14667) EL Judy Jennings, the Sierra Club's point person for harbor deepening, will welcome the ships if environmental problems have been mitigated. Jennings isn't convinced the Corps will adequately safeguard the endangered sturgeon, the striped bass or the freshwater tidal marshes in the Savannah River Wildlife Refuge if the river is deepened to 48 feet. "If the [Corps] can convince me that they can mitigate to 48 feet, then I have no problem with it," Jennings said. "But if we do this and it turns out to be a dumb idea, I'm not sure how we get it fixed." The deeper the river, the harder it is

for oxygen to reach the lower depths. Fish and other aquatic lifesuffer. The Ports Authority paid

an engineering firm $3 million last year to pump oxygen into the river to determine if fish, particularly the sturgeon, would receive ample oxygen. MACTEC Engineering and Consulting said fish wouldn't be unduly harmed at 48 feet with the added oxygen. The Fish and Wildlife Service wasn't convinced. After an outside analysis of the data, the agency reported June 18 "a high degree of uncertainty as to how effective oxygen injection would be." The Corps asked for further study. Fish and Wildlife also fears a 48-foot deepening would ruin a freshwater swath of the nearby Wildlife Refuge, one of the most important preserves on the East Coast. The Corps agrees that salt water would surge further upriver if the Savannah were dredged to that depth. Even withmitigation efforts, 330 acres of freshwater marsh

would turn brackish, the agency said. The Corps recommends purchasing 2,000 acres along Georgia's side

of the Savannah River to mitigate the freshwater loss of the 330 acres in South Carolina. "We can minimize the impacts at 44 or 45 feet," said Russ Webb, a biologist with Fish and Wildlife, which manages the refuge. "At 48 feet, the impact would be a lot more significant."

Loss of biodiversity causes extinction. Diner, 94 [David, Ph.D., Planetary Science and Geology, "The Army and the Endangered Species Act: Who's Endangering
Whom?," Military Law Review, 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161] To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew 74 could save [hu]mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to[hu]man[s] in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, theymay

be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly usefulspecies negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, theloss of a speciesaffects other species dependent on it. 75 Moreover, as the number ofspecies decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. 4. Biological Diversity. -- The

main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. 77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several

strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically,each new animal or plant extinction,with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects,

could cause total ecosystem collapse andhumanextinction.Each new extinction increases the risk of
disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, 80 [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

1NC Frontline

Either the affs not inherenttheres funding for major portsor the status quo solves because all MAJOR ports are being dredged now Schultz, 7/19/12 (Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Congresswoman, U.S. House of Representatives, "President Announces PortMiami Dredging", wassermanschultz.house.gov/2012/07/presidentannounces-funding-for-portmiami-dredging.shtml)
WASHINGTON Today President Obama

laid out specific priorities to boost Floridas economy now, including federal permits for deepening Port Miami and expediting a feasibility study for dredging Jacksonvilles port. This is wonderful news for the entire state of Florida, said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman

Schultz (FL-20). Dredging PortMiami and JaxPort will create jobs for Floridians and make us more competitive in the global marketplace. These projects have been in the works for years, and Im glad we have a President who understands the value of them becoming a reality. President Obama is right - we cant wait on these important initiatives that will boost our economy now. President Obama has reiterated how important he believes it is for our economy to grow not from the top down, but from the middle class out. He has a plan to restore economic security for Floridas middle-class families and create an economy built to last. Its going to help us responsibly pay down our debt while protecting investments critical to Floridians, like Medicare, innovation and education. The Army Corps is working with PortMiami to deepen the Federal navigation at the port from its current depth of 42 feet to a depth of 50 feet. Once completed, the port will be able to accommodate larger cargo vessels and other ships, ultimately facilitating a more efficient movement of goods. The Corps expects to complete the deepening of the channel later this year. The dredging is expected to be complete by spring of 2015, just in time to be the first port along the eastern seaboard to receive the larger cargo ships that will begin shipping goods through an expanded Panama Canal. In Jacksonville, the Army Corps of Engineers has previously said it expected to complete a feasibility study in 2014 for deepening the channel. The administration announced today

