April 10, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 62 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S2380-S2381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           CORPS OF ENGINEERS FISCAL YEAR 2020 BUDGET REQUEST

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that a copy of 
my opening statement at the Subcommittee on Energy and Water 
Development's budget hearing for the Corps of Engineers and Bureau of 
Reclamation's fiscal year 2020 budget request be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           Corps of Engineers Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request

       Mr. ALEXANDER. First, I would like to thank our witnesses 
     for being here today, and also Senator Feinstein, with whom I 
     have the pleasure to work with again this year to draft the 
     Energy and Water Appropriations bill.
       Our witnesses today include: R.D. James, Assistant 
     Secretary of the Army for Civil Works; Lieutenant General 
     Todd Semonite, Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of 
     Engineers; Brenda Burman, Commissioner for the Bureau of 
     Reclamation at the Department of the Interior; and Timothy R. 
     Petty, Ph.D., Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at 
     the Department of the Interior.
       Based on the number of appropriations requests we receive 
     each year, the Corps of Engineers is the federal government's 
     most popular agency. Because this is so important to many 
     Senators, Senator Feinstein and I have provided record level 
     funding in a regular appropriations bill for the last four 
     years.
       The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers touches the lives of 
     almost every American. The Corps maintains our inland 
     waterways, it deepens and keeps our ports open, and its dams 
     provide emission-free, renewable hydroelectric energy. The 
     Corps also manages river levels to help prevent flooding. 
     This year record rainfall caused the Missouri River to 
     experience historic flooding, devastating parts of Iowa, 
     Nebraska and Missouri.
       I can recall when, after the Missouri and Mississippi 
     rivers flooded in 2011, a room full of Senators showed up at 
     a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing to 
     ask what went wrong and what went right with disaster relief 
     efforts. So, there's a real interest in what the Corps does.
       So, last year, Senator Feinstein and I worked together to 
     provide record funding for the Corps of Engineers--a total of 
     $7 billion. However, this year, the president's budget 
     request only includes $4.8 billion for the Corps--a dramatic 
     reduction in spending. In my opinion, we should spend more, 
     not less, on our nation's water infrastructure.
       Today I will focus my questions on four main areas:
       1. Making our nation's water infrastructure a priority and 
     properly funding our inland waterways system;
       2. Adequately funding our nation's ports and harbors;
       3. Making sure the Corps has the resources it needs to 
     respond to flooding and make repairs so they can continue to 
     manage river levels, and;
       4. Using a more common-sense approach to making decisions 
     about which projects receive funding by looking at the 
     ``remaining benefit to cost ratio'' of an ongoing project. 
     Today, because of Office of Management and Budget rules, the 
     Corps has to pretend a project is not already under 
     construction when the Corps decides which projects will 
     receive funding each year. This does not make any sense, and 
     makes it harder to complete projects on time and on budget.
       In 2012, Senator Graham, Senator Feinstein, and I said, 
     ``Let's ask what would a great country, the United States, 
     want from its ports, locks, dams, and waterways in order to 
     fully maximize them for our economic growth.''
       We asked everyone to focus first on what needed to be done 
     and not get bogged down in the difficulties of how to pay for 
     it. From these discussions, Congress took three important 
     steps, focusing on properly funding our inland waterways 
     system.
       First, Congress passed a law that reduced the amount of 
     money that comes from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund to 
     replace Olmsted Lock, a project in Illinois and Kentucky that 
     was soaking up almost all of the money that was available for 
     inland waterway projects.
       Second, we worked with the commercial waterways industry to 
     establish a priority list for projects that needed to be 
     funded, on which Chickamauga ranks near the top, in fourth 
     place.
       And third, we enacted a user fee increase that commercial 
     barge owners asked to pay in order to provide additional 
     funds to replace locks and dams across the country, including 
     Chickamauga Lock.
       These steps increased the amount of funding that was 
     available for inland waterways projects from about $85 
     million in fiscal year 2014 to $105 million in fiscal year 
     2020. And Congress has followed through by appropriating all 
     of the user fees that have been collected in the last five 
     years. The user fees that are paid into the Inland Waterways 
     Trust Fund by waterway users are matched with federal 
     dollars, which allow the Corps of Engineers to make 
     significant progress to address the backlog of work on our 
     inland waterways.
       But despite knowing the Inland Waterways Trust Fund would 
     have $105 million available for fiscal year 2020, the 
     Administration's budget is only proposing to spend $55.5 
     million--which leaves 47% of these funds sitting unspent in a 
     Treasury account. Then we would not be spending the money for 
     the intended purpose. And despite not spending the entire 
     $105 million in user fees from commercial barges, the 
     administration's budget also includes a new user fee for 
     inland waterways that would raise another $1.8 billion over a 
     10-year window.

