[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A REVIEW OF UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS REPORTS TO CONGRESS
ON FUTURE WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND CHIEF'S REPORTS
=======================================================================
(114-34)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 24, 2016
__________
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee, ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
Vice Chair Columbia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JERROLD NADLER, New York
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey CORRINE BROWN, Florida
SAM GRAVES, Missouri EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DUNCAN HUNTER, California RICK LARSEN, Washington
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BOB GIBBS, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
JEFF DENHAM, California JOHN GARAMENDI, California
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky JANICE HAHN, California
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois DINA TITUS, Nevada
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
ROB WOODALL, Georgia ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
TODD ROKITA, Indiana LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
JOHN KATKO, New York CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
BRIAN BABIN, Texas JARED HUFFMAN, California
CRESENT HARDY, Nevada JULIA BROWNLEY, California
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana
MIMI WALTERS, California
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
CARLOS CURBELO, Florida
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
MIKE BOST, Illinois
(ii)
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
BOB GIBBS, Ohio, Chairman
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
DUNCAN HUNTER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
JEFF DENHAM, California JARED HUFFMAN, California
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois DINA TITUS, Nevada
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
TODD ROKITA, Indiana ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
JOHN KATKO, New York ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
BRIAN BABIN, Texas Columbia
CRESENT HARDY, Nevada RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon (Ex
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina Officio)
MIKE BOST, Illinois
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex
Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Hon. Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil
Works)......................................................... 6
Lieutenant General Thomas P. Bostick, Chief of Engineers, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers........................................ 6
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hon. Grace F. Napolitano of California........................... 43
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Hon. Jo-Ellen Darcy and Lieutenant General Thomas P. Bostick,
joint statement................................................ 45
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Hon. Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil
Works), and Lieutenant General Thomas P. Bostick, Chief of
Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, joint responses to
questions for the record from the following Representatives:
Hon. Todd Rokita of Indiana.................................. 56
Hon. Blake Farenthold of Texas............................... 56
Hon. Mike Thompson of California............................. 58
Hon. Lois Frankel of Florida................................. 59
Hon. Jared Huffman of California............................. 61
Hon. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York........................ 63
Hon. Ann Kirkpatrick, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Arizona, request to submit the following:
Letter of February 19, 2016, from Jim Bradley, Vice
President, Policy and Government Relations, American
Rivers, to Hon. Bill Shuster, Chairman, and Hon. Peter A.
DeFazio, Ranking Member, House Committee on Transportation
and Infrastructure......................................... 66
Joint letter of February 19, 2016, from Cara Capp, National
Cochair, and Jason Totoiu, State Cochair, Everglades
Coalition, to Hon. James M. Inhofe, Chairman, and Hon.
Barbara Boxer, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on
Environment and Public Works, and Hon. Bill Shuster,
Chairman, and Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, Ranking Member, House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure............. 83
Statement of Melissa Samet, Senior Water Resources Counsel,
National Wildlife Federation............................... 85
Joint letter of February 23, 2016, from American Sportfishing
Association, et al., to Hon. Bill Shuster, Chairman, and
Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, Ranking Member, House Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure.......................... 99
Joint statement from American Rivers, et al., to Hon. Bill
Shuster, Chairman, and Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, Ranking
Member, House Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, and Hon. Bob Gibbs, Chairman, and Hon.
Grace F. Napolitano, Ranking Member, House Subcommittee on
Water Resources and Environment............................ 102
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
A REVIEW OF UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS REPORTS TO CONGRESS
ON FUTURE WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND CHIEF'S REPORTS
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bob Gibbs
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Gibbs. Well, good morning. The Subcommittee on Water
Resources and Environment will come together. Welcome. Today
we're having a review of the United States Army Corps of
Engineers reports to Congress on future water resources
development and the Chief's Reports.
Almost 2 years ago, a strong bipartisan message was sent by
Congress and the President with the enactment of the Water
Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014. Congress made a
conscious effort in WRRDA 2014 to enhance America's
competitiveness by strengthening the investment in the Nation's
water resources and infrastructure.
While we're turning the page and beginning the next WRDA
[Water Resources Development Act] process, the Corps still has
an issue. More than 40 percent of the implementation guidance
of WRRDA 2014 needs to be completed.
WRRDA 2014 contained many important provisions to improve
the function of the program. However, the Corps seems to be
slow-walking the implementation guidance. While the WRRDA law
is transformative and in some places complicated, we remain
disappointed at the pace and the prioritization in which the
Corps of Engineers is carrying out the drafting of the
implementation guidance. After all, WRRDA is the law of the
land. It's not a suggestion for the administration to casually
disregard.
Today we are holding a hearing to review the Army Corps of
Engineers Chief's Reports and two reports to Congress on future
water resources development, commonly called the annual report.
We intend to review these critical documents to ensure they
balance critical investments in infrastructure along with
environmental protections.
Since the first annual report of 2015 did not meet the
committee's expectations, in June of 2015, the subcommittee
held a hearing on the implementation of WRRDA 2014 and provided
guidance to the Corps, especially on how the annual report
process should be carried out. The annual report delivered
several weeks ago is an indication that the Corps heard our
message and the 2016 annual report is an improved product.
I want to especially highlight the fact that the Corps
reevaluated many of the projects rejected in the 2015 annual
report. It has included them for consideration as we move
forward into WRDA 2016. We intend to move a smaller WRDA bill
this Congress. This bill will be consensus-driven, bipartisan,
and address several clarifying and technical changes to WRRDA
2014. And we will hopefully authorize some of the projects that
are included in the 2015 and 2016 annual reports.
The Corps of Engineers constructs projects for the purposes
of navigation, flood control, shoreline protection,
hydroelectric power, recreation, water supply, environmental
protection, restoration and enhancement, and fish and wildlife
mitigation. The Corps of Engineers planning process considers
economic development and environmental needs as it addresses
water resources challenges. The planning process address the
Nation's water resources needs by exploring a full range of
alternatives and developing solutions that meet both national
and local needs.
The 24 Chief's Reports we are discussing today are the
result of a rigorous planning process. These projects are
proposed by non-Federal interests in cooperation and
consultation with the Corps. All these Chief's Reports, while
tailored to meet the locally developed needs, have national,
economic and environmental benefits.
These Chief's Reports address all three missions of the
Corps: navigation, flood damage reduction and aquatic ecosystem
restoration. And they balance economic development and
environmental considerations equally.
I want to welcome Secretary Darcy and General Bostick to
the hearing today, and I also want to recognize sitting in for
Representative Napolitano is Mrs. Kirkpatrick from Arizona.
Welcome, and the floor is yours.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome our
two witnesses to this hearing, the Assistant Secretary of the
Army for Civil Works, the Honorable Jo-Ellen Darcy and the
Chief of Engineers, Lieutenant General Bostick. Welcome.
I want to thank you for your service and help with the
passage of the WRRDA reauthorization bill. I know how
challenging it was for all involved. This subcommittee convened
a roundtable of stakeholders and interest groups to discuss
priorities for a new water resources bill. Individuals at the
roundtable highlighted the importance of a robust civil works
program for the protection of communities, infrastructure,
public health and safety.
Equally important was a workable process for the Corps to
partner with local communities to address local water resources
challenges. In the 2014 Water Resources Reform and Development
bill, Congress established a new process, the 7001 annual
report to Congress process for the development of local Corps
projects and studies.
Today's hearing will examine how the 7001 process will
work. First, while it seems that the administration improved
its process for including projects in the 2016 annual report,
the fact is that many projects and study requests were screened
out by administration priority calls rather than using the
exact criteria in section 7001 of WRRDA 2014. I believe there
are communities who are still confused by this new process.
Most likely a number of communities with traditional water
resources challenges simply do not know about or understand
this new process and may find themselves on the outside as
Congress considers a new water resources bill for 2016.
Their needs are probably no less deserving than many of the
projects and studies included in the annual report. However,
because these communities are not included in the annual
reports or have been included in the appendix, is our response
going to be ``you don't have the right paperwork so you simply
have to wait until the next water resources bill''? I have a
number of low-income communities and tribal communities in my
district that lack the financial means of other larger
communities.
We should not have a process so complicated that
communities are forced to hire outside individuals to run the
traps of both congressional committees and administration
officials. Today's hearing will discuss an array of pending
Chief's Reports and potential projects and studies that did
clear the annual report process. These will form the basis of a
new water resources bill for later this year. Both Congress and
the Corps need to provide some reasonable direction to
communities and their elected officials to address their local
needs. I look forward to your testimony.
And Mr. Chairman, I have two unanimous consent requests. I
ask unanimous consent that the statement of the ranking member
of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment be made
part of today's hearing record.
Mr. Gibbs. So ordered.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. I ask unanimous consent that the
statement of a list of organizations included in the packet be
made part of today's hearing record.
Mr. Gibbs. So ordered.
[The written statement of Ranking Member Grace F.
Napolitano can be found on pages 43-44 and the statements from
the organizations can be found on pages 66-103.]
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. I recognize the chairman of the T&I
[Transportation and Infrastructure] Committee, the gentleman
from Pennsylvania, Chairman Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, very much, Chairman Gibbs. Thank
you for holding this very valuable hearing. It will help us in
the development in the next water resources bill.
Secretary Darcy, welcome, and, General Bostick, welcome. As
I said when I first became chairman, I think it's critical that
we get back to regular order, get back to going through this
water process every Congress so that Congress maintains its
role in overseeing the Corps work and improving your
infrastructure. So, Secretary Darcy and General Bostick, here
we go again.
We've got a number of members on the committee who care
deeply about these issues, a number of new members. I see
Congressman Rouzer from North Carolina and Bost from Illinois
who have, through their districts, tremendous interest in
what's going on with beach restoration or within the waterway
system, flood protection.
Congressman Graves is here, and he's from the Louisiana
coast. Nobody knows better than him what happens in the
waterways in coastal restoration. And on that side of the aisle
from Mr. DeFazio down, you have a lot of people very
interested. So we're looking forward to working with both sides
of the aisle to produce a bipartisan water resources act for
2016.
The Chief's Reports that have been delivered were 23, I've
been tapped on the shoulder and told now it's 24, so two dozen.
These reports have undergone rigorous economic and
environmental analysis and many may be included in the next
WRDA reauthorization. The annual report required under WRRDA
2014 allows the Corps the opportunity to provide Congress with
a list of non-Federal project-sponsored priorities that
reflects the needs of the Nation, and that report was intended
to reflect the broad spectrum of activities for Congress to
consider rather than just the administration's priorities.
While the first annual report delivered last year did not
meet our expectations--quite frankly we were very disappointed
in it--I think there was a major improvement on the second
annual report, and I thank you for stepping up your game and we
continue to work to improve that. We appreciate that the Corps
reevaluated projects rejected in the 2015 report, but more work
needs to be done for the Corps to comply with the law. I expect
the Corps will address these and other concerns as we, in
Congress, look to the next Water Resources Development Act.
So again, looking forward to working with you, and I know
many members on the committee are eager to get started on
crafting this legislation.
And with that, I yield back.
Mr. Gibbs. Next I want to recognize the ranking member of
the full Committee on T&I, the gentleman from Oregon, Mr.
DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Ms. Darcy, General Bostick, and thanks for what
you do.
I'm going to return to a theme I've brought up for years
which is that Congress is not adequately funding the Corps of
Engineers. We have a backlog of somewhere between $48 billion
and $54 billion for ongoing budgeted projects, for instance,
spillways for the dams on the Willamette River, which restrict
our capability of flood control, and this might be a year when
we're going to need full flood control, and we won't have it.
The Corps has a plan to reduce--replace these spillways
which have far exceeded their lifespan. But it's drawn out over
years because of a lack of resources. And that's--that occurs
all around the country. I have jetties that are failing and if
they go to full failure, they're more expensive than if we get
in there and do maintenance work. Again, for Coos Bay, we've
begun at least on the Columbia River on the critical jetty
there in the forest harbor entrance in North America.
But that's a huge backlog. And we began to deal with at
least one side of it. Obviously the Corps jurisdiction goes far
beyond things that are eligible for moneys out of the Harbor
Maintenance Trust Fund, but when they have to balance between
harbor maintenance issues and inland issues or dams or
whatever, it makes their job all the more difficult.
So I congratulate the chairman on what we did and other
Members who were involved in that a couple years ago. I
actually started working on the idea of capturing the Harbor
Maintenance Trust Fund with Bill's dad, Bud, back in the mid-
1990s, and it took us a long time to get there, but Bill
delivered.
Now the administration, unfortunately, I don't know what
was submitted by the Corps, but after the green eyeshade trolls
at OMB [Office of Management and Budget] got done with it, you
didn't meet our goal, which was 71 percent in the President's
recommended budget of the harbor maintenance taxes.
Now this is something that should resonate on both sides of
the aisle. We assess a tax, a minuscule tax. It's 1.25 mils,
that is .125 cents on the value of products moving through our
ports. It raises about $1.5 billion a year, yet for years
Congress has diverted those funds elsewhere, who knows where or
for what, as opposed to the intended purpose. We have begun to
move toward full allocation of those funds for their intended
purpose, I hope, in the next WRDA reauthorization. We can move
that process even more definitively and more quickly.
