The Authority is hereby authorized to fix and revise charges for the use of the port facilities under its control and the different parts or sections thereof, and to contract with any person, partnership, association or corporation desiring the use of any part thereof, and to fix the terms, conditions, rents and rates of charges for such use. Such charges shall be so fixed and adjusted in respect of the aggregate of charges from the port facility or the portion or portions thereof in connection with which revenue bonds or refunding bonds shall have been issued under the provisions of this chapter as to provide a fund sufficient with other revenues, if any, to pay (a) the cost of maintaining, repairing and operating such port facility or portion or portions and (b) the principal of and the interest on such bonds as the same shall become due and payable, and to create reserves for such purposes. Such charges shall not be subject to supervision or regulation by any commission, board, bureau or agency of the Commonwealth or of any municipality, county or other political subdivision of the Commonwealth. The charges and all other revenues derived from the port facility or portion or portions in connection with which such bonds shall have been issued except such part thereof as may be necessary to pay such cost of maintenance, repair and operation and to provide such reserves therefor as may be provided for in the resolution authorizing the issuance of such bonds or in the trust agreement securing the same, shall be set aside at such regular intervals as may be provided in such resolution or such trust agreement in a sinking fund which is hereby pledged to, and charged with, the payment of the principal of and the interest on such bonds as the same shall become due, and the redemption price or the purchase price of bonds retired by call or purchase as therein provided. Such pledge shall be valid and binding from the time when the pledge is made; the charges and other revenues or other moneys so pledged and thereafter received by the Authority shall immediately be subject to the lien of such pledge without any physical delivery thereof or further act, and the lien of any such pledge shall be valid and binding as against all parties having claims of any kind in tort, contract or otherwise against the Authority, irrespective of whether such parties have notice thereof. Neither the resolution nor any trust agreement by which a pledge is created need be filed or recorded except in the records of the Authority. The use and disposition of moneys to the credit of such sinking fund shall be subject to the provisions of the resolution authorizing the issuance of such bonds or of such trust agreement. Except as may otherwise be provided in such resolution or such trust agreement, such sinking fund shall be a fund for all such bonds without distinction or priority of one over another. In addition to all other powers granted to the Authority by this chapter, the Authority is hereby authorized to pledge to the payment of the principal of and the interest on any bonds under the provisions of this chapter any moneys received or to be received by it under any appropriation made to it by the General Assembly, unless the appropriation is restricted by the General Assembly to specific purposes of the Authority or such pledge is prohibited by the law making such appropriations; provided, however, that nothing herein shall be construed to obligate the General Assembly to make any such appropriation.

Code 1950, § 62-106.14; 1954, c. 667; 1958, c. 174; 1968, c. 659; 1981, c. 590.