[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                      ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT

                        APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2001

_______________________________________________________________________

                                HEARINGS

                                BEFORE A

                           SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                         HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                       ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
                             SECOND SESSION
                                ________
              SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
                    RON PACKARD, California, Chairman
 HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky               PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
 JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan             CHET EDWARDS, Texas
 RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey   ED PASTOR, Arizona
 SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama               MICHAEL P. FORBES, New York
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa
 ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi       

 NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Young, as Chairman of the Full 
Committee, and Mr. Obey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full 
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.

          Robert Schmidt and Jeanne L. Wilson, Staff Assistants
                                ________
                                 PART 1

                        DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
                          CORPS OF ENGINEERS
            OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
                 (CIVIL WORKS) AND CHIEF OF ENGINEERS


                                ________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
                                ________

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
64-618                     WASHINGTON : 2000
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                      COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                   C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida, Chairman

 RALPH REGULA, Ohio                    DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin
 JERRY LEWIS, California               JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania
 JOHN EDWARD PORTER, Illinois          NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
 HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky               MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota
 JOE SKEEN, New Mexico                 JULIAN C. DIXON, California
 FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia               STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
 TOM DeLAY, Texas                      ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia
 JIM KOLBE, Arizona                    MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
 RON PACKARD, California               NANCY PELOSI, California
 SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama               PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
 JAMES T. WALSH, New York              NITA M. LOWEY, New York
 CHARLES H. TAYLOR, North Carolina     JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
 DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio                 ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
 ERNEST J. ISTOOK, Jr., Oklahoma       JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
 HENRY BONILLA, Texas                  JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
 JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan             ED PASTOR, Arizona
 DAN MILLER, Florida                   CARRIE P. MEEK, Florida
 JAY DICKEY, Arkansas                  DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
 JACK KINGSTON, Georgia                MICHAEL P. FORBES, New York
 RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey   CHET EDWARDS, Texas
 ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi          ROBERT E. ``BUD'' CRAMER, Jr., 
 GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, Jr.,            Alabama
Washington                             MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
 RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM,            LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
California                             SAM FARR, California
 TODD TIAHRT, Kansas                   JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
 ZACH WAMP, Tennessee                  CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa                      ALLEN BOYD, Florida
 ANNE M. NORTHUP, Kentucky             
 ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama           
 JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri              
 JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire         
 KAY GRANGER, Texas                    
 JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania        
 VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia        

                 James W. Dyer, Clerk and Staff Director

                                  (ii)

 
          ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2001

                              ----------

                                           Tuesday, March 28, 2000.

               DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, CORPS OF ENGINEERS

                               WITNESSES

DR. JOSEPH. W. WESTPHAL, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
LTG JOE N. BALLARD, CHIEF, CORPS OF ENGINEERS
MG HANS A VAN WINKLE, DEPUTY COMMANDING GENERAL FOR CIVIL WORKS
THOMAS F. CAVER, JR., CHIEF, PROGRAMS MANAGEMENT DIVISION, DIRECTORATE 
    OF CIVIL WORKS
BG CARL A. STROCK, NORTHWESTERN DIVISION
BG M. STEPHEN RHOADES, NORTH ATLANTIC DIVISION
BG PETER T. MADSEN, SOUTH PACIFIC DIVISION
COL SEAN M. WACHUTKA, GREAT LAKES AND OHIO RIVER DIVISION

                              INTRODUCTION

    Mr. Packard. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, we 
appreciate your attendance at this hearing. We will call the 
hearing to order. This morning we are extremely pleased to 
welcome Dr. Joseph Westphal, the Assistant Secretary of the 
Army for Civil Works; also, Lieutenant General Joseph Ballard, 
we are very delighted to have you back with us again. In fact, 
I believe, General, that this will be your last official 
approach to the Committee. We congratulate you on a very 
distinguished career.
    We are also pleased to have with us Major General Hans Van 
Winkle, we appreciate you being here, General. General Van 
Winkle is the Deputy Commander for Civil Works. They will be 
testifying, at least Secretary Westphal and General Ballard 
will be testifying and, of course, you will be welcome to make 
any comments you would like, General Van Winkle.
    We are also grateful to have with us the Division 
Commanders. This is the time for them to be here, and we 
welcome back Mr. Caver, we are glad to have you with us.
    Thus far, the Year 2000 has been a rather interesting and 
exciting year for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and probably 
more exciting than you would like to see it. [Laughter.]
    For a while, it seemed like that we could count on there 
being a story about the Corps in the newspapers almost every 
day. And, unfortunately for you, they weren't very flattering, 
to say the least. We may have some questions on that as we 
proceed through the hearing process today. We think that some 
of those are rather serious accusations and we ought to at 
least give you an opportunity to respond to them and we will 
see how that proceeds.
    I would like to state, for the record, that I believe that 
we should all wait for the facts before any real judgment is 
made relative to what has come out in the newspapers.
    We will place all of your written testimonies, including 
the Division Commanders' written testimony in the record and 
they will be made an official part of the record. I have read 
virtually all--it took up most of my weekend to read your 
testimonies--all of them, but it was very good, they were very 
well done and I appreciate them.
    If anyone else has any opening statements, we will give you 
an opportunity if you have a desire to make any opening 
statement. If not, then let us proceed.
    We have received both the oral and written full testimony 
of both you, Dr. Westphal, and General Ballard and also General 
Van Winkle. Your written and full statement will be entered 
into the record and we would be very pleased to have your oral 
testimony and we will proceed on that basis.
    If we have covered everything then let us proceed in this 
order. We will hear from Dr. Westphal first, and then General 
Ballard and then anyone else that may have some oral statements 
that they would like to make and then we will open it up to 
questions and answers.
    Dr. Westphal?

                       TESTIMONY OF DR. WESTPHAL

    Dr. Westphal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman 
Visclosky, distinguished members of the Committee, I am 
delighted to be here. I also join with you in congratulating 
General Ballard on a very distinguished military career, his 
service to the nation and the great job that he has done in his 
tenure as Chief of Engineers. I know that I am going to miss 
him in this job and I hope that his retirement is a fulfilled 
one.
    I am also saddened by the event of your departure from the 
Congress. You bring not only a great record but tremendous 
respect from both sides of the aisle and I speak, I think, for 
the Administration in saying that we are saddened to see you 
leave Congress and certainly the Chairmanship of this 
Subcommittee. But I hope that you also will have the great 
opportunity to enjoy your grandchildren and play some golf and 
enjoy that Southern California weather.
    Mr. Packard. Should be a good life. [Laughter.]
    Dr. Westphal. Mr. Chairman, back in 1824, when Congress 
passed the Rivers and Harbors Act, Congress made an 
appropriation, its first appropriation to the Army Corps of 
Engineers, in the sum of about $75,000 for the purpose of the 
``removal of snags and saywers and planters and other 
impediments of that nature,'' from the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers. This year the President's budget request for the fiscal 
year 2001 totals $4.063 billion. It is $163 million above the 
President's budget proposal for last year. And we expect that 
the non-Federal contributions and other sources to be 
approximately $395 million in fiscal year 2001 and bring that 
total to about $4.5 billion.
    So, from that initial $75,000 appropriation in 1824, our 
investment in water and related land resources is estimated to 
be worth $124 billion today. From that initial job of clearing 
snags on the Ohio River, the Army Corps of Engineers now works 
to serve the nation's needs in such areas as toxic and 
hazardous waste cleanup, recreation, disaster relief, shoreline 
protection, hydropower generation, flood protection, 
environmental restoration and other missions.
    This year, the President is requesting your support in 
funding three important initiatives that will greatly help our 
ability to integrate planning priorities, help us to address an 
important backlog of maintenance of our infrastructure and 
protect lives, save money and improve the environment through a 
nonstructural flood damage reduction program.
    First, with this budget, we are proposing to undertake four 
comprehensive watershed studies. In 1997, my predecessor, 
Martin Lancaster, made a presentation to the World Water Forum. 
He stated that: ``As we approach the 21st century, the need for 
new modes of interstate cooperation grows, in both humid and 
arid areas. Reliance on court judgments has proved too 
expensive, inflexible, time consuming and precedent-bound to 
meet our needs realistically.'' I think he was right.
    Strengthening our ability to work with our Federal, State 
and Tribal partners early in the process is critical. I believe 
our proposal can serve as a model for future planning efforts 
that yield positive results and quicker and more effective 
solutions to problems that will enable us to design and build 
good projects in the future.
    Congresses and Presidents have greatly expanded the ability 
of the Army Corps of Engineers to meet both engineering demands 
as well as the environmental goals of society. Adding economics 
to the mix, we now must use an integrated approach to balancing 
all three priorities.
    Our population continues to increase, we continue to be 
vulnerable to droughts as well as many other effects of 
unacceptable water as a result of stormwater drainage, combined 
sewer overflows, nonpoint source pollution and lack of modern 
water delivery and sanitation infrastructure.
    We also have the needs of agriculture, flood control, 
industrial uses of water and water supply to urban areas. These 
complex, basin-wide issues can only be solved through processes 
that integrate the efforts of local stakeholders and State and 
Federal agencies.
    Our strategy is simple. We have selected four major 
watersheds that face many of the problems listed above. The 
four pilot projects will undertake a comprehensive study of the 
water resources needs of the basin. We will identify Federal, 
Tribal and State and local partners to share costs and we will 
focus on solving problems.
    The four pilot projects are: The Rio Grande, the Lower 
Missouri-Middle Mississippi River basin, the White River in 
Arkansas and the Yellowstone River in Montana.
    The second initiative is aimed at reducing our significant 
backlog of maintenance on our recreation areas. The Army Corps 
of Engineers is responsible for 4,340 recreation areas at 456 
lakes in 42 States. These recreation areas host 377 million 
visitors annually.
    We are requesting $27 million in fiscal year 2001 to 
initiate a recreation modernization program which will replace 
or rehabilitate facilities at some of the more than 2,389 
recreation areas that the Army Corps of Engineers manages 
directly. Many of these facilities were constructed in the 
1960s and 1970s and the combination of heavy use, lack of 
routine maintenance, and changes in visitor needs has caused 
significant deterioration of recreation facilities and the 
natural resource base at some of these lakes.
    We hope to modernize about one-quarter of the Corps-managed 
recreation areas over the next 5-to-10 years. These 
improvements will include upgrading facilities, installing more 
family-oriented facilities, and improving general access to 
water recreation-related opportunities.
    The third initiative is our Challenge 21 program, better 
known as the Riverine Ecosystem Restoration and Flood Hazard 
Mitigation Program. The fiscal year 2001 budget includes $20 
million to initiate Challenge 21, authorized in WRDA 1999. This 
initiative expands the use of nonstructural flood hazard 
mitigation options and restoration of riverine systems to allow 
more natural recession of floodwaters and provide other 
benefits to communities and the environment. Challenge 21 will 
create partnerships with communities and establish a framework 
for more effective coordination with key agencies.
    The fiscal year 2001 budget for the Army Civil Works 
program includes $82 million to initiate new investments with a 
total cost of $1.6 billion. Of that total, $410 million will be 
financed directly by non-Federal sponsors, including lands, 
easements, rights-of-way, and relocations. In addition to the 
four comprehensive studies and three new programs that I noted 
earlier, the fiscal year 2001 budget will include four new 
surveys, one special study, one new preconstruction engineering 
and design project, and 12 new construction starts.
    The Administration is committed to the traditional missions 
of improving our navigation and transportation system, 
protection of our local communities from floods and other 
disasters, and maintaining and improving hydropower facilities 
across the country.
    Together with these important national priorities, the Army 
Corps of Engineers is also the nation's premier environmental 
restoration agency. This budget provides for the continued 
development and management of the nation's water resources 
infrastructure and the continuation of our work to enhance, 
protect and restore the environment.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I conclude my oral presentation.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Westphal follows:]



                        TESTIMONY OF LTG BALLARD

    Mr. Packard. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    General Ballard.
    General Ballard. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Visclosky, members of 
the Subcommittee, I am honored to testify once more on the 
President's budget for the Civil Works Program.
    As you noted, this is my last appearance before you as the 
Chief of Engineers. I would like to offer my congratulations to 
you, also. You have been a tremendous friend of the Corps and a 
great servant to this nation. I want to wish you the very best 
of luck as you transition.
    I take great pride in the work that the two of us and this 
Committee has done over the last three years to ensure that the 
Civil Works Program remains strong and highly productive. But 
until my watch is over in just a few months, I will continue to 
work with you to that end, and I look forward to your continued 
partnership in this great program.
    My complete statement covers three topics. The summary of 
the Civil Works Program's budget, which Dr. Westphal has just 
taken you through; reducing the Corps' maintenance backlog; and 
meeting the nation's water resources management needs. And with 
your permission, I will submit that statement for the record as 
you have so noted.
    I would like to talk to you today about some significant 
national challenges in water resource management and I will 
also address the recent media coverage on the Corps' work.As 
you know, my Regional Divisional Commanders are here with me today and 
they are available to answer any of your questions.
    First, a few words about the challenge of meeting the 
nation's water resource management needs. The national needs 
and priorities must be continually reevaluated to ensure that 
we provide the best possible service to the nation, and we have 
identified five areas where the nation faces significant water 
resource challenges and these are in the areas of navigation, 
flood protection, environmental management, infrastructure 
renovation, and disaster response assistance.
    We must meet these challenges in order to preserve and 
promote our future national welfare. And to that end, we need 
to increase our investment in water resource management, we 
need to invest in improving our water resource infrastructure, 
many parts of which have outlasted their design lives at a time 
when the usage is growing.
    We need to meet new challenges for water resource 
investments, brought about by increasing trade, population, 
population shifts, and environmental values. And we need to 
invest, in addition to our water resources infrastructure, to 
the extent that improving existing infrastructure will not meet 
national needs.
    Now, to address some recent media coverage of the Corps 
and, as you noted, it has not been very favorable. Allegations 
that I am trying to grow the Corps with respect to the number 
of employees is ridiculous, at best. Over the past four years, 
we have reduced the size of the organization by nearly 10 
percent, while streamlining and improving our business 
processes. Let me say that the nation's workload for our 
mission is growing, but we are not. There are allegations of 
wrongdoing in the Upper Mississippi and the Illinois River 
Navigation Studies and they are very troubling to me. They 
attempt to challenge the fundamental value of the Army Corps of 
Engineers to the nation and the foundation of that value is 
trust in our absolute integrity to provide water resources 
investment recommendations that are unbiased and technically 
sound.
    And I am certain, beyond a doubt, that your trust in this 
agency has not been misplaced. And I will say to this Committee 
that we welcome all independent investigations of the 
allegations. I will take prompt corrective action if wrongdoing 
is discovered and will make improvements in our processes if 
warranted.
    However, when all the facts are in, the integrity of the 
Corps will be intact and you will know that the trust that you 
have placed in the Corps is well-founded. I can tell you that I 
firmly believe in the professionalism and the dedication of the 
Corps team and I have great trust in my leaders.
    Our planning process provides for multiple reviews to 
assure objectivity. And these include technical reviews, formal 
public reviews, headquarter policy reviews, State and agency 
coordination requirements, and final review by the Executive 
Branch and I place in front of you a chart that shows this 
complete process.
    And for this study in question, the draft report has not 
even been completed, much less undergone the process that we 
talked about. And here is the slide that I was talking about 
over on that chart to your right. It is important to remember 
that there are no easy, clear-cut answers to the complex issues 
that we face in water resource management. I can tell you that 
technical experts honestly disagree on specifics, and in our 
business invariably there is an interest group that is opposed 
to some aspect of our work. That is just the nature of our 
business.
    Our job is to balance sometime conflicting public interests 
with the needs of the nation. The bottom line is that the Corps 
planning process delivers recommendations, addressing the 
national interests based on sound engineering judgment.
    Now, let me just bring you up to speed very quickly on 
where we are on the status of activities relating to the 
particular study in question. Our headquarters completed its 
policy review on some of the study team's draft products and we 
found that the District conducted the study in accordance with 
the Corps regulations on implementing the principles and 
guidelines. Nevertheless, information and some explanations are 
required. The complete findings were provided to the Division 
for further action. And this, by the way, is a normal step in 
our process for a study of this size and complexity. We are 
talking about a 10-year study looking out to the year 2050, not 
an exact process.
    There are several external investigations and reviews in 
progress, including work being done by the Army Inspector 
General, the survey and investigation staff of the House 
Committee on Appropriations; the Secretary of the Army has also 
directed that an independent assessment be made on the 
economics of the study. The National Academy of Sciences will 
perform this review.
    I am confident that the findings of these investigations 
will confirm that our planning process and execution of that 
process is fundamentally sound.
    Now, let me conclude. We need to invest in water resource 
management infrastructure to meet the challenges based on 
national needs. And through deliberate streamlining and 
improvement of our business processes and downsizing of our 
work force, we continue to maximize the actual and potential 
value of our organization to the Civil Works Program, to the 
Army, and to the nation.
    And, finally, we are pursuing our mission with the utmost 
professionalism and integrity. And I am confident that our 
planning process and the judgment of our leaders are sound and 
yield balanced recommendations for wise water resource 
investment.
    Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again, and members of the 
Committee, and this concludes my statement.
    [The prepared statement of General Ballard follows:]



                            OTHER WITNESSES

    Mr. Packard. Thank you very much, General Ballard.
    General Van Winkle, did you have a statement you would like 
to make?
    General Van Winkle. No, I don't.
    Mr. Packard. Mr. Caver?
    Mr. Caver. No, thank you.
    [The prepared statement of General Van Winkle follows:]



    Mr. Packard. Thank you very much.
    I think it is noteworthy that we have such an excellent 
attendance at our hearing today by members of the Subcommittee. 
I will be here for the entire hearing, but several of the 
members of this Subcommittee have several other hearings going 
on right now so that many of them will be in and out. In 
deference to them I am going to withhold my questions because I 
will be here to ask them later.
    I will turn to Mr. Visclosky for any questions he may have.
    Mr. Visclosky. Mr. Chairman, I am here for the duration as 
well so if other members have to go, I am fine for a while.
    Mr. Packard. That is fine. We will to go to Mr. Rogers.
    Mr. Rogers. I thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for 
the courtesy. We appreciate that very much.
    It is good to see the Secretary and Generals and staff for 
this annual visit. We all on this Subcommittee have our general 
interest, of course, in the Corps and the issues that you are 
having to wrestle with, including the recent allegations, 
General Ballard, and perhaps we will have some questions on 
that as we go along here, but we also have our parochial 
interests that I know shocks you, but----[Laughter.]

                                 PRIDE

    Mr. Rogers. And Secretary Westphal has been with me several 
times now in my district in Eastern Kentucky as we toured and 
looked at flood control projects and also at a thing of which I 
am very proud and that is the Pride organization. That stands 
for Personal Responsibility In a Desirable Environment. General 
Van Winkle has been with us as well. And it is a truly amazing 
project. There are literally tens of thousands of kids, civic 
club members, church groups, picking up hundreds of tons of 
trash. Tens of thousands of appliances that were dumped over 
hillsides into creeks have been removed, illegal dumps cleaned 
up by the hundreds, absolutely an amazing program.
    And also to clean up the water, a relic of coal mining 
camps past when people had a little pipe that dripped a few 
drops of water from the kitchen perhaps or the wash basin, the 
only water in the house in those days, into the yard and it 
seeped into the ground. We brought in city water and now they 
have dishwashers and commodes and showers and that little 
straight pipe, we forgot about it, but it's now gushing 24 
hours a day into streams and literally making the streams 
running sewers. And the Corps has undertaken with us the chore 
of trying to, over the long haul, clean these things up and it 
is an amazing program that is working beyond anything I ever 
dreamt.
    But one of the biggest headaches we have had, of course, is 
getting rid of these straight pipes. And the Corps was tasked 
with assisting the State and other agencies in trying to do 
that and the Corps' task was to take areas that were not 
accessible to a regular sewer line extension and build 
innovative waste water treatment programs, sand dune lagoons, 
various other types of things, to gather up sewage from 20, 30 
homes and filter it and let it be disposed of somewhat 
naturally.
    But we have really hit a snag. We run into the bureaucracy 
of the Corps because the Corps insists that all, practically 
all, projects must be approved above the District level, in 
Washington. But these are tiny projects as they go. For 
example, I am looking at the Sally Stevens Branch project. That 
is a sewer line extension for 60 households. The total cost is 
$66,000. But it was kicked upstairs, like all of them. The 
District Engineers weren't allowed to proceed without being 
approved by Washington. They waited four months for Washington 
to approve the design of a sewer line extension. The estimated 
cost to the taxpayer of that Corps processing and delay was 
over $36,000. That is over half thecost of the project at the 
outset.
    Now, are we growing--we are not growing the Corps on this 
money are we, General Ballard?
    General Ballard. I don't think so.