that it will fast-track the study so that it is completed by April 2013, and then the Jacksonville Port Authority can seek funding to start designing the project and begin dredging. These projects are part of the overall We Cant Wait initiative that provides funding dedicated to expanding ports across the country. Other ports to receive improvements are: Charleston, Savannah, and the Port of New York and New Jersey. The administration says dozens of additional projects to be expedited will be announced in the coming months. The Obama Administration also announced the
establishment of a White House-led Navigation Task Force that will consist of senior officials from various White House offices, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Homeland Security, and the Treasury. The Task Force will develop a Federal strategy and coordinated decision making

principles that focus on the economic return of investments into coastal ports and related infrastructure to support the movement of commerce throughout the nation.

Obamas We Cant Wait initiative solves the Aff without Congressional action White House, 7-19 We Cant Wait: Obama Administration Announces 5 Major Port
Projects to Be Expedited, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/19/we-can-t-

wait-obama-administration-announces-5-major-port-projects-be-ex? utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl/ Today, as part of its We Cant Wait initiative, the Administration announced that 7 nationally and regionally significant infrastructure projects will be expedited to help modernize and expand 5 major ports in the United States, including the Port of Jacksonville, the Port of Miami, the Port of Savannah, the Port of New York and New Jersey, and the Port of Charleston. As part of a Presidential Executive Order issued in March of this year, the Office of Management and Budget is charged with overseeing a government-wide effort to make the permitting and review process for infrastructure projects more efficient and effective, saving time while driving better outcomes for local communities. These are the first 7 of the initial 43 projects that will be expedited by the Executive Order additional expedited infrastructure projects will be announced in the coming weeks.

1NC Frontline

Food prices high and show signs of increasing now

Fox 11 (6/25/11, Food Prices are on the Rise, Heres How to Fight Back, http://www.foxbusiness.com/personalfinance/2012/06/25/food-prices-are-on-rise-heres-how-to-fight-back/#ixzz1yvKObvlK)JCP

Families battling to make ends meet in a weak job market and frail economy will continue to fight high food prices throughout the yearthanks to rising wheat, corn and milk prices. Food prices are expected to increase between 2.5%-3.4% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and thats on top of the 3.7% increase that hit cash-strapped families in 2011. "Wheat and milk are both imbedded in most foods, so if prices for those commodities go up, then those costs will get passed onto the consumer," says Ed Butowsky, wealth manager at Chapwood Investments. "Whether you shop at the grocery store or you only eat out in restaurants, you're going to see the increase. It may only be 5 cents here or 10 cents there, but it adds up." The high demand for corn, wheat, and dairy combined with sluggish supply due to bad weather conditions earlier this year has created the perfect storm for higher prices, he says. Unfortunately, prices may rise more than projected, increasing by 6%-10% later this year. "It depends how much corn, how much wheat, how much dairy is available in the world. It comes from everywhere, and it's being sold everywhere, so these days you have to look at overall worldwide demand and there's 7 billion people to feed," he says.
Unfortunately, many shoppers have already experienced increased prices at the grocery store, says Stephanie Nelson, founder of CouponMom.com.

Monoculture turncheap U.S. corn will destroy genetic diversity and collapse the environment
POLLAN 2004
(Michael, Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley, acclaimed writer and journalist, LA Times, April 23, http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=23)

The cheap U.S. corn has also wreaked havoc on Mexico's land, according to the Carnegie report. The small farmers forced off their land often sell out to larger farmers who grow for export, farmers who must adopt far more industrial (and especially chemical- and water-intensive) practices to compete in the international marketplace. Fertilizer runoff into the Sea of Cortez starves its marine life of oxygen, and Mexico's scarce water resources are leaching north, one tomato at a time. Mexico's industrial farmers now produce fruits and vegetables for American tables year-round. It's ridiculous for a country like
Mexico whose people are often hungry to use its best land to grow produce for a country where food is so abundant that its people are obesebut under free trade,

Meanwhile, the small farmers struggling to hold on in Mexico are forced to grow their corn on increasingly marginal lands, contributing to deforestation and soil erosion. Compounding these environmental pressures is the advent of something new to Mexico: factory farming. The practice of feeding corn to livestock was actively discouraged by the
it makes economic sense.

