"Dr. Gerald E. Galloway--retired Brig. General, former commander of the Vicksburg District of the Corps of Engineers, former member of the Mississippi River Commission, former head of the Interagency committee that looked on the causes of the Flood of 1993--called American water policy and, by extension, water policy on the Mississippi floodplain and Louisiana Coast âmanagement by earmark.â In July 2007 Dr. Galloway testified before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that the United States has no national water policy. Each water project authorized by Congress is funded for a single purpose only."
On Tuesday, March 15, 2011, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) introduced the Army Corps of Engineers Act of 2011. He wants to reform the way Congress develops water resource projects by eliminating wasteful earmarks and focusing national priorities.
His plan would eliminate the 1000+ water resource projects Congress has authorized in the last ten years, but never funded. He would establish a Water Resources Commission to set national priorities for water resource projects. He would insist that the Corps of Engineers undertake its studies and construction projects based on those national priorities. Finally, he would allow, within limits, states to use Harbor Maintenance taxes that are collected in their ports as they see fit.
Some history: When Congress passed the 1965 Water Resources Planning Act it established the Water Resources Council to coordinate and centralize water policy and the planning of water resource projects financed by the federal government. At the same time Congress established river basin commissions, such as the Upper Mississippi Basin Commission to further coordinate water policy. By 1973 the Principles and Standards for water projects required that federal agencies plan for national and regional development, environmental quality, and social effects in preparing water projects. In short Sen. DeMint wants to reestablish the Water Resources Council that Ronald Reagan dispensed with in 1981.
President Ronald Reagan came in to office determined to deregulate. He zeroed out funding for the Water Resources Council and the river basin commissions. He replaced the Principles and Standards with a more relaxed set of Principles and Guidelines for water projects that required to Corps to develop projects that were cost effective, politically feasible, and that protected the environment. In doing so he zeroed out the comprehensive planning for water projects, while making National Economic Development the sole aim of federal water projects.
Finally, he refused to sign any spending bill for water projects that did not include user fees or other forms of cost sharing.
The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 did just that and required local, non-federal sponsors of water projects contribute 35 % of the cost of each project while the federal government contributed 65%. It also required the Corps of Engineers to produce a habitat mitigation plan in the feasibility study for each water project and to prove that each project have no adverse effect on habitat. Congress also directed that habitat mitigation be included in the project costs and that it happen simultaneously with construction of every water project, be it a levee, a dam, or a navigation channel.
Environmentalists hoped that the cost sharing would mitigate the public’s desire to wetland-destroying water projects. To some extent it did. But it also turned every local sponsor in to a Corps’ client and narrowed the Corps’ focus on projects to the needs and desires of the sponsor rather than on the basin-wide consequences of each project.
Then there is the manner by which Corps projects are instigated as described in The Mississippi: A Visual Biography:
A state, a county, or, in Louisiana, a parish identifies a project and asks its Congressional representation to initiate a Corps of Engineer feasibility study. Congress authorizes the study through a Water Resources Development Act or a separate bill, which must be passed by both houses and signed by the president. The money for the study can come from a Corps’ district office budget. Failing that it must come from the annual Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, which must be passed by both houses and signed by the president. That can take a year or two.
Call it an earmark.
Then the Corps begins three studies: Is it worth doing--the Reconnaissance Study? Is it possible--the Feasibility Study? What’s its impact on the environment--the Environmental Impact Study? Sometimes the feasibility study and the environmental impact study are rolled together. After all, if the project is going to devastate the environment, it’s not feasible. The studies go to the Chief of Engineers, who recommends further action. If the Chief does not recommend the action, it goes to one of three agencies--the Secretary of the Army, the White House Office of Management and Budget, or the Council on Environmental Quality--which can order additional study or trash it. That can take two or three years.
If the Chief does recommend the project, it goes to Congress for authorization in the Water Resources Development Act, which must be passed by both houses and signed by the president.
That can take two or more years, or seven in the case of the 2007 WRDA.
Then the Corps begins engineering and design. That can take a year or two.
Then money for construction is doled out year by year in bills, which must be passed by both houses and approved by the president. That can take a year or two.
Then, construction begins. That can take years.
Congress authorizes water projects sets and water policy through the Water Resources Development Act, which is passed about every two years, sometimes. Congress passed the last WRDA in 2007 and the one before that in 2000. It spent the intervening seven years tied in knots over the reform of the way the Corps of Engineers operates and its relationship with Congress, but that is another story for another day.
Once Congress authorizes a project, it must be funded in annual appropriation bills. Hence the backlog of authorized projects that have never been funded.
Some of these projects--Louisiana Coastal Ecosystem Restoration, Upper Mississippi River Ecosystem Restoration--are important. Some are not, but there are so many in the 2007 WRDA that it is hard to tell, although DeMint uses a quotation from the Washington Post to mention dredging in the Port of Iberia, Louisiana in his press release.