                     PROJECT COOPERATION AGREEMENTS

    Mr. Rogers. And there is a bunch like that. And Secretary 
Westphal and I have talked about these. Last year in the bill, 
as you will recollect, we included language about the PCA 
process, to streamline the PCA process--that is the Project 
Cooperation Agreement process--so as to try to get rid of this 
problem which we talked about last year. We even included 
language in the bill directing a report on it by February 1st 
and I haven't seen that. I don't think it has been filed, has 
it?
    Dr. Westphal. No. I still have the report, it is in my 
office now.
    Mr. Rogers. But I think aside from the PCA delegation 
question, these so-called 531 projects, these tiny, innovative, 
unique to this region projects--I don't think any other section 
of the country is doing this--these are tiny and they don't 
require very much investigation. Why can't the District Office 
be able to proceed on these that are so simple?
    And, Secretary Westphal, you and I have talked and we are 
going to talk some more but, I wanted to be sure that we got 
this question on the record because it is of vital importance 
to me. The Corps' part of the PRIDE Program down there, 
although the State is a huge partner and the local governments 
are pitching in as well, and civic clubs, and civic people by 
the tens of thousands are involved, but it is the Army Corps of 
Engineers' piece of getting rid of wastewater and cleaning up 
those streams that is the central core of what that PRIDE 
Project is doing for about a third of the State of Kentucky, a 
third of the geography.
    So, I know we will talk more but could you give us 
something for the record.
    Dr. Westphal. Sure. Well, I have been down there to see 
those projects. In fact, when General Van Winkle was the 
Division Commander there, we travelled together to see some of 
those projects. They are truly impressive, and I think you are 
probably doing more to clean up the waters of the United States 
in your district than almost anywhere else in the country. I 
think that is a tremendous contribution you are making, and as 
I told you, I am committed to working with you and with the 
Corps to streamline that process.
    But also the delays and problems are also sometimes due to 
the lack of resources from communities that are very poor, that 
can't meet the cost-sharing requirements. We have got to find 
ways to fix that problem.
    Because in the long-term and in the comprehensive watershed 
idea, which is also something we are proposing in our budget as 
an initiative, you have got to weigh the benefits that you are 
creating for the environment versus the small cost to the 
Federal taxpayer of doing this kind of work. So, I am your 
biggest fan on this thing and I know the Corps is, and I know 
they are very anxious to move faster and more efficiently on 
this.
    We have a good working relationship with your PRIDE 
organization. I think we just need to find the ways to improve 
that, and I am committed to doing so, and we will work with you 
to do that.
    Mr. Rogers. Well, I appreciate that very much. We had this 
same conversation last year and we are still waiting and I was 
hoping that we wouldn't have to have this conversation this 
year. I am being very polite today.
    Dr. Westphal. I appreciate that.
    Mr. Rogers. But let not my soft voice disarm you because we 
must see this through quickly. And if we can't delegate a 
$66,000 sewer line extension for 60 households, if that has to 
be approved in Washington, and you can't trust a District 
Engineer with that kind of a figure, then I wonder whether you 
need District Engineers at all.
    General Ballard, what do you think about that?
    General Ballard. If my memory serves me correctly, this is 
the second year we have had this conversation.
    Mr. Rogers. That is exactly right.
    General Ballard. Every single day, Mr. Rogers, here 
recently we have had inquiries from mayors of small cities and 
towns about the possibility of the Corps helping them deal with 
the problems that you spoke about. It is a growing national 
requirement. But in addition to addressing the small problems, 
I am firmly convinced that we have to do something to 
streamline the process. That it is, as you have noted in the 
past and as far as I am concerned, it is very bureaucratic and 
very clumsy. The recommendations that we made and we have done 
some streamlining, but the recommendations that we have made is 
that for projects $25 million and below that the District 
Engineer has final approval authority. A Division Commanders 
would deal with $300 million and below. And only those above 
that threshold would come to Headquarters. And there is a 
process of concurrent review of the feasibility report.
    The thing that I am concerned about is how do we streamline 
our process and aggressively do the things that the Nation is 
expecting us to do? I am absolutely convinced that my District 
Commanders and Division Commanders have sufficient staff that 
they can make the judgment on these types of issues.
    Mr. Rogers. Where is it getting stopped? You believe that, 
the Assistant Secretary believes, who is stopping this then? I 
mean you have had two years.
    General Ballard. Our procedures require us to send the 
stuff all the way up to Washington.
    Mr. Rogers. Change the procedures. You can do that, can't 
you?
    General Ballard. No, sir, I cannot.
    Mr. Rogers. Who can do that?
    Well, can you do that, Mr. Secretary?
    Dr. Westphal. I can. Absolutely. Some of these changes 
would require some concurrence from OMB and the White House but 
the answer is, yes, there is a process of guidelines that we 
provide on all these different types of projects.
    Now, we have to ensure a number of things. For example, the 
policy review, which is one of looking at whether--mostly on 
big projects, we are talking about multi-million dollar 
projects--policy review, where should that be done? What are 
the appropriate checks and balances to make sure that errors 
and mistakes aren't made, that we are sending reports to both 
the White House and eventually to Congress that have been fully 
reviewed.
    The review process, if you take a project that has lasted 
10-to-12 years in some cases, and we see many, or 5, 6, 7 years 
and you look at those projects, the review process is not what 
is taking up all that time; it is the study time.The review 
process may take 6 months or a year, but not 7 year or 8 years, that is 
not the problem.
    A lot of times the problem is the fact that the non-Federal 
sponsor wants certain conditions in the PCA and the Government 
can't accommodate those conditions because of existing laws and 
there is a negotiation that takes place. And, so, it is--for 
the bigger projects--for the 531s, it is something that we can 
handle, but for the bigger projects it is a relatively more 
complex issue.
    Mr. Rogers. I understand that and I fully appreciate that 
there has to be some policy or overlay of all projects but 
these tiny ones, these 531 projects, all of which are tiny, can 
they not be delegated back to the District?
    Dr. Westphal. True. The 531s, and there are a variety of 
other projects of that magnitude around in other sections, in 
other language in previous water bills, where that can 
certainly happen, yes.
    Mr. Rogers. We literally have dozens of these projects in 
the process of being reviewed by Washington. I don't think it 
would take too long to study them in the first place, but 
number two, why? Why not let that Corps, that District office 
handle it because these are routine, they violate no policy, 
they require no policy. They are just plain, old water-line 
extension, sewer line extensions.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Packard. Can we come back to you on a second go around?
    Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Packard. I am not familiar with that, but I would be 
extremely upset if we had $50,000 project in my district that 
took three years to get through the process. There has got to 
be a better way. We will talk about that concept a little bit 
later in some of our other questions.
    We will go to Mr. Edwards.

                          CONGRESSMAN EDWARDS

    Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Secretary Westphal, thank you, for being here. General 
Ballard, thank you for your many years of service to the Army 
and the people of this country. General Van Winkle, Mr. Caver, 
thank you all for being here.
    Just as a general comment about some of the difficulties 
the Corps has faced, while I do respect there are serious 
questions that you need to review and we need to review, there 
are some who have suggested it is a crime to try to expand the 
number of projects the Corps is involved in and if that is true 
there are going to be a lot of members of Congress who will be 
in that prison with you. And I think if you look at this 
Subcommittee, Mr. Chairman, and the number of requests from 
members on both sides of the aisle, it totals in the hundreds 
literally. I think that the vast majority of those are very 
responsible, reasonable requests, while recognizing the 
objectivity the Corps must have in reviewing those must be of 
high order.
    Let me ask, since floods do happen one at a time, let me 
ask about a specific project in Texas, if I could, not in my 
district but in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, dealing with the--
actually it is the Johnson Creek project in the upper Trinity 
Basin in Arlington.
    I know there have been a number of homes flooded 
repeatedly. I think part of the proposal is just not spend 
millions and millions building structures, but spend some money 
just buying the houses and moving those families.
    Can you tell me if--or could someone on your staff or 
someone here tell me whether the Corps has the authority to 
initiate construction on the Johnson Creek project in 
Arlington, Texas; and if so, how much could be spent the first 
year and how much would the total cost of that project be?
    Dr. Westphal. I don't know if we have got the information. 
We do? Okay.
    General Van Winkle. Sir, we do have the authority to do 
that. Our capability for 2001 would be $6 million.
    [Clerks note: The Corps of Engineers requested that the 
following statement regarding ``capabilities'' be placed in the 
record.]

    Although project and study capabilities reflect the 
readiness of the work for accomplishment, they are in 
competition for available funds and manpower Army-wide. In this 
context, the FY __ capability amounts shown consider each 
project or study PY itself without reference to the rest of the 
program. However, it is emphasized that the total amount 
proposed for the Army's Civil Works Program in the President's 
budget for FY 01 is the appropriate amount consistent with the 
Administration's assessment of national priorities for Federal 
investments. In addition, the total amount proposed for the 
Army's Civil Works Program in the President's Budget is the 
maximum that can be efficiently and effectively used. 
Therefore, while we could utilize additional funds on 
individual projects and studies, offsetting reductions would be 
required in order to maintain our overall budgetary 
objectives.''
    Hereafter, this statement is referred to as ``the usual 
qualifications.''

    Mr. Edwards. Okay. And then the total cost of theproject? I 
understand it would be $12 million?
    General Van Winkle. That is correct.
    Mr. Edwards. And that would include the purchase of how 
many residences that have been flooded repeatedly? Is that 140 
something?
    General Van Winkle. I don't have that with me today.
    Mr. Edwards. If you could follow-up on that, I would 
appreciate that.
    [The information follows:]

                          JOHNSON CREEK, TEXAS

    The Johnson Creek project would acquire and remove a total 
of 140 structures within the watershed that have been flooded 
repeatedly.

                       DALLAS FLOODWAY EXTENSION

    Mr. Edwards. Let me also ask about a major project, the 
Dallas Floodway Extension on the Trinity River also in Texas. 
As you know, this is a major project that would take a number 
of years. I used to live along the Trinity River in the Dallas 
area and I know how serious the flooding is there. Can you tell 
me if the Corps has the authority to initiate the construction 
on that project; and, if so, and if construction money were to 
be provided, I don't know that it will be, but if it were to be 
provided, how much could be spent in the first year? I don't 
know what the capability is on that.
    General Van Winkle. Yes, sir. We do have the authority and 
the figure for that capability is $6.2 million.
    Mr. Edwards. And that authority was, I think, extended last 
year to cover some environmental issues involving the project; 
is that correct?
    General Van Winkle. Yes, sir, that is correct.
    Dr. Westphal. That is a very good project and I think both 
you and I have been out there to see it and I noticed that 
recently it was attacked as not a very good project. But I can 
tell you from my vantage point, I think that is an excellent 
project and there are a lot of very positive environmental 
features to it and we are working hard to address the needs of 
some of the poor communities along the Trinity.
    Mr. Edwards. Very good. And, Mr. Chairman, I have a number 
of questions I will submit in writing, in deference to other 
members of the Committee, I will terminate my questions at this 
point and wait for the second round.
    [The information follows:]



                        CONGRESSMAN KNOLLENBERG

    Mr. Packard. Thank you very much, Mr. Edwards.
    Mr. Knollenberg.
    Mr. Knollenberg. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
    I do appreciate your willingness to defer to us who are 
leaving for another hearing and I will take advantage of that 
and welcome, of course, our panel today, Dr. Westphal, and 
General Ballard, obviously, I wish you the very best in your 
future endeavors.
    Let me get right into a question. This would probably be 
best served up to you, General Ballard, in terms of this 
concern ``The Post'' has at least about the conduct of the 
Corps and some of the things that are happening there. And we 
believe--I think, I speak for myself but I think this Committee 
has always had good things to say about the Corps--we have 
worked well together and we want to see that continue but there 
are some things that are disturbing about that and I think it 
is important we get this out so that we talk about it here and 
then the world can learn what is actually taking place.
    There have been no small number of negative reports that 
have come about. One of the things that I want to focus on just 
briefly--there are others--but take the Red River project, 
which I know has been around for a bit. And according to the 
numbers that I have and you can respond to these, that 
something like $2 billion went into that project and that 
included the 5 dams, the 150 dikes and elimination of 50 miles 
of twisting riverbends and some other things.
    The whole point of this, I understand, was to make it 
available for barge traffic. The problem is there are no barges 
that are of any consequence. There are some but there are not 
near as many as were predicted. And I think along with the 
original predictions or estimates by those that architected 
this whole thing, that there would be some 15,000 jobs that 
would be created as well. Apparently that hasn't happened.
    And I know it is disturbing to you to read this in the 
newspaper and it was a very extensive news story in ``The 
Post'', that there was some concerns that everybody must read 
into that. For example, I know you challenged the point of the 
37,000 employees, saying it was 24,000. Can you give us some 
idea of the accuracy of the projections that were in that 
report or can you challenge those projections as to what really 
was to be accomplished by this project. Were we really to get 
to a point where we had some new jobs in the range of 15,000 
and we had barge traffic that would mirror what you originally 
or they originally intended to the Corps? So, if you would 
respond to that?
    Mr. Packard. General Ballard, before you respond, let me 
change the way that we may handle this hearing on this 
particular issue. Rather than having--and we have, I 
thinkvirtually every member of the Subcommittee here today--rather than 
having each one bring that up in their questions, let us use this 
opportunity to take care of this whole major issue while you have 
initiated the issue so that if any other members have questions on this 
issue, the accusations and the allegations made in newspaper reports 
about the integrity of the Corps, let us discuss that now and then lay 
that issue to rest and not bring it up as each member asks questions.
    Do you mind doing that?
    Mr. Knollenberg. No, not at all.
    Mr. Packard. General Ballard, would that meet with your 
approval?
    General Ballard. That is fine, sir.
    Mr. Packard. Let us do that so that we open this up a bit 
as a single issue that we discuss and then lay it aside.
    General Ballard. The question that Mr. Knollenberg asks is 
a very good question because it goes to the heart of the 
accuracy of our forecasting. And in 1983, when we did the work 
on the Red River, we were forecasting the projected barge limit 
of about 3.5 million tons. Well, in 1998, we were at 3.75. Now, 
what we didn't know was the makeup of the traffic, the products 
that were being delivered, simply because when you look that 
far out it is rather hard to predict what the growth is going 
to be and the landside constructions and things of that nature.
    But I think what was really important here is that when you 
look at the inland waterway system that we have in this country 
and how important it is, we are currently moving about a half a 
billion tons annually. And when you think of what that means to 
growth, economic growth, what it means to farmers and other 
producers of bulk materials, and what it means for the 
competition of this country, you have to ask yourself, what is 
the alternative?
    How do you take, if you don't make wise investment in the 
inland waterways, then where do you move this volume of goods? 
How do you move a half a billion tons if you don't--you push it 
either on rail or you push it on the roads, which means more 
trucks, and I think you understand what that portends to not 
only the environment but the cost of goods.
    We stand by what we did with the Red River. Now, I took a 
good hard look at that and we tried to go back to see what we 
were projecting 20, 30, 40 years ago. And unfortunately our 
records are not that clear but current information tells us 
that the actual traffic at the six projects on the Ohio River 
has met their current projected traffic and that we are 
slightly ahead on the Red River.
    So, as a result, I think our process is pretty good in 
making those type predictions.
    Mr. Knollenberg. What do you say to the story? And I know 
that has appeared several times that the books were actually 
cooked by the Corps in a way to present facts and figures, not 
just the Red River, but others. Now, that is a pretty damning 
statement, I would say, by the press.
    General Ballard. Sure it is.
    Mr. Knollenberg. It suggests you are making work for 
yourselves without actually having oversight. I know there is 
oversight, but tell us, react to that, if you will? Respond to 
that. Because the multiple reviews that they have--I think the 
Executive Branch is brought into this, too.
    General Ballard. The Executive Branch--and I refer, again, 
to this little chart, if you have it here. How did I react? 
Well, once I--I didn't have a dog, but I might have kicked it. 
Once I got over the emotions, it quickly told me that the media 
did not have a full understanding of what we do and how we 
bring a project to fruition. In this particular one, where we 
are alleged to have ``cooked the books'', what we were talking 
about was a number that relates to demand. A number that would 
say, ``what is the demand?''
    Let's take agricultural products, corn. We are trying to 
predict how much corn would be grown by the farmers in the 
region, and shipped by inland waterways in 2050. So, if that 
number says that demand is going to be high, that means more 
barges, and more barges means more locks, et cetera, et cetera. 
If the number is low, than it may mean no construction. The 
difficulty of this is trying to find out what is going to be 
the average yield per acre on corn in the year 2050 when you 
look at biotech, for an example.
    Mr. Knollenberg. You cannot do that.
    General Ballard. So the reason why we have taken 7 years 
and $50 million is that we have involved literally thousands of 
stakeholders in this process, four governors, their complete 
staff; the agriculture industry. It is a massive job trying to 
get close to what the real process is going to be in the year 
2050. And it is key that we work this, because let us say, down 
the lower Mississippi, an average tow is about 25 barges. One 
barge is 84 tractor trailer loads of product. We are moving 
about 15 barges in an average tow on the Upper Mississippi, and 
those locks will handle that thoroughly. If you are going to 
move more products, you need larger tows simply that is an 
economic requirement for that, which drives what we construct. 
That is the problem. Plus we are trying to figure out what is 
going to be the land-side construction? What new industries are 
going to be created as we do this in the year 2050?
    So to say that you ``cooked the books'' is a little bit 
ridiculous because our cost sharing partners, the navigation 
folks and everyone else, are very much involved in that, and as 
you can see on the study phase, we are at the point that is on 
there, we have already had some agency and public involvement. 
But once we produce this draft report in December, that thing 
goes out again for public review, and we have to be prepared to 
defend each and every number that is in that document, by a 
variety of people, the environmentalists, the navigational 
folks, the agriculture folks, everyone. So how can you ``cook 
it?''
    Mr. Knollenberg. Looking from the perspective of today, 
would you have done anything different if we are not getting 
the predicted number of jobs, we are not getting the 
particular--even close to the figures that were estimated that 
would be shipped up and down the river, what would you have 
done--hindsight is great, but what would you have done 
differently if anything, or what could you have done 
differently if anything?
    General Ballard. This is going to surprise you. I wouldn't 
have done a thing different, because I am firmly convinced, and 
an investigation is going to show that our process was 
absolutely good.
    Now, how did we sort of get into this? If you all recall in 
the front of this committee----
    Mr. Knollenberg. Presuming you got into anything.
    General Ballard. If we got into anything. Well, the media 
thing.

                   CONDUCT OF UPPER MISSISSIPPI STUDY

    Mr. Knollenberg. That is what I would like to hear about.
    General Ballard. Yes, sir. Let us address the cost first of 
all. This project is about--what is the total cost on it?
    General Van Winkle. Anywhere between 1 and 1\1/2\ billion 
dollars.
    General Ballard. A billion dollars that we are talking 
about, this total project. And if you spread that out over 20 
years, the income stream of 20 years spread out, I mean you are 
talking 5, 600 million? And we have some single projects that 
are larger than that, so I am not going to get a lot of growth 
in my organization from this one project. That is point number 
one. So we need to set that aside, that we are trying to grow 
the organization.
    What happened was this study was in Chicago, and when we 
reorganized--you remember we went from 16 divisions to 8, had a 
little testimony time before the committee on that one. We 
moved the study team from Chicago to St. Louis, and to be 
honest with you, we created a new team. That slowed us down a 
little bit. If I had to do one thing over again, I probably 
wouldn't have moved that study team, but it made sense to move 
it at the time. That is the only thing I would do differently 
in hindsight. I am convinced that we are on the right track on 
this study, and that we are going to get to where we need to go 
on this thing. We haven't even completed the draft yet.
    Mr. Knollenberg. I will yield, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Packard. Thank you. On this issue, Mr. Visclosky, do 
you have questions?
    Mr. Visclosky. No.
    Mr. Packard. Mr. Edwards?
    Mr. Edwards. No.
    Mr. Packard. Mr. Pastor?
    Mr. Pastor. Yes.
    Mr. Packard. Mr. Pastor.