Mexican government until quite recentlyan expression of the culture's quasi-religious reverence for maize. But those policies were reversed in 1994, and, just as it has done in the United States, cheap corn has driven the growth of animal feedlots, sewage concentration and water and air pollution. Cheap American corn in Mexico threatens all cornZea mays itselfand by extension all of us who have come to depend on this plant. The small Mexican farmers who grow corn in southern Mexico are responsible for maintaining the genetic diversity of the species. While American farmers raise a small handful of genetically nearly idenical hybrids, Mexico's small farmers still grow hundreds of different, open-pollinated varieties, commonly called landraces. This genetic diversity, the product of 10,000 years of human-maize co-evolution, represents some of the most precious and irreplaceable information on Earth, as we were reminded in 1970 when a fungus decimated the American corn crop and genes for resistance were found in a landrace in southern Mexico. These landraces will survive only as long as the farmers who cultivate them do. The cheap corn that is throwing these farmers off their land threatens to dry up the pool of genetic diversity on which the future of the species depends.

US agriculture exports are at an all-time high

HPJ 11 High Plains Midwest Journal, cites a secretary of agriculture (High Plains Midwest Journal, U.S. farm exports reach all-time high June 2011, http://www.hpj.com/archives/2011/jun11/jun27/0512AgExportsSetRecordsr.cfm) // CB Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack made the following statement on data released showing that U.S. farm exportsreached an all-time high of $75 billion during the first half of fiscal year 2011: "Today's trade data demonstrate that, once again, America's farmers and ranchers are helping lead the way to recovery from the worst economic recession in decades. The gains in U.S. agricultural exports are particularly encouraging news for those who live in rural America or earn a living in farming, ranching and agriculture-related industries, because exports are creating jobs here at home. Farm exports alone will support more than one million jobs in America this year. Strong U.S. farm exports will be a key contributor to building an economy that continues to grow, innovate and out-compete the rest of the world. "At $75 billion, U.S. agricultural exports for FY 2011 are 27 percent higher than the same period in last year. This puts us on track to reach the current USDA export forecast of $135.5 billion by the end of the year. "As expected, China is our top export market. With $15.1 billion in farm exports, China accounted for nearly 20 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports. Canada is our second-largest market. "Both the
value and volume of exports rose in the first half of the year, with the volume of bulk shipments up 5 percent from last year. Wheat and cotton volumes were especially robust, with increases of 64 percent 44 percent, respectively. "March was the highest-grossing month for U.S. agricultural exports ever. During that month alone, U.S. farmers and ranchers exported $13.3 billion worth of U.S. agricultural goods. That's $407 million more than the previous record set in November 2010. "Congress can help U.S. farmers and ranchers sustain their record growth by moving expeditiously to pass the South Korea, Colombia and Panama trade agreements. When fully implemented, those three agreements have potential to add more than $2 billion per year to our exports and support job creation here at home.

Gains like these will help farmers and ranchers continue to contribute to President Obama's National Export Initiative goal of doubling all U.S. exports by 2014."

China is becoming a larger agriculture exporter, solves the impact to high prices
USDA 11 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA, Chinese Agricultural Exports Provide Growing Competition, 2/3/11, http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/WebStories/China_Export_020311.asp) // CB With China becoming the second largest U.S. market in fiscal year 2010, Chinas emergence as a major agricultural importer is well-known. While China is a large net food importer, it is also becoming a formidable competitor in the export market with

