Dear Member of Congress:

We understand that H.R. 3080, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014, will be on the House Floor today and on the Senate Floor later this week. This bill authorizes water projects, studies, and policies for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ten-year score for the bill is $12.3 billion “with additional spending continuing for many years after.” It’s worth noting that CBO scores for these bills are historically low. H.R. 3080 fails to deliver enough on the reform moniker and we oppose its passage.  Here are several concerns:

Backlog – The Corps has a $60-80 billion project backlog and receives less than $2 billion in construction funding annually. The total project authorizations in this bill have spiked dramatically even since the House considered their bill last October. The total authorized project costs are approximately $26 billion, with a federal cost of almost $16 billion. Even with the project deauthorization system established in the bill, which we support, only a few billion dollars will be shaved off the backlog. In addition, the legislation explicitly protects the roughly $28 billion worth of projects that were authorized in WRDA 2007, even those that have yet to see a dime of construction funding seven years after passage. The bill does require a full public reporting of the backlog which Taxpayers for Common Sense strongly supports.

Authorization – We appreciate that the legislation sets up an authorization system that would not require earmarks. However, there are no sidebars on the system. Local interests would suggest projects to Corps districts that would have to study them and submit recommended projects to Congress. Without Congress providing a prioritization system and criteria and with little restriction on what can and cannot be submitted, the system may overwhelm Corps districts. In addition, any project that fits in the Corps mission and is estimated to return even just one penny on the dollar would be submitted to Congress. Lawmakers are not good at saying no to constituent projects. It would be far better to build in certain criteria, including significant return on investment, to the authorization system.

Increased Harbor Spending – The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund has received far more revenue than has been spent in recent years. The appropriate response to that is to reform the major cross-subsidies or reduce the tax rate or both. Instead, H.R. 3080 tries to mandate greater payouts from the trust fund. In addition, the bill grabs future overall increases in Corps funding for harbor maintenance. The bill also mandates full federal spending on maintenance in harbors up to 50 feet deep, from the current level of 45 feet. In addition, the bill allows federal spending on traditionally non-federal projects like confined sediment disposal facilities and berth (“driveway”) dredging. The bill also creates an “emerging harbor” category, directing as much as 10 percent of the funding to ports with less than 1,000,000 tons of traffic. According to the most recent port data, that would be a set-aside for ports ranked 136th and less in traffic, which is hardly a national priority.

Rolling Back Reforms – A hallmark of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 was the creation of Independent Peer Review for costly, controversial, or critical projects. As IPR has been implemented there have been bumps along the way, but as the Government Accountability Office documented in 2012, much of that has been the Corps’ own doing. In addition, the Corps has arbitrarily ignored recommendations. Instead of increasing the cost trigger for IPR by 400 percent to $200 million, H.R. 3080 should be strengthening the system.

Kentucky Kickback: the Sequel – H.R. 3080 increases the federal share of the Olmsted Lock and Dam Project to 85 percent (from 50) in a likely prelude to full federalization after conference with the Senate.

Great Wall of Louisiana – H.R. 3080 includes the $10 billion Morganza to the Gulf project – a Rube Goldberg scheme that has nearly 100 miles of levees and floodgates. The largest of the levees are 16 feet tall and as wide as two football fields are long. After billions of dollars, the project would only provide 100-year level flood protection, a paltry amount easily overtopped by a hurricane. In addition, the Corps own documents reveal that using a more realistic discount rate on future costs and benefits would result in a project that returns far less than a dollar for every dollar spent, meaning the project would not be cost-justified, thus failing to meet the criteria for authorization.

Taxpayers for Common Sense would welcome significant reform of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works program. But although H.R. 3080 contains reform in the title, it fails to deliver on the promise.

We urge you to oppose the bill.

For more information contact me or Steve Ellis at 202-546-8500 or steve[at]taxpayer.net.

Sincerely,

Ryan Alexander
President