                       ASSISTANT SECRETARY'S ROLE

    Mr. Pastor. In reading the article, it seems like the 
Secretary was unaware of the report, or it seemed that the 
reporter made it seem that way. I just wonder what the 
Secretary has done since then in trying to overcome the 
harshness of the article, and also, thank God that General 
Ballard didn't have a dog. That would be another story. 
[Laughter.]
    Dr. Westphal. The part of that article that presumed I 
didn't know something was going on had to do not with the Upper 
Mississippi navigation study. It had to do more with some 
material that the reporter had gotten concerning, quote, 
``growing the program'', some set of slides and some 
memorandums or e-mails or something. So I was unaware of that. 
But that was an internal Corps of Engineer process of working 
with the divisions and the districts to determine what the 
needs out there are.
    The way I see this process moving and the way we have moved 
it, at least since I have been here, and I know it has been the 
case in the past, is that we do two things. We submit a budget 
first to OMB, and in that budget are a lot of things that we 
think we should be doing that come up from the field, ideas 
that are generated by constituent groups, by members of 
Congress, by sponsors and folks like that. We take a cut at 
that. We submit that to OMB. They take a further cut based on 
the President's requirements and the budget limitations, and so 
you eventually get a budget that may not have a lot of those 
things that we think we ought to be doing, but is limited by 
spending requirements and by trying to address the current 
needs out there that we are already involved in.
    And the other way we do that is through our WRDA proposal. 
Again, the same typical type of process, where I submit a 
proposal--our proposal today is sitting at OMB, and there are 
things in there that I think we should be doing that serve the 
nation in a variety of ways, but the Administration has to look 
at it from a variety of standpoints, like what is the other 
agencies view of some of these suggestions? Do they conflict 
with what they are doing? Do they overlap other programs in the 
government? Are we doing the same thing in more than one 
agency; should we not be redundant? They look at it for that 
kind of consistency. They look at it for--again, we had a 
fairly big Water Resources bill in 1999. How big a bill can we 
afford to have in the year 2000? That puts a great stress on 
your committee, Mr. Chairman, to address all of those needs and 
interests. So if you talk about growing the program, that is 
the process we follow. That is the process at the Corps. It is 
a groundswell of activity at the local level, moving up and 
eventually getting cut along the way, first by General Ballard, 
and then by myself, and then by eventually the White House 
before it gets to you, and then, of course, you could take a 
broader look at it.
    So that is what that particular matter had to do with, not 
the Upper Mississippi navigations.
    Mr. Packard. Any further questions?
    Mr. Pastor. That was my question.
    Mr. Packard. On this issue again only, Mr. Rogers, do you 
have a question?

                        MANAGEMENT OF THE CORPS

    Mr. Rogers. Very quickly. The Secretary of the Army, Mr. 
Caldera, issued a press release about this, saying that he was 
reviewing the management of the Corps, and I am quoting, 
``would expect to consider a number of options, and if 
appropriate, make any changes as soon as possible.'' Is he--
will he be offering proposed changes in the structure of the 
Corps, do you think, Mr. Secretary?
    Dr. Westphal. I don't know what he is actually going to 
propose, Congressman Rogers, and it is hard for me to 
speculate, because I have been kept out of that process, I 
think appropriately so. It was more or less to take an 
independent look at overall the management and policy oversight 
of the process. You know, there is ample room in Title X and in 
the authorities that we have to capture that management and 
that oversight, and I think that he is just going to address 
that, but you know, I don't know.
    Mr. Rogers. He understands though that if he is proposing 
to change the structure of the Corps, that Congress may have a 
little word in that, does he not?
    Dr. Westphal. Sure.
    Mr. Packard. May I expand on that?
    Dr. Westphal. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Packard. We would expect that we would have some 
involvement in any changes in the management process of the 
Corps, any changes that would be recommended by either you or 
the Secretary of the Army or by General Ballard. I think that 
General Ballard, his answer to some of the questions was that 
he wouldn't do anything differently than what he has already 
done. So do I interpret that to mean that you would not make 
any recommended changes in the procedures and the management?
    General Ballard. I am satisfied that we are in a correct 
posture right now. I have not participated in the process 
either, so no one of us knows.
    Mr. Packard. Any changes though, I would hope that you 
would not overlook this committee. I think Mr. Rogers is 
absolutely correct, we would be----
    Dr. Westphal. I believe the Secretary is very sensitive to 
that, and the one issue, one aspect of this that I have talked 
with him about is I have suggested that anything he does, he 
should certainly let Congress know and work with Congress.
    Mr. Packard. I would assume he would consult with you at 
length on any changes, because you would be the one to 
implement those changes.
    Dr. Westphal. Yes.
    Mr. Visclosky. Would the chair yield on that point?
    Mr. Packard. Of course.
    Mr. Visclosky. There is at least some speculation that 
there would be a change in the flow of the decision making from 
the military to the civilian side within the Corps. Is there 
any justification for those rumors, so to speak.
    Dr. Westphal. Title X, again, the law, is very clear that 
the Secretary of the Army is the head of the agency, if you 
want to just simplify it, okay? The Corps of Engineers is part 
of the Army and he is the Secretary of the Army. He delegates 
the program, the Civil Works part of the program to the 
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. That is me. 
Those delegations are spelled out in something called the 
General Orders. And those are there. Those are clear. If they 
need to be clarified, maybe that is something he is going to 
work on, but it is clear that the authority is in a civilian, 
under Title X and under the general orders, that the----
    Mr. Visclosky. I guess I should rephrase that, that there 
would be less discretion at the district and division level, 
and more decisions being made at the headquarters?
    Dr. Westphal. That I don't know. I don't know. I have not 
heard that and I have not seen that.
    Mr. Packard. I agree. I would hope not too. Well, on that 
point, let me read to you the exact quote, because I think that 
Mr. Rogers brings it right to the front, that I was hoping we 
could discuss. The Secretary of the Army issued a statement and 
this is what he said: ``Earlier this month I asked the Under-
Secretary of the Army''--I believe that is you, is it not?
    Dr. Westphal. No. I am Assistant Secretary. The Under-
Secretary is above me.
    Mr. Packard. Okay. ``To review the Army's management of 
Corps of Engineers, to insure that we provide the appropriate 
leadership and oversight.'' Again, I can't believe that that 
review will not involve you; I would assume so.
    Dr. Westphal. I presume that it will when he is ready to--
when that assessment has been made, yes.
    Mr. Packard. Mr. Frelinghuysen, do you have any questions 
on this point?
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. No.
    Mr. Packard. You do not. Mr. Latham?
    Mr. Latham. No.
    Mr. Wicker. Just a couple of follow-up questions on this 
point.
    Mr. Packard. That is fine.
    Mr. Wicker. General Ballard, you say the Civil Works 
Program is only 24,400 strong, not 37,000 as implied by the 
media. Do you have any idea where they got that higher figure; 
is there a way to look at it and come up with that or stretch 
it, or is that just plain wrong?
    General Ballard. I think what they did, look at total 
strength of the Corps, and assume that it was just Civil Works.
    Mr. Wicker. Is the total strength of the Corps 37,000?
    General Ballard. It is a little bit larger than that--I 
mean, 37,000? No, sir. The total strength of the Corps is more 
like about 35,000.
    Mr. Wicker. But that is probably where they got that.
    General Ballard. I am assuming that is where they got that 
from. They didn't ask us. And I think also that they included 
some military--we are broken down in funding in about three 
different ways: Civil Works, Military Programs, where we do all 
the MILCON and support, and an area we call Support for Others, 
where we provide support to other federal agencies, programs 
such as FUSRAP and et cetera. But the point that they were 
trying to make is that the Civil Works appropriation was 
37,000, which is absolutely wrong.

                         COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS

    Mr. Wicker. Well, you know, I sort of agree with Mr. 
Edwards. I mean, if people are going to be accused of growing 
the Corps, there is going to be a lot of company in that 
particular indictment.
    But let me just follow up on the point about ``cooking the 
numbers''. And I appreciate the exchange that you had, Mr. 
Secretary and General Ballard, with Mr. Knollenberg about how 
can you possibly forecast that far in the future when there are 
so many variables. Has there been any recent study about the 
accuracy of cost benefit analysis over time? I was here as a 
staffer for another committee back in the early '80s when 
Congress was talking about the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway, 
and of course, a very major project, and all the talk there was 
about whether the cost benefit analysis was correct. And my 
``Ten-Tom'' friends tell me that actually this has been cost 
effective and has exceeded expectations.
    But I just wonder, for the major projects that we have had 
over time, over decades, and that this committee has approved, 
based on the figures that you have given them, have the numbers 
been ``cooked''; have they been correct, and is there something 
that I can look at to see how we are doing as far as getting 
accurate forecasting?
    General Van Winkle. I will try to answer that question. In 
a generic term, we have had a National Academy study look at 
our process.
    Mr. Wicker. National Academy?
    General Van Winkle. The National Academy of Sciences. 
Excuse me. And they have looked at our process for doing 
reports, and although they did not look at specific projects 
and specific numbers, they gave us a very detailed look at our 
process, and in general, although they made some suggestions, 
in general, they found that our process was pretty sound in 
terms of how we do it and quite comparable with other 
processes.
    Mr. Packard. General, has the National Academy of Sciences 
made that report available to us?
    General Van Winkle. Yes, they have. It is about a year old. 
I believe it was in May of '99, and we will certainly make that 
copy available to you.
    Mr. Packard. Okay.
    Mr. Wicker. They have looked at the process.
    General Van Winkle. They looked at the process, correct.
    Mr. Wicker. And they basically said that your process is 
being done according to acceptable standards?
    General Van Winkle. That is correct.
    Mr. Wicker. But as far as you know--and I will let you 
answer this on the record, if somebody maybe in your agency can 
go back and look--as far as you know, there has been no study 
of specific projects and how the effectiveness pans out, based 
on what has been told to the Congress, over decades of time?
    General Ballard. On the cost benefit ratio, that is the way 
I understand it.
    General Van Winkle. That is correct, cost benefit ratio.
    General Ballard. I am not aware of it.
    General Van Winkle. No, we don't have a study that goes 
back retroactively and looks at that, if that is your question. 
We don't have a process that says, ``Let's go back now and look 
at our projections and compare those.'' We do not have that at 
this point, no.
    Mr. Wicker. Have you substantially changed the way you make 
cost benefit analyses now in the year 2000, the way you did in 
1970 and 1980?
    General Van Winkle. I don't believe there has been a 
substantial change. We follow Principles and Guidelines which 
are government wide in nature.
    Dr. Westphal. If I could just add to that. We used to 
operate under something called the Principles and Standards up 
until the Reagan administration. When the Reagan Administration 
came in, if you recall, because of budget deficits, because of 
the desire on the part of the President to reduce the role of 
government in some respects, he ordered the Secretary of the 
Interior to initiate a review of the Principles and Standards.
    Now, the Principles and Standards were rules that we had to 
operate under. There was no choice about them. But they allowed 
the Corps to look broadly at a number of variables when they 
did cost benefit studies, which included environmental issues, 
obviously, the economics, and regional economic variables and 
things like that.
    Secretary Watt at the time, came in and, using the Water 
Resources Council, came up with something called the Principles 
and Guidelines. And they required only one matter to be really 
looked at, and that was national economic development.
    Now, this doesn't mean--they are guidelines, so it does not 
mean that the Corps can't look at other things, but if you want 
to interpret the methodologies that you use today, you are 
fairly limited by the Principles and Guidelines. Now, those 
were done in the 1980s, 1983, about there.
    The National Academy of Sciences, the study that General 
Van Winkle just mentioned, they were asked by the Corps to look 
at the Principles and Guidelines and see if they fit today 
under today's economy and today's national priorities. They 
did, and I think General Van Winkle's assessment that they 
thought the process was a good process and made some 
recommendations for improving the process. But they did make 
recommendations that we should go back and reconsider whether 
or not we want to broaden the Principles and Guidelines to 
include those things that were under the previous Principles 
and Standards, and I think we are going to do that.
    The Secretary of the Army's call for the National Academy 
of Sciences to look at the Upper Miss economic model, is to, in 
a sense, to get to your question, Congressman, which is to be 
able to go back, even though this project is very early on in 
its development here, to go back and look at the mathematical 
modeling and the economic work that is being done on the Upper 
Miss, because there has been a lot of work done already, and 
perhaps help us to identify whether or not there ought to be 
some improvements in the methodology, not from the standpoint 
of wrongdoing, but from the standpoint of, you know, is there a 
better way to do this? And as you know, you can get 2, 3 
economists in a room, and they are probably not going to agree 
on what the best model is to do anything. But that's in part, I 
think, why he called for that kind of a study, to sort of help, 
but I think we would look forward to getting those kinds of 
ideas, not just for this particular study, but for any other 
study.

                       ALLEGATIONS OF MISCONDUCT

    Mr. Packard. Are there any other questions on this specific 
issue? I will ask the last one then perhaps.
    General Ballard, you mentioned in your statement that with 
regard to the Upper Mississippi River study, you directed an 
internal investigation in accordance with Army Regulation 15-6, 
and that no misconduct was found. Would you explain, elaborate 
on what this Army Regulation 15-6 is?
    General Ballard. It is a regulation that gives commanders, 
those of us who have UCMJ authority, the right to do internal 
investigations in terms of criminal misconduct, possible 
criminal misconduct.
    There was an allegation that stated a Corps employee, not a 
uniform employee, but at a lower grade, had allegedly done some 
wrongdoings as it pertains to Mr. Sweeney, the whistle-blower. 
My requirement, my legal requirement requires that I take a 
look at that, and since it was not a senior leader, and not an 
individual that had been identified as part of the DA 
investigation, I had an internal investigation take place to 
look at the alleged wrongdoing. We came up with nothing. I have 
provided that complete report to the DAIG, the HAC S&I and all 
the other folks that are doing it, so that they can expand on 
it or do whatever. That is what that was about.
    Mr. Packard. Thank you very much. We will then conclude any 
questions or discussion on this item unless it is something 
urgent to each member. And we will return back to our normal 
process of questioning, and Mr. Pastor would be next.

                       WORK FOR SCHOOL DISTRICTS

    Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning and 
welcome.
    General Ballard, first of all, let me thank you for the 
fine work you have done, and we are going to miss you, but I 
know that wherever you go, you will do well.
    General Ballard. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Pastor. You and I had a conversation about the National 
Association of Engineers who were concerned that the Corps was 
getting involved in work that should have been farmed out to 
the private sector, and the Los Angeles School District came 
up. Would you comment on that, please?
    General Ballard. Yes, sir. And then I would also like 
General Madsen----
    Mr. Pastor. General Madsen.
    General Ballard. [continuing]. Who was actually doing the 
work. He could comment further.
    Mr. Pastor. If you would be kind enough to ask him up, I 
would appreciate it.
    But, General, you may want to comment on, generally, on 
that whole notion of doing more work by the Corps that rightly 
belongs in the private sector, and specifically you may want to 
talk about the school district.
    Mr. Packard. General, if you would state your name and your 
position for the record.
    General Madsen. Brigadier General Peter Madsen. I am the 
Commander at South Pacific Division Corps of Engineers.
    Sir, with regard to LA schools, I will describe, a little 
bit, our involvement. We were asked by the LA Unified School 
District to help them with some of the problems that plagued 
their schools, and out in front of the school district were 
some real funding opportunities to do a couple things. One, 
state funds were available for building new schools as well as 
Federal Communications Commission funds for Internet wiring the 
schools, that is, going in and putting in new hard wires and 
servers and equipment that were available if applications could 
be made for these funds. And after about 3 years of challenges, 
trying to put together the packages for the funding for either 
one of the two opportunities, they brought some new leadership 
in for the Unified School District in LA, and the leadership 
came to us and asked us if we could help them with those two 
opportunities. And one of them--we call it the e-rate, which is 
Internet wiring the school and bringing all the communications 
equipment to the schools.
    In a short period of time, working with their staff as kind 
of an adjunct to their staff--recognize that the school 
district staff doesn't have the engineering capability and 
contracting type of skills that we have--but in a short period 
of time over the Christmas holidays, we worked real hard to 
meet an early January deadline to put in applications for those 
FCC funds, and we believe that the applications are in now, 
that there is potentially $431 million that could come to LA 
schools this summer if those applications are approved.
    The critique that we have always gotten in the press is 
that we are taking away work from the private sector by what we 
are doing, supporting the school district staff, but from our 
vantage point, a very limited engagement working with the 
school district has allowed potentially, in this one 
opportunity, $431 million of private sector work that will go 
into the schools this summer to really fix as many as 400 
different schools in LA. And that was the first opportunity. We 
are working with them closer right now, again, to kind of put 
in the packaging for state funds to build new schools, and we 
will never construct those schools. We will never engage the 
private sector to design and to build those schools, but first 
we are helping the school district staff put the package of 
proposals together to get the funding.
    Mr. Pastor. You have a comment, General Ballard?
    General Ballard. Yes, I do, sir. The work that we are can 
best be characterized as ``government'' in nature. We are 
supplementing the LA school staff. They don't have staff 
engineers to do this work. This work, was reviewed for legal 
sufficiency by both my Chief Counsel and the Army General 
Counsel, and they found that as part of our support for this 
type of program, that it was legal and appropriate. The bottom 
line is, we will have more private sector work, not less, 
because if we help them to get their contracts out in the 
street and select a contractor to do this work, I mean that the 
private sector will do it, and that is all we are doing. We are 
developing the scope of work for them, putting the contracts 
out on the street and helping them to go through their 
contracting process, but we are not executing any of that work, 
not a thing. And so as far as we are concerned, we are not in 
competition, we are just helping a government organization that 
is strapped for technical capability, and that is all we are 
doing, we are providing that to them.

                             RIO SALADO, AZ

    Mr. Pastor. General Madsen, what is the status of the 
credit agreement and project cooperation agreement for Rio 
Salado? Do you have any good news to report?
    General Madsen. Sir, the credit agreement is pending 
approval based on resolution of the Committee notification 
letter, and it is at OMB presently. Rio Salado projects, in the 
President's budget, is $2 million to both the Phoenix and the 
Tempe region, and next year, fiscal year 2001, in April we will 
start construction on the Phoenix, and then in July start 
construction on the Tempe region.
    Mr. Pastor. Secretary Westphal?
    Dr. Westphal. I knew that you would ask this question.
    Dr. Pastor. Thank you. That is very important to me. That 
is why I am asking the question.
    Dr. Westphal. I know. I called OMB last night, and I said, 
``I am not going to testify unless you give me an answer to 
this question.'' And they did give me an answer this morning, 
which is that they have approved the letter to go to you, Mr. 
Chairman, and the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations 
Subcommittee, asking for the credit agreement to be okayed by 
the committee.
    Mr. Pastor. So I need to talk to the Chairman.
    Dr. Westphal. You need to talk to the Chairman. He is your 
next step in the process.
    Mr. Packard. Before you talk to me, I need to hear from 
OMB.
    Dr. Westphal. The letter is coming to you this morning, 
sir.
    Mr. Packard. I know, in the mail. Mr. Frelinghuysen?

                           NATIONWIDE PERMITS

    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, good 
morning. Mr. Secretary, two areas of questions, first to 
General Ballard, some questions that relate to the Nationwide 
Permit 26.
    General, what are the impacts of the new Nationwide Permit 
on New Jersey, one of two states that has assumed its own 
wetlands permitting process?
    General Ballard. Impact on New Jersey?
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Yes.
    General Ballard. Okay.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. New Jersey and Michigan both.
    General Van Winkle. Right. Nationwide Permit 26 would not 
apply in your state, because your state has retained the 
authority to do that regulation.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. It would not apply.
    General Van Winkle. That is correct.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. What are the costs to the Corps to 
implement this new Nationwide Permit, and what is the estimated 
time savings associated with the new permit?
    General Van Winkle. The cost estimate is--what we did is 
analyze. If you wish to retain the same amount of time to issue 
permits, given a somewhat increased workload of the nationwide 
permits, our best guess is on the order of $6 million, to be 
able to achieve the same level of service in issuing these 
permits.
    Now, of course, we have not asked for any additional money 
in that regard in our budget, and so what that means is that 
you would reflect that amount of money in terms of increased 
time, increased time to get permits approved.