But I would also second Representative Kirkpatrick's
concerns about the difficulty of the application process when
we only had 61 communities that submitted. Back in 2007 we had
3,000 project and policy proposals that were vetted as we
developed WRDA 2007. And now there's only 61 projects across
the whole United States that might be eligible? I think, as she
said, the process is too complicated, and it needs some
additional work on the administrative side.
But then also to chastise the majority a little bit, you
know, this wacky ban on earmarks where you say, gee, we don't
want elected representatives of the people to determine where
their tax dollars are spent; we want the bureaucrats in
Washington, DC, to decide where that money will be spent. And
this--we've tied our hands. We used to do study resolutions all
the time. We don't do study resolutions anymore because they're
considered earmarks. I mean how stupid is that?
So I would hope that we could also confront the--our in-
house crippling of the--that has been put in place under
misbegotten rules and we could challenge that also in this next
WRDA bill. But in the interim, we're stuck with the workaround
process, and that does need to be simplified so that more
communities who have needs will apply.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my
time. Thank you.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you.
At this time, I want to welcome the Assistant Secretary of
the Army for Civil Works, Secretary Darcy and Lieutenant
General Thomas Bostick, who is Chief of Engineers of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers. And, Secretary, the floor is yours.
Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JO-ELLEN DARCY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE
ARMY (CIVIL WORKS); AND LIEUTENANT GENERAL THOMAS P. BOSTICK,
CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
Ms. Darcy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Shuster,
ranking members. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
testify today to discuss the 2016 report to Congress that was
submitted in response to section 7001 of the Water Resources
Reform and Development Act of 2014, the Chief's Reports as well
as the Post-Authorization Change Reports.
I'd like to outline the process by which the annual report
to Congress in response to this section was developed and the
requirements and criteria of projects meet for inclusion in the
report. Section 7001 of WRRDA 2014 requires an annual notice to
be published in the Federal Register requesting proposals from
non-Federal interests for proposed feasibility studies and
proposed modifications to authorize water resources development
projects and feasibility studies.
Section 7001 then requires that the Secretary of the Army
annually submit to Congress a report that includes feasibility
reports, proposed feasibility studies and proposed
modifications to authorized water resources projects or
feasibility studies that satisfy five specific criteria. The
notice for the 2016 report submission was published on May 26th
of 2015. The deadline for non-Federal interests to submit their
proposals to the Corps was September 23rd of 2015.
We evaluated proposals strictly based on the five statutory
criteria.
Mr. Gibbs. Secretary, can you pull the mic a little closer
to you? We're having--some of us are having trouble hearing
you. Thank you.
Ms. Darcy. Is that better? We evaluated the proposals
strictly based on the five statutory criteria. In order to
provide more transparency to non-Federal interests, we sought
to clarify in the public notice the process and the criteria
under which the proposals would be evaluated. We did this in
developing this 2016 report.
We also implemented a Web-based proposal submission process
ensuring greater consistency in the content used for the
evaluation of the proposals. We accounted for all Chief's
Reports completed since the enactment of WRRDA 2014 and
increased our outreach to non-Federal interests throughout the
process. We also undertook a one-time reevaluation of proposals
submitted in 2014 which were included in last year's appendix
in light of this revised process.
The proposals were reviewed at the district, at the
division and at the headquarters level. The five criteria that
the proposals must meet are they must be related to missions
and authorities of the Corps; require specific congressional
authorization, including an act of Congress; the proposal must
not have been congressionally authorized; it must not have been
included in the report table of any previous annual report; and
if authorized, the project could be carried out by the Corps of
Engineers.
There are requirements that all water resources development
projects must meet before the Corps can request Federal funds
to proceed to construction. These requirements are included in
our joint written testimony that you have before you. As was
stated earlier, a total of 61 proposals were received; 25 were
for new feasibility studies, 34 were for modifications to
existing projects or changes to legislation, and 2 were
proposals for a study modification. Of these proposals 30 met
the criteria and are listed in the annual report table. The 31
proposals that did not meet the criteria are in the appendix.
The two primary reasons for proposals that were included in
the appendix are that either authority already exists to
perform the requested work or the proposal did not fit within
the identified Corps core mission areas. Where authority
already exists to undertake the efforts described in the
proposals, inclusion in the appendix to the 2016 annual report
does not preclude the Army from carrying out either the study
or construction.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement, and we, again,
appreciate the opportunity to testify today and look forward to
answering questions as well as working with you on a WRDA 2016.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you.
General Bostick, the floor is yours. Welcome.
General Bostick. Chairman Gibbs, Chairman Shuster and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify on the annual report due to Congress and
the summary of Chief's Reports completed since the passage of
WRRDA 2014.
First, I want to thank this committee for your great
support of the Civil Works program. Your work has been
essential in all of the progress that has been made over the
years. The details about the Chief's Reports submitted to
Congress are contained within my written statement. I would
like to provide a brief update on the progress we've made with
our four campaign goals and provide some of my perspectives on
water resources challenges facing the Nation.
First, support national security. We like to talk about the
investment in the Civil Works project, not the cost. It is an
investment in the work that we do to provide protection to the
American people. But it's also an investment in our people. And
whether they serve in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India or in
over 100 countries, our people are making a difference.
As part of Civil Works transformation, we continue to
improve and modernize the project planning process. Since the
inception of Civil Works transformation in 2008, 59 Chief's
Reports have been completed with recommendations of over $30
billion in water resources investments.
During the first 4 years of Civil Works transformation, 19
Chief's Reports were completed. In the last 4 years, the number
is 40, more than doubling our progress. We're on schedule to
complete another 12 reports by the end of the fiscal year. One
Chief's Report I just signed yesterday; it is the Princeville,
North Carolina, Flood Risk Management project. This brings the
number of reports signed but which have not completed executive
branch review to 10.
While we may have made great progress, we can and must
continue to improve. The third area of our campaign goals is to
reduce disaster risks. We had historic floods in 2011, 2015 and
again in 2016. And because the systems performed as designed,
many Americans do not even realize the magnitude of these
floods. In addition to the fact that no one died in these
events, the return on investment is $45 for every $1 invested
in the Mississippi River and Tributaries system.
Approximately $234 billion of damages have been prevented
over time due to these investments. As you know, our Nation's
infrastructure is aging. The American Society of Civil
Engineers rates the Nation's overall infrastructure at a D-
plus. The Corps is managing 225 billion dollars' worth of that
infrastructure. Funding across the Federal Government remains
challenging. In order to complete the construction of projects
that we are currently budgeting, we would require $19.7
billion. With construction funding at just over $1 billion per
year, it would take us nearly 20 years to complete the current
projects.
As a Nation we must continue to think creatively and
innovatively about how we gain support beyond the Federal
Government in areas such as public-private partnerships so that
we can complete these projects and future projects in a more
reasonable amount of time.
Finally, our last goal is prepare for tomorrow. It's about
our people. In the nearly 4 years I have been in command, I've
traveled to all 43 districts in the 9 divisions to see the
vital work that we conduct at home and abroad. I remain
convinced that we have an exceptionally skilled and talented
workforce. I'm very proud of the people who serve in the Army
Corps of Engineers and our fellow teammates including military,
civilian, local, Federal, and of course our contractors.
As we have done for over 240 years, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers remains focused on engineering solutions to our
Nation's toughest challenges. Thank you again for the
opportunity today, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, General.
And there's time, Chairman Shuster, for questions.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Chairman Gibbs.
And General Bostick, I just want to echo your same
sentiments here. The men and women that serve in our military
in whatever capacity, we certainly appreciate what they do for
our Nation to keep us safe and hopefully we keep them out of
harm's way. So thank you for that.
I just want to respond to the ranking member talking about
the funding levels which he's correct. I think the
congressional budget, we hit those targets. The administration
did not hit those targets, and in the last WRRDA, WRRDA 2014,
we tried to move in a direction to take those trust funds, the
Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and the Inland Waterways Trust
Fund, off budget. That's going to be something that we need to
work together across the aisle to eventually do because I think
that just like we did with the Highway Trust Fund, those
dollars are put into a fund, and the American people trust
we're going to spend them in an appropriate way, the way they
were intended.
And of course that hasn't happened. And if we were able to
do that, take them off budget, take them, make sure they only
go for those purposes that they were intended, we'd be able to
solve a lot of our problems when it comes to our harbors and
waterways in this country. So that's something I want to
continue to work to do.
First question, Secretary Darcy. Copies of completed
Chief's Reports are sent to Congress prior to executive branch
review. I wonder why doesn't the administration furnish
Congress copies of Post-Authorization Change Reports prior to
executive branch review?
Ms. Darcy. We currently are reviewing the Post-
Authorization Change Reports within the administration before
we send them to Congress. They're sort of a different animal
than the Chief's Reports.
Mr. Shuster. Sure.
Ms. Darcy. The Chief's Reports, once they are signed by the
Chief, come directly to Congress; and that's in the statute.
Mr. Shuster. And so that may be something we've got to look
at putting in the statutes so that when you do post a change
report, it comes to us, too, so that we can begin that review
process. That is something you would recommend?
Ms. Darcy. It's not something I would recommend; I
understand why the Members would want to see those.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
General Bostick, in October of 2014, the Corps of Engineers
Civil Works Review Board met and approved a Chief's Report
related to three replacement navigation locks on the Upper Ohio
River. While at one point the draft schedules show the Chief's
Report being signed January of 2015, no Chief's Report has been
submitted at this time to Congress. And since the Corps has
suggested that the failure of only one of the three existing
locks would be catastrophic to the inland navigational system,
I'm told over $1 billion in economic harm would occur. Could
you update us on the status of that Chief's Report?
General Bostick. We expect that the report will be
completed in October of this year, Mr. Chairman. What happened
in this particular case was that the independent external peer
review identified that, during the duration of a closure
following a significant incident without project condition,
there would be significant issues. And based on that, we had to
delay the State and agency review, rerun our models and then
make an assessment of their concerns. So we've done that in the
Pittsburgh district. That effort has taken the better part of a
year. The review is ongoing, and we expect the report to be
completed by October.
Mr. Shuster. You're highly confident in----
General Bostick. I'm confident that it will be.
Mr. Shuster. OK. Because, as you might know, I'm deeply
concerned about that. That project means an awful lot to the
economy of western Pennsylvania. And of course with our shale
play, while the gas we produce there is down, we believe it's
coming back and that water system is absolutely critical to
getting product in and product out of that--of the Marcellus
gas play. So I'll be following it very closely and I appreciate
you keeping us updated on that.
General Bostick. Mr. Chairman, I just do need to clarify. I
meant to say the economic review that we're doing will be
completed in October. We still then need to do State and agency
review to complete the Chief's Report.
Mr. Shuster. So we're not even close to a Chief's Report
then?
General Bostick. The Chief's Report would come sometime
after the State and agency review assuming there are no
significant issues. But based on the independent review, and
this one issue that we've resolved, I would assume that most of
the issues have been identified. But we still have to do a
State and agency review. So I can't really estimate when the
Chief's Report would be complete.
Mr. Shuster. Taking a look at 2017 maybe.
General Bostick. I really couldn't give you a date on that.
Mr. Shuster. OK, well, again, that's very concerning
because this has been going on for I think 8 to 9 years. And
again, the good news is we put it into law, and again your
folks worked with us and really it was your idea, the 3x3x3
concept. Again, this one's been out there forever.
So any way you can accelerate that, any way we can help you
to accelerate that we certainly would because it means an awful
lot to the economy, as I said, of western Pennsylvania and, in
fact, to the economy of the United States when gas prices go up
a bit and they're able to get it out of the ground. Getting
product in to develop it and getting product out is going to be
critical. So again, I'm going to be watching very, very closely
how this proceeds. So thank you very much.
General Bostick. And we'll follow up with you on that.
Mr. Shuster. Yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Gibbs. Mrs. Kirkpatrick.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Assistant Secretary Darcy and
General Bostick, for your help with three Corps projects in my
district. I have concerns about two of these projects, and that
is the Rio de Flag and the Winslow levee.
So my first question has to do with the Rio de Flag. And
while I appreciate the allocating funds in the fiscal year 2016
workplan to complete the LRR [land resource regions], can you
assure me and this committee that the LRR will be completed
expeditiously? Can you commit to a concurrent review with
headquarters and your office to reduce the amount of time for
completion? My goal is to see this project receive a new,
higher authorization number in WRDA 2016.
Assistant Secretary Darcy and General Bostick, can I get
your assurance that you will help with this endeavor?
Ms. Darcy. Yes.
General Bostick. Absolutely.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. General Bostick?
General Bostick. Absolutely. We're working all three levels
concurrently now, and we're aggressively moving forward to
complete it.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. OK. Thank you. My second question has to
do with the Winslow levee. Regarding the Little Colorado River
in Winslow, what can you tell me about completion of their
Chief's Report? Being listed in the 7001 report does not--does
this cover authorization for construction once the Chief's
Report is complete, or does it need to be resubmitted?
General Bostick. I don't have the answer to that. We'll
have to follow up with you.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Secretary Darcy?
