The bill addresses concerns regarding the harbor maintenance tax, which is an ad valorem tax on goods imported into the United States through its ports. It highlights the negative impact of this tax on U.S. ports, particularly in light of the North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the United States, Mexico, and Canada Agreement. The bill argues that the current structure incentivizes importers to divert cargo to Canadian and Mexican ports to avoid the tax, leading to significant losses for U.S. ports. It also points out that the revenues from the harbor maintenance tax are not fully utilized for harbor maintenance-related investments, resulting in a surplus in the harbor maintenance trust fund.

To address these issues, the bill calls for several actions from Congress, including the application of country-of-origin rules to the harbor maintenance tax, ensuring that U.S.-bound goods continue to pay the tax. It requests that Congress appropriate the full amount of annual harbor maintenance tax revenues and unspent collections, and directs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allocate specified amounts for donor and energy transfer ports. Additionally, the bill emphasizes the need for the Corps to collect data and publish annual reports on the status of the harbor maintenance trust fund, including an analysis of how the tax disincentivizes the use of U.S. ports.