                     NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY HARBOR

    Mr. Frelinghuysen. I have some questions that relate to the 
New York and New Jersey Harbor, and we may need General Rhoades 
up here. He is coming up. Let me compliment General Rhoades and 
his North Atlantic Division Staff. They are in my office on a 
regular basis. I don't apologize for looking after New York and 
New Jersey, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I am happy to yield.
    Mr. Packard. Just for a moment. I didn't hear the last 
portion of the answers. Is the $6 million in the budget or not 
in the budget?
    General Van Winkle. No, it is not in the budget.
    Mr. Packard. Okay.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Thank you. Let me thank your staff for 
continually being in my office, your attention to detail, and 
their, off the record, I suspect, shared frustration sometimes 
we have with other federal agencies.
    I have some particular questions, but, Mr. Secretary, are 
you fully committed to fully funding our priority dredging 
projects in the New York and New Jersey Harbor?
    Dr. Westphal. We are. We are definitely committed to doing 
that.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Well, what disturbs me, if you are, why 
has my own state asked that I add funds specifically for the 
Arthur Kill Project and the Port Jersey Project?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, as you know, when we put this budget--
--
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. These are additional funds.
    Dr. Westphal. Right. When we put the budget together, we 
get from the Corps of Engineers, my office gets a capability 
level on all of these projects. What is the capability to do 
the work in fiscal year 2001, and we base our budget request, 
our budget submission, I should say, to OMB based on those 
capabilities. I believe that what we knew to be the capability 
back then, and what we submitted to OMB and what OMB has put in 
the budget, in the President's budget, was a capability we 
understood to be the case back then. Since then----
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. So you are saying that these particular 
projects are not under-funded in the 2001----
    Dr. Westphal. Well, they may be, because since then the 
Corps has reassessed the capability that it has for these 
projects in fiscal year 2001, and so it can do more work, and 
it can accommodate more resources, but obviously that came 
after the President submitted his budget.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. So you----
    Dr. Westphal. And we would support any increase, but we 
obviously cannot----
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. But you are capable of doing the 
additional work if you have the additional funds?
    Dr. Westphal. Yes. I am being told by the Corps that that 
is the case.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. We have issues in the New York and New 
Jersey Metropolitan region that deal not only with funding 
issues, which are critical, we want to keep the money going. 
This is a part of the nation where we have got about 17 million 
people, we have got about $70 billion worth of commerce, and we 
are badly in need of funds to make sure that commerce 
continues, that jobs certainly are protected and certainly 
those are earned jobs, but we are also dealing with other 
environmental issues, particularly with the Environmental 
Protection Agency.
    So I have some questions for General Rhoades. The 
Environmental Protection Agency, General, has announced that it 
is revising the rules for dredge material, at what is called an 
historic area remediation site. Just for the members' 
edification, this is something which New Jersey and New York 
have contributed to over the last 40 or 50 years. It is out in 
the ocean. It needs to be properly capped. General, what do you 
believe will be the impact of the EPA's new criteria on 
accomplishing this----
    Mr. Packard. General Rhoades, would you state your name and 
position for the record, please?
    General Rhoades. Yes, I will, yes, sir. My name is 
Brigadier General Steve Rhoades, and I command the North 
Atlantic Division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Now to the question. Sir, EPA has not 
released the new standards yet. We understand that they are 
working on those, and they will release them. When the new 
standards are released, it is highly likely that they will be 
more restrictive than they are today, and I believe that that 
will have two major impacts.
    Number one, for the material that currently goes to the 
historic remediation site, there will be increased costs to 
dispose of that material in some type of process or to move it 
upland. And number two is that it will increase the urgency for 
the States of New Jersey and New York to develop more uplands 
storage sites.
     Well, currently, all disposal of dredge materials at this 
mud dump must meet the criteria--Category 1 criteria. Is the 
Corps' position still the same, that Category 1 can be disposed 
of at the site?
    General Rhoades. Sir, until the new rules are codified, we 
will continue to dispose of Category 1 material at the historic 
remediation site.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. So in fact we can proceed with capping 
that site, 15 acres, and because it is environmentally 
necessary to do so?
    General Rhoades. Sir, under the current rules we can 
continue to cap it with Category 1 material.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Some are suggesting in the larger 
community, that our government is allowing what might be 
described as toxic muck to be disposed at this site, but the 
criteria that has been chosen, we meet the current criteria, 
but we are not able to dispose it?
    General Rhoades. No, sir. We meet the current criteria with 
the material that is currently being disposed at the historic 
remediation site. It is Category 1 and it is currently being 
disposed there. When EPA releases their new standards, I 
suspect the standard will become more restrictive.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Do you know what authority the 
administration is using to update the criteria?
    General Rhoades. No, sir, I cannot comment on that.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. If for some reason the new criteria 
prohibits all disposal at this mud dump, what material will be 
used to cap the dump?
    General Rhoades. Sir, I haven't addressed that yet.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. We are reaching a critical situation 
here.
    General Rhoades. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. We have an environmental hazard because 
this dump isn't being properly covered, and people are 
questioning--even the criteria, the Category 1 has been 
basically considered to be free of toxic, and now we can't get 
anything done.
    General Rhoades. Sir, I will have to answer that for the 
record. I am not prepared to today.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Okay, thank you very much.
    [The information follows:]

     New York and New Jersey Harbor--Historic Area Remediation Site

    The Administration, through the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, is using the authority of the Marine 
Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, as amended, 
to update the testing criteria to determine whether material is 
suitable for placement at the Historic Area Remediation Site or 
HARS.
    If for some reason the new criteria prohibit all disposal 
at the Historic Area Remediation Site, the material needed to 
cap the site will come from clean upland sites or be mined from 
offshore sand barrow sites. However, the Corps has neither 
explicit authority nor funding to undertake an effort to mine 
clean sand to cap the HARS. Since prior capping was 
accomplished with the placement of category I dredged material, 
the Corps has not developed a contingency plan for new sources 
of material nor determined who would pay for this effort.
    It is the Corps' position that, under current criteria, 
Category I material can be placed at the HARS. We have no plans 
to modify or revoke existing permits that have met the current 
criteria for disposal at the HARS. When new criteria are 
proposed by the USEPA, we expect to discuss and finalize a 
reasonable transition to the new criteria.

                   MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND TRIBUTARIES

    Mr. Packard. Thank you, Mr. Frelinghuysen. Mr. Wicker?
    Mr. Wicker. Mr. Secretary, in your complete statement, with 
regard to Mississippi River and Tributaries Project, you say 
that the Army is pleased that the fiscal year 2001 budget for 
the MR&T account is at the same level of funding as that 
provided by Congress for fiscal year 2000. There are perhaps 
some of us that are not pleased with that figure. You go on to 
say that within the total, there are some differences in the 
proposed allocation of these funds. The fiscal year 2001 budget 
emphasizes flood protection along the main stem of the 
Mississippi River. That leaves then the question about funding 
along tributaries of the Mississippi River, and I just want to 
make sure where we are with regard to your proposal.
    Would this request allow for any new construction starts 
along Mississippi River tributaries?
    Dr. Westphal. Specifically, are you thinking of any 
specific project?
    Mr. Wicker. I am thinking about any of the tributary 
projects, including new channeling, new construction, Yazoo 
River, for example. I am talking also about projects that are 
already designed and planned.
    Dr. Westphal. One example of that would be, for example, 
Big Sunflower.
    Mr. Wicker. Okay.
    Dr. Westphal. And Big Sunflower, what I did on that project 
was to put in a provision for reprogramming of money in the FY 
2000 program to continue the contracts that have been awarded 
on that project, but reduce the new funding for it. Now, the 
reduction of the funding is because there is a considerable 
amount of question as to the environmental impacts of that 
project, and as you know, we are getting a great deal of--well, 
there is a great deal of action out there to stop these 
projects. Big Sunflower is one of them. The Yazoo, the pumps 
project, is another one. And in the case of Big Sunflower, even 
though we had a recent court decision that I think was 
favorable to moving forward with the project, there are some 
other studies that we want to try to undertake. And so I did 
not want to completely eliminate the possibilities of 
continuing the project, and that is why I put in the note and 
got agreement at OMB to allow me to do that, to be able to 
reprogram funds back into it to continue the project.
    Mr. Wicker. Well, okay. You have mentioned two projects 
where you say there are environmental concerns, and there have 
been environmental--official environmental inquiries raised by 
one agency or the other. But I am speaking in general, and if 
you need to answer this on the record, that is fine, but my 
understanding, Mr. Secretary, is that your level funding and 
the fact that you intend to concentrate on the main river stem, 
would not allow for any new construction starts, even on items 
that are planned, designed and scheduled and are ongoing.
    Dr. Westphal. I would like to----
    Mr. Wicker. And also, if you could, I would like for you to 
quantify on the record what would be the cost to the Corps of 
terminating actions that are already ongoing throughout the 
entire Mississippi River tributaries.
    Dr. Westphal. Okay.
    Mr. Wicker. Can you do that for me?
    Dr. Westphal. I could do that if you let me get the broader 
answer for the record.
    Mr. Wicker. Okay.
    [The information follows:]

                    COST OF TERMINATING MR&T ACTIONS

    The only MR&T construction actions underway that we would 
expect to terminate under the FY 2001 Budget request are in the 
Yazoo Basin Demonstration Erosion Control program. The 
Administration believes this program has fulfilled its purpose 
and should be discontinued. Any further streambank erosion 
control projects should be a local responsibility. We have not 
developed an estimate of the costs of terminating these 
contracts. However, the long-term savings to Federal taxpayers 
of terminating this program would be considerable. Under the 
zero funding level that we have proposed, we would reprogram 
funds from within the MR&T account to cover the costs of 
terminating any ongoing contracts.
    With regard to the broader question, the FY 2001 budget for 
the MR&T program does not provide funding for new construction 
contract awards for the projects in the tributaries of the 
lower Mississippi River. The FY 2001 budget emphasizes other 
projects within the MR&T program, whose principal purpose is to 
provide flood protection along the Mississippi River main stem 
and in the Atchafalaya River basin. The allocation was reduced 
for work on those projects in the tributaries that primarily 
involve the drainage of wetlands to increase the production of 
surplus crops, particularly where lawsuits and continuing 
environmental studies have resulted in a hiatus on scheduled 
activities.

                     DEMONSTRATION EROSION CONTROL

    Mr. Wicker. Now, do I have time for one other question, Mr. 
Chairman?
    Mr. Packard. We are going to have a second round if you 
would like to remain, but if not, go right ahead.
    Mr. Wicker. Actually, if you don't mind, I just have the 
one other question, and then I do have a veterans group to meet 
with.
    Mr. Packard. Go ahead.
    Mr. Wicker. Let me just say with regard, Mr. Secretary, to 
the demonstration erosion control project, which the budget 
contains no funds for. Last year the committee report was very 
complimentary of the Corps' work with regard to the 
demonstration erosion control project, mentioning the reduction 
of flood damages, decreased erosion and sediments, an 
improvement to the environment. And it mentioned that the 
additional funds that this subcommittee provided last year 
provided for a continued design, real estate acquisition, 
monitoring of completed work, and initiated the initiation of 
continuing projects. And I quote here, and then it says, ``The 
committee expects the administration to continue to request 
funds for this important project.''
    Now, of course, the Corps is going to carry out the 
directives and the laws as passed by the Congress. I don't 
guess this Congress can expect the Corps to come back with 
funding requests. That might be expecting a little too much, so 
I appreciate that you don't have to come in and ask for this 
money again. But it does seem to me with that, in terms of 
realistic budgeting, Mr. Secretary, with that strong of a 
statement from the Subcommittee about the value of the program, 
and with that strong of a suggestion from the Subcommittee that 
we feel that finishing the program and the ongoing contracts is 
going to be necessary, that it would have been more realistic 
in your budgeting to come in and ask for that money since this 
Committee has spoken so firmly on it.
    Dr. Westphal. Well, I have asked that, you know--in fact, I 
had a group of folks from Mississippi come in and visit me the 
other day and one of the things that I mentioned to them was 
that we really--while there are some real threats to many 
aspects of the MR&T from a variety of sources that overall the 
program has soundness to it. But we need to really refocus and 
spend some time working both with the Administration and 
Congress and local folks on where this program is going in the 
future. I don't mind telling you, you know this, that some 
people see MR&T as a throw-back to the old days and they want 
to see some changes in it.
    And maybe what we really need to do is to reassess where 
those changes are, where the priorities should be, funding is 
limited. It is limited both by us, as we put together a budget, 
it is limited by, you know, this Committee will have an 
allocation and a limit to what it can fund. So, where are the 
priorities? Are they in the tributaries? Are there, you know, 
sediment management studies and other things?
    And I really believe we have got to have that dialogue. 
Otherwise, we are going to continually be in this, you know, 
back and forth, back and forth: We don't fund it; you put it in 
the budget, back and forth.
    The reason I said I was happy that we came in with a $309 
million figure is because that is actually what you 
appropriated. It is more than we requested last year and we are 
sort of catching up to you. And where we could catch up to you 
on the dollars, we also need to catch up to you on the policy 
priorities.
    Now, in this particular project you mention, the 
Administration's feeling has been that we are at that phase 
where this needs to become more of a local responsibility, not 
necessarily a Federal one. The Administration is also concerned 
that the program will continue on; that there is no end to this 
because there is a need out there and there other communities 
who would want to sign up to it, and, so, it is almost like a 
select committee that becomes a permanent committee, it just 
stays on.
    And I think those are questions that we have to face. And 
if it is a good program and it does have value for local folks 
and it does have a Federal interest and it broadly helps the 
environment, I think we should talk to you about it and I think 
we should make some decisions so we can avert these kinds of 
situations.
    Mr. Wicker. I appreciate that answer and this will be my 
final comment, Mr. Chairman. You know, it is more than just 
sediment. I mean you have to go look at what is happening to 
people's farms, to people's homes, to people's property and you 
have to realize that the problem, at least in many areas, where 
this program is taking place, was caused by the Federal 
Government. The Federal Government came in initially, built a 
watershed lake and than channeled in an incorrect manner the 
river running into the watershed lake. And it was inevitable 
that it would fill up and that more and more each year the land 
above the lake is flooding. It is threatening towns, it is 
threatening the biggest town in one of the my counties and it 
is a mistake that the Government made. And I just can't see how 
we can abandon these people, and I don't think this 
Subcommittee and this Congress is going to. I do look forward 
to having the conversation that you mentioned and I appreciate 
the indulgence of the Chairman and the Subcommittee.
    Mr. Packard. Thank you.
    Dr. Westphal.
    Dr. Westphal. A quick follow-up. I think, you know, General 
Anderson and his folks are doing a terrific job of trying to 
deal with the other Federal agencies, maintain a dialogue with 
them, trying to address the environmental constraints that they 
perceive are part of these projects. And the Corps is not 
insensitive to those issues. The Corps, I mention in my 
statement, is the biggest environmental restoration agency in 
the Government.
    And I think we are trying very hard and we do need some 
cooperation from time to time from the other Federal agencies 
and I know I, within the Administration, I try hard to get them 
to the table. But I have to say that the Division and the 
District of Vicksburg, Colonel Kreger and others, are working 
very hard to get us to a point where we can have that dialogue 
and we need to have that dialogue with you, with the members of 
this Committee and the delegations from the region.
    Mr. Packard. Thank you.

                     COLUMBIA RIVER FISH MITIGATION

    That completes the first round of questioning. And before 
we go to the second round we have been requested by Congressman 
George Nethercutt, who is a member of the full Appropriations 
Committee but not a member of this Subcommittee, if he could 
ask some questions and, so, we will yield to him for those 
questions.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, thanks to the 
members of the Subcommittee for allowing me to join today for a 
few minutes to talk with all of you--welcome, to all of you--on 
an issue that really affects theWestern States, primarily the 
Pacific Northwest, as it relates to fish mitigation efforts.
    As you know, this Subcommittee is scored against its 
allocation for appropriations the Columbia River fish 
mitigation costs. Those costs are mostly repaid to the Treasury 
by the Bonneville Power Administration. And, so, it is an 
important issue and I assume this Subcommittee wants to be very 
clear that it is doing some good. It, meaning the Columbia 
River fish mitigation efforts and funding.
    I wonder if you or General Strock or whoever wants to 
address this issue could, in a brief fashion, advise what 
benefits we have had flow to the fish mitigation efforts by the 
way of funding from this Subcommittee?
    Then I want to talk about the process you are engaged in, 
quickly after that, with respect to the study that is ongoing 
by the Corps on the issue of dam removal on the Lower Snake 
River.
    Dr. Westphal. Okay. Well, actually General Strock and I 
have been engaged on Northwest salmon fish mitigation, dams and 
everything else for, well, since he has been in command and 
since I have been in this job. So, on the mitigation issue, I 
think that we have had some real success there. But I think 
that you can get more specifics to it.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Maybe focus, General, on the new turbines 
that are being developed that we think have some potential to 
save fish?
    Mr. Packard. Again, for the record, General, if you would 
state your name and position?
    General Strock. Yes, sir. I am Brigadier General Carl 
Strock and I command the Northwestern Division of the United 
States Army Corps of Engineers. I sure thank you for presenting 
me the opportunity to comment on this. What I would like to do 
is, for the record, submit a more detailed assessment with some 
more facts and figures for you.
    [The information follows:]

                    NORTHWEST SALMON FISH MITIGATION

    National Marine Fisheries Service' (NMFS) Biological Opinions on 
hydropower operations for salmon and steelhead identified many near-
term actions for the Corps, and a long-term plan to evaluate 
alternative ways to operate and configure the dams. Near-term actions 
have included increased flow augmentation and spill for juvenile fish; 
continued juvenile fish transportation; improvements to adult and 
juvenile fish passage systems; adjusted powerhouse operations; 
additional spillway flow deflectors at the dams; and construction of 
additional research and monitoring facilities.
    These actions have been successful in improving juvenile fish 
survival at the dams. Recent NMFS research on spring/summer chinook 
indicates that between 50 and 60 percent of juvenile fish that migrate 
in-river successfully pass the Corps dams on the lower Snake and 
Columbia Rivers, up form about 10 to 40 percent in the 1960s and 1970s. 
About 50 to 60 percent of migrating juvenile fish are collected and 
transported past the dams in barges or trucks. Approximately 98 percent 
of the transported fish survive to the release point below Bonneville 
Dam. Therefore, the combined survival of transported juvenile fish and 
in-river migrants through the Corps dams is about 70 to 80 percent.
    Regarding turbine passage studies, the Corps has been involved in a 
comprehensive program to investigate improving fish passage through 
turbines since the early 1990s. The investigation consists of both 
biological and engineering studies.
    From November 1999 to January 2000, tests were conducted at 
Bonneville Powerhouse I to compare results in Unit 5, a conventional 
unit, and unit 6, a Minimum Gap Runner (MGR) unit. Our initial analyses 
of the test results verify that the MGR turbine is safer for fish. 
Injury rates were low for both the conventional and MGR units, but the 
MGR had about half the injury rate of the conventional turbine, plus a 
better survival rate. Survival rates for fish released at the turbine 
hub from both the MGR and the conventional turbine was 97 to 100 
percent; for mid-blade releases from 95 to 97 percent. Survival rates 
for fish released from the blade tip of the MGR were about 94 to 97.5 
percent compared with survival rates of about 91 to 95.5 percent with 
the conventional turbine. An added benefit of the MGR turbine appears 
to be improved operating unit efficiency. This improved efficiency 
could partially compensate for lost generation due to spill.
    The study results are still undergoing detailed statistical 
analyses and, therefore, initial observations should be considered 
preliminary and subject to further interpretation. It should also be 
noted that this study evaluated direct mortality and injury caused by 
passage through the turbine units and did not evaluate delayed effects 
in the trailrace (below the dam).

                      RESULTS ON FISH POPULATIONS

    General Strock. But I can tell you that we are seeing 
tremendous positive results on the fish populations as a result 
of this. We are not the biologists. The National Marine 
Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service are the 
biologists where anadromous and resident fish are concerned, 
respectively. But they are telling us that had it not been for 
the mitigation project the stocks would be in far worse shape 
than they are now.
    In the 1970s, we were seeing survival rates for the out-
migrating salmon to be in the 40-to-60 percent area. Now, we 
are seeing survival rates in 70-to-80 percent. In fact, where 
the Lower Snake is concerned, we are really seeing pre-dam 
levels of survival through the system in accordance with the 
National Marine Fisheries Service. So, we are encouraged by 
that.
    Specifically where the new turbine designs that we are 
testing down at the Bonneville Dam are concerned, we are seeing 
positive results. While they are somewhat preliminary, we are 
very encouraged. We are seeing three or four percentage points 
of survivability, and that is fairly significant, that puts us 
up in the 94-to-95 percent survival through the turbine. We 
have also learned some additional things through this testing 
on how to improve the configuration.
    The new turbines, they are called minimum gap runners, 
doless damage to the fish and we are also seeing injury rates reduced 
as well, so, we are encouraged by that. In fact, to the point that we 
have made the decision to go ahead and install those turbines 
throughout Powerhouse No. 1.
    One additional benefit we have seen is that not only are 
they more fish-friendly, but they also are more efficient and 
we are getting more power output for the same amount of water 
through the system.
    So, we are very encouraged and we will continue to work 
with that.