Ms. Darcy. It is in the report, in the 7001 report.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. But my question is: Does that
authorization include construction once the Chief's Report is
complete?
Ms. Darcy. No, it would need to have a completed Chief's
Report and get authorized for construction.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. And then does it have to be resubmitted
for construction?
Ms. Darcy. No.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. OK. Thank you for clarifying that. I
yield back.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. So I yield to myself.
Secretary Darcy, since WRRDA 2014 was enacted, no general
reevaluation reports have been delivered to Congress. Since
these documents are analogous to Chief's Reports, how many are
currently under development, and then can you provide us a
schedule of when they will be completed?
Ms. Darcy. Yes, I'd be happy to provide that--I don't know
exactly how many, but I will provide that to you.
Mr. Gibbs. But there are some, because that's----
Ms. Darcy. Yes, there are. I think----
Mr. Gibbs. These are really--reevaluating prior Chief's
Reports seems like it's pretty important.
Ms. Darcy. It is, and I want to say three, but I want to
check to make sure, and then we'll get you that number.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Secretary, in the proposed Chief's Report on
the Los Angeles River ecosystem project, it was proposed there
was going to be a cost of about $161 million, and now the
completed Chief's Report, the Federal cost has increased to
more than $200 million additional. So it puts the cost at about
$375 million. What's going on with that project in Los Angeles
River?
Ms. Darcy. The Los Angeles River ecosystem restoration
project is what you're talking about? There are several
alternatives that were considered in the development of that
project, and the final alternative--that was the locally
preferred alternative--would be more expansive than one of the
other alternatives, and I think that's what's attributing to
the cost, because there's more land involved, and it would be
more real estate development or real estate purchasing that
would need to be acquired by the city of Los Angeles.
Mr. Gibbs. Because I visited there a couple years ago,
and--I referred to it as the cement trough, and I think the
locals want to actually change some of that and make it more
eco-friendly, right, restoration?
Ms. Darcy. Right. The project purpose is ecosystem
restoration.
Mr. Gibbs. That wasn't part of the first Chief's Report,
changing some of that to more environmentally friendly I guess?
Ms. Darcy. They were looking at more alternatives and more
land--it was mostly for habitat, increased----
Mr. Gibbs. Yeah, that's what I mean.
Ms. Darcy. Right.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. So the scope did change some then?
Ms. Darcy. Right.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Because I was understanding the scope wasn't
changing. OK. That's good to know. I want to talk a little bit
here about the process, the annual report. I have a concern
that maybe the Corps hasn't done a well enough job
communicating down to the regional and especially the district
levels of how the new process works, and I think Ranking Member
DeFazio kind of raised the issue of 61 projects being submitted
to the 2016 annual report, while in WRDA 2007 there were 3,000-
plus.
So the questions, there is: what's the process, how are you
verifying the process, how are you working with local project
sponsors so they understand. Because I've had some local
stakeholders in my office in the past year and they had no clue
of what the new process was to submit these projects. So how is
the Corps working to facilitate the new method so we get this
working better?
Ms. Darcy. I think what we learned from last year--and I
hope we can recognize that there's been an improvement made
since last year's report--we've done a couple of things. One is
in the public notice that goes out in the Federal Register,
we've outlined the process for the local sponsors so that
there's more of a template about what's required in order to
submit your proposal. We also have put this all online so that
it's Web-based so that everybody can see what the proposals are
and everyone can see what's required in order to submit the
proposals.
We also, at the district level, have engaged all of our
District Commanders and staff there to help local sponsors in
developing their proposals as well as submitting them because
they work through the district, and then it goes to the
division, then it comes to headquarters online so that we can
evaluate them.
Mr. Gibbs. That communication, especially with the District
Commanders, do you have a time of when that started? Because
we've seen a lot of differences between districts in the
interpretation of this and how they're handling that. We passed
this bill in June 2014. When did you start implementing that
conversation? Has it been fairly recent, or was it----
Ms. Darcy. It was in response to some of the concerns
expressed by the committee last year as far as the fact that we
needed to do more outreach. It was developed after the 2015
submittal of the report, so we're hoping that the 2016 report
can show some signs of improvement in that communication.
Mr. Gibbs. General Bostick, do you want to comment on that,
too, since----
General Bostick. Yes, we always are concerned about
variability in how we approach things between our districts, so
this is a constant effort from the leadership at every level to
ensure that our District Commanders understand the policies and
the laws and what we're trying to do. I would say even from the
very beginning we tried to ensure that this was understood,
that 7001 was understood. We work with stakeholders all the
time.
Part of this is communications on our part from the
headquarters, to ensure that our districts understood the
guidance that needed to be provided. And once we were able to
get that clarity, I think we've seen it take off. Even at our
headquarters you saw in the reports that we provided to you
last year we did not have the kind of fidelity and clarity
which resulted in a report that was somewhat disappointing to
the Congress. And as Secretary Darcy said, immediately after
that we were able to push out and set up more communication
mechanisms to allow the districts to be----
Mr. Gibbs. That's why I brought up my first additional
questions because I think we really need to hold that up
because this process has to work, and it's just human nature,
communications sometimes, it's just human nature that we always
have to work at. It's a challenge, so I appreciate your
comments. And this time, Mr. Garamendi, questions?
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A couple of issues. First of all, my district has some
1,100 miles of levees and some very serious flood control
issues. Your Sacramento district office has been very aware of
the issues and very in-tune with the local concerns, and I want
to thank the Corps and particularly the Sacramento office and
Colonel Farrell for their constant attention to the issues and
their willingness and, in fact, their constant engagement with
the various flood control districts, reclamation districts in
the area. So basically doing a very good job all the way
around.
There is one question just outside my specific district,
but very much a part of the community, which is the West
Sacramento issue. That question arises 53,000 residents in an
area that is subject to significant flooding. And the question
is: Will the Chief's Report, which I understand is in process,
be available sometime this spring probably, possibly in April,
so that we might include that project in the new WRDA bill?
Ms. Darcy. Yes.
Mr. Garamendi. Terrific answer. Thank you. [Laughter.] No
elaboration needed. The rest of the programs are underway. Your
district office is working very diligently, and I want to thank
you for the headquarters and for the work that's being done.
General, thank you for the service and for taking care of the
issues in my district. Thank you.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Webster.
Mr. Webster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Darcy, the Port of Tampa is planning to move
forward with authorized improvements to the Tampa Bay Big Bend
Channel. And they had formed a public-private partnership that
would cover up to over 70 percent of the cost of that project.
The delegation applied and was part of correspondence dealing
with getting Federal contributions to that public-private
partnership, and the answer to that was that that project would
have to compete as a----
Ms. Frankel. Excuse me, Mr. Webster. Could you talk a
little louder?
Mr. Webster. Sure.
Ms. Frankel. Thanks.
Mr. Webster. That project needed to compete with Federal
funds as a new start program, and the new start program is for
construction. The Big Bend navigation project has been a
significant part of the construction appropriations since 2003
when it got a designation of a new start and has been funded
several times since then. Why did the categorizations change
from continuing or ongoing to a new start?
Ms. Darcy. Congressman, unless the Chief knows the--I would
have to get back to you, because I want to give you an answer,
but I don't know the answer at this time.
General Bostick. I don't know the answer as well, but given
what you've said, if it is going to a public-private
partnership, that changes the project, and we would have to go
back and look at it. We're looking at public-private
partnerships now, and those would have to be a new start if
we're moving in that direction. So I don't know the details of
the Tampa public-private partnership, but we'll take a look at
it and get back to you.
Mr. Webster. Even though it had been approved as a new
start in previous years and gotten funding for several years
after that?
General Bostick. I believe so. It depends on what the
public-private partnership or what the approval was for. If it
was a Federal and a non-Federal sponsor working together on a
project that was defined, clearly, based on the Chief's
Report--and now we're going to turn it into a public-private
partnership--that would be a different project. But I don't
know the details of----
Mr. Webster. I think our idea was to move up further on the
ladder because we could get about 70 percent paid for by
locals. And so we thought that would enhance our opportunity as
opposed to sort of push it aside.
General Bostick. Well, as I said in my opening remarks, I
do think that we have to look at opportunities like this as
part of the solution for how we complete these projects faster
and work in partnership with communities and private entities,
so we'll take a look at this and get back to you.
Mr. Webster. OK. I have one other question about the
Kissimmee River project. One of the showcases for the
Everglades restoration in our State, and I understand the State
of Florida did critical engineering work for the project that
would save money. However, because of that a legislative
adjustment was necessary in order for the State to receive
credit for the engineering work. And I understand the Corps
supports us and that project and the change. But could you tell
me or get for me the status of the Post-Authorization Change
Report for this legislative remedy? If you could do that, that
would be helpful. I don't know if that's a question or not,
just either yes or no.
General Bostick. We'll get the answer, but my understanding
of the Post-Authorization Change Report is expected to be
completed in August of this year.
Mr. Webster. OK. Thank you. Yield back.
Mr. Gibbs. Ms. Frankel.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you. Thank you both for your service. I
know you always hear a lot of complaints from our offices, but
I just--I want to thank you. We've had a very cooperative,
excellent relationship with you all, and we're very
appreciative of that.
I have a few local issues that I would just like to go over
with you. In Palm Beach County, as you know, the--our Lake
Worth Inlet is very important both to recreation and commerce
there. And you have all--you have spent many millions of
dollars over the years dredging that inlet. We have a project
there called the sand transfer plant, which we believe reduces
the need for some of the dredging and saves considerable
expense to the Corps.
And so one of my--my question really is: What do you think
about assisting local communities who find less expensive and
more efficient operations to maintain the channels and inlets?
Ms. Darcy. Is the question whether we would be supportive
of local interests taking on that----
Ms. Frankel. Well, no, the question is whether or not you
would pay for it instead of it, for example, being considered
an earmark. In other words, I think we discussed a little bit
about this when we had our meeting on water a couple weeks ago
is: If a local community has an alternative method that would
reduce the expense of the Corps, but it may be unique to that
particular area, why would that be considered an earmark and
not something that the Corps could help fund?
Ms. Darcy. I guess from what I know of this in my view it
wouldn't be considered an earmark.
Ms. Frankel. Well, OK, well, we're going to write that
down. [Laughter.] OK, well, that's good. OK. I like that
answer. Herbert Hoover dike which serves to protect the
communities and farmlands surrounding Lake Okeechobee from
flooding, this is a 143-mile dike. It's susceptible to erosion
and considered one of the country's most at risk of failing.
The FY [fiscal year] 2016 workplan included $64 million for
construction and the President's FY 2017 budget included almost
$50 million. My question is if you know: Is the amount of money
that's now projected for the current budget, will it be enough
for this year to fund what you can do? Because this--these
repairs need to be moved forward as quickly as possible.
Ms. Darcy. We will be able to meet the needs of that
project in this fiscal year.
Ms. Frankel. OK. Thank you very much. On the Port of Palm
Beach, we actually finally have something that all the
communities agree on, which is a welcome change, which is the
full maintenance dredge that will hopefully alleviate safety
issues for 2 to 3 years. It is my understanding, though, from
the Corps that an additional $900,000 is needed to complete the
dredge which the Corps has told my office they intend to find
through reprogramming. Can you commit to that?
General Bostick. We would have to look at that. I couldn't
commit to it here.
Ms. Frankel. OK. Well, will you get back to me on that.
Yes?
General Bostick. We will.
Ms. Frankel. Next is just really a big thank you on Port
Everglades. That expansion is a half a billion dollar economic
impact to south Florida. I want to just thank you so much on
including that in this report and for the cooperation we've
been getting. Excellent. Thank you. That's easy. And next as
you know, the restoration of Port--of the Everglades, different
from Port Everglades, serves drinking water to over 9 million
people in Florida, has great economic impact. There are a
number of projects that you are working on. I just have some
questions on them.
The Broward County Water Preserve Areas and the Biscayne
Bay coastal wetlands are stuck in the PPA [project partnership
agreement] negotiation phase. The Picayune Strand and Kissimmee
River both require reports from the Corps. Would you be able to
provide us--obviously not right this second, but with an update
on these particular projects?
Ms. Darcy. Yes, we will.
Ms. Frankel. And I had--just for the coastal communities--
OK, very quick. The coastal communities just some questions on
the beach restoration because the beaches are much more than
just places for people to get sunburns as you know. The--a
couple questions. Can you--our stakeholders are asking that you
take some more time to work with them in terms of when you
decide which projects to do. And next question they had on that
was what the Corps is doing to ensure that all districts are
using dredge sediment as a resource to improve coastal
protection. If you could, just get back on those questions
because I've taken my time.
Ms. Darcy. OK.
General Bostick. We will.
Ms. Frankel. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Graves.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I
want to thank you and Chairman Shuster, the ranking member,
everyone who came down to New Orleans, for you all taking the
time to come to south Louisiana to take a look at all the
challenges we have going on in regard to balancing water
resources.
Madam Secretary, I didn't want to ask this question, but
Let Mon told me I should. [Laughter.] It's no secret that we
have pretty strong frustrations in regard to the efficiency of
the Corps of Engineers in regard to project delivery. We could
talk about the Morganza project, been in study phase for 24
years now; the West Shore project that just issued a Chief's
Report after being studied for 44 years about. Obviously if
that same scenario were in the private sector, that
construction company would have been shut down, appropriately,
many, many decades ago.