shipments nearly tripling over the past 10 years and market share increasing. While some of Chinas exports are bound for the United States, others directly compete with U.S. products in foreign markets. Exports of consumer-oriented high-value products (HVPs) have shown particular growth, especially to nearby markets in Japan and Southeast Asia. Although China faces production constraints and booming domestic consumption, future exports, particularly of high value products, have room for expansion. Chinese agricultural exports began to surge after 1999, with shipments increasing in value from $10.3 billion in 1999 to an estimated $28 billion in 2010. This $18 billion increase is impressive, but as global agricultural trade was also on the rise over this period, perhaps more important was the increase in market share. Chinese exports accounted for 4.5 percent of global agricultural trade in 1999, but climbed to 5 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, over the same period, U.S. export share fell from 22 percent to 18 percent. Although other exporters, particularly Brazil and Argentina, played
a larger role in the fall of U.S. share, the growth of Chinese exports likely contributed to the drop, particularly in certain markets for consumer-oriented HVPs.

Multiple alt causes the aff cant solve

Journal of Commerce, 12 ("Agriculture Trade a 'Risky Business'", April 16, Proquest) // NK
Analysts and economists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are full of good news about sales prospects for U.S. farm goods. But high up in every glowing estimate is a reminder that agriculture markets are subject to whims

and marketchanges at a moment's notice. Livestock, dairy and poultry exports are expected to reach record levels again in 2012, the USDA said in its latest export forecast report. There are issues, however, that could cloud that sunny forecast, such as the ongoing sanitary and phytosanitary trade issue, changes in overseas handling of mad cow restrictions, and the Chinese demand for dairy and pork products. Any export item is subject to economic realities, trade wars and sudden shifts in supply or demand. But with food and farm items,that list grows to include freezing weather, floods, recallsbased on contamination, disease in animal populations, not to mention plant disease or viruses. Last July, New Zealand kiwifruit growers were riding high. In the 2011 shipping season, they filled 63 chartered reefer vessels as well as 7,000 reefer containers with
more than 110 million trays of kiwifruit. During one frenetic day in June, Zespri delivered 160 refrigerated containers, containing 832,000 trays of kiwis, to the Port of Tauranga for export in a 12-hour period. At that time, the industry thought 2012 would be even better. Zespri Chairman John Loughlin told shareholders kiwifruit sales in China were

up 27 percent and that sales there could grow from 10 million trays annually to 90 million, by increasing consumption per person to just 8.8 ounces each year. The market optimism is gone, at least for the next few years, as New Zealand kiwi growersdiscovereda vine disease known as PSA in major growing areas that has
spread much more quickly than anticipated. As the first shipment of kiwifruit in 2012 left the Port of Tauranga in early April, Zespri had lowered its sales forecast to 95 million trays and sent a group of Maori business and cultural representatives to Japan, its largest market. In addition to a singing group and gifts of Maori carvings, the delegation will take to its top Japanese clients "a subtle message to stick with us" even though the PSA bacterial disease had infected orchards in New Zealand, according to reports in New Zealand newspapers. The industry has identified a new kiwifruit variety it hopes will be resistant to PSA. In the meantime, kiwifruit producers across the Southern Hemisphere hope to increase their exports and gain market share in key markets in Asia and Europe. Mad cow disease, swine flu,

hoof and mouth disease and the avian flu have impacted markets in the U.S. and around the globe with trade implications lasting years. But sometimes, a foodborne illness crops up that can disrupt a market overnight though product recalls. Several years ago, every leaf of spinach on grocery store shelves and in restaurants was recalled in the U.S. It took weeks before the tainted product was traced back to a farm in Central California. In the meantime, the entire industry took a financial hit; a number of small farms and packing houses went out of business, even though they had handled none of the tainted product. Chiquita, which had acquired a domestic bagged salad business the year before the spinach outbreak, was forced to sell its famed Great White Fleet of refrigerated vessels because of the financial losses incurred from the spinach recall period. No spinach grown or
marketed by Chiquita was ever linked to the outbreak. On its Web side, the Food and Drug Administration lists 20 food product recalls in the 30 days prior to April 5 this year. The most common reason for a recall is an undeclared ingredient that could cause an allergic reaction, but instances of salmonella and listeria monocytogenes are also listed. Weather can also have an unexpected effect, both on the supply and demand side. In 2011, freezing weather in Florida reduced the

state's citrus harvest by millions of boxes and reduced U.S. exports of oranges, grapefruit and lemons. But last year, U.S.

exporters of beef, pork and vegetables saw increased demand following theearthquake, tsunami and resulting radiation scare in Japan. Key production areas in Japan for the commodities were affected by the extreme climatic situation, and demand for imported food grew.