                         LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS

    Mr. Nethercutt. I appreciate that. Let me turn to, I guess, 
a less pleasant subject. And that is the hearing process, the 
meeting process that has been ongoing in our region. I believe 
it was 13 hearings and meetings that have been held thus far to 
take public opinion with respect to what should be done in 
connection with additional scientific information that the 
Corps might need to make a judgment about whether these dams on 
the Lower Snake River should be breached.
    You all know my view on this. You and I had a discussion a 
few weeks ago and a very good discussion, General, I appreciate 
that. Greg Graham, manager of the Corps study, was quoted in 
February as saying that his agency, the Corps, was not trying 
to find out whether breaching dams is popular, instead, he 
said, the agency wants to know whether it failed to consider 
important information. This is not a vote, he was quoted as 
saying. I assume that quote was accurate.
    Then, sir, in March you were quoted in ``The Oregonian.'' 
This first quote was in ``The Oregonian'' and the second quote 
was in ``The Oregonian'' by you, General, saying if there is 
discretion between one thing or another, the receptivity of the 
population is going to be a component in our decision. The 
number of people who stepped up before a microphone may not 
truly represent the feelings of the region. The press is 
replete with indications of stacking the deck with respect to 
opponents of maintaining these dams on this river system, and 
then, you know, having the sense that the purpose of the 
hearing was to gather additional scientific information.
    When I read your quote, General, I about fell off my chair 
because it seemed then that there is going to be some 
indication of whether this is a popular decision or not, versus 
whether it there is additional scientific information.
    My constituents, by the scores, have been frustrated by 
their inability to step up to a microphone and say this is what 
we feel about dam breaching and, give the additional scientific 
information they are trying to present. But instead they were, 
you know, apparently bussing people in. With all due respect, 
environmental community is bussing people in, signing up 17 at 
a time, and having 17 people to one--you know, proponents of 
dam breaching to one opponent. And then to get the sense that 
maybe the weight of the testimony is going to have some impact 
on you as opposed to looking at the scientific information that 
comes through these hearings is astounding.
    Please, tell me it isn't so.
    General Strock. It isn't so. [Laughter.]
    Mr. Nethercutt. I appreciate it, because that really is a 
critical element of these hearings, that they be fair.
    That you take into account information. But there is a 
growing and continuing sense in the region, people who 
literally live in the Fifth Congressional District and 
elsewhere in the State, that it is not a fair process and that 
they are being out-shouted and, therefore, they are fearful 
that the weight of that shouting on the one side will outweigh 
sensible scientific determination.
    So, I am delighted if that is the testimony and if that is 
the approach of the Corps--that you will look at science and 
not look at the weight of testimony as it relates to popular 
opinion and this isn't a poll that we are taking out there.
    General Strock. No, sir. The remarks that appeared in ``The 
Oregonian'' last week came from about a 20-minute discussion I 
had with that particular reporter. Many of the things that we 
covered were the same things covered by the Spokane paper and 
it came out in a completely different presentation. As the 
media is wont to do, they will take things out of context.
    I prefaced the remarks I made with the same remarks I made 
that Greg Graham shared that it is not a referendum, it is not 
a vote, we did not keep score. But the reporter wanted to know 
that in general, of those who testified publicly, what was the 
prevailing opinion and that was the result of that.
    We are going to base this on science as delivered by the 
resource agencies and on the economic impacts. We also are 
considering Treaty obligations, legal implications, cultural 
and social impacts. So, we are following an established process 
and I have got full confidence we will do the right thing here.
    Mr. Nethercutt. Well, I hope so because it has the 
potential to destroy the West and destroy the Eastern 
Washington and the Pacific Northwest in terms of the economies 
of that region, agricultural use, water use, transportation, 
and it is critically important. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for 
the time and the Committee's indulgence in my questions.
    Mr. Packard. May I just proceed a little bit further on 
this issue of the Columbia River Fish Mitigation Program?
    General Strock. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Packard. Would you provide, for the record, the 
detailed breakdown of how the funds that we provided in the 
budget year 2000, how they intend to be expended?
    General Strock. Yes, sir, we certainly will.
    Mr. Packard. In detail.
    General Strock. Yes, sir.
    [The information follows:]



                          MITIGATION ANALYSIS

    Mr. Packard. The largest single item included in the budget 
request for the Columbia Fish Mitigation Program is the 
continuing mitigation analysis and you have requested $40 
million for that. By the end of the fiscal year 2000, how much 
will have been spent on mitigation analysis and what is the 
total estimated cost of the activity, and when will it be 
completed?
    General Strock. Sir, the $40 million figure, I believe, is 
for the '01 budget request. I will have to get, for the record, 
the specifics of where we are in 00. I think we expect to fully 
execute that program because the appropriation for last year 
was actually cut significantly from what we requested. So, I 
don't anticipate any problems but we will provide that for the 
record.
    [The information follows:]

                     COLUMBIA RIVER FISH MITIGATION

    By the end of FY 2000 we estimate expenditures for 
Mitigation Analysis sub-project of the Columbia River Fish 
Mitigation project to be approximately $257,389,000. The total 
amount programmed for mitigation analysis is $442,500,000. The 
Mitigation Analysis sub-project is expected to be completed by 
2006. The schedule will depend heavily upon the measures 
contained in the National Marine Fisheries Service Biological 
Opinion for operation and configuration of the Columbia River 
Power System.
    The project cost estimate of $1,386,000,000 for the 
Columbia River Fish Mitigation program was based on the 
National Marine Fisheries Service 1995 Biological Opinion. 
Costs and schedules for the long-term configuration measures 
not specifically prescribed in the 1995 Biological Opinion 
assume an aggressive non-breach plan to ensure a seamless 
funding stream. The program costs and schedule will be revised 
as needed to reflect the new Biological Opinion.

                               TOTAL COST

    Mr. Packard. Now, you show a total estimated cost of $1.3 
billion, approximately, a little over that.
    General Strock. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Packard. What is the basis of that estimate?
    General Strock. Well, it is just our assessment of what it 
is going to take to do the analysis.
    Mr. Packard. Does that include breaching the dams?
    General Strock. No, sir, it does not. It includes studies 
of breaching but as Mr. Nethercutt pointed out, BPA will 
reimburse about $1.2 billion of that total amount from 
ratepayers, not taxpayers.
    Mr. Packard. I don't have any further questions.
    Thank you very much.
    General Strock. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Packard. We will move to the second round of questions 
now and Mr. Visclosky?
    Mr. Visclosky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    General Ballard, first of all, I would want to echo the 
comments and best wishes of my colleagues on your retirement 
and do wish you well. I am very proud and happy with the 
service you have provided to the country. I think you have done 
a great job.
    General Ballard. Thank you very much, sir.

                          NATIONWIDE PERMIT 26

    Mr. Visclosky. The Committee has prepared a series of 
questions on the Permit 26 issue. There was a controversy about 
that last year. If I could ask a general question, what was the 
policy that led to the change in the permitting?
    Dr. Westphal. There wasn't a policy, it was actually a 
litigation. We were sued. The feeling was that we were 
basically not doing a good job of protecting wetlands and 
headwaters and critical waters in the flood plain. And, as a 
result of the discussions based on that lawsuit, the 
negotiations on the lawsuit, the decision was made to basically 
replace nationwide Permit 26 with a set of activity-based 
permits, nationwide permits, which is what we did over the 
course of a couple of years now.
    Mr. Visclosky. Would any of you on the panel want to 
describe the problem we have had as far as the loss of wetlands 
in the United States?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, you know, it is one of the hardest 
things to try and tabulate. We all continue to ask for data on 
this to know how much we are losing, how much we are gaining. I 
think the Corps has done a very good job in its permit and 
regulatory program of maintaining fairly rigorous requirements 
for mitigation in our program but, overall, the biggest losses 
of wetlands really I think are coming today as a result not so 
much of filling of wetlands but rather of draining of wetlands.
    And you are seeing some particularly major efforts in this 
area happening in the Northeast and to some extent in the 
Southeast. This is not regulated by the Clean Water Act and you 
have undoubtedly heard of the Tellac rule. The Tellac rule was 
developed--actually the name Tellac comes from a district 
engineer in Wilmington; is that right--who, as he was seeing 
critical wetland areas drained, simply by putting in a canal 
and letting the water run out and then saying, we don't have a 
wetland any more, filling it in and developing it. As they were 
doing that, of course, under Tellac, you dig that ditch and you 
can't help but throw material to the side. It spills over. And 
that can then be considered to be regulated under 404 of the 
Clean Water Act.
    Mr. Visclosky. Mr. Secretary, you had mentioned that the 
Permit 26 came under review and changed because of litigation. 
A rule was issued on March 9th. Are you in litigation again now 
on the issue?
    Dr. Westphal. No. We issued on March 9 a final rule on, I 
think it was March 9th, I can't remember the date. But if you 
are referring to the rule, the final rule on----
    Mr. Visclosky. The final rule is in place on March 9th.
    Dr. Westphal. Yes.
    Mr. Visclosky. Has litigation been filed, perhaps is the 
question I should ask?
    Dr. Westphal. I don't know of any.
    Mr. Andersen. Congressman, for the record, my name is 
Robert Andersen, I am the Chief Counsel for the Army Corps 
ofEngineers, and we don't have any pending litigation on the final 
rules but there are some Federal District Court litigations that 
involve other nationwide permits, other than 26, that are still 
ongoing.
    Mr. Visclosky. No one has filed a motion in any Federal 
Court to restrain you from implementing the rule?
    Dr. Westphal. Let me get you an answer for the record.
    [The information follows:]

                          NATIONWIDE PERMIT 26

    On February 28, 2000, the National Association of Home 
Builders filed suit in the United States District Court for the 
District of Columbia seeking judicial review of Corps 
Nationwide Permit 29 which authorizes small fills for single 
family housing construction. On March 9, 2000 Nationwide Permit 
26 replacement permits were published in the Federal Register. 
On March 16, 2000, the National Stone Association filed suit 
against the new Nationwide Permits. In addition, on March 28, 
2000, the National Association of Home Builders amended the 
complaint in their February 28, 2000 lawsuit to add counts 
challenging the Nationwide 26 replacement permits.

                          NATIONWIDE PERMIT 26

    Dr. Westphal. It may be that the home builders had 
threatened to do that and maybe they have followed through.
    Mr. Visclosky. But have not?
    Dr. Westphal. Maybe they have and I just don't know about 
it today.
    Mr. Visclosky. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Packard. Well, it is interesting, Mr. Visclosky, that 
you brought that up because you and I have a little bit 
different points of view on that as was evident last year and I 
had many, many questions that I wanted to bring up on the 
nationwide permit and its replacements.
    Would you, for our refreshment, explain the differences 
between the previous nationwide 26 process and the current 
proposal?
    Dr. Westphal. I would like to give you a full answer for 
the record with more explanation and not take up a lot of your 
time today.
    [The information follows:]

                          NATIONWIDE PERMIT 26

    Nationwide Permit 26, which authorizes discharges of 
dredged or fill material into headwaters and isolated waters 
with a maximum acreage limit of 3 acres, is being replaced by 
activity-specific Nationwide Permits (NWPs), most of which have 
a \1/2\ acre limit and general conditions that provide more 
protection for the aquatic environment. The expiring NWP 26 
required notification to the Corps for activities that fill 
greater than \1/3\ acre of headwaters and isolated waters, 
whereas the new NWPs require notification to the Corps for 
activities that fill greater than \1/10\ acre of non-tidal 
waters. The new NWPs are not restricted to headwaters and 
isolated waters. In general, the replacement NWPs authorize 
activities in all non-tidal waters, except for non-tidal 
wetlands that are adjacent to tidal waters.

                          NATIONWIDE PERMIT 26

    Dr. Westphal. But basically what we did is we went through 
a series of activity-based permits. We reduced the acreage 
limitation on most of these. The idea was that we wanted to--
first of all, the Administration has been very, very adamant 
about encouraging people not to build in flood plains. And 
James Lee Witt has taken a leadership position on this and he 
has outlined the costs to the taxpayer of rescuing people from 
floods and so on. And, so, part of the idea here was to 
essentially eliminate the use of nationwide permits in the 
flood plain. That doesn't mean that you can't build in the 
flood plain, it means that to build in the flood plain you have 
to go seek an individual permit.
    The other aspect was, what do you do in the head waters, 
what do you do where you go, say, to areas where the flows are 
say below 5 CFS? And at that point, you allow development on 
the fringes through the nationwide permit but you prohibit any 
development using nationwide permits in the major flood plain 
area there.
    The gist of all of this is that you are really making it 
harder for people to build in flood plains. And you are making 
it harder by requiring them in most cases to go forward to seek 
an individual permit.
    Mr. Packard. There are studies and some reports that 
indicate that we have actually increased the amount of wetlands 
over the last few years by virtue of your mitigation program, 
which has been rather stringent, often much more than one-on-
one. What is your perception of that whole question: Are we 
depleting or are we increasing wetlands?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, I think we are increasing the 
protection of wetlands for those areas that we are able to 
regulate. What concerns me, personally, is what we are not able 
to capture by virtue of not being able to regulate. That is 
what I was mentioning before which is the draining of wetlands, 
which is occurring at a very rapid pace everywhere.
    I have suggested to the Administration and through my 
colleagues in the Administration that we need to deal with that 
in earnest with the Congress. That is a matter that we have to 
put into the hands of the Congress to work with in another 
reauthorization of the Clean Water Act.
    It is a tough issue and it will be difficult for Congress 
to deal with it, but I think that is where it belongs. I have 
resisted efforts to try to find other ways to regulate because 
I think it is a matter that we have to settle as a nation and I 
think this is the forum where it needs to be settled.
    Mr. Packard. Dr. Westphal, in last year's bill, the FY 2000 
Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act, you were 
directed to prepare a report for Congress on the replacement 
permit costs and, that was certainly a controversial issue, but 
it was included in the law. And on February 17th, I wrote you a 
letter and asked that you withhold publication of the final 
rule on the replacement permits until Congress had an 
opportunity to review that report that you were directed to 
prepare.
    Now, obviously, you have gone ahead and published your 
final report but I have not received that requested report on 
the rule. The preamble of the Corps' March 9th, 2000, 
publication of the final rule cites conclusions of the study 
and it says that it was finalized in January 2000 and it is 
available on the Corps' regulatory home page. We have not been 
able to find that, incidentally. We simply have not been able 
to locate it on your website.
    And, so, we have not seen that report, and, yet, it has 
been published. And then, furthermore, on March 14th, the Corps 
said it was still reviewing the study and it remains 
unavailable. The Committee is deeply concerned over the 
inconsistencies of those statements and why the study 
supposedly was completed back in January and relied upon in its 
final rulemaking but is still ``under review'' and unavailable 
to the Congress and the public, the American public. When will 
that study be available?
    Dr. Westphal. Mr. Chairman, the study is today with OMB and 
we did receive it from the Corps. We forwarded it to OMB. They 
were doing some assessment of one part of the report on 
essentially what would be the cost to the public asa result of 
this new rule. I have no knowledge of the Corps putting it on its web 
page or proposing to do that. I don't believe that they----
    Mr. Packard. Well, why did we not get a copy of that report 
before the rule was published?
    Dr. Westphal. I am not sure, Mr. Chairman, I can answer 
that question. I know that we were on a schedule on the rule, 
we have to get it in within a certain period of time. I don't 
know if that was a legal requirement. I think I would have to 
get you an answer on that. I am not sure why that was the case.
    [The information follows:]

    Although the study was completed in January 2000, in 
accordance with longstanding Executive Branch coordination 
policy, the Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the 
study and must complete its review before it is transmitted to 
Congress and made available to the general public. This is 
common practice regarding reports submitted to Congress by an 
executive branch agency. My staff also is reviewing the study. 
When the study is cleared by OMB, I will submit it to the 
Congress and, it will be available on the Corps headquarters 
regulatory home page.

                            COST OF NEW RULE

    Mr. Packard. When a letter was sent in February requesting 
that the rule not be published until we had a copy of that 
report, it is frustrating and upsetting that that was not 
ordered.
    You brought up the fact that there are delays and increased 
costs and it has been discussed that you have requested $6 
million in additional funding that would be required to 
maintain the current permit processing time schedule. I think 
the report will certainly show or should--and I think there are 
illusions to that fact in your testimony--that the report will 
show that there is a considerable amount of increased workload 
on the Corps to implement the new regulations and that it will 
cost significantly more money; $6 million has been the figure 
that has been requested.
    How can you justify a policy change that will double the 
processing time, because that is taken right from your own 
testimony, that will double the processing time and increase 
the cost $6 million?
    How can you justify that kind of a policy change?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, I think in this case we are justifying 
it on two points. One is that we absolutely need to protect 
these critical waters and headwaters and we need to make sure 
that we also, in the long term, save a good deal of the 
taxpayer's money by not making it too easy to build on flood 
plains, where we are constantly having to rescue people from 
it.
    The other factor is that we believe that this rule, while 
it is going to cost the public more because they are going to, 
in some cases, have to file an individual permit, while it is 
going to be costlier to the Corps to manage the process, we 
estimate $6 million a year in additional costs, that in the 
long term, the savings of the protection of wetlands and the 
long-term costs to the taxpayer from flooding will more than 
make up those costs.
    Mr. Packard. It is hard to visualize that a request on a 
half acre parcel of land is going to have any major impacts by 
wetlands by the removal. What analysis has the Corps conducted 
to determine the half acre? Is that an arbitrary figure that 
was just kicked out or was there some scientific reason to go 
from three acres to a half an acre?
    Dr. Westphal. I don't know. I wasn't involved in the 
details of how that was worked out. I don't know that I could 
say whether it was based on some scientific formula or simply a 
lot of examination of previous impacts. I would be glad to get 
you that.
    Mr. Packard. How does the Corps define minimal impacts?
    And that's in quotes. In the regs it refers to minimal 
impacts; how do you define that?
    Dr. Westphal. I'm not sure I know the answer to that.
    General Van Winkle. Mr. Chairman, let me answer a little 
bit. We went back, essentially, and took a look at all the 
historical permits we have given and broken those out into 
various acreages. And then we went back in and looked at 
various acreage percentages and how that would impact. And, so, 
as we selected the half acre as a standard they gave us a 
certain percentage that would change from the 3-acre 
requirement to the half an acre.
    There is a lot of discussion and negotiations among Federal 
agencies to determine that number. It was finally determined 
that number would still allow generalized permits, the 
nationwide permits under the different rules at the half acre 
point and then bring us into the individual permit.
    It was also felt that with a half an acre standard that 
individual, people who request permits then would have some 
leeway as they made adjustments and it was felt that there was 
a tradeoff in the balance there. And, so, again it was based on 
an analysis for a total workload, what our total permits have 
been in the past to determine that acreage.
    Mr. Packard. Many of our residential requests are on half 
an acre lots, or larger, throughout the country. And this will 
have a major impact upon just the processing to build a home, 
just a routine home. I think the concern that I have through 
all of this, and it certainly was expressed last year in our 
debate on this issue, is the delays that will take place. We 
are probably not going to have any more than level funding and 
maybe even water projects and the water portion of our bill, 
this Committee's bill, will probably suffer more than the 
military portion of our bill and the energy portion of our 
bill.
    That being the case, and we may--we, at best can expect 
maybe level funding from last year--and if we increase the 
defense budget like I think the President and the Congress 
wants to do that will include some defense issues in our bill. 
And that means that if it is level funding and we increase the 
defense portion of our bill then we will have to take that out 
of the water portion of our bill, which I guess is a long way 
of trying to say that we probably will have less funds than 
last year for water in the bill, which means probably that we 
will not get the $4-point, shortly over 4-point billion dollars 
for water.
    If we cannot fund even at last year's level on water issues 
in the bill, how will that affect not having sufficient money 
to implement this and still keep pace? What will suffer?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, it will be a pretty dramatic effect on 
us. I believe that our regulatory program is--I, personally, 
believe it is under-funded, has been under-funded.
    Mr. Packard. I do, too.
    But I am telling you the realities.
    Dr. Westphal. No, I understand. So, I think it will have a 
pretty significant impact.
    Mr. Packard. And it will delay--the only thing you can do 
is delay the timing, the schedule?
    Dr. Westphal. Yes.
    Mr. Packard. So, there could be actually much more of an 
impact without sufficient funds to implement the regs. It could 
actually delay much further than what you have already 
indicated. The doubling of the time schedule to approve the 
permitting process was based on the fact that you would have 
the increased funds. If you haven't any increased funds, that 
could even be delayed more; is that correct?
    Dr. Westphal. Mr. Chairman, we didn't ask for additional 
funds for this purpose because when we put the budget, we 
didn't have the rule, we didn't have the analysis, we didn't 
know what it would cost. So, the budget request that you have 
from the President is sort of pre-the-rule. It doesn't assume 
the additional $6 million in costs that we're going to 
essentially have to eat that cost if you were to fund us at the 
level we requested for this first year.
    So, I think if you cut us even more, of course, that even 
makes it more dramatic.
    Mr. Packard. That is what I understand. And that is of 
concern because we obviously have spent a lot of time talking, 
both in my office in personal meetings with you, each of you, 
and in Committee hearings and Committee meetings, we have 
discussed how to streamline the process and increase the 
application process in terms of time schedule or to improve it 
at least.
    Dr. Westphal. Right.
    Now, Mr. Chairman, remember this is just the replacements 
for nationwide 26.
    Mr. Packard. I understand.
    Dr. Westphal. We have 40-some-odd nationwide permits that 
are, you know, still----
    Mr. Packard. But if you are required to process 
significantly more nationwide, what were nationwide 26 
applications, and you have no more money to do it, it is going 
to take longer to do that, but that is also going to eat up 
time that would be used in processing other applications.
    In other words, it will have a ripple effect, it has to 
have a ripple effect, you can't avoid it unless you increase 
the expenditures and increase your personnel. That is the only 
way that you can avoid, I think, delay throughout the whole 
system of applicants.
    And that is of concern because that I think most of your 
Division leaders recognize that the greatest amount of 
complaints that we get--and it is not just from big developers, 
quote, big, rich developers in the minds of some--it is from 
cities and school districts and water districts and every 
public agency that wants to build a facility to improve their 
service to their people.
    And I come out of local government, so I know that feeling 
and that concern. You can't build a highway or a road in a 
community these days without long delays and often serious 
increases in cost. And that is felt at the local government 
level and that is of great concern to me because, again, that 
affects people's quality of life when you can't build a school 
or when you can't build a water system or you can't put in a 
flood control system or you can't put in a road for the city. 
If you can't do that then that compromises quality of life for 
the people on the local level and that is my biggest concern.
    So, I am going to continue to harp on the whole question of 
trying to make the application process simpler, streamlined 
and, yet, still address the environmental issues. But it is a 
huge economic issue now to those at the public level, mostly at 
local government, in terms of providing facilities for their 
people on a cost effective basis. Because if you delay four 
years or two years or even one year, an interchange in your 
community, you can increase the cost to the local taxpayers 
significantly, in just that delay alone.
    So, that is my concern and I am going to--there just has to 
be a balance between environmental concerns and economic 
concerns and being able to provide a quality of life to the 
people that the mayors and the city council and the school 
board, water district representatives are expected to provide.
    Dr. Westphal. Right.
    Mr. Packard. I have given you my speech.