Right now you're seeing an interesting trend within the
Federal Government, and I'm not sure if anyone's really paying
attention to it, but, Mr. Chairman, I think it's something we
should be paying very close attention to in this committee.
You're seeing Corps of Engineers budget numbers that are
relatively stagnant. Yet you saw the President come out this
year and announce that he was going to do a $2 billion coastal
resiliency fund, which is your mission. You saw HUD [U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development] last year, if I
recall, was $1 billion resiliency, which is your mission.
You've seen FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]
repeatedly awarding grants that under hazard mitigation grant
program pre-disaster mitigation which effectively is your
mission as well.
One difference with all of those other efforts that really
distinguished them from the Corps of Engineers is that in
many--in fact, in all cases, those are largely grant programs
that cooperate with State and local governments to carry out
the projects. And going back to Congresswoman Frankel's
comments earlier about the efficiency of delivery, why is it
that the Corps of Engineers remains stagnant and all of the
funding and opportunities and actual progress is being done in
these other agencies?
Ms. Darcy. Well, as you are aware, as you mentioned, these
are granting agencies. The Corps of Engineers is not a granting
agency. We're a project funding agency. So that's where----
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Should that change? I mean is a
project in study phase for 40-something years, is that OK?
Ms. Darcy. No, that's why we've instituted smart planning
and 3x3x3 so that we can be more efficient in our planning
process. Because I think that 40 years is too long to be
studying anything.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Well, I just--I think that if you
look at the numbers, I think some of the frustrations--
incredible frustrations that we have are being verified in the
budget process. And if I were any of the people sitting right
there in the front row and at the table, I would take that
threat very seriously and be thinking about whether--what
changes you need to make in order to efficiently deliver
projects.
And one thing that I think is really important to connect
the dots on with some of the bigger waters--flood insurance
reforms that happened in 2012 and then again in 2014, the
Corps, by them choosing--by you choosing winners and losers in
terms of which projects are going to proceed, which ones
aren't, which ones are going to remain in this stagnant phase
for decades, you're compounding the problem by leaving these
people vulnerable with the belief that they have some
authorized project that's going to pop up at some point. Yet
they're subject to exponentially higher flood insurance rates.
When you add in levee standards and other things, you're really
causing exponential impacts on these communities. I mean there
are real repercussions of these delayed projects, and I think
it's something that needs to be thoughtfully considered by this
committee as we proceed on the new WRDA.
I want to go to the HPS [hurricane protection system] in
the greater New Orleans area. When President Bush was
President, he issued a document saying that the repairs and
recovery of the HPS was going to be completed in 2009. And I've
had people at the Corps refute that. I've got a copy of the
document. I'd be happy to share it with you. It was when he
gave his Jackson Square speech. As you recall, in 2008, we
signed a 30-year payback agreement--deferred payment agreement
on the hurricane protection system recovery work. That work,
again, was supposed to be completed in 2009.
The Corps came back and started issuing documents saying it
was going to be completed in 2010. At some point, the Corps
held a day of recognition ceremony or something, which I'm not
real sure what that was. But here's the reality. The reality is
we're still not at that finish line. Hurricane Katrina was in
2005, we're 11 years later or approaching 11 years. We haven't
hit that deadline yet. What's happened during this time in a
deferred payment agreement is that the principal has grown to
where we're at the point now that the payments by the State
whenever this project is finished, the payments are going to be
almost double what they were supposed to be because of the
accumulating interest by this delayed implementation or
completion of the project. What do you say to that?
Ms. Darcy. The delay in implementation of which----
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Of the hurricane protection
system, the SELA [Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Damage
Reduction Project], the New Orleans to Venice, the Lake
Pontchartrain vicinity, Westbank, the HPS, which you all came
up with the new acronym HSDRRS [Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk
Reduction System] because that rolls off the tongue I think.
So----
Ms. Darcy. That's the--what we considered with the $14
billion of Federal investment.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Sure. Right.
Ms. Darcy. The completion of the other projects that you're
referring to I think are all hopefully on some kind of glide
path, the details of which I don't have at the ready at the
moment.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Does that concern you at all,
though, that the State is facing a payback agreement of nearly
double what it was before when that agency is the same agency
that's supposed to be helping to restore the coast and do all
the other things in terms of mitigating some of the impacts of
Federal actions?
Ms. Darcy. It is concerning that that would be a doubling
for the State's responsibility.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Taking away money for ecosystem
restoration to other important priorities? Thank you----
General Bostick. And one of the things that I would offer
is that when you talk about civilian organizations and that
folks might be fired if they took this long and you talk about
different agencies and what they do, there's probably no other
organization that has to integrate like the Corps across all
Federal agencies. If you look at something like the 3x3x3 that
was put into law, that applies to the Corps, yet we have to
work with all Federal agencies, we have to work with locals,
and they don't necessarily need to buy into the 3x3x3.
If you look at BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] 2005,
$12\1/2\ billion in construction completed in 7 years, you look
at the large proportion of the hurricane storm damage risk
reduction, again, completed in 7 years, there's no other
organization in the world that could accomplish this. I brought
the Chinese Minister of Water Resources here. He said no other
organization in the world could have done what the Corps did.
And part of that is bringing all the parties together,
communicating and agreeing that in a crisis we're going to get
this done. BRAC was a great example of the Congress and the
American people all coming together and saying here's the
priority, we're going to get it done, and the Corps can
deliver. The challenge we have is we don't have that burning
platform in many of these other projects.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just--pointing out the comparison of this other delivery
mechanism compared to what we're using right now, you're doing
projects like that in 7 years compared to what we're taking
decades to do. There needs to be fundamental change in the
project development and delivery systems.
Mr. Gibbs. That's obviously a good point, which sometimes
we study stuff to death.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Darcy, General Bostick, the entire country has
been awakened by the lead in the water crisis in Flint,
Michigan. There was something of a similar crisis here, and of
course the Corps produces drinking water for this Capital, for
the Federal complex, for several adjoining counties in
Virginia. And DC Water in particular purchases almost three-
quarters of the water from the aqueduct, and of course we drink
that water here in the Capital.
Now does the Corps operate any other municipal drinking or
water treatment in the country?
General Bostick. We do not.
Ms. Norton. Only in the Nation's Capital?
General Bostick. Only in----
Ms. Norton. This is a holdover from before the city had its
own home rule and, of course, it has DC Water now. DC Water is
an expert agency in delivering water. That is not your core
expertise, is it?
Ms. Darcy. No.
Ms. Norton. No. The Secretary says no. In addition, as I
understand it, if there are capital improvements, you are not
funded by this Congress in order to engage in those
improvements because you cannot borrow, you cannot bond. Isn't
that the case?
General Bostick. That's correct.
Ms. Norton. Of course, DC Water can borrow and bond and is
doing a great many things at the moment. How do you test for
lead in the water for the water supply that comes to this
Congress and throughout this region?
General Bostick. How do we test in the water supply in
Washington, DC?
Ms. Norton. To make sure there's no lead in the water,
General Bostick.
General Bostick. Right. We know that there's no lead in the
water source, which is the Potomac River. And the water leaving
the two Washington aqueducts water treatment plant is tested
once a month for lead. Now lead can leach into the pipes going
from the pipes that are coming from the house or the buildings
to where the source of the water is, but our current indication
is that we've tested the water coming from the aqueduct----
Ms. Norton. But if it leaches from the pipes, which is of
course the problem here and all across the United States, and
Members had best look and ask what is the substance put into
the water to counteract that lead leaching, is that substance
being routinely put into the water here today? The wrong
substance was being put in the water by the Corps in the early
2000s when the Nation's Capital had a similar crisis. What's
the substance?
General Bostick. The substance is orthophosphate, and it
interacts with the interior surface of a lead pipe, and it
provides a protective layer in the pipe to ensure that there's
no lead that's going to leach. So----
Ms. Norton. I want to alert you, Mr. Chairman, other
Members to inquire in their own districts what is the
substance. The Corps put the wrong substance in the water, and
there was lead in the water. Forty-two thousand children had to
be tested. It was a genuine crisis. We had to use bottled water
just like they are having to do in Flint, Michigan. So Members
are well advised to go home and at least inquire what is the
substance, how often is the water tested.
Let me ask you about another--you do several projects here
as a matter of routine. I want to thank you for agreeing to
work in the Spring Valley community here to test groundwater in
that community while allowing the neighborhood to make use of
one of its parks. Has that groundwater testing started? And
what are you looking for? What do you think you may find in the
groundwater?
General Bostick. I'll have to follow up on the groundwater.
I was not tracking that specific question, but we can follow up
on it.
Ms. Norton. Well, you went to a great deal of--you put a
great deal of energy into building a way to test the
groundwater, and I'd ask you within 30 days to get back to the
chairman and me--and I'm sure he would give to me what action
the Corps plans, about what you are doing to test this
groundwater, which was your intention and what you intend to
do--what you're looking for and what you intend to do about it.
And finally, let me ask you about the levee that you were
building. You had a problem with the contractor. Boy, I just
saw a drawing of everything on the Mall underwater except the
Washington Monument because of climate change. But at least in
the near term we have this levee to protect the National Mall
and nearby neighborhoods, but there have been lengthy delays.
We are told that the levee system evaluation report--this is
supposed to be the final piece of writing--is due to FEMA this
spring and that the levee therefore will be approved.
Lieutenant General Bostick and Secretary Darcy, is the Army
on track to get this Federal report in, done and over with by
this spring so that you can assure the Congress that, in fact,
this levee to control flooding on the Mall has been taken care
of?
General Bostick. Yes, we'll have that report completed and
to FEMA this spring.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. And I appreciate it, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. Welcome to our new member of the committee from
Illinois, Mr. Bost.
Mr. Bost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First up, I want to say a special thank you to the
Secretary and the general. I've had the luxury of working with
both, well, actually three intersecting areas: St. Louis,
Louisville and also Memphis and all in one county where that
one works there. But let me also say that your Colonel Mitchell
is doing a fine job and has been a tremendous help to us
working with them.
That being said, we do have a unique situation that has
occurred, which 6 days ago I was on the ground seeing, and that
is when the--what was known as the Len Small levee which was a
secondary levee system that was put in in the 1920s by then-
Governor Len Small in the State of Illinois, and it's only set
up for a 15-foot levee. But when the holiday floods--because I
guess that's what we'll call it--came and came so rapidly along
the Mississippi and we traced it all the way down, that levee
broke. And when that levee broke, we watched as it occurred and
the concerns that we had. But we thought, no problem, we'll be
able to go back in and fix the levee.
Now it has elevated, and I want to make sure that you're
aware of that. It is elevated to the point that the--because
the river is coming right straight there, and it goes into
what's known as the Dogtooth Bend. It's about a 17-mile bend in
the Mississippi River that comes back upon itself. And when it
does, the area across is 3\1/2\ miles in comparison to the 17
miles around. The elevation drop is somewhere between 13 and 17
feet.
In the 3 weeks that the water was up, it has already cut a
gouge about a half a mile long and one-quarter mile wide
working to come across that 3\1/2\ miles.
Now the concern I have besides the fact that I have a
concern for the district, for the property that was ruined and
all of the issues there, the concern I really have is for
commerce for the United States because if that breaks through
and we aren't aggressively going after to stop that, barge
traffic from New Orleans to the Great Lakes could be held by
the fact that that becomes a rapid instead of a smooth,
navigable water. Is that your concern as well? Or do you know?
General Bostick. I don't have the specific details on that,
but navigation is clearly one of our three primary functions,
so we're very concerned in anything that would involve the
situation you described. So we will take a look at it----
Mr. Bost. OK. I wanted to make sure that we were up on
that. And another concern that I do have because it's in the
same area, the--across from the Len Small area is--on the
Missouri side the New Madrid levee project. And that project
was approved. Does that take both of you to sign off on that?
General Bostick. Well, there would normally be a Chief's
Report that I sign. We send it to Secretary Darcy for approval.
Mr. Bost. OK. Would you know where the status of that
project is? It's about a 1,500-foot added levee on the other
side of the river.
Ms. Darcy. I believe--it's the St. John's-New Madrid----
Mr. Bost. Mm-hmm.
Ms. Darcy [continuing]. You're talking about? I believe
it's currently undergoing an Environmental Impact Statement.
Mr. Bost. OK. The fear that we have on the other side of
the Mississippi is the pressures that we're already feeling and
the fact that when the 2011 flood occurred, to keep us below
the 60-foot level at Cairo, it was to blow, and we remember how
difficult that was to make the decision that was part of the
plan to release the Birds Point levee. My concern and the
concerns of my constituents are that that would change the
hydraulics and put more pressure on our side of the river. Do
you see that, or what are your concerns with that?
General Bostick. If you're talking--when we have floods in
that area in the Cairo area, we would still blow the New
Madrid----
Mr. Bost. The New Madrid would still fall under the
existing rules so that we could make sure of----
General Bostick. Right. We would still execute the
floodway.