[[Page S2381]]

       I do not think this is a responsible approach. It makes no 
     sense to ask barge owners to pay more in fees when the 
     administration is not even proposing to spend all the fees we 
     are collecting today. The budget also only proposes to fund a 
     single project using Inland Waterways Trust Fund revenues, 
     the Lower Monongahela, and eliminates funding for the other 
     two projects that have been funded for construction for the 
     last five years--Kentucky Lock and Chickamauga Lock.
       I can't count the number of times that the head of the 
     Corps--including General Semonite--has told me that it makes 
     no sense to start and stop construction. It's not an 
     efficient way to build projects and it is a waste of taxpayer 
     money. Replacing Chickamauga Lock is important to all of 
     Tennessee and if Chickamauga Lock closes, it will throw 
     150,000 more trucks onto 1-75. Funding for construction of 
     the new Chickamauga Lock has been provided for the past five 
     years so it does not make sense for the administration to not 
     include the project in the budget request. This year's budget 
     proposal is a huge step backwards for our nation's inland 
     waterways.
       We have done a good job providing record level funding over 
     the last five years to adequately fund our nation's harbors, 
     including Mobile Harbor in Alabama; Savannah Harbor in 
     Georgia; and Long Beach Harbor in California; and many others 
     across the country. Six years ago, Congress took a look at 
     the need to provide more funding for our nation's ports and 
     harbors to ensure we can compete with other harbors around 
     the world. We realized that the government was spending only 
     a fraction of the taxes each year that were collected in the 
     Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for our ports and harbors, 
     resulting in billions of dollars of unspent funds just 
     sitting in a bank account that got bigger and bigger each 
     year.
       In fact, unlike the Inland Waterways Trust Fund--which has 
     virtually no balance in the trust fund--the Harbor 
     Maintenance Trust Fund has an unspent balance of over $9 
     billion today. To provide more funding for our ports and 
     harbors, Congress enacted spending targets for the Harbor 
     Maintenance Trust Fund in the Water Resources Reform and 
     Development Act of 2014 that were meant to make us spend a 
     little more each year on harbor maintenance projects.
       We have met these targets for the last five years in the 
     Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill. The target 
     for fiscal year 2020 is about $1.595 billion. However, the 
     administration's budget only proposes to spend $965 million, 
     $585 million less than what Congress appropriated last year 
     and $630 million below the target. So I will ask the 
     witnesses how they plan to sufficiently fund our ports and 
     harbors without requesting adequate resources to do it.
       Several members of this subcommittee are interested in 
     making sure the Corps has the resources it needs to deal with 
     the recent flooding in the Midwest and along the Missouri and 
     Mississippi Rivers. I look forward to hearing from the 
     witnesses about what resources they need so that we can make 
     sure they are included in the disaster supplemental 
     appropriation bill.
       I'd also like to recognize Brenda Burman, Commissioner from 
     the Bureau of Reclamation and Dr. Timothy Petty, Assistant 
     Secretary for Water and Science at the Department of the 
     Interior. The Bureau of Reclamation delivers water to one of 
     every five farmers in the West, irrigating more than 10 
     million acres of some of the most productive agricultural 
     land in the country. Although Reclamation doesn't manage 
     water resources in Tennessee, I know of its deep importance 
     to Senator Feinstein and other Senators on this subcommittee, 
     and we look forward to hearing your testimony.

                          ____________________