The Federal expenditure estimates for the fiscal year 1947 include 53 million dollars for new construction in rivers, harbors, and the Panama Canal and 291 million dollars for highways and grade-crossing elimination, assuming that the States expend some 275 million dollars on the Federal-aid system.  Additional expenditures for highways totaling 36 million dollars are anticipated by the forest Service, National Park Service, and the Territory of Alaska.  Civil airways and airports will involve expenditures of 35 million dollars under existing authority.  Additional Federal expenditures exceeding 20 million dollars (to be matched by States and municipalities) may be made during the fiscal year 1947 under the airport legislation now in conference between the two Houses of the Congress.

The United States now controls almost two-thirds of the world’s merchant shipping, most of it Government-owned, compared with little more than one-seventh of the world’s tonnage in 1939.  This places a heavy responsibility upon the Nation to provide for speedy and efficient world commerce as a contribution to general economic recovery.

The estimates for the United States Maritime Commission and War Shipping Administration provide for the transition of shipping operation from a war to a peace basis; the sale, chartering, or lay-up of much of the war-built fleet; and for a program of ship construction of some 84 million dollars in the fiscal year 1947 to round out the merchant fleet for peacetime use.

Federal aids, subsidies, and regulatory controls for transportation should follow the general principle of benefiting the national economy as a whole.  They should seek to improve the transportation system and increase its efficiency with resulting lower rates and superior service.  Differential treatment which benefits one type of transportation to the detriment of another should be avoided save when it is demonstrated clearly to be in the public interest.

5.  Resource development

Total capital outlays for resource development are estimated at 653 million dollars in the fiscal year 1947 as compared with 452 million dollars in 1946.  These include capital expenditures by the Rural Electrification Administration and expenditures for resource development by other organizational units in the Department of Agriculture which are also mentioned above under “agricultural programs.”

The reclamation and flood control projects which I am recommending for the fiscal year 1947 will involve capital outlays of approximately 319 million dollars as compared with 245 million dollars in the fiscal year 1946.  These expenditures cover programs of the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, and the International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico.  A number of these projects are multiple-purpose projects, providing not only for reclamation and irrigation of barren land and flood control, but also for the production of power needed for industrial development of the areas.