April 21, 2021 By Waterways Journal By Lance M. Sannino, James Kearns and Amiee Andres The “Report Card” recently issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers has added to the renewed attention directed to the state of America’s infrastructure. Although the nation’s ports were given a grade of B-minus, better than the grade of C-minus given to the country’s infrastructure overall, the report card noted, “Smaller and inland ports are especially challenged to maintain their infrastructure and have difficulty in competing for federal grants.” Aimee Andres A small but significant step was made to address this challenge when, in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021, Congress amended, in several ways, the Port Infrastructure Development Program that is administered by the U.S. Maritime Administration (MarAd). Prior to this amendment, 25 percent of the amounts appropriated for grants under this program were reserved for “small” projects. However, the underlying statute authorizing the program defined a small project as one that requested the lesser of $10 million or 10 percent of the total amount appropriated by Congress for the program for a fiscal year. For FY 2021, Congress appropriated $230 million for the program, which effectively meant that the grant for a small project would need to be at least $10 million.