Mr. Bost. And let me say this to continue to give a
compliment here. Let me tell you that working together it was a
great job done by the Corps, all three of them working together
to release water from both the Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake
to allow the pressure relief that actually brought the pressure
off of Cairo without having to blow that and thinking in
advance that way. I want to commend you on the job that you've
done there.
I look forward to working with you. I--on the one project
if you can get back with my staff, we're wanting to help any
way we can to make sure, because my big fear on that where the
Dogtooth comes around is that spring thaw would occur, we'd get
another secondary flood that would move in there like the one
of the holiday flood, and it would, like I said, change what we
know for as far as commerce in the United States. So thank you
very much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me express my appreciation to you and Ranking Member
Napolitano for holding this hearing of the Corps annual report
to Congress. And I'd like to thank also the Honorable Assistant
Secretary Darcy and Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick for being
here today.
I do appreciate your continued commitment to working
cooperatively with Congress to plan the development of our
Nation's future water resources. The Water Resources Reform and
Development Act of 2014, otherwise known as WRRDA, established
new mechanisms for the Corps to submit projects for possible
authorization by Congress. Section 7001 of WRRDA 2014 is meant
to guide Congress as it drafts a new water resources bill.
I have in practice I believe many questions that remain of
how both Congress and the Corps will implement the requirements
under that section.
Assistant Secretary Darcy, can you speak more to the
challenges that the Corps continues to face with the
interpretation and implementation of 7001, what Congress can do
to improve that process for future resources, water resources
legislation?
Ms. Darcy. Congresswoman, I think we learned a lot from the
2015 report to the 2016 report, and we've done some outreach to
local sponsors to be able to educate them as to what the
requirements are and the criteria that is in 7001. We have made
the submission of the proposals easier by putting it online for
Web-based distribution throughout the Corps. And we also have
all of our districts involved now on the local level and
helping local sponsors develop their proposals for 7001. We're
hoping that this year's report will meet with more of the
congressional intent that there was in 7001.
Ms. Johnson. OK. During consideration of that bill, I
worked very closely with my colleague, Congressman Farenthold
to draft language directing the Corps to conduct an assessment
of the Atlantic and Gulf Intracoastal Waterways within 90 days
of the bill's enactment. While the language was adopted and
included in the bill, that assessment has not yet been
completed, and we don't have the response. So it's kind of
frustrating when you're trying to plan and look for studies
that have time limits that don't come.
Ms. Darcy. I'm not sure what the status is of that report.
I know that there currently hasn't been any funding allocated
to start that report.
Ms. Johnson. No funding allocated? So the funding has to be
specifically allocated for every individual thing?
Ms. Darcy. Yes.
Ms. Johnson. So when we draft a bill and have instructions
and don't have a line item to pay for it, it will not be done?
Ms. Darcy. All of the studies that are authorized all
compete for funding within the President's budget every year.
Ms. Johnson. What is your process for alerting the Congress
that they're going to be ignored if the money is not there?
Ms. Darcy. When we submit the President's budget. In each
of our accounts, our investigations account is the one that
would fund studies; it would be at that point that Members
would know whether the study is being funded or not.
Ms. Johnson. But there's no response to Congress when you
get a mandate--congressionally mandated to do something and you
don't do it, and you say the reason is not money, there's no
way to get back to Congress and say it's not going to be done?
Ms. Darcy. We don't have a notification process for that
currently. Perhaps we need to be more responsive to the
requests and let Members know what is not being funded.
Ms. Johnson. What do you suggest that we do congressionally
to get responses to what is congressionally mandated that's not
done in the specific time that it's requested? And it's not
just a mouth-to-mouth; it is mandated in law and you can't do
it, what process do you use to notify the Congress that you're
not going to do it?
Ms. Darcy. As I said, we currently don't have a process in
place for that kind of notification, but it's probably
something we need to look at, and maybe we can work with the
committee on trying to be able to afford at least the
notification to the Members.
Ms. Johnson. So you recommend we also congressionally put
that in, to instruct you to give us a report on what you're not
going to do and what you're going to do based on what's--what
money is allocated?
General Bostick. Ma'am, if I could offer, this kind of gets
back to the point I was raising earlier. You know, when you
look at BRAC or you look at what we did after Hurricane Sandy
and after Hurricane Katrina, we had a lot of upfront funding.
We knew what it was going to cost, and we were provided the
money that was required and we worked with the other agencies
and we got the work done in a rapid pace. Currently we have a
lot more work that needs to be done than we have funding. So
part of where we need help is in the priorities of what we want
to get accomplished. So what we try to do is look at the
benefits in each of these projects and then prioritize.
But that's why the hurricane protection system in New
Orleans took 40 years to build before Katrina hit, and then we
finished it in 7 years. All of these projects are out there. We
need help with priorities. Priorities like BRAC where the
Congress said you will start in 2005, you will be done in 2011,
and we were funded for it and we did it. Right now we have a
lot of projects that the Members want done and limited funds to
do that, and we're not ignoring the Congress. We're trying to
do the best job that we can with the dollars that we have.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, General.
Mr. Rouzer.
Mr. Rouzer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And Madam Secretary, General Bostick, thank you so much for
being here today. You don't have an easy job, and I appreciate
that and certainly appreciate you indulging all of us here.
Two major items that are on my mind: Wrightsville Beach and
Carolina Beach. As you all know, Wrightsville Beach is
approaching its funding limit, and I was just curious if you
have an idea of when the Post-Authorization Change Report for
our Wrightsville Beach project will be complete.
General Bostick. I do not. But we can follow up and we'll
get that answer to you quickly.
Mr. Rouzer. I'd--just a question of curiosity: Are there a
number of Post-Authorization Change Reports that you're working
on? Is it a significant number? Just a few?
General Bostick. My sensing is it's a smaller number. We've
put processes into place where we're able to mitigate and
control the price increase as much as possible. When I was
first Chief, it was a very large number. I can get you the
number where it's at today, but my sense is it's much less than
it was before.
Mr. Rouzer. I was just trying to figure out why it's taking
so long. That's why I was wondering the number.
General Bostick. Each one of these have different issues,
and it's very difficult to say why this particular one is
taking long, but I will find out, and we'll get the details and
provide it to you.
Mr. Rouzer. I appreciate that very much. Carolina Beach, as
you know, they concluded their 50-year cycle a couple years
ago, received a 3-year extension in the last WRRDA bill, the
2014 WRRDA bill. They were included in the appendix, but not in
the report. And I'm still not completely certain I fully
understand the criteria for making the full report versus being
inserted in the appendix if you can help me out there a little
bit.
Ms. Darcy. Carolina Beach is the one you're asking about?
Carolina Beach is already an authorized project. In order to
get into the report, you would need to be a project that needs
authorization, and Carolina Beach does not.
Mr. Rouzer. OK. Thank you for that clarification.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Darcy, General Bostick, thanks again. Great to
see both of you again. As you both know, I worked to include an
important provision in WRRDA 2014 that created a water
infrastructure P3 [public-private partnership] program. The
goal of this P3 pilot is to identify project delivery
alternatives to save costs and reduce the current backlog of
authorized Corps projects.
In the Corps FY 2016 workplan that was recently released, I
was pleased to see that the Fargo-Moorhead flood control
project was listed as a new start. In its recent report to
Congress on P3s, the Corps noted the Fargo-Moorhead project
sponsors had developed a split delivery approach that will
expedite project delivery with the local sponsors using a P3
structure to construct the diversion channel and the Corps
constructing the dam. In that same report, the Corps listed the
Illinois waterway navigation proposal second in a list of six
projects being evaluated as a P3 demonstration project.
General Bostick, can you reaffirm that the Illinois
waterway navigation proposal remains a viable project for the
P3 pilot program?
General Bostick. It is a viable project that we're looking
at.
Mr. Davis. In reference to the Illinois project in its
report to Congress on the state of P3s, the Corps mentioned the
progress needed to develop revenue generation authority in the
Federal ownership and operations. Beyond needing another new
start, can you elaborate on what more the Corps needs for this
project to move forward?
General Bostick. When we looked at the different projects
that were out there, Fargo-Moorhead was the furthest along in
terms of investors and the tax base that they were going to use
in order to fund it and the local community coming onboard and
agreeing to it. I'm not saying that Illinois is not there and
others are not there, but they were not as close.
I don't have the specifics on this project that we're
talking about now, but I can get those and find out what other
factors are needed. I think what we had to do this first time
was to almost pilot one for lack of a better term. We had to
push one of these P3s out and ensure that we have the right
mechanisms within OMB, within Congress and with the Corps to
understand it. And then I think we can cycle back and see where
Illinois River and the others stand.
Mr. Davis. OK. And if we're successful in requesting
another new start in this year's approach process, do you think
the Illinois project has a chance to be included in the FY 2017
workplan?
General Bostick. I really couldn't answer that today.
Mr. Davis. Yeah, you can. [Laughter.] You can say yes.
General Bostick. I can say that we will certainly take a
look at it. You weren't here for my opening I don't think, but
I did talk about the importance of public-private partnerships
and that it's part of the solution----
Mr. Davis. Just say yes.
General Bostick [continuing]. In my view going forward.
Mr. Davis. Just say yes.
General Bostick. We will do everything we can.
Mr. Davis. Just say yes. [Laughter.]
Secretary Darcy, I wanted to ask you about some recent
actions taken by the Chicago Corps district that have been
brought to my attention with specific regard to the Brandon
Road lock and dam. Chicago district recently sent out a small
survey to carriers and shippers with questions about lock usage
in order to identify the impacts of a new lock at Brandon Road.
Are you aware of the survey that I'm talking about?
Ms. Darcy. I am not, but----
Mr. Davis. There you go.
Ms. Darcy [continuing]. He's going to give it to me.
Mr. Davis. We'll take it down. [Passing witness a survey.]
We'll give that one to you. I say small survey because I
understand that only a total of nine were sent out, and with
unanimous consent I'd like to actually enter it into the
record, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. So ordered.
Mr. Davis. Thank you. What's concerning to me is that the
survey sample did not include those folks who would be directly
impacted by any changes in operations at Brandon Road such as
towboat companies, major shippers and businesses with indirect
ties to the lock like port shipyards and construction
companies.
In addition, I'm told that the survey included several
companies that do not even do business near Brandon Road and
that two surveys were actually sent to the same company under
two different names. And as you know, Secretary Darcy, Brandon
Road is a vital commercial lake between the Mississippi River
system in my district borders and the great lakes. And I'm sure
you'll well understand any changes to the structure operation
at Brandon Road could have a significant impact on the inland
maritime industry and my constituents.
So first, can you explain for the committee the methodology
the Chicago district used to determine the entities that this
survey was sent to?
Ms. Darcy. I cannot. I don't know if the general----
Mr. Davis. General Bostick?
General Bostick. My understanding is they contracted with
the University of Tennessee's Center for Transportation
Research. And their effort and guidance was to go out and get a
shipper response survey from shippers, those on the docks and
carriers. So the interviews included shippers and vessel
operators, and there were 132 total responses that were
involved in the survey.
Mr. Davis. How many?
General Bostick. 132.
Mr. Davis. OK. My records show that only nine were sent
out. That's not the case?
General Bostick. That's not my understanding. But since
there's a misunderstanding here, I will follow up and find the
details and get back to you.
Mr. Davis. OK. You could do that and say yes on the
Illinois waterway question, too. [Laughter.] My understanding
is that only nine were sent out to address some OMB issues and
also that it was necessary to expedite this process. I'm just
concerned that the industry was not consulted prior to the
Corps utilizing this contractor to conduct this survey, and I
just want to make sure that both of you could commit to me
today to work to get answers to these questions, clear up any
miscommunications that I may be getting and then also work to
ensure that a better sample of stakeholders that utilize the
Brandon Road facility are included in any attempts to address a
survey relating to that specific project.
General Bostick. We will do that.
Mr. Davis. And you could still say yes. I've got time.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. I yield back.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Sanford.
Mr. Sanford. Two quick thoughts. One, I think it's
appropriate to praise the administration when they get it right
and condemn them when I think they got it wrong. And I just
want to say thank you for what you all have done with regard to
the port in Charleston. If you look at the port in Charleston,
it really is a national resource given the number of container
ships that go in and out of that facility. If you look at post-
Panamax and what's going to happen with the widening of the
Panama Canal, I think its impact will be profound. And it's
going to have a mighty impact on the Southeast as you serve the
heartland of America from a different access point.
You know, it has basically $50 billion of economic activity
not just in our State but across the region, more than 200,000
jobs, direct jobs tied to the port. So it's a significant
facility, and if you look at the process that the Corps has
gone through, originally it was estimated I think it would take
7 years and $20 million to go through this next leg that we're
in right now.
In essence both of those numbers have been cut in half.
Roughly 4 years and $11 million. You guys have worked in I
think awfully cooperative ways with State and other Federal
agencies in some ways that maybe weren't done in the past. So I
want to say thank you for what you've done on that front. I
think it was well done.
And as you look at the process going forward, I guess my
question would be this: Are the lessons learned that came out
of what's happened in Charleston that you might apply it with
other port facilities or harbor facilities around the country
in terms of the expediting, the tax savings and the cooperation
that we've seen thus far in Charleston?
