IV 
110TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1012 
Honoring the historical significance of and reaffirming continued 
Congressional support for commercial navigation on the Missouri River. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 3, 2008 
Mr. HULSHOF (for himself, Mr. SKELTON, Mr. GRAVES, Mr. AKIN, Mr. 
CARNAHAN, Mr. CLEAVER, Mr. CLAY, and Mrs. EMERSON) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Transpor-
tation and Infrastructure 
RESOLUTION 
Honoring the historical significance of and reaffirming con-
tinued Congressional support for commercial navigation 
on the Missouri River. 
Whereas the Missouri River encompasses 529,350 square 
miles, drains one sixth of the United States, and flows 
2,341 miles from Three Forks, Montana, to St. Louis, 
Missouri; 
Whereas Native Americans used the Missouri River as a 
trade and transportation corridor long before European 
explorers came to the region; 
Whereas in 1673, Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jo-
liet were the first Europeans to see the Missouri River 
during an expedition down the Mississippi River; 
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•HRES 1012 IH 
Whereas French Colonists used the Missouri River as early 
as 1723 to connect the ends of the New France Empire 
which stretched from New Orleans to Montre´al; 
Whereas the Mackay and Evans Expedition of 1795 navi-
gated the Missouri River in search for a route to the Pa-
cific and created the first detailed maps of the river; 
Whereas in 1804 President Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and 
Clark to find a route to the Pacific by navigating the 
Missouri River; 
Whereas navigation on the Missouri River led to settlement 
and development of the Dakotas and Montana; 
Whereas the Rivers and Harbors Acts of 1912, 1917, 1925, 
1927, 1930, and 1935 each affirmed navigation on the 
Missouri River to be the goal of the stakeholders, occu-
pants, the basin’s elected officials, and the Federal Gov-
ernment; 
Whereas the 1934 ‘‘308 Report’’ on the Missouri River, by 
Captain Theodore Wyman, Jr., identified numerous navi-
gation projects that could be completed; 
Whereas after severe spring flooding in 1934 the House Com-
mittee on Flood Control approved a resolution on May 
13, 1934, which directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers to prepare an additional survey of the Missouri 
River; 
Whereas in October of 1944, the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers and the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to a plan 
for the Missouri River written by Corps General Lewis A. 
Pick and Bureau of Reclamation Director W. Glenn 
Sloan; 
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•HRES 1012 IH 
Whereas the ‘‘Pick-Sloan Plan’’ provided direction to the 
Flood Control Act of 1944, the Rivers and Harbors Act 
of 1945, and the future of the Missouri River; 
Whereas the Flood Control Act of 1944 turned the Missouri 
River basin into the largest reservoir system in North 
America and authorized 8 purposes for this system, in-
cluding commercial navigation; 
Whereas the river has carried up to 6,600,000,000 pounds of 
commercial cargo in a single year; 
Whereas in 2000 navigation on the Missouri river moved 
7,100,000 bushels of corn and 5,100,000 bushels of soy-
beans; 
Whereas the June 4, 2003, August 16, 2005, and February 
8, 2008, decisions of the United States Court of Appeals 
for the Eighth Circuit held that navigation was a domi-
nant function of the Flood Control Act of 1944; 
Whereas in the 2003 decision the Court went so far as to 
say, ‘‘The dominant functions of the Flood Control Act 
were to avoid flooding and to maintain downstream navi-
gation’’; and 
Whereas as our Nation’s rail and highway systems are in-
creasingly congested, barges on the Missouri River will 
become an even more attractive shipping option: Now, 
therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the United States House of Rep-
resentatives— 
(1) acknowledges that commercial navigation on 
the Missouri River helped provide for the explo-
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•HRES 1012 IH 
ration, expansion, and economic prosperity of the 
United States; and 
(2) continues supporting commercial navigation 
on the Missouri River in the future. 
Æ 
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