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TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE

10 COMMON SENSE REFORMS FOR THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS:

Taxpayer and conservation groups offer this “Prescription for Reform” to begin treatment for the ailing U.S. Army Corps of Engineers within the next 90 days. These are 10 specific steps that this Congress and this Administration can take this year to begin changing the way the Corps approves and constructs water resources projects, making the agency more environmentally sensitive and less wasteful of taxpayers' dollars.

Top Actions Congress Should Take This Year:

1) Require Independent Review for Large or Controversial Projects
Too many Corps projects are economically questionable. Projects whose costs exceed $25 million or are considered controversial by state or federal officials should be subject to outside review. An Office of Independent Review should be created within the Corps to assemble panels of experts to review completed Corps feasibility studies. Independent review would catch technical errors and discourage future abuse by Corps planners.

2) Tighten Criteria and Prioritize Corps Projects
Since the 1920's, the policy has been to build any flood control or navigation project if the economic benefits “to whomever they may accrue” exceed the costs to taxpayers. Once Corps planners find that a project will produce even a penny more in benefits than the costs – even if those benefits are to private interests – the project can be added to the construction list. But money in real life is limited, and the Corps now has a construction backlog of up to $46 billion in federal costs. Criteria should be updated to build solely those projects that primarily provide public benefits, and to require that benefits significantly exceed costs by more than just one penny. A priority list for flood control and navigation projects would help weed out the most questionable projects.

3) Require Full, Concurrent Mitigation for Project Impacts
In many cases, the Corps replaces a fraction of the wetlands and other habitat their projects destroy. This is typically based on the theory that a few artificially managed acres of habitat can replace the natural functions of ecosystems. But the $8 billion Everglades project reflects modern understanding that rivers, wetlands and coastal waters depend on the natural patterns of flow. In some cases, the Corps has simply failed to mitigate for the environmental impacts of their projects. The Corps should be required to replace each acre of habitat destroyed by Corps levees and dams with a similar acre of habitat, and mitigation should be completed at the same time civil works projects are constructed.

4) Require Greater Local Cost-Sharing
Local sponsors of traditional Corps civil works projects should be required to share more project costs, including 50 percent of structural flood control projects and 65 percent of beach re-nourishment project maintenance. Requiring greater local cost-sharing would discourage risky development in floodplains and coastal zones.

5) Suspend Questionable Projects
Many Corps projects have been criticized by outside experts for seriously flawed economic and environmental studies. Despite the supposed “greening of the Corps,” many Corps projects continue to have unacceptably high environmental costs and specious economics. Three Lower Mississippi River Delta flood control projects, for instance, would effectively destroy more than 100,000 acres of wetlands – more than the entire nation destroys each year. Several proposed civil works projects – including the Big Sunflower Dredging, Columbia River Dredging, Industrial Lock Canal Expansion in New Orleans, Dallas Floodway Extension, Savannah Harbor Extension, White River Navigation, Delaware River Dredging, Yazoo Pumps, and the St. Johns Bayou/New Madrid Floodway – should be suspended until Corps studies can be subjected to independent review.

6) Restore Civilian Control
Since 1993, the Clinton Administration has delegated too much responsibility to the Corps' military leaders to placate local cost-sharing partners. The Clinton Administration should restore civilian control to the Corps by restoring technical review of projects to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. The Chief of Engineers should report to the Assistant Secretary of the Army — not to Congressional allies.

7) Seek Economic and Environmental Objectives
Currently, Corps planners try to maximize economic benefits and then mitigate for the environmental impacts of proposed projects. Instead, the Corps' planning guidelines should be reformed to make economic and environmental benefits co-equal goals of project planning. When the Corps' Environmental Advisory Board determines that project impacts cannot be mitigated, that project should be rejected.

8) Reform Cost-Benefit Methodology
The Corps typically uses benefit-cost methods that are riddled with problems that exaggerate benefits while underestimating costs. It counts private benefits as public benefits, ignores the benefits of healthy rivers and streams, too often fails to account for environmentally robust alternatives to Corps projects, and often overstates projected demand. Most of these methods reflect informal policies rather than regulations. The Corps' benefit-cost methodology should be reformed.

9) Promote Regional Port Planning
While some deepwater ports will be needed, the Administration, Congress and the Corps should promote regional port planning to minimize redundancy, overcapacity and environmental damage in port expansion. The Administration should create a “Regional Port Planning Commissi.png” to ensure port development, including deep-water ports, follows a rational process on the regional scale. This Commission should be designed to assure creation of an overall port system that assures the evaluation of regional markets and environments in port development.

10) Stop Building Projects that Drain Wetlands to Increase Crop Production
The federal government is spending billions of dollars to take excess and environmentally sensitive cropland out of production to reduce crop surpluses. “Swampbuster” bars crop subsidies to those who drain wetlands to enhance crop production. Yet Corps projects continue to drain wetlands and other flood prone farmland to produce more crops and crop surpluses. Corps projects should not be designed to drain wetlands or flood prone farmland for new or enhanced commodity crop production. While this policy should not preclude projects that drain modest areas of wetlands for purposes incidental to other project purposes, the benefits from new or enhanced commodity crop production in areas that are now wetlands should not be counted as economic benefits.