Ms. Darcy. Congressman, I think we're looking to what we've
done in preparing the Charleston study report to help with
other reports that we'll be doing. As you know, this particular
project had a great deal of attention on it; it was on the
President's ``We Can't Wait'' initiative which helped us in
many ways to get a focus on what was required and trying to get
it, again, completed earlier than the traditional way of doing
things. I think we can take those lessons learned to other port
deepening projects.
General Bostick. One of the lessons as I'm sure you know,
was that we had to work very closely with NOAA [National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and look at the
priorities they had and the priorities we had and how could we
move Charleston up. And this gets back to the point I made
earlier, the 3x3x3 really applies to the Corps of Engineers in
law, but not necessarily other organizations that have their
own very important priorities.
So one of the things we've set up is regular meetings. I've
met with Vice Admiral Brown at NOAA, and we're looking at these
priorities in certain areas. I think Charleston was another one
of those that was a good example of how we could work together
to see what was the Nation's----
Mr. Sanford. Is there anything that stakeholders tied to
the facility in Charleston ought to know or be aware of moving
forward, any next steps that deserve further elaboration or
color?
Ms. Darcy. We're on track with the Chief's Report for
Charleston Harbor. We also put money in the 2016 budget for
Preconstruction Engineering and Design for this project. I
think the Port of Charleston did a pretty good job in getting
this one over the finish line.
General Bostick. Yesterday I spoke to our planners, and
these are young folks on who we have invested a lot of money so
that they can help us with planning modernization. And part of
what they're doing is looking at our centers of expertise, and
one is the world-class deep draft planning expertise, and that
was key in Charleston moving forward. So we've developed great
expertise in the Corps and we're looking 10, 20 years down the
road at how we continue to train our people.
Mr. Sanford. Last question in the minute I've got. And this
is tied to the annual Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. For a
while it seemed the administration was underfunding. Then
Congress came back, I guess, in WRRDA 2014, said we need
basically a description of future costs so that we're not
caught unaware or behind and that there was to be a report
issued I think each year as a consequence of WRRDA 2014. Was
that in your 2017 request, report back to Congress on that
front? Could you, again, fill me in on where we are on that?
Ms. Darcy. On the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund?
Mr. Sanford. Yeah.
Ms. Darcy. I'm not aware of our report to Congress, but I
will double-check and see what the requirement is and what the
status is of that report for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund,
not the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, right?
Mr. Sanford. Right. Right. I think it's dictated by WRRDA
2014 if I'm not mistaken. I'm just curious to see where that
stands. If you'd come back to me, I'd appreciate it.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Babin.
Dr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a couple of questions here. Last year I asked about
what the Corps was doing to address the Bayport Flare which is
a navigation issue in my district on the Houston Ship Channel.
And I understand that a design efficiency report is nearing
completion by the Corps, and I'd like to know what the
timeframe is for completing the report and who currently has
authority to approve this report. And also once it is
finalized, will there be any other requirements or actions
required by Congress to enable the Corps to budget for and
maintain the report's recommendations, and if there's any
further action required by Congress and when will we receive
the information for our consideration? And I guess I would
direct this to General Bostick.
General Bostick. We regret that this has been delayed for a
number of times, and we appreciate you bringing it up. I have
visited the port and talked to the leaders there, and our team
has worked very closely with them. We expect that the report
will be in the headquarters by March of this year and that we
should have approval of the project deficiency report by May.
We will still need approval of the Post-Authorization Change
Report, which is an increase in cost, and we will ultimately
need funding in order to move forward.
Dr. Babin. Well, it's a safety issue in our minds. Also, I
would like to ask--it's my understanding that there have been a
number of delays in completing the 902 report for the Houston
Ship Channel project and how the delay might impact the ability
to address this Bayport Flare problem if modifications need to
be made by Congress and specifically I'm concerned that until
the 902 report is completed, the project authorization is
modified, there could be limitations on construction of
critical elements of the project, which could affect the
viability of the entire Houston Ship Channel, the entire
navigation system.
And I would like for your to please explain the purpose for
the ongoing 902 report, the schedule for completion of the 902
report and the impacts to the project if the 902 limit is not
resolved in the upcoming WRDA bill. And simply put, would more
flexibility under 902 help you to address these critical safety
issues that we're concerned with?
General Bostick. The 902 report is also on a timeline that
we expect it to be submitted in March of 2016. I think we can
do more work to be efficient in how we get it processed, and
we're trying to do that. But that report will be here in March,
and by the end of April, if there are no comments, we believe
that we can start the process of moving that to Congress.
Dr. Babin. We certainly hope so. We had a collision in our
channel last year. I can't blame it on the Bayport Flares, but
it certainly could have involved something in that regard so
that this really and truly is a possible safety issue. And we
hope that this will be taken care of pretty quickly. So March
or April is when we can expect it then, huh?
General Bostick. March or April we should be finished with
it at the headquarters. And assuming there aren't any
significant issues or comments, then we will start the process
of moving it to Congress.
Dr. Babin. OK. Thank you, General. I yield back the balance
of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. General, I just want a little bit of
clarification on that. The 902 on this--that's for
construction. This is operation maintenance. So it shouldn't
really be in that 902 issue, is that correct?
General Bostick. No, it is construction.
Mr. Gibbs. OK, well, we think you already have the
authority to do all this already, without having to do a 902.
That's an opinion of mine.
General Bostick. OK. Then we'll clarify it with our
attorney.
Mr. Gibbs. OK.
Dr. Babin. We thought so too, Mr. Chairman, at first. And
then this is the conflicting story that we're getting. So we
hope that this gets----
Mr. Gibbs. Yeah. On code 33, U.S. Code 562 you might want
to look at, I guess. Mr. Rokita?
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Chairman, for holding this hearing.
I appreciate the witnesses being back before us. My apologies
for not hearing your testimony. Frankly I was in another,
another hearing. Not as bad as being a Senator I guess, but we
still get conflicted a lot of times. So apologies if you have
to restate some of this, General. But let me start here.
Representing the--and of course, the inland waterways are very
important to us and very important to the Nation, as you know.
We feed the world through the inland waterways in my opinion.
And if any of these locks or dams go down, not only people's
livelihoods, but really their safety and well-being is
affected. So I'm looking at, you know, through the
appropriations process and through my other committee budget
looking through fiscal year 2016 appropriations, I see that we
approved $405 million for construction of projects on the
system. With this appropriation, the Corps announced the funds
would go to construct four lock projects, Olmsted, Lower Mon
[Monongahela] 2, 3, and 4, Kentucky lock and Chickamauga lock.
However, in the fiscal year 2017 budget request, $206 million
in funds are requested only for the Olmsted project, if I'm
reading that right.
So my question is this: Are you planning on doing work on
those locks with the fiscal year 2016 money? And then you're
not going to lay off the workers when you get to fiscal year
2017. So what--or are you? Or if so, what happens to the
projects? I'm not understanding how the projects continue with
the differential of funding.
Ms. Darcy. The 2016 workplan, you're correct, had the four
projects funded in that. And then in 2017 we are only funding
Olmsted.
Mr. Rokita. Yeah.
Ms. Darcy. Because of the trust fund balances. But the work
will not completely halt on the other projects. They just will
not be funded in 2017 because they are, they don't compete for
the funding that we have available for the inland waterways.
Mr. Rokita. They don't compete why? Because it's not needed
in your opinion? It's not----
Ms. Darcy. No, sir. The benefit to cost ratio of those
projects does not compete within the budgeting process. We
usually look to a benefit to cost ratio of 2.5 to 1 in order to
budget projects. And those projects do not meet that criteria.
Mr. Rokita. The 2.5 to 1 what? I'm sorry?
Ms. Darcy. Benefit to cost ratio.
Mr. Rokita. OK.
Ms. Darcy. That's how we prioritize projects in the budget.
The benefit to cost ratio is 2.5 to 1 at a 7-percent discount
rate.
Mr. Rokita. What happens to the condition of the locks? I
mean, the benefit to cost ratio doesn't--those, these locks
don't pass that except for one. Is the work done at that point?
Does it just get put on hold? Does it languish? How hard is it
to start up a project after it's put on hold? I'm, I just need
some clarification.
Ms. Darcy. You want to take that one?
General Bostick. We wouldn't just walk away from the
project, but we would do minimal work. And at some point if
funding was not available, we obviously would have to
demobilize the contractors. And then, we would not be managing
the project. We would have a project that is unfinished. And
this gets back to an earlier conversation I had before you came
in here. There are projects that we have completed very rapidly
in short periods of time with upfront funding. And we have
great examples of how we can do that. In these examples money
is stretched over a long period of time. And therefore their
benefits drop. And therefore they are no longer competitive.
And that's where we are in some of these projects. Because of
our model on how we are able to calculate, and the lack of
efficient funding, many of these projects either take a long
time to complete or are not completed at all.
Mr. Rokita. OK. So I'm again, I'm illustrating a
longstanding problem, funding over multiple fiscal years. And
in your opinion has Congress been helpful or hurtful on the way
in trying to solve that problem?
General Bostick. I gave examples of where we're successful.
BRAC, baseline realignment and closure. I mean the Congress, it
was an up or down vote. I'm from California. We didn't want to
see Fort Ord close, but it closed. There was a decision that
``Here are the priorities. Here's the basis. Here's the money.
You have 7 years to accomplish the mission.'' And the Corps was
able to do it. No other organization in the world could have
done that. So, and the hurricane storm damage risk reduction
project after Katrina. No other country in the world could have
done what the Corps did and what the Nation did, because we
came together within the interagencies. I do think we need
upfront funding. We need priorities. And then we need the
interagencies to work together as if we have a crisis and say
we're going to accomplish these missions.
When I came back from China, the Minister of China Water
Resources said, ``We're learning from the United States. We're
about 100 years behind you but we want to catch up.'' So our
plan is, we're going to do 172 projects with $600 billion and
we're going to finish it in 7 years. And he looked at me and
said, ``What's your strategic plan?'' And I could not repeat
our strategic plan, because we don't have one in that context.
We have a collection of projects that are supporting many, many
districts in many, many States. And we're trying to do the best
that we can to manage those projects in a strategic manner. But
in this form of decisionmaking, these projects take a long
time. Their BCR [benefit to cost ratio] drops and then they get
very difficult to fund.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, with your
indulgence, I know I'm over, but one quick followup. It could
be answered in 5 or 10 seconds. The formula you speak of, Ms.
Darcy, was that congressionally driven, or was that, is that
something that the agency or others wholly came up with? The
cost-benefit formula process that these locks have flunked now,
who derived that?
Ms. Darcy. The administration does that in the evaluation
of the funding.
Mr. Rokita. At our insistence, or just the way this
administration decided to prioritize things?
Ms. Darcy. Well, it's been since the 1980s that----
Mr. Rokita. Yeah, that's what I'm asking. I'm new to this
subcommittee so I'm again, trying to learn as best I can. Thank
you, Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. Oh, she left. I guess it goes to me. I was going
back to your side, but Ms. Frankel left. OK. General Bostick--
and Secretary, this might be kind of both of you. But in
General Bostick's testimony you talk about national security
being a top priority. Which, I'm glad to hear that. But to
follow up on that kind of a question, I want to first thank
both of you for fixing the flawed economic analysis on the Soo
lock project, because I had some thoughts on that. So where are
we? Because I believe that I would say the Soo lock project,
there is a national security issue. And so describe your plan
in the budget to maintain the 48-year-old Poe lock and the 73-
year-old MacArthur lock. What's the status of the work on the
Soo locks?
Ms. Darcy. I think that we're currently re-looking at the
economics for this, for the new Soo lock.
Mr. Gibbs. What was that?
Ms. Darcy. I think we're, updating an economic analysis for
the new Soo lock.
Mr. Gibbs. You know, this should take 5 minutes, to do an
economic analysis on the Soo locks, I would think. So what's
your timetable for that?
Ms. Darcy. I don't know, but I'll get back to you soon.
Mr. Gibbs. I mean, how much figuring does it take to figure
out that the Soo locks, if they go down, that's a huge economic
impact? Because you can't get into Lake Superior and the other
Great Lakes. I mean, I think during World War II, we had a
garrison guarding that up there, because it was so important.
So you know, I guess I just don't really want to hear too much
of ``The economic analysis is going to take this long and this
long.'' It just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I think we
could sit down here in 5 minutes and get that done. But it's
just my opinion. I'm probably getting in trouble here, but
that's my opinion. And General Bostick, you mentioned the
national security. I think that's one area. And I've said this
to your leadership. You know, it'd be nice if the Corps would
identify these issues. And you're just talking about a
strategic plan. And I think I said this to General Jackson when
he was in my office. You know, the Soo locks I would think
ought to be a national priority. The flood wall down in
Houston-Galveston ought to be a national priority because we've
had hurricanes hit there. The whole Eastern United States runs
out of gasoline. And so if you want to develop a strategic
plan, that would be my suggestion.