Investment turn rising food prices are encouraging investment in agriculture nowthis will solve poverty and famine
KHARAS 2008 (Homi, Senior Fellow at the Wolfensohn Centre for Development at the Brookings Institution, was the Chief Economist of
The good news is that higher the East Asia and Pacific region of the World Bank and Director of the region's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Department from 19992007, The Economist, July 29)

food prices are exactly what is required to restore balance in the market. With rising demand and constrained supply the iron law of economics permits no other response. In a market economy, when demand exceeds supply, prices rise. Higher pricesdiscourage consumption, but they also encourage more investment and enhance production.
split two-for-one in the last two years. High

Anyone who doubts the link between food prices and agricultural investment should take a close look at the stock price of the worlds largest producer of agricultural equipment, John Deere. While most US shares have taken a beating, John Deeres share price has doubled and has

food prices are encouraging farmers to invest heavily in new equipment. This pattern is being repeated across the world, with investments in equipment, storage and land improvements. More food is already being produced in response to higher prices: forecasts for cereals production in 2008 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation show a significant increase. This should come as no surprise. When prices fell steeply between 1997 and 2002, cereal production declined. Now that prices have risen back to the levels of the mid-1990s, cereal production has resumed its upward trend. Productivity is on the rise.

Volatility turnprice fluctuations are inevitablehigh prices are better

BIOPACT 2008 (Brussels-based connective of European and African citizens who strive towards the establishment of a mutually beneficial
'energy relationship' based on biofuels and bioenergy, Biopact unites specialists in several disciplines related to bioenergyan economic anthropologist, a bio-engineer, a professor in chemistry, a tropical agronomist, a sociologist with expertise on Central-Africa, and a development economist, Wageningen UR: biofuels not to blame for high food prices; decline in world food prices to continue, June 17, http://biopact.com/2008/06/wageningen-ur-biofuels-not-to-blame-for.html)

Unpredictable movements in food prices can still provide problems in the future. With high prices, the consequences in terms of hunger or malnutrition especially in poor urban areas will surface. But with low prices, the consequence for poor farmers will be large. Until recently, hundreds of millions of farmers could notlift themselves out of poverty because of low food prices. Seventy-five percent of the world's hungry people are still living in rural areasand are dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Over time, high prices should benefit them.

Production Turn Higher food prices encourage households to switch from buying to producing food this solves their impact
AKSOY 2008 (M. Ataman and Aylin Isik-Dikmelik, both from World Bank, Are Low Food Prices Pro-Poor? Net Food
Buyers and Sellers in Low-Income Countries, Policy Research Working Paper 4642, June 2008, http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/asin-7falp3/$file/world%20bank_are%20low%20food%20prices%20pro-poor.pdf? openelement)

Given the magnitude of switching observed in Vietnam between being a net food seller and buyer, the point estimates of net food sellers might be misleading. The number of households that produce and sell staple food crops might give some indication of the potential for households to shift from being a net seller to buyer and vice versa. Table 3 shows the importance of staple food crop production and sales. On average,
almost 45 percent of all households in these countries produce staple food crops and almost 30 percent sell some staples. In rural areas, these numbers are much higher, with about 64 percent of households producing staple food crops and 42 percent selling them. Even

in urban areas, close to 15 percent of householdsproduce staple food crops and 8 percent sell them. Thus slight changes in yields, prices, or production could change the share of net food sellersand buyers, especially in rural areas. Further, given data problems in measuring food sales and purchases, the number of sellers and buyers might changesignificantly. These results also show why the large shifts between net sellers and buyers observed in Vietnam might not be unusual.