                         ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS

    Dr. Westphal. Mr. Chairman, greatly at your urging, too, I 
signed recently a new rule, it went to the Federal Register 
just maybe a week-and-a-half ago, two weeks ago, on the 
jurisdictional appeals. Last year we----
    Mr. Packard. That is my next question, I was going to ask 
you to just give us a report on the implementation of that.
    Dr. Westphal. Okay.
    Mr. Packard. Because I understand it is going well.
    Dr. Westphal. Yes. And, so, we have got the denial appeal 
rule in place and we now have got the rule on the 
jurisdictional appeal. And they will come together in a way 
that I think will really expedite the ability of the applicant 
to get a decision, to get his or her either a denial of a 
permit or where the Corps--you know, when a permittee comes in 
and says, I want to develop acreage and the Corps says, well, 
we believe that that may be a wetland area, and they go out and 
they do the site visits and they look at it and if there is 
disagreement as to what it is then there is pretty much a 90-
day period of time of an appeal where a decision has to come 
forward and it is elevated to the Division. The Division comes 
in and looks at it and makes the final determination.
    So, we think we are going to expedite that process and make 
it easier for people to get their appeals through.
    Mr. Packard. I yield time to Mr. Visclosky.
    Mr. Visclosky. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
    As long as we are on permit 26, before we move on, just a 
statement and a question or two. It is my understanding that 
the report required in the legislation of last year was not a 
legal requirement, as far as providing it to the Committee. But 
I would state, as a member of the Subcommittee, as a member of 
the full Appropriations Committee, that the Chairman did write 
on February 17th, and it is my understanding that he has, as of 
today, March 28th, not received a response. And I think as a 
courtesy to the Chair and to every member of this Subcommittee 
if you simply wrote and said, we are not going to give it to 
you because we are not legally obligated to give it to you, I 
do think that letter should have been forthcoming to the 
Chairman.
    Dr. Westphal. Well, it is not our intention not to give it 
to him.
    Mr. Visclosky. I understand that----
    Dr. Westphal. Absolutely not our intent.
    Mr. Visclosky [continuing]. But if nothing else, after 31 
days, if my math is correct, in our office if we can't answer a 
letter within 10 days we send a letter out saying we can't 
answer your letter in 10 days and we will get back to you. So, 
I do think that they should response.
    Dr. Westphal. Whoever missed that, I apologize for that.
    Mr. Visclosky. The second point I would raise is, while the 
Chairman and I have had a disagreement, there is no question 
about it, on the issue, we are not entirely in disagreement on 
the issue. And I certainly wouldn't disagree that every effort 
should be made to balance the protection of wetlands in the 
United States of America with trying to mitigate the economic 
costs, both to the Federal taxpayers in terms of the Corps' 
budget as well as to the contract community. I don't disagree 
with the Chairman on that.
    It is my understanding if--and I appreciate what the 
Chairman is saying about our budget--if you had $6 million for 
this program there would be no additional delay for this 
particular set of permits.
    Dr. Westphal. Right.
    Mr. Visclosky. Okay. If you don't get the $6 million, to 
put it in perspective, what is the average number of days for a 
permit to be approved or denied now?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, what we are talking about here in terms 
of costs is the need now to go from the issuance of a general 
permit to an individual permit. And those will vary in the 
amount of time that they will take. They could take as long as 
a year, they could take a lot less than that.
    Mr. Visclosky. But during the debate last year, there was 
an average number of days----
    Dr. Westphal. There is and I----
    Mr. Visclosky [continuing]. We used in the debate and there 
was no controversy about the number of days. You could either 
be upset or not upset, but there were a number of days. Just to 
put a doubling of that in perspective, I would like to know 
what that is for----
    Dr. Westphal. General Van Winkle.
    General Van Winkle. Mr. Visclosky, let me answer the 
question. In general our individual permits are taking on the 
order of three to four months. I can get you that, we track 
this pretty closely, I don't have the number at hand. It is on 
the order of three to four months at this point.
    Mr. Visclosky. And the final question I would have is as 
far as the period of time that the contractors, developers, 
home builders, property owners, public entities wait for this, 
that is, I assume, concurrent with other permitting, licensing, 
zoning changes, what have you, that go into decisions and 
implementation of a construction and development scheme. This 
is not consecutive, that nothing else happens during this 
period of time while people wait on the Army Corps of Engineers 
and the Federal Government.
    Dr. Westphal. Right.
    Mr. Visclosky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Packard. Well, and that was my concern, one of my 
concerns is, isn't there a way that we can review the 
processing from one agency to another to see if there couldn't 
be some concurrence in the way that the process is done. Four 
months in one agency, but there are six other agencies or so 
that they have to go through, considering the local, county, 
the State and now, the Federal. You have got literally a 
plethora of agencies that have to give their approval. And when 
each one takes four months, then you can see you are talking 
about four or five years in many instances before a major 
application is approved finally and they can move forward.
    That is too long. That is simply too long. And some of us 
just can't feel that that ought to remain that way. Why can't 
we do some of it concurrently with Fish and Wildlife and EPA 
and some of the other Federal agencies at least. Have you even 
thought of discussing this with them?
    Dr. Westphal. I believe it is concurrent with the others.
    Mr. Packard. Well, it doesn't work out that way.
    Dr. Westphal. We should do more to----
    Mr. Packard. Because many of them say, well, we are waiting 
on the Army Corps to get their final 404, whatever permits are 
required, before we can really start. And, so, it isn't 
concurrent in most instances. There has got to be a better way, 
and I would love to be in your place, Mr. Secretary. I would 
find a better way to get this thing processed a lot quicker 
than three, four years for most applications. And for a person 
that wants to build on a half an acre site for a home that 
could be in a flood plain, that is too long, and it increases 
the cost significantly. Now, I don't know that a home would 
fall into that category, but the point has been made, and I do 
not want to prolong it.
    Mr. Edwards.

              FORMERLY USED SITES REMEDIAL ACTION PROGRAM

    Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I 
would like to, for a few minutes, shift gears to go to the 
issue of disposal of radioactive waste, especially after some 
of the situations we have seen in Paducah, Kentucky, and other 
parts of the country. It is an issue I think we all in Congress 
need to focus on more specifically.
    I would like to ask you about the FUSRAP Program and 
materials, for the record, the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial 
Action Program. Now, this subcommittee supported transfer of 
oversight of this program from Department of Energy to the 
Corps of Engineers. I am not sure that many members are aware 
that this might result in a policy change that no longer would 
these radioactive materials not have to be placed in NRC 
authorized sites. Can you tell me what the rationale is between 
differentiating between materials produced prior to 1978 and 
after 1978 and why the Corps has chosen not to require these 
materials be placed in NRC approved sites?
    Dr. Westphal. Okay. Well, I am going to ask the Corps Chief 
Counsel to come up and actually talk to you about that. He has 
experience not only in the Corps, but with the Department of 
Energy, and I am sure it has to do with the level of radiation 
in the material and what is acceptable in a RCRA site versus a 
non-RCRA site, but let me let you address that.
    Mr. Andersen. Again, for the record, it is Rob Andersen, 
the Chief Counsel for the Corps of Engineers.
    Congressman, I think the key principle to keep in mind in 
this is that it is in accordance with law, and it is regulated 
under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. And I think 
you are alluding to the Buttonwillow disposal of FUSRAP 
material?
    Mr. Edwards. Yes.
    Mr. Andersen. It is very important to remember that this 
material was decontaminated and decommissioned in New York, and 
the materials that ultimately were shipped to California, the 
site at Buttonwillow at the lowest cost, were materialswell 
below 500 pico curies, and at that level, they don't constitute a 
serious risk to health and safety so long as they are disposed of in an 
adequate manner. And the contractor involved contacted the state 
agencies. We understand there is a disagreement about whether both 
agencies of the California Government cleared it, but the one that has 
the RCRA program delegated to them from EPA, cleared the capping and 
closure of the site after the materials were emplaced.
    Mr. Edwards. What was the quantity of materials shipped?
    Mr. Andersen. Well, it was a large----
    Mr. Edwards. How many rail cars?
    Mr. Andersen. I am glad you asked that. It was many, many 
rail cars and many, many tons, it would probably fill this room 
many times over. But to think of it accurately, you have to 
think about the amount of radioactivity there as very, very 
minute. Remember, this was broken up concrete and wood after 
the buildings had been decontaminated with just minor, minor 
residual materials that couldn't be removed in any other way. 
They are matrixed within the concrete and the wood, and at very 
low levels.
    Mr. Edwards. So your argument--and I think we would all 
agree with your comment that if disposed of in an adequate 
manner, materials aren't a risk to human life. That is also 
true for high-level nuclear waste as well. The question, 
obviously, is what is an adequate manner?
    One reason for this, you said, was because we are in 
accordance with the law. I understand some of the 
technicalities of that, but tell me the differentiation between 
radioactive material prior to 1978 and radioactive material 
after 1978? I am not a scientist, but I understand the half-
life of radioactive material, certainly would make that 
distinction absolutely meaningless. Can you prove to this 
committee that all the material prior to 1978 is a much lower 
level radioactive nature than after 1978?
    Mr. Andersen. No, Congressman. It is much more complicated 
than that, and I have written to the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission to make sure that our interpretation of the law was 
correct, and I would be glad to submit that to you for the 
record, but I can try to clarify it a little bit.
    [The information follows:]



    Mr. Andersen. It is materials that were pre-enactment of 
the Uranium Mill Tailing Act, and supposedly--and this is 
supposedly, since I was with an organization that oversaw DOE 
for a few years called the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety 
Board as their general counsel and then before this committee 
before--supposedly, they took the steps necessary in 
decommissioning and decontaminating those sites at the time to 
reduce those levels, and most of the materials were kept on 
DOE-owned sites, and they are not subject to NRC regulations. I 
am talking about FUSRAP materials. And the ore and the mill 
tailings can be highly radioactive and they are treated in a 
much different way.
    You should also note, Congressman, that the materials that 
require other type of disposal and treatment at that site in 
New York were handled in that manner, and were emplaced in a 
licensed NRC facility, the higher-level wastes.
    Mr. Edwards. But in listening to your answer, you cannot 
say that there is a clear--always a clear distinction between 
the level of radioactivity in the pre-1978 material and the 
post-1978 material; is that correct?
    Mr. Andersen. That is correct, that is correct, 
Congressman. And I think the purely legal approach to it would 
say we could say anything that is prior to the Act can be 
disposed of in a manner that is safe, but not necessarily in an 
NRC facility. That is the purely legal thing. But we have gone 
far beyond that, and as a matter of fact, the State of 
California has gone out and investigated the site and 
determined that in fact it is safe and has been properly 
disposed of under RCRA.
    Mr. Edwards. But post-1978 materials you put in NRC 
licensed disposal facilities; is that correct?
    Mr. Andersen. That is correct. All of the materials post 
1978 and----
    Mr. Edwards. All of the materials.
    Mr. Andersen. And at a tremendous cost, because for health 
and safety purposes, it is not necessary to put them into a 
licensed facility, and it is several orders of magnitude more 
costly.
    Mr. Edwards. I realize disposal of nuclear waste can be 
very expensive, as this committee knows, perhaps better than 
any subcommittee in the House, but perhaps I would like to ask 
you if you could follow up with a longer explanation of the 
difference in the--not the legalities, because if somebody is--
or a community is put at risk because of radioactive material, 
they could care less what the law was at the time. The question 
is: does it make sense and do we need to have these standards 
for pre-1978 materials as well as post-1978 materials? I don't 
know who passed the law previously, but I am not going to be 
fully responsible for their judgment. I just think Congress has 
a special obligation. I think this has come home to me after 
seeing what I thought were some credible lapses at the 
Department of Energy, dealing with the Paducah, Kentucky case, 
the hearings we had--the Chairman had in this subcommittee in 
the last several days. I am just going to take an increased 
interest in how we are disposing of nuclear waste whether it is 
high-level or low-level. I think we need to be extremely 
careful. I would like a little further explanation if I could, 
about the safety and the level of radioactivity in the material 
pre-1978.
    Mr. Andersen. We will provide that for the record.
    And I just might note--and I don't mean to be flippant 
about this at all, that a single bottle of Merlot will contain 
several hundred pico curies of radioactivity in it, and so we 
are not even--the Department of Transportation, in terms of 
this residual material--that is what I prefer to refer to it 
as--does not even classify it as radioactive material, and it 
just has to be shipped in proper cartons. So we are very 
conscious of the health and safety risks, and we will provide 
more information for the record for you.
    [The information follows:]

          SAFETY AND RADIOACTIVITY LEVELS OF FUSRAP MATERIALS

    The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 (UMTRCA) 
provided for regulation of the operation and cleanup of sites 
containing uranium mill tailings produced in an activity for which a 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license was in existence on, or 
issued after the date of enactment of the Act. UMTRCA also made cleanup 
at designated, unlicensed sites the responsibility of the Secretary of 
Energy, working in cooperation with the cognizant States. Even before 
the enactment of UMTRCA, however, it was apparent that there were sites 
that were not licensed by the NRC that required remediation. The 
Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) was developed 
by the Department of Energy (DOE) to address remediation at certain of 
those sites, which where contaminated as a result of the Nation's early 
Atomic Weapons Development Program. In 1997, responsibility for 
cleaning up the FUSRAP sites was transferred to the U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers.
    From the standpoint of radioisotopes, byproduct materials regulated 
by NRC and materials addressed under FUSRAP that are not regulated by 
the NRC are similar. However, there are differences which are 
significant. Those FUSRAP sites where ore was processed generally were 
cleaned up to the standards of the day when the processing was 
finished. Other FUSRAP sites resulted from storage or disposal of 
materials from this earlier decontamination. Although some areas of 
elevated concentrations do exist, much of the remaining contamination 
has a relatively low activity level. Over time, many FUSRAP materials 
have been further dispersed and commingled with soil and other 
materials.
    The average concentrations of individual radionuclides in many 
FUSRAP waste streams range from just above background to hundreds of 
picocuries per gram (pCi/g). However, because there are areas of 
elevated concentrations, radionuclide concentrations in some waste 
streams may exceed several thousand pCi/g. The concentration of 
radionuclides that may be disposed of in a Resource Conservation and 
Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle C permitted facility will be limited by 
the acceptance criteria for that facility. These facilities generally 
accept for disposal only materials averaging less than 355 pCi/g 
natural uranium and 110 pCi/g natural thorium. For those FUSRAP sites 
where the RCA Subtitle C facility's acceptance criteria cannot be met, 
recycling or disposal at a NRC-licensed facility will be required.
    The Corps believes that the FUSRAP materials should not all be sent 
to NRC regulated facilities because some of these materials can be 
safely disposed of in RCRA facilities. The Corps will continue to 
dispose of FUSRAP materials with higher activity levels in NRC or 
agreement state licensed disposal sites, since they are the only 
facilities which can accept higher activity materials, whether the 
materials themselves are NRC licensed or not. The Corps regards both 
NRC licensed and RCRA permitted disposal facilities as providing 
protection to workers and the communities around them from exposure to 
the hazardous substances, including radionuclides, that they are 
permitted or licensed to manage for disposal.

                         EXTENT OF RADIOACTIVTY

    Mr. Edwards. I would appreciate that, because I realize one 
bottle of Merlot might not be too dangerous on a radioactive 
basis. 50 rail cars full might concern me a little bit more, 
and I appreciate your answer. I know it is a serious matter, 
and I look forward to hearing from you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Packard. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. Mr. Knollenberg.
    Mr. Knollenberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And the Merlot 
bothered me for a minute there. [Laughter.]

                       TWELVE TOWNS DRAIN PROJECT

    I drink that stuff, in moderation, but I drink it.
    I just want to talk about a parochial item here that goes 
to the heart of things in Michigan, and General Ballard, it 
might be your question. You may or may not be familiar with the 
Twelve Towns Drain Project in Oakland County, Michigan, but 
specifically it is a treatment facility that was constructed in 
1972, and now it needs improvements, new inlet, a dewatering 
pump station, ventilation, computerization, and some other 
things. Now this project has been authorized--or funding for 
the project has been authorized under WRDA. There is currently 
no outlay for this in the budget proposal. There was funding in 
the 2000 budget to get just an initial bump up and going, and 
my simple question is--and you mayhave to search that out--but 
is there currently no outlay in the budget for this project?
    General Ballard. There is currently no money in the 2001 
budget.
    Mr. Knollenberg. So that would be something that--there is 
no possibility of an early appropriation of dollars unless we 
do the appropriating here at this committee, apparently. There 
is nothing within your perspective that would indicate that you 
are going to proceed with any expenditure, doctor?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, let me ask you to just let us review 
this, let the chief and I review this, and see what we can do 
in this fiscal year, if anything, based on what we are doing in 
2000, and then get you a recommendation on that.
    [The information follows:]

              TWELVE TOWNS DRAIN, OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN

    Section 219 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1992, 
as amended by section 504 of the Water Resources Development 
Act of 1996 and section 502 of the Water Resources Development 
Act of 1999, authorized $20,000,000 in Federal funds for the 
Twelve Towns Drain Project. The non-Federal share is estimated 
at $124,000,000. Federal funding was not provided for the 
project in FY 2000. Design is largely complete. Subject to the 
usual qualifications on capabilities, if fund were provided in 
FY 2001, $250,000 could be used to review non-Federal design 
documents, prepare Federal contract plans and specifications, 
execute a construction cost sharing agreement, and award a 
contract.