I want to talk a little bit about the annual report,
Secretary Darcy, didn't contain some, some project
modifications that have been routinely included in WRDA in the
past. So these would include proposals for modification to the
Houston-Galveston Channel project. To include a nonfederally
constructed channel of segments, or Federal maintenance
modification of the Texas City Channel deepening project. To
remove impediments under navigation to enable use of certain
property adjacent to the project for development of a container
terminal, and the modification of the Cleveland Harbor project
to provide for Federal participation of the upland placement of
maintenance, such material or such material as deemed not
suitable for Oakland Lake placement by the State of Ohio. The
report indicates the proposals were excluded from the report's
main table on this basis: they do not meet the purpose of the
annual report to identify projects for authorization, or
modification to existing projects.
This is puzzling to me since the proposals clearly meet
that criteria of project modifications related to the Corps of
Engineers navigation mission, requiring congressional
authorization as capable of being carried out by the Corps of
Engineers. First, why exactly were they not included in the
annual report for congressional consideration for WRDA? And
second, your own report states that the act directs the
Secretary to include, among other things, proposed
modifications to authorized projects that meet the criteria. So
I would like your explanation to the subcommittee. Where in the
law is the Corps of Engineers asked to judge submitted
proposals beyond determining if such project modifications meet
the standard criteria?
Ms. Darcy. As you've outlined, the project you've listed,
we don't believe met those criteria. In particular, I know of
your interest in Cleveland Harbor. And in the instance of
Cleveland Harbor, the modification that was asked for is one
that is, that in order to be in the report it would need
congressional authorization. The modification that was asked
for would be a modification to the Federal Standard. And the
modification to a Federal Standard would have to be a
rulemaking, not a legislative action.
Mr. Gibbs. Well, OK. So which one of the five criteria
didn't it meet?
Ms. Darcy. It doesn't need to be authorized.
Mr. Gibbs. It doesn't need the authorization?
Ms. Darcy. Right. Because as you know, Cleveland Harbor is
already an authorized project for the Army Corps of Engineers.
What was asked for was that there be a change to the Federal
Standard for the Port of Cleveland. And a change to the Federal
Standard for the Port of Cleveland does not require
authorization or legislation. That's, so that's why it wasn't
in the report.
Mr. Gibbs. Are you willing to work with the Port of
Cleveland to come up with a proposal for the next report to,
you know, to resolve this issue?
Ms. Darcy. Well, I think that the criteria in 7001 would
need to be changed in order for this kind of project to be
included in the report.
Mr. Gibbs. So that means you're not going to work with the
Port?
Ms. Darcy. No, we--with the port or the committee? We work
with both. But you know, at this junction, the requirement for
7001, the modification is not a modification that meets the
criteria. Because the criteria said it needs an authorization.
What was asked for was a change in the Federal Standard. A
change in the Federal Standard doesn't need authorization. In
order to change the Federal Standard, we would need to do a
rulemaking----
Mr. Gibbs. I might want to really ask in a different way.
Ms. Darcy. Sorry?
Mr. Gibbs. I might want to ask in a different way.
Ms. Darcy. You mean ask for the--the question to change?
Mr. Gibbs. Well, the report. Because if it's asked in a
different way, it might not be a modification that would
require that.
Ms. Darcy. That's possible.
Mr. Gibbs. So, OK. Let's see here. Ms. Frankel I'll go back
to you.
Ms. Frankel. OK.
Mr. Gibbs. Then we'll come back.
Ms. Frankel. OK.
Mr. Gibbs. Go ahead.
Ms. Frankel. Ready, OK. Thank you so much. I want to again
thank you all for your service. I want to just go back to
Everglades restoration, which you know is so important to
Florida. And I want to thank you for your commitment to its
restoration. And thank you for the Chief's Report for the
Central Everglades planning project. And I appreciate it's in
the report today. Question about the budget. The FY 2016
workplan added $7 million to Everglades program operation and
maintenance. And then the, but the FY 2017 budget drastically
reduces the Everglades operation and maintenance funds, to
almost $300,000. Could you explain that?
Ms. Darcy. What's included in the workplan, the additional
$7 million for operation and maintenance is money that we
believe is our Federal share. As you know, O&M for the
Everglades is unique in that it's a 50-50 cost share for
operation and maintenance between the Federal Government,
through the Corps of Engineers, and the South Florida Water
Management District. And the additional $7 million will go to
our share of that operation and maintenance. That is, that the
local sponsor had paid in the past, which some have viewed as a
sort of a reimbursement. I want to stress the fact that we
recognize that in both 1996 and in 2000 we made a commitment to
fund the operation and maintenance at a 50-50 cost share,
regardless of whether it is considered a reimbursement. And
that's what we will continue to do.
Ms. Frankel. Because is $300,000 sufficient?
Ms. Darcy. For 2017, yes.
Ms. Frankel. It is? OK. Next question. As you know, getting
a--did you want to add something to that?
Ms. Darcy. A clarification. You look at the additional $7
million and then you look at $300,000.
Ms. Frankel. Yeah, right.
Ms. Darcy. Because we were able to fund it at an additional
$7 million in the FY 2016 workplan, which states that it
includes funds for some costs that may not be incurred until FY
2017, all we would need beyond that in 2017 is $300,000.
Ms. Frankel. OK. That's what you're saying. As you know,
getting the Chief's support has been arduous in some instances,
but who's counting the years, right? And we're grateful when we
get one. Included in the Chief's Report, the Corps does an
economic benefit-cost analysis. And it has to be successful in
order to get your Chief's Report. Question. Why--it seems
though that the Office of Management and Budget does a complete
different analysis which could actually prevent a project that
is authorized by the Congress from making it into the
President's budget. Why is that?
Ms. Darcy. When projects are authorized, when there is a
Chief's Report and the Congress authorizes a project, the
economic analysis that is done on that calculates a benefit to
cost ratio. And that benefit to cost ratio is based on a 3.125
discount rate. When the Office of Management and Budget
evaluates projects for funding, including in the President's
budget, that benefit to cost ratio is evaluated at a 7-percent
discount rate. So the budgeting discount rate is different from
the authorization discount rate that's used.
Ms. Frankel. But why is that? I mean, why, why go through
all--I mean, you go through so much work to evaluate these
projects, and then it seems like it was for naught. I don't
understand, why don't they use the same analysis?
Ms. Darcy. Well, the analysis that we use is based in
statute. We are required to, when we do our evaluations for
authorization, use the current discount rate, which right now
is 3.125.
Ms. Frankel. OK. Well, that may be something that we need
to take a look at. And I think I have--I'm going to just get
back to one of the questions I asked before that I had to cut
short, which had to do with the questions from the American
Shore and Beach Preservation Association in terms of Coastal
Protection and Beach Restoration. Is it possible for you to
produce a list of 10-year priorities or 10-year capabilities
for all the authorized coastal projects across the country? Is
that something that would, could be done?
Ms. Darcy. Do you mean prioritized in terms of the need for
funding to meet the----
Ms. Frankel. Do you have a huge list, what the priorities
are?
Ms. Darcy. We do when we look for budgeting from year to
year, so I'm assuming that we probably do.
Ms. Frankel. OK. Maybe if we could get that.
Ms. Darcy. OK.
Ms. Frankel. And I want to also just reemphasize the
request for a greater stakeholder involvement in deciding which
projects to fund. And I thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Darcy. An aside. I spoke to that organization yesterday
and that's one of the concerns they raised.
Ms. Frankel. OK. Thank you very much.
Ms. Gibbs. Mr. Graves?
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General,
could you give us an update on the status of dredging and draft
restrictions on the Lower Mississippi River?
General Bostick. Yes, I can. This has been a significant
issue for the people in the Lower Mississippi Valley. And our
leadership has been focused on it on a daily basis. The current
situation is, we have exhausted or used all of the dredges that
we have available internally and all of the dredges that are
available in the industry. So currently we have the McFarland,
the Newport, the Lindholm, the Terrapin and the Morgan. These,
these are all ongoing dredges that are doing work in that
particular area. And we've had to make tough decisions to bring
dredges from other parts of the country. But currently we're
doing the best that we can to manage it.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. General, I first want to commend
you for all the mobilization that's happening right now. I know
that in Southwest Pass, you do have four or five dredges that
are all working down there trying to restore channel depth. I
don't have statistics to verify this. But it just seems to me
based on recollection that over the last several years we've
seen more draft restrictions put on the Mississippi River than
at other periods of time. And again, I don't know if that's
accurate or not, but it seems to be an uptick. In the
President's 2010 State of the Union Address, he talked about
his objective to double exports by 2015, last year. And that
goal wasn't anywhere close to being hit. There was not a
comparable investment in dredging of the Mississippi River to
maintain channel depths. And if my recollection is correct that
we've seen more draft restrictions on the Mississippi, what we
refer to as America's Commerce Superhighway, one of the most
important navigation channels in the country--isn't there a
connection there between increased investment in maintaining
stability and predictability on that navigation channel and our
ability to double exports?
General Bostick. Absolutely. And we talk about this all the
time. I think we're very fortunate to live in the country where
we do, with two coasts and the Mississippi River and all that
it brings. It's connected to the richest farmland. We've got
12,000 miles of inland waterways, more than the rest of the
world combined. So our ability to stay economically viable
depends on the dredging.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. And the Corps is, obviously, as I
see your burn rates, you are going to run out of your FY 16
money well before the end of the year. Could you talk just
briefly about efforts to ensure the future of the channel, as
we hit the traditional high-water period for and low-water
period for the remainder of the year?
General Bostick. It's a daily management effort. We've got
folks at the national, the regional and local level. We work as
teams and we share our resources. And we prioritize the effort.
And Southwest Pass is the main effort right now. And that's why
we had to take resources from other locations.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. General, I know you're aware of
the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and the, and the situation
there where in effect users are charged a tax under the
auspices of using it to dredge. Do you have any concerns about
the--I guess I'll use the term ``truth in budgeting'' perhaps
and the fact that that tax is charged to users, yet is actually
diverted for other areas of Government while we struggle to
maintain the authorized depth of navigation channels? And of
course in Louisiana, something you and I have discussed
extensively is, is this diminishing Federal Standard and
beneficial use issue, whereby we have the greatest rate of
wetlands loss, coastal wetland loss, in the continental United
States, yet this material is often being dumped into the
disposal areas in the deep water of the gulf rather than being
used for ecological benefits and restoring the coast. So again,
you dedicate the harbor maintenance tax, you do something, you
lockbox it effectively. You have more money for dredging.
You're able to expand the Federal Standards. You're able to
truly do restoration work, as opposed to wasting this important
racehorse. There's a question in there somewhere.
General Bostick. This year we have more money from the
Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund than we've ever had. And we've
talked about could we use more? I mean, that's really the
Government's decision as it balances priorities. I can't really
talk to where that money is going and who it's being used for,
and whether that's more important than the work that we're
doing on inland waterways. I can just say the inland waterways
are important. We're dredging the best that we can with the
dollars that we have. And those are precious dollars that get
used very quickly.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. Last question. Secretary Darcy,
you were in all the meetings for the 2007 Water Resources
Development Act Conference Committee. In that act, there was a
provision that authorized a restoration and closure of the MRGO
[Mississippi River Gulf Outlet], at 100 percent Federal cost.
The State of Louisiana had to sue the court. And again, I'm
going to follow the law. The district court did rule in the
State's favor, and indicated that as the law says, it's 100
percent Federal cost. Yet the Corps has chosen to appeal the
decision. I'm struggling with how you were in the room and
clearly understood the intent of Congress, yet the Corps is
continuing to pursue an appeal on that accurate decision,
ruling by the district court.
Ms. Darcy. I think the provision is up to interpretation,
and that's why it's in the courts. Because of whether it was
100 percent Federal for entire project or whether it was 100
percent Federal for the study.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. I'll just say again that you were
in the room. And----
Ms. Darcy. And so were you.
Mr. Graves of Louisiana. I was. Which is why, which is why
the lawsuit was filed.
Mr. Gibbs. Ms. Norton?
Ms. Norton. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Darcy,
I think the administration deserves a lot of credit for how you
handled something of a hostile takeover by gunfire in, I think
it was Princeton, Oregon, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
I'd like to know more, particularly since firearms cannot be
carried on lands owned or operated and maintained by the Corps
of Engineers. Although there are always attempts to reverse
that policy. I would like to know what you can tell the
committee about the background of that issue. Was the Corps
consulted? What role does the Corps have when it comes to law
enforcement? How are we going to keep this from happening
again?
Ms. Darcy. Congresswoman, on Army Corps of Engineers lands,
our property, the only allowable firearms are for hunting. And
the firearms are not allowed on Corps property to be loaded.
What happened in Oregon at the National Wildlife Refuge was
incredibly unfortunate for everyone, especially when there's a
loss of life. But at our facilities our Park Rangers aren't
armed. We don't have law enforcement on site. And we believe
that in order to have the best recreation experience for our
visitors to our facilities is to not allow loaded firearms on
our facilities. We want people to have a safe and enjoyable
experience. It's outdoor recreation. People are supposed to be
having fun, not be worried about their safety.
General Bostick. I'd only add that we do not carry firearms
because we're not congressionally authorized to be full Federal
law enforcement officers.