                       DETROIT RIVER MASTER PLAN

    Mr. Knollenberg. There is another, while we are doing this, 
and we can do this for the record, let me also include--there 
is a Detroit River Master Plan. It is called the Corridor 
Study, which includes a variety of projects. There are about 
five of them. And this is very critical to Detroit as a port. 
There is the Detroit River Master Plan. There is a Detroit 
Riverfront Seawall Improvements, Detroit River Navigation 
Improvement, Detroit River Environmental Dredging, and finally, 
the Detroit River Removal of Reef. Now, these are all programs. 
So I guess what I would like in your response is for you to 
give us an indication of how you view this project, whether it 
is favorable or what, and what potential might there be to 
start funding, starting this work in 2001.
    Dr. Westphal. We will be glad to do that. In fact, we will 
expedite that and get you--we may come see you about that.
    Mr. Knollenberg. All right, that is fine. I would 
appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    [The information follows:]



                                 FUSRAP

    Mr. Knollenberg. This next question is on FUSRAP, and, 
General, I think what we are after here is just, if you can, 
give us a status on the cleanup that FUSRAP is involved in and 
that the whole program is--what is the status today; what can 
we expect maybe--and also what we can expect from your 
indications of any future success?
    General Ballard. Yes, sir. Since this program was 
transferred to us, it has probably been one of the most 
successful ones that we have undertaken, and it has been well 
funded by the Administration to the tune of about $140 million 
per year. We took over, I think it was 121 sites from DOE. We 
are well ahead of schedule, and as long as the funding 
continues, we see no problem in completing this, and I am not 
really sure of the timeline of this project.
    Mr. Knollenberg. But you are ahead of schedule.
    General Ballard. We are ahead of schedule. We have not 
increased any manpower. We are doing it within current 
capability.
    Mr. Knollenberg. I understand you have covered this 
question in some part already I believe, haven't you?
    General Ballard. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Knollenberg. I was out of the room at that time.
    General Ballard. We were talking about the disposal, with 
Mr. Edwards, of some of the materials in non-NRC facilities.
    Mr. Knollenberg. Okay. I think that kind of then takes care 
of the questions that I have on that.
    There is a cost difference, I know, between the disposal in 
a RCRA landfill versus, let's say, an NRC licensed site. Do you 
have any idea of what the differential of that would be there?
    General Ballard. It is significant. I don't know.
    Mr. Andersen. Congressman, I am Rob Andersen, Chief Counsel 
for Corps of Engineers.
    Mr. Knollenberg. Mr. Andersen.
    Mr. Andersen. Had a chance to discuss with Congressman 
Edwards some of these issues. It can be orders of magnitude or 
more. In other words, twice, sometimes 10 times the cost. Part 
of the problem is we don't--and I know this committee knows 
this--we don't have sufficient disposal facilities for residue 
or even very low-level waste in the United States, and so there 
are very few commercial operators that are licensed to dispose 
of it, and if you have to dispose of it under an NRC licensed 
facility, the cost can be anywhere from 2 to 10 times or 
greater.
    Mr. Knollenberg. I think that was expected. I don't think I 
have any more questions, Mr. Chairman, so I am going to 
relinquish to you, and thank you.
    Mr. Packard. Thank you, Mr. Knollenberg. We will complete 
this cycle with Mr. Frelinghuysen.

                             COASTAL POLICY

    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Coastal protection, pretty important to some of us on this 
committee, Secretary. It was my understanding that the 
Administration was going to change its coastal policy based on 
agreement reached in the Water Resources Development Act of 
last year, requiring a larger percentage from the local non-
federal sponsor. Was that the agreement reached between members 
of Congress representing coastal areas and the administration?
    Dr. Westphal. Well, we proposed a higher cost share than 
you were willing to accept. We had proposed a 65/35 cost 
sharing formula; Congress approved a 50/50 cost sharing.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. So you are suggesting there wasn't an 
agreement, and therefore----
    Dr. Westphal. Well, what I said is that I would like us to 
find ways to accommodate more projects in the budget based on 
Congress's willingness to adjust the cost share. We have this 
year 18 projects in the budget, about $52 million, and one new 
start, one new coastal restoration project, Assateague Island, 
in the budget. So we are moving in that direction, but I think 
that the--well, the other thing that I did was I felt that we 
really needed to do an assessment nationwide of what is our 
real need here. We have a significant number of requests, well 
beyond anything that either we can propose or you can fund for 
coastal work, and so I was able to get a request for $300,000 
in the fiscal year 2001 for us to do an overall study of the 
need out there and what we legitimately can put forward and 
fund.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. But history points out that the cost 
share used to be 75 percent federal, and 25 percent local. I 
thought there had been some sort of an agreement, 50/50 cost 
sharing.
    Dr. Westphal. Well again, I say I testified last year--I 
think it was particularly before the Senate, where I was asked, 
you know, that the best the Senate could do or the House and 
the Senate could do together would be 50/50; how would I feel 
about that? And I felt it was a very positive move forward, 
and----
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. But not positive enough to act on that, 
what some considered to be a fairly reasonable agreement?
    Dr. Westphal. I will tell you what, when we put this budget 
together, we had so many constraints for funding that--and it 
wasn't just shore protection. I mean, we would like to make a 
bigger dent on our backlog of maintenance. We would like to 
make a bigger dent on our construction backlog, and we have got 
great needs, as I said, in our regulatory program. There is a 
lot of areas where we just have----
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. So you wouldn't agree with the notion 
that somehow you have gone back on an agreement?
    Dr. Westphal. No. I would not say we have gone back on it. 
I think we are looking at it from the standpoint that we 
believe we can do more in this area, we would like to do more 
in this area, but we really don't have the funds to do it.

                             HOPPER DREDGES

    Mr. Frelinghuysen. Switching gears here to an issue I bring 
up every year, dredging, the private hopper dredges. General 
Ballard, in Section 237, the Water Resources Water Act of 1996 
says, ``The Secretary is required to employ private hopper 
dredges first before using the Corps dredge WHEELER in the Gulf 
of Mexico, saving the WHEELER for emergencies.'' Have you 
completed the required report on the success or failure of this 
program?
    General Ballard. We have completed--the draft of the report 
has been completed. It is currently being coordinated for 
review by senior staff at the Corps and the office of the 
Secretary.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. So, we are going to see a final report 
at one point.
    General Ballard. We are prepared to provide a copy to the 
Committee of this report.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. By?
    General Ballard. The end of probably next week.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. That would be great. I appreciate that. 
But the Corps is also using the dredge McFARLAND, a 180 days a 
year; is that correct? What is the operating cost for the 
dredge?
    General Ballard. The operating cost for the--the daily 
costs for operating and maintaining the McFARLAND is about 
$65,000.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. So, it is $65 thousand times 180?
    General Ballard. Yes. About $11.7 million.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. As you know, General, this Committee 
continues to be concerned over the cost of the refurbishing of 
the McFARLAND, built in the 1960s. What are the proposed costs 
on its refurbishment and how much is spent annually on 
maintaining it?
    General Ballard. Well, we, as you know, we launched the 
McFARLAND in 1967. We expect the total cost for refurbishing to 
be between $5-to-$8 million. We expect to spend the annual 
costs to operate and maintain and maintenance, we figure about 
$7.2 million is needed for maintenance.
    Mr. Frelinghuysen. We continue to be concerned about these 
costs and certainly I think you know our opinion on the use of 
the private dredges.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Packard. Thank you.

                            SAN DIEGO HARBOR

    General Madsen, would you kindly take a seat at the table. 
Just let me ask a couple of local and parochial questions for 
my own personal benefit. Would you give us an update, and state 
your name and position for the Committee, but would you give us 
an update on the deepening of the San Diego Harbor?
    General Madsen. Sir, for the record Brigadier General Peter 
Madsen, and Commander of the South Pacific Division, Corps of 
Engineers and, sir, I don't have, I will have to find that for 
the record.
    Mr. Packard. For the record will be fine.
    [The information follows:]

                 SAN DIEGO HARBOR DEEPENING, CALIFORNIA

    The local sponsor is currently performing an additional 
economic analysis to determine the requirements and most cost 
effective channel deepening alternative for future cargo and 
fleet ships projected to use the port. The feasibility study is 
scheduled to be completed in August 2000. Upon completing our 
report, we anticipate the design and construction of the 
project will proceed under the Continuing Authorities Program.

                       BOLINAS LAGOON RESTORATION

    Mr. Packard. Do you also have a cost-benefit ratio on the 
Bolinas Lagoon Ecosystem Restoration?
    General Madsen. Sir, I don't have that.
    Mr. Packard. For the record, please?
    General Madsen. Certainly.
    [The information follows:]

            BOLINAS LAGOON ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION, CALIFORNIA

    The cost-benefit ratio on the Bolinas Lagoon Ecosystem 
Restoration has not been developed. This is an environmental 
restoration project for which a traditional benefit cost 
analysis is not prepared. Rather, project justification is 
derived from restoration of environmental habitat in a cost 
effective manner.

                          SANTA BARBARA HARBOR

    Mr. Packard. And then why was $3.8 million reprogrammed 
from the Santa Barbara Harbor in Santa Barbara, California?
    General Madsen. Sir, I will have to provide that for the 
record.
    Mr. Packard. Fine. That is all I have.
    [The information follows:]

                    SANTA BARBARA HARBOR, CALIFORNIA

    At the request of our local sponsor, the City of Santa 
Barbara, the project has been delayed by one year. Additional 
time was required to satisfy non-Federal cost sharing 
provisions. Because of this delay, surplus funds were 
reprogrammed from the project.

                                CLOSING

    Mr. Packard. Any other questions? Well, again, it has been 
a productive hearing and we appreciate very much all of you 
participating, including the Division Commanders. Again, 
General Ballard, good luck to you on your upcoming retirement 
and thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, and all of you. We have 
additional questions we will submit for the record. The hearing 
is adjourned.
    [The information follows:]