Ms. Norton. Well, if someone came and you could see that
they were carrying a firearm that is not allowed, and your,
your unarmed agents were there, what could they do? What would
they do in that event, if you are to prevent another such
incident? Yes, you're right----
General Bostick. They would----
Ms. Norton [continuing]. With the loss of life, for
example, that occurred there, despite what was otherwise, it
seems to me, handled very well.
General Bostick. This has happened before. And we call the
Federal law enforcement. And they're quick to respond.
Ms. Norton. And who is that?
General Bostick. Our Park Rangers would call the local
police.
Ms. Norton. So what are you doing to prevent another such
incident since you've seen it? The local community was very
disturbed. Did not want this, this controversy in its
community. Apparently got on very well with the hunting that
goes on here. But you've seen what you had to do. You waited
them out. You handled it very intelligently. But of course, you
have whole States in the United States that were carved out of
Federal land. And so there will be a few people who decide that
they want all that land back. That may be impossible. I submit
it is impossible. But you have had, forgive me, a shot across
your bow. So I'd like to know what precautions you are taking
to keep the Corps and the Federal agents from having to be
involved in this matter again. A matter like this again.
Ms. Darcy. Well, because we are one of the only Federal
agencies that do not allow firearms on our facilities, we are
going to continue to protect our facilities from firearms being
allowed.
Ms. Norton. Did your rangers quickly notify----
Ms. Darcy. They call local authorities when there's an
incident.
Ms. Norton. Well, but could they, did they know that these
people--they come on to, to--they come onto the wildlife
preserve. They're bearing arms. Were they bearing arms so that
the rangers could see them? And did they call the authorities
right away?
Ms. Darcy. You are allowed to bring firearms onto those
facilities. You are not allowed to----
Ms. Norton. I'm talking about the firearms they had that
you said were not allowed.
Ms. Darcy. No, they're not allowed on Corps of Engineers
facilities. They are allowed on other public lands.
General Bostick. And the example you're talking about was
not a Corps facility.
Ms. Norton. It was the National Park Service?
Ms. Darcy. It was a wildlife refuge, the one in Oregon,
yes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Rokita.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you again, Chairman. I want to focus a
little bit on the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund myself. Can you
provide the committee a detailed list of what the Harbor
Maintenance Trust Fund account spends its money on?
Ms. Darcy. Yes, we can provide it.
Mr. Rokita. OK. What's a reasonable deadline to get that?
I'm not trying to be----
Ms. Darcy. No, I'm trying to think when.
Mr. Rokita. Sometimes when we ask questions like this and
they yes it's all very nice, and then you don't hear from
anybody for 6 months.
Ms. Darcy. OK. Well----
Mr. Rokita. I just want to be reasonable.
General Bostick. Just to clarify, you're talking about the
money that we review from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and
what it's spent on? Not the collective money, the $8 billion or
so?
Mr. Rokita. Yeah, what you are spending the money on.
Ms. Darcy. What we're spending it on.
Mr. Rokita. What you--thank you. Yeah, for that
clarification, which leads into the problem Mr. Graves was
talking about. And then, and I'll lead into it as well.
Ms. Darcy. Just a clarification. Part of the Harbor
Maintenance Trust Fund is used on the Saint Lawrence Seaway. We
can provide you all that information.
Mr. Rokita. Yeah. I'm trying to understand what you're
spending, what you're spending the money on. Do you feel you--
and what's a reasonable date? A month from now?
Ms. Darcy. Yes.
Mr. Rokita. OK, thank you. Do you feel you need any
clarification in the authorizing law to help direct the
spending better to meet your inland waterway needs? Can we
write the next water bill with more specificity in any way that
would help you complete your mandate?
Ms. Darcy. I believe in the last WRRDA bill, the Congress
added some more additional ways that they felt the trust fund
should be used. And, and I know that in the past there have
been many who have felt that the use of the trust fund should
be expanded beyond operation and maintenance.
General Bostick. Right. One area I thought was helpful.
Often we couldn't fund some of the Great Lakes and some of the
small harbors. And some of the provisions were a certain
percentage that would go to those. And we're now able to do
that. So----
Mr. Rokita. Is that the 71 percent you're----
General Bostick. That's the 10 percent.
Mr. Rokita. The 10 percent. And then there's also the 71
percent that we did put in the last water bill.
General Bostick. Right.
Mr. Rokita. That 71 percent of the trust fund had to be
spent on----
General Bostick. Right, right.
Mr. Rokita [continuing]. Inland water.
General Bostick. I was talking about the allocation of the
funds that we have. And we'll get that list to you. We're
required to put 10 percent in Great Lakes and the small
harbors. And we did not have that guidance before that. But
that's again, the Congress and the American people helping to
set the priorities.
Mr. Rokita. So with regard to that, the 10 percent and the
71 percent, it--and I'll put my Budget Committee hat on here
for a minute. I don't see the President's budget proposal
asking for that 71-percent expenditure in those areas that we
required in the last water bill. I see a percentage that
appears less than that, significantly less than that. How do
you explain that?
Ms. Darcy. The $951 million that's in the President's
budget request for 2017 is what we have determined is
affordable from the overall trust fund for fiscal year 2017.
And it's not 71 percent. I'm trying to recall what the exact
percentage is. But it's not 71 percent.
Mr. Rokita. Oh, yeah. But the law says that 71 percent of
last fiscal's collections are supposed to be spent specifically
in these, you know, in the areas we detailed. And you've just
said, ``Well, we've allocated a percentage amount that we think
is responsible.'' What's--there is a huge difference there
obviously. The law says something. And if--I don't want to put
words in your mouth. You can correct me if I'm wrong. You're
saying you did something else? Or is the law not clear?
Ms. Darcy. No, the President has discretion in his budget
to determine the amount that's affordable from the trust fund.
Mr. Rokita. Even though the law says, ``You shall spend 71
percent.'' Is there like a comma or a clause afterwards that
says ``Unless, at the discretion of the President, he can not
do that''? And to be sure, on record, I will say that I bet the
appropriators, Republicans and Democrats are complicit in this,
OK? But if you believe that the President's budget is a tool
for, a tool of leadership and sets tones and all that, why not
just set it at 71 percent? It's what Congress intended, unless
I'm misreading the law.
Ms. Darcy. No, I believe the 71 percent was in the statute.
Mr. Rokita. Right. So it's not a matter of taking more
money than the trust fund has, because it's a percentage, it's
71 percent of whatever was collected. So it's not that. So
what--I mean, why don't we just do what the law says? We're a
country of laws, right?
Ms. Darcy. Yes.
Mr. Rokita. It's what I do for a living these days. All
right. It also seems to me--here's another question--that the
money that is at Treasury for this trust fund is actually being
spent in other places? Or is it, is there still a stack of
money there the tax has collected? And if you're not going to
follow the law, I would say embezzled, from taxpayers to use on
other things? That's embezzlement. But the money is in the
Treasury, right? Or no? Or has it been spent on other things?
Ms. Darcy. It's in the Treasury, yes.
Mr. Rokita. So there's a--the money is there. It's
accounted for. It's just it seems to me being used to offset
spending elsewhere. And no one wants to give up that egg,
because now it's harder to balance. I mean, I do this every
day. I get that, how hard that is. But you think the money is
there. It's not been spent on other things?
Ms. Darcy. No. I think the way you described it is
accurate, that it has been used to balance other things.
Mr. Rokita. No, no, no. But it's there. It's physically
there. It's not so you can balance on paper. Or has it been
actually spent on other things?
Ms. Darcy. I believe it's there. But if I need to clarify
for you----
Mr. Rokita. Yeah.
Ms. Darcy [continuing]. I will do that.
Mr. Rokita. And again, I'm not asking you a trick question,
but I would like a direct answer to that. I just don't know.
And if I have to ask Treasury, you can----
Ms. Darcy. OK.
Mr. Rokita [continuing]. Pretty quickly tell me to ask
Treasury. You don't have to analyze that for 6 months.
Ms. Darcy. Well, maybe I need to ask Treasury.
Mr. Rokita. Yeah. Thank you.
Ms. Darcy. OK.
Mr. Rokita. Mr. Chairman, I yield. I appreciate the
witnesses today.
Mr. Gibbs. All right. I've got a couple more questions.
General Bostick, in your testimony, you talked about the P3s
and your support for that. Even though nothing's really
happening. And this ties into what I said in my opening
statement about 40 percent of the implementation guidance
hasn't been developed by the Corps. And I believe P3 should be
in that category. Can you extrapolate on where we are with the
implementation guidance?
General Bostick. The implementation guidance on the P3?
Mr. Gibbs. Well, P3s, and then it ties specifically I think
overall, you've got about 60 percent of it done. So you've got
40 percent more to go. That's my understanding. And I think P3s
would be in that category. I know you, I know you put out a
guidance on P3s that was kind of not guidance in my opinion.
You just said, ``We'll develop a guidance when funds are
appropriated.'' I don't really think that's guidance.
General Bostick. We put the implementation guidance out on
P3s. And it has about as much detail as we can, moving forward.
I think that the work that we're doing with Fargo-Moorhead will
help us to refine that guidance a bit more. Because there are
just a lot of unknowns out there. In terms of where we're at
now, we expect to have by this summer, about 90 percent of the
requirements done for implementation guidance. We're moving a
lot faster than I thought we were as of last year. We picked up
the pace. We've spent most of our time focused on the really
hard guidance that needed to go out. I think the remainder of
it should go much faster. I think when we briefed you last year
we were at around 38 percent. This year we're around 60 percent
and we'll be at 90 percent by June.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Can you give us a quick update on the
Olmsted project? If you could, talk about what the status is on
that, on the timeline?
General Bostick. I'd have to get back on you. I think we're
still tracking Olmsted around the completion, around 2020, that
we're moving at a faster rate than we thought. Even though
we're well behind the original timeline. But I'll follow up if
2020 is not the date.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. I know we're making progress. I just wanted
to get kind of a followup and an update so we can see. Because
that project has been enormous, as you know. I want to go back
to my previous question, in talking about the Soo locks. You
know, that was authorized I believe in WRDA 1986. So you do
have authorization to move forward. And the cofferdams were
built--do you know about when the cofferdams were put in? Is
that for both locks, or what's the status on the cofferdam?
General Bostick. I--I don't----
Mr. Gibbs. I think it's around 2009 I think.
General Bostick. Yes, I don't have that. I'd have to get
back to you.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. On this, when I mentioned the question about
the Poe lock and the old MacArthur lock, what's the budget to
maintain them, and as we work towards building the new lock?
General Bostick. I'd have to follow up on that. We came in
really prepared to talk about 7001. But we have those details.
Mr. Gibbs. OK.
General Bostick. And we can get them back to you.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. Well, that's good. I mean, I, you know, I'm
harping on this a little bit, because I just think that you
have an authorization to move forward. I would even question
the need to spend a lot of time in an economic study, you've
heard my comments about that earlier. I mean, I don't think we
need to study this for a long time to figure out that it has
benefit cost analysis. You know, because of the importance of
that. So I just wanted to hammer on that again. And you know,
we started the cofferdam. It was put in. And you know, it's
sitting there. And I know that the Michigan delegation did a
little CODEL up there a few months ago. I wasn't able to
participate. But there's a lot of interest up there and a lot
of concern. We know that the Great Lakes as a unit is 25
percent of the economic activity of all the ports in the United
States. And obviously we can't have a big snag up there. And
that would obstruct not only the region, but probably the
economy nationally, in some negative way. So I want to thank
you both for coming today. You know, just in closing, I think
it's important to recognize moving forward the implementation
guidance we talked about. So I'm glad to hear about that. I
think another big area that we talked about is communications
between the different levels in your shop. But in terms of
collaboration with the non-Federal sponsors, I think sometimes
there seems to be some tension. I challenge the Corps to try to
develop a better partnership, develop a relationship and
collaborate. I think that's important. Because I think
everybody out there wants to do what they can do and do the
right thing. But sometimes there's a feeling I get there when I
talk to the non-Federal sponsors that it's not the relationship
that it really should be. So I think that's just something we
need to work on. And so I just wanted to bring that up. And I
want to thank you for both being here today. Do you want--go
ahead, Secretary.
Ms. Darcy. Mr. Chairman, before we leave today I would just
like to acknowledge the person to my left. This is probably the
last time he'll be in front of this committee. The Army and the
Nation are going to retire General Bostick in the spring. And I
just want to publicly thank him for all that he has done for
this organization through his leadership, not only as the Chief
of Engineers but as a General in the United States Army.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you for mentioning that, because I wasn't
aware of that. At least, I had heard of it, but I didn't want
to say anything, because I didn't know how official it was. But
I do want to thank you, General Bostick, for your service. And
thank you for coming up to my district. We had a good day out
there, visiting some of the facilities there in my district
such as the Zoar levee and the Dover Dam, which is, by the way,
completed. And they're doing the Belvedere Dam. And that whole
watershed. That basically takes care of mostly all of eastern
Ohio, and the flood projects that were initiated back in the
1930s are working well.
And the Corps is doing I think a really good job working
with the stakeholders. So I really appreciate the time you
spent out there, and your busy schedule, and your service to
our country. So thank you again, and I wish you very well in
your retirement.
General Bostick. Thank you.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you. Take care. This will adjourn our
committee.
[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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