                               I N D E X

                              ----------                              

                           CORPS OF ENGINEERS
                         Secretary of the Army

                                                                   Page
Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers.......................   1-2
    Army Civil Works New Initiatives.............................   8-9
    Complete Statement of the Honorable Dr. Joseph W. Westphal...  5-20
    Harbor Services Fund Proposal................................    10
    New Investment Program.......................................  9-10
    Testimony of Dr. Westphal....................................   2-5
    The Civil Works Program Budget Fiscal Year 2001..............   7-8
Highlights of the FY 2001 Continuing Program..................... 10-14
    Columbia River Basin Fish Mitigation.........................    12
    Construction, General........................................    11
    Continuing Authorities Program...............................    12
    Ecosystem Restoration Program................................    12
    General Investigations.......................................    11
    Food Control and Coastal Emergencies (FCCE)..................    14
    Food Control, Mississippi River and Tributaries (MR&T)....... 12-13
    Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).....    13
    Operation and Maintenance, General...........................    12
    Regulatory Program...........................................    13
    South Florida Ecosystem Restoration.......................... 11-12
FY 01 Direct Program.............................................    15
New Starts for FY 01.............................................    16
Testimony of LTG Ballard......................................... 17-20
Complete Statement of Lieutenant General Joe N. Ballard.......... 20-37
    Corps Historic Role in Service to the Nation................. 24-25
    Current Assessments.......................................... 27-28
    Current Challenges........................................... 28-29
    Current Civil Program Mission................................    26
    Direct Program...............................................    22
    Disaster Response Action..................................... 34-35
    Environmental Management..................................... 31-33
    Flood Protection............................................. 30-31
    Infrastructure Renovation.................................... 33-34
    Meeting Nation's Water and Related Land Resources Management 
      Needs......................................................    24
    National Trends, Introduction................................    27
    Navigation................................................... 29-30
    Reducing Corps' Maintenance Backlog.......................... 23-24
    Reimbursed Program........................................... 22-23
    Summary of Civil Works Program Budget, Introduction..........    22
    The Civil Works Program Budget Fiscal Year 2001, Introduction 21-22
Detailed Statement of Major General Hans A. Van Winkle........... 38-76
    Activities Under the Construction, General Appropriation..... 51-54
    Activities Under the Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies 
      Appropriation.............................................. 72-73
    Activities Under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action 
      Program (FUSRAP............................................    73
    Activities Under the General Expenses Appropriation.......... 73-75
    Activities Under the General Investigations Appropriation.... 41-50
    Activities Under the Operation and Maintenance, General (O&M) 
      Appropriations............................................. 54-71
    Activities Under the Regulatory Program Appropriation........ 71-72
    Activities Under the Revolving Fund..........................    75
    Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration................................    53
    Aquatic Plant Control Program................................    53
    Automated Information System Support.........................    47
    Automation...................................................    75
    Beneficial Uses of Dredged Material..........................    52
    CALFED.......................................................    44
    Chesapeake Bay Program.......................................    43
    Coastal Field Data Collection................................    46
    Coastal Inlets Research Program.............................. 54-55
    Collection and Study of Basic Data...........................    45
    Continuing Authorities.......................................    51
    Cultural Resources (NAGPRA/CURATION)......................... 55-56
    Dam Safety and Seepage/Stability Correction Program.......... 51-52
    Dredge Wheeler Ready Reserve.................................    56
    Dredged Material Disposal Facilities Program.................    53
    Dredging Data and Lock Performance Monitoring System......... 56-57
    Dredging Operations and Environmental Research Program (DOER) 57-58
    Dredging Operations Technical Support (DOTS) Program......... 58-59
    Earthquake Engineering Research.............................. 49-50
    Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program for Buildings and 
      Lifelines.................................................. 59-60
    Employee's Compensation......................................    54
    Environmental Data Studies................................... 46-47
    Flood Damage Data Collection.................................    47
    Flood Plain Management Services.............................. 45-46
    Gulf of Mexico Program.......................................    43
    Harbor Maintenance Fee Data Collection.......................    60
    Inland Waterways Users Board.................................    51
    Interagency and International Support........................    44
    Interagency Water Resources Development......................    43
    Introduction.................................................    41
    Inventory of Dams............................................    44
    Lake Tahoe...................................................    44
    Management Tools for Operation and Maintenance............... 60-61
    Monitoring of Coastal Navigation Projects (MCNP)............. 61-62
    National Dam Safety Program (NDSP)........................... 62-63
    National Emergency Preparedness Program (NEPP)............... 63-64
    National Shoreline...........................................    42
    Pacific Northwest Forest Case Study..........................    44
    Performance Based Budgeting Support Program (PBBSP).......... 64-65
    Planning Assistance to States................................ 42-43
    Project Modifications for Improvement of the Environment.....    52
    Protecting, Clearing and Straightening Channels..............    65
    Recreation Management Support Program (RMSP)................. 65-66
    Recreation Modernation Program...............................    52
    Regional Sediment Management Demonstration Program........... 66-67
    Reliability Models Program for Major Rehabilitation..........    67
    Remaining Items Overview.....................................    41
    Removal of Sunken Vessels.................................... 67-68
    Research and Development..................................... 47-49
    Riverine Ecosystem Restoration and Flood Hazard Mitigation... 53-54
    Scientific and Technical Information Centers.................    47
    Special Investigations.......................................    43
    Support for Others...........................................    76
    Table of Contents............................................ 39-40
    Total Civil Works Research and Development Funding...........    50
    Water Operations Technical Support (WOTS) Program............    68
    Waterborne Commerce Statistics............................... 68-69
    Wetlands Functional Assessment Methodology................... 69-70
    Zeba Mussel Research Program (ZMRP).......................... 70-71
Remarks of Pride by Mr. Rogers................................... 77-78
Remarks of Project Cooperation Agreements by Mr. Rogers.......... 78-80
Remarks by Congressman Edwards................................... 80-82
Remarks of Dallas Floodway Extension by Congressman Edwards......    82
Questions for the Record by Congressman Edwards.................. 83-98
    Colonias Along the Texas-Mexico Border.......................    95
    Corps Permit Program......................................... 83-85
    Dallas Floodway Extension, Trinity River, TX.................    86
    GIWW--Arkansas National Wildlife Refuge, TX..................    90
    Graham, TX (Brazos River Basin)..............................    88
    Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, TX............................... 91-92
    Houston-Galveston Navigation Channels, TX....................    85
    Johnson Creek, Upper Trinity Basin, Arlington, TX............    87
    Lower Colorado River Basin, TX............................... 86-87
    Middle Brazos River Basin, TX................................    89
    North Bosque River, TX.......................................    89
    Port of Houston..............................................    83
    Red River Bendway Weirs, TX.................................. 92-93
    Red River Chloride Control (Wichita River Basin), TX......... 87-88
    Section 211 Projects......................................... 93-94
Remarks by Congressman Knollenberg............................... 96-98
    Conduct of Upper Mississippi Study........................... 98-99
Remarks on Allegations of Misconduct............................104-105
Remarks on Assistant Secretary's Role............................99-100
Remarks on Columbia River Fish Mitigation.......................113-114
Remarks on Columbia River Fish Mitigation Program...............118-119
Remarks on Cost Benefit Analysis................................102-104
Remarks on Cost of Terminating MR&T Actions......................   111
Remarks on Demonstration Erosion Control........................111-113
Remarks on Lower Snake River Dams...............................115-117
Remarks on Management of the Corps..............................100-102
Remarks on Mississippi River and Tributaries....................110-111
Remarks on Nationwide Permits....................................   107
Remarks on New York and New Jersey Harbor.......................107-110
Remarks on Northwest Salmon Fish Mitigation.....................114-115
Remarks on Results on Fish Population............................   115
Remarks on Rio Salado, AZ.......................................106-107
Remarks on Work For School Districts............................105-106
Remarks on Mitigation Analysis...................................   118
    Mitigation Analysis..........................................   119
    Total Cost...................................................   119
Remarks on Administrative Appeals...............................126-128
Remarks on Cost of New Rule.....................................123-126
Remarks on Formerly Used Sites Remedial Action Program..........128-130
Remarks on Nationwide Permit....................................120-123
Correspondence from Mr. Robert M. Andersen......................131-142
    Federal Register, Vol 64, No. 64, Nuclear Regulatory 
      Commission................................................136-140
    Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)....................131-135
Securities and Exchange Commission...............................   140
    Federal Register, Vol 64, No. 64, Securities and Exchange 
      Commission.................................................   140
Remarks on Safety and Radioactivity Levels of FUSRAP Material....   142
Remarks on Extent of Radioactivity..............................142-143
Remarks on Twelve Towns Drain Project............................   143
Remarks on Detroit River Master Plan............................143-145
Remarks on FUSRAP................................................   146
Remarks on Coastal Policy.......................................146-147
Remarks on Hopper Dredges.......................................147-148
Remarks on San Diego Harbor......................................   148
Remarks on San Diego Harbor Deepening, California................   148
Remarks on Bolinas Lagoon Restoration............................   149
Remarks on Santa Barbara Harbor..................................   149
Closing Remarks..................................................   149
Questions for the Record by the Honorable Ron Packard...........150-220
    Additional Questions on Upper Mississippi River/Illinois 
      Waterway Navigation Study.................................174-176
    Assistance to School Districts...............................   165
    Credit and Reimbursement Agreements..........................   170
    Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies........................   173
    Funding Profile for Recreation Modernization................169-170
    FY 01 Direct Program Funding.................................   171
    FY 2001 Budget Request......................................165-168
    FY 2001 Budget Request Study Success Rates...................   174
    General Investigations.......................................   173
    Growing the Civil Works Program.............................153-157
    Harbor Services User Fee....................................171-172
    Maintenance Backlog.........................................172-173
    Nationwide Permit 26 Replacements...........................157-163
    Program Execution............................................   170
    Proposed Sites for Fiscal Year 2001.........................168-169
    Recreation Modernization Program.............................   168
    Regulatory Administrative Appeals Process...................163-165
    Upper Mississippi River/Illinois Waterway Navigation Study..150-153
Chairman Packard's Question for Major General Hans A. Van Winkle177-214
    American Heritage River Navigators..........................180-184
    Arlington Channel, Mobile Harbor, AL.........................   212
    Coastal Inlets Research......................................   208
    Construction, General Continued Authorities Directed Projects   184
    Construction, General Continuing Authorities Section 1135, 
      206 and 204 Projects......................................198-204
    Craney Island, VA Confined Disposal Facility.................   211
    Dam Safety Assurance.........................................   205
    Detroit District.............................................   212
    Devils Lake, North Dakota...................................215-220
    Dredge Wheeler..............................................210-211
    Dredging Operations and Environmental Research (DOER)........   211
    Examples of Savings.........................................208-210
    Flood Mitigation and Riverine Restoration Program............   207
    Grays Harbor, WA.............................................   209
    Instrumental Tools...........................................   212
    Matagorda Ship Channel, TX...................................   209
    National Recreation Reservation System......................212-213
    Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act 
      (NAGPRA)...................................................   212
    Operation and Maintenance....................................   208
    Providence River, RI.........................................   211
    Recreation Modernization Program............................205-207
    Reduced Dredging Costs Resulting From (DOER)................211-212
    Regional Sediment Management Engineering Tools..............209-210
    Regulatory Program..........................................213-214
    Remaining Items--General Investigations.....................177-180
    Section 14, 103, 107, 111, 205 and 208 Projects to be 
      Undertaken in FY 2000 and 2001............................184-198
    Shinnecock Inlet, NY.........................................   209
    Water Operations Technical Support Program...................   213
    Wilmington Harbor, NC........................................   211
Questions for the Record, Chairman Packard for Colonel Sean M. 
  Wachutka......................................................221-244
    Budgeted FY 2000 Studies, with Additional Outyear 
      Requirements, Unbudgeted in FY 2001.......................222-223
    Butler County, Ohio..........................................   223
    Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Illinois...................229-230
    Construction, General--Ohio River Greenway Public Access, 
      Indiana....................................................   227
    Des Plaines River, Illinois and Wisconsin...................223-224
    General Investigations.......................................   221
    Kanawha River Navigation, West Virginia......................   225
    Kentucky Lock Addition, Kentucky.............................   230
    Levisa and Tug Forks of the Big Sandy River and Upper 
      Cumberland River, West Virginia............................   229
    Licking River, Cynthiana, Kentucky...........................   224
    Locks and Dams 2, 3 and 4, Monongahela River, Pennsylvania...   230
    Metropolitan Louisville, Mill Creek Basin, Kentucky..........   225
    Metropolitan Louisville, Pond Creek, Kentucky................   228
    Metropolitan Louisville, Southwest, Kentucky.................   224
    Mill Creek, Ohio.............................................   229
    Ohio River Main Stem Systems Study, Kentucky, Illinois, 
      Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia.......................   223
    Olmsted Locks and Dam, Illinois and Kentucky................227-228
    Onondaga Lake Management Plan, New York.....................225-226
    Powell River, Straight, Reeds, Jones and Cox Creek, Virginia.   227
    Robert C. Byrd and Dam, West Virginia and Ohio, and Winfield 
      Locks and Dam, West Virginia...............................   228
    Schedule Slippages of at Least Six Months from Schedules in 
      FY 2000 Budget Justification..............................221-222
    Turtle Creek Basin, Upper Turtle Creek Environmental 
      Restoration, Pennsylvania..................................   226
    Tygart Lake (Dam Safety Assurance), West Virginia............   230
    Waukegan Harbor, Illinois...................................224-225
    West Columbus, Ohio..........................................   229
Chairman Packard's Question for BG M. Stephen Rhoades, Commander, 
  North Atlantic Division.......................................231-244
    Barnegat Bay, New Jersey.....................................   242
    Bronx River Basin, New York..................................   240
    Budget FY 2000 Studies, with Additional Outyear Requirements, 
      Unbudgeted in FY 2001.....................................235-236
    Construction, General--Assateague Island, Maryland...........   243
    Delaware River Main Channel Deepening, New Jersey, 
      Pennsylvania and Delaware..................................   243
    Feasibility Cost Sharing Agreement Schedules................237-239
    Fire Island Inlet to Jones Inlet, New York..................243-244
    Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point, New York.................   244
    General Investigations.......................................   231
    James River, Virginia.......................................242-243
    Lindenhurst, New York........................................   239
    Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays Ecosystem Restoration, 
      Massachusetts..............................................   239
    New York and New Jersey Harbor, New York and New Jersey......   242
    North Shore of Long Island, New York.........................   240
    Preconstruction Engineering and Design Authorized Projects...   241
    Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook, Leonardo, New Jersey.............   239
    Schedule Slippages of at Least Six Months from Schedules in 
      FY 2000 Budget Justification..............................231-234
    Smith Island Environmental Restoration, Maryland.............   241
    Susquehanna River Basin Water Management, Whitney Point Lake, 
      New York...................................................   241
    Upper Rockaway River, New Jersey............................239-240
    Woodbridge and Rahway River Basins, New Jersey...............   240
    Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania.................................   244
Questions for BG Carl A. Strock, Commander, Northwestern Division   245
    Antelope Creek, Lincoln, Nebraska...........................253-254
    Bonneville Dam...............................................   264
    Budgeted FY 2000 Studies, with Additional Outyear 
      Requirements, Unbudgeted in FY 2001.......................249-250
    Chatfield, Cherry Creek and Bear Creek.......................   256
    Chehalis River at Centralia..................................   257
    Columbia River Fish Mitigation..............................260-262
    Construction, General, Missouri River Levee System..........257-258
    Duwamish/Green River Basin...................................   253
    Elk Creek Lake, Oregon.......................................   259
    Fort Pierre, South Dakota...................................259-260
    General Investigations.......................................   245
    Indian Creek, Council Bluffs.................................   254
    Jackson Hole Restoration Feasibility Study..................256-257
    John Day Drawdown Phase I Study..............................   263
    Lake Washington Ship Canal Water Conservation Project........   256
    Little Wood River, Gooding, Idaho............................   252
    Lower Platte River and Tributaries...........................   254
    Lower Snake River Fish and Wildlife Compensation Project....262-263
    Missouri and Middle Mississippi Rivers Enhancement Study.....   251
    Missouri National Recreational River Project.................   258
    Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Project..........   260
    Mount St. Helens Sediment Control............................   259
    Mud Mountain Dam.............................................   264
    Operations and Maintenance, Ice Harbor Lock and Dam Project.264-265
    Schedule Slippages of at Least Six Months from Schedules in 
      FY 2000 Budget Justification..............................245-248
    Stillagumish River Basin.....................................   253
    Tillamook Bay and Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Study.......254-255
    Tri-Cities Rivershore Restoration............................   255
    Turkey Creek Basin, Kansas and Missouri......................   253
    Willamette River Environmental Dredging......................   252
    Willamette River Project.....................................   255
    Wood River, Grand Island, Nebraska..........................258-259
    Yellowstone River Corridor Study............................251-252
Chairman Packard's Questions for BG J. Richard Capka, Commander, 
  South Atlantic Division.......................................266-279
    Budgeted FY 2000 Studies, with Additional Outyear 
      Requirements, Unbudgeted in FY 2001........................   268
    Buford Powerhouse, Georgia...................................   278
    Canaveral Harbor, Florida....................................   273
    Cedar Hammock (Wares Creek), Florida.........................   275
    Construction, General, Rio Nigua At Salinas, Puerto Rico.....   272
    Currituck Sound, North Carolina..............................   270
    Feasibility Cost Sharing Agreement Schedules.................   268
    Feasibility Cost Sharing Agreements Scheduled in February or 
      March 2000................................................268-269
    General Investigations.......................................   266
    Greater Program..............................................   269
    Hillsboro and Okeechobee Aquifer, Florida...................272-273
    Lake Worth Inlet, Florida...................................270-271
    Lockwoods Folly River, North Carolina........................   269
    Manatee County, Florida......................................   275
    Manatee Harbor, Florida.....................................273-274
    Manteo (Shallowbag) Bay, North Carolina......................   271
    Martin County, Florida......................................278-279
    Miami Harbor, Florida........................................   274
    Mobile Harbor, Alabama.......................................   273
    Pasacaguola Harbor, Mississippi..............................   278
    Pinellas County, Florida.....................................   275
    Preconstruction Engineering and Design.......................   271
    Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake, Georgia and South Carolina..   276
    Rio De La Plata, Puerto Rico.................................   276
    Roanoke River, Upper Basin Headwater, Virginia...............   276
    San Juan Harbor, Puerto Rico.................................   274
    Savannah Harbor Ecosystem Restoration, Georgia...............   269
    Savannah River Basin Comprehensive, Georgia..................   270
    Schedule Slippages of at Least Six Months from Schedules in 
      FY 2000 Budget Justification..............................266-267
    South Florida and Everglades Ecosystem Restoration, Florida.277-278
    Village Creek, Jefferson County, Alabama.....................   271
    West Palm Beach Canal, Florida..............................276-277
Chairman Packard's Questions for BG Peter T. Madsen, Commander, 
  South Pacific Division........................................280-293
    Acequias Irrigation System, New Mexico.......................   292
    Bolinas Lagoon Ecosystem Restoration, California.............   287
    Budgeted FY 2000 Studies, with Additional Outyear 
      Requirements, Unbudgeted in FY 2001........................   282
    Construction, General, Rio Salado, Phoenix and Tempe Reaches, 
      Arizona....................................................   290
    El Paso, Texas...............................................   292
    Execution of Feasibility Cost Sharing Agreements.............   283
    Guadalupe River, California..................................   291
    Laguna De Santa Rosa, California.............................   288
    Los Angeles Harbor Main Channel Deepening, California.......285-286
    Lower Las Vegas Wash Wetlands, Nevada........................   289
    Lower Mission Creek, California..............................   287
    Lower Sacramento River Levee Reconstruction, California......   291
    Marina Del Rey and Ballona Creek, California.................   285
    Merced County Strams, California.............................   291
    Mid-Valley Area Levee Reconstruction, California............291-292
    Newport Bay Harbor, California...............................   286
    Operations and Maintenance, Lake Isabella, California........   293
    Pajaro River at Watsonville, California.....................289-290
    Rio De Flag, Arizona.........................................   286
    Rio Grande Basin, CO, NM and TX..............................   284
    Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins Comprehensive Study, 
      California.................................................   285
    San Diego Harbor Deepening, California.......................   286
    San Joaquin River Basin, Cosumnes and Mokelumne Rivers, 
      California................................................288-289
    San Joaquin River Basin, Stockton Metropolitan Area, 
      California.................................................   284
    Santa Barbara Harbor, California............................290-291
    Santa Paula Creek, California...............................291-292
    Schedule Slippages of at Least Six Months from Schedules in 
      FY 2000 Budget Justification..............................280-281
    South Sacramento County Streams, California..................   290
    Strong and Chicken Ranch Sloughs, California.................   288
    Tres Rios, Arizona..........................................286-287
Chairman Packard's Question for BG Edwin J. Arnold, Jr., 
  Commander, Southwestern Division..............................294-301
    Arkansas River Navigation Study, Arkansas and Oklahoma.......   296
    Brays Bayou, Houston, Texas.................................300-301
    Budgeted FY 2000 Studies, with Additional Outyear 
      Requirements, Unbudgeted in FY 2001........................   295
    Buffalo Bayou and tributaries, White Oak Bayou, Texas........   296
    Clear Creek, Texas...........................................   301
    Hunting Bayou, Houston, Texas................................   299
    Lower Colorado River, Texas.................................296-297
    Lower Colorado River, Texas..................................   298
    McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, Locks & 
      Dams, Arkansas and Oklahoma................................   300
    Montgomery Point Lock and Dam, Arkansas......................   300
    Neches River Saltwater Barrier, Texas........................   300
    North Padre Island, Corpus Christi, Texas....................   297
    Raymondville Drain, Texas...................................299-300
    Sabine-Neches Waterway, Texas................................   296
    Schedule Slippages of at Least Six Months from Schedules in 
      FY 2000 Budget Justification...............................   294
    Sulphur River Environmental Restoration, Texas...............   297
    Sulphur River Environmental Restoration, Texas...............   297
    Upper Trinity River Basin, Texas............................297-298
    Walnut and Whitewater River Watersheds, Kansas...............   298
Chairman Packard's Questions for NG Randal R. Castro, Commander, 
  Pacific Ocean Division........................................302-308
    Akutan Harbor, Alaska.......................................303-304
    Ala Wai Canal, Hawaii........................................   306
    Alaska Reconnaissance Studies, Alaska........................   302
    Anchorage Harbor Deepening and Brevig Mission Harbor, Alaska302-303
    Chandalar River Watershed, Alaska............................   304
    Chena River Watershed, Alaska...............................304-305
    Coastal Studies of Navigation Improvements, Alaska...........   303
    Construction General, Continuing Authorities Program.........   306
    Cook Inlet, Alaska...........................................   308
    Delong Mountain Regional Port, Alaska........................   305
    Douglas Harbor, Alaska.......................................   306
    General Investigations Budget Request........................   302
    Kenai River Watershed, Alaska................................   305
    Matanuska River and Naknek River Watershed Studies, Alaska...   305
    Port Lions Harbor, Alaska....................................   304
    Section 14, 103, 107, 205, 206 and 1135.....................307-308
    Ship Creek Watershed, Alaska.................................   306
Questions for the Record, Congressman Harold Rogers.............309-325
    Budget Request Overview.....................................310-312
    City of Cumberland, Kentucky.................................   324
    Corps of Engineers Civil Works Direct Program Funding 
      Carryout..................................................315-318
    Kentucky Fifth District.....................................312-314
    Levisa and Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River and Upper 
      Cumberland River, WV, VA & KY.............................318-320
    Levisa and Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River and Upper 
      Cumberland River, WV, VA & KY.............................324-325
    New Construction............................................309-310
    Program Execution............................................   314
    Projects and Separable Elements OMB Excluded from the FY 2001 
      Budget....................................................311-312
    Salyersville, Kentucky.......................................   323
    Status of Kentucky Section 202 Elements That Are Under 
      Construction..............................................320-323
    Wolf Creek Dam and Lake Cumberland Kentucky--Trash Rack......   324
Questions for the Record, Honorable Joe Knollenberg.............326-333
    Corps Reports in the Media...................................   326
    Detroit River, Michigan, Activities.........................328-329
    Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP)....329-331
    Nationwide Permits (NWP and NWP 26).........................331-332
    Reorganization--Disposition of Great Lakes Center...........326-327
    Twelve Towns Drain, Michigan................................327-328
    UF Conversion--Paducah, Kentucky............................332-333
Questions for the Record, Honorable Rodney P. Frelinghuysen.....334-354
    Arthur Kill Channel, Howland Hook, Marine Terminal, NY & NJ..   345
    Coastal Protection...........................................   339
    Coastal Protection...........................................   341
    Delaware River Main Channel Deepening, NJ, PA & DE..........352-355
    Joseph G. Minish Waterfront Park and Historic Area, NJ......348-349
    Kill Van Kull and Newark Bay Channels, NY & NJ..............341-342
    Lower Passaic River, New Jersey, Environmental Remediation...   339
    Nationwide Permit 26........................................334-335
    New York & New Jersey Harbor--HARS..........................335-337
    New York Harbor and Adjacent Channels, NY and NJ Port Jersey, 
      NJ.........................................................   346
    New York-New Jersey Harbor Dredging.........................342-344
    Overseas Mission.............................................   337
    Passaic River Mainstem, NJ..................................351-352
    Passaic River Preservation of Natural Storage, NJ...........344-345
    Policy Impacted Coastal Projects............................340-341
    Raritan River Basin, Green Brook Sub-Basin, NJ..............346-348
    Upper Passaic River and Tributaries, NJ.....................349-350
    Upper Rockaway, NJ..........................................350-351
    Wheeler and McFarland Dredge.................................   338
Questions for the Record, Honorable Sonny Callahan..............355-356
Questions for the Record, Honorable Tom Lathan..................357-361
    Dension, Iowa...............................................360-361
    Drainage Wells--Iowa Permit Action...........................   360
    Missouri River Master Water Control Manual Update............   361
    Operation & Maintenance of Navigation Projects..............359-360
    Perry Creek, Iowa............................................   361
    Upper Mississippi and Illinois River Navigation Study, 
      Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri.......................357-359
Questions for the Record, Submitted by Mr. Visclosky............362-369
    Burns Harbor, Indiana........................................   364
    Cady Marsh Ditch, Indiana....................................   362
    Calumet Region Environmental Infrastructure, Indiana.........   365
    Delegation of Approval of PCA's.............................367-368
    East Chicago Native Grass Buffer, Indiana....................   363
    Folsom Dam Modification, California..........................   368
    Grand Calumet River, Indiana Remedial Action Program.........   366
    Great Lakes Navigation Study................................366-367
    Hammond Shoreline, Indiana...................................   363
    Indiana Harbor Confined Disposal Facility (CDF), Indiana.....   365
    Indiana Harbor Environmental Dredging, Indiana...............   362
    Indiana Shoreline Erosion, Indiana..........................365-366
    Indianapolis Central Waterfront, Indiana.....................   364
    John Glenn Great Lakes Strategic Plan........................   366
    Little Calumet River, Indiana................................   365
    Long Lake Environmental Restoration, Indiana.................   363
    Magpie Creek, California.....................................   369
    Midwestern States............................................   367
    Ohio River Greenway Public Access, Indiana...................   364
    South Sacramento Streams, California.........................   369
    Whiting Shoreline, Indiana...................................   362
    Wolf Lake, Indiana..........................................362-363
Questions for the Record, Congressman Edwards...................370-383
    Colonias Along the Texas-Mexico Border.......................   382
    Corps Permit Program........................................370-372
    Dallas Floodway Extension, Trinity River, TX.................   373
    GIWW--Arkansas National Wildlife Refuge, TX..................   377
    Graham, TX (Brazos River Basin).............................375-376
    Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, TX..............................378-379
    Houston-Galveston Navigation Channels, TX....................   372
    Johnson Creek, Upper Trinity Basin, Arlington, TX............   374
    Lower Colorado River Basin, TX..............................373-374
    Middle Brazos River Basin, TX................................   376
    North Bosque River, TX......................................376-377
    Port of Houston..............................................   370
    Red River Bendway Weirs, TX.................................379-380
    Red River Chloride Control (Wichita River Basin), TX........374-375
    Section 211 Projects........................................380-381
Questions Submitted for the Record by Congressman Ed Pastor......   383
    Nogales Wash, Arizona........................................   383
    Rio Salado, Phoenix and Tempe Reaches, Arizona...............   383
    Tucson Drainage Area, Arizona................................   383
Honorable Michael P. Forbes, Questions for BG M. Stephen Rhoades, 
  Commander, North Atlantic.....................................384-385
    Atlantic Coast of New York, New York.........................   385
    Fire Island Inlet to Mantauk, New York......................384-385
    Lake Montauk Harbor, New York................................   385
    Mantauk Point, New York......................................   384

                                
                      ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT

                        APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2001

_______________________________________________________________________

                                HEARINGS

                                BEFORE A

                           SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                         HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                       ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
                             SECOND SESSION
                                ________
              SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
                    RON PACKARD, California, Chairman
 HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
 JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan
 RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
 SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa
 ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi       PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
                                    CHET EDWARDS, Texas
                                    ED PASTOR, Arizona
                                    MICHAEL P. FORBES, New York

 NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Young, as Chairman of the Full 
Committee, and Mr. Obey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full 
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
          Robert Schmidt and Jeanne L. Wilson, Staff Assistants
                                ________
                                 PART 1
                         DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
                           CORPS OF ENGINEERS
                 OFFICEOFTHEASSISTANTSECRETARYOFTHEARMY
                  (CIVIL WORKS) AND CHIEF OF ENGINEERS

                              

                                ________
         Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

                                 Part 1

                                 Corps

                                   of

                                 Engrs.

          ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2001

                      ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT

                        APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2001

_______________________________________________________________________

                                HEARINGS

                                BEFORE A

                           SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                         HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                       ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
                             SECOND SESSION
                                ________
              SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
                    RON PACKARD, California, Chairman
 HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
 JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan
 RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
 SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa
 ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi       PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
                                    CHET EDWARDS, Texas
                                    ED PASTOR, Arizona
                                    MICHAEL P. FORBES, New York

 NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Young, as Chairman of the Full 
Committee, and Mr. Obey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full 
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
          Robert Schmidt and Jeanne L. Wilson, Staff Assistants
                                ________
                                 PART 1
                         DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
                           CORPS OF ENGINEERS
                 OFFICEOFTHEASSISTANTSECRETARYOFTHEARMY
                  (CIVIL WORKS) AND CHIEF OF ENGINEERS

                              

                                ________
         Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
                                ________
                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
 64-618 O                   WASHINGTON : 2000

                                  COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                   C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida, Chairman

 RALPH REGULA, Ohio
 JERRY LEWIS, California
 JOHN EDWARD PORTER, Illinois
 HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
 JOE SKEEN, New Mexico
 FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
 TOM DeLAY, Texas
 JIM KOLBE, Arizona
 RON PACKARD, California
 SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama
 JAMES T. WALSH, New York
 CHARLES H. TAYLOR, North Carolina
 DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio
 ERNEST J. ISTOOK, Jr., Oklahoma
 HENRY BONILLA, Texas
 JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan
 DAN MILLER, Florida
 JAY DICKEY, Arkansas
 JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
 RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
 ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
 GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, Jr., 
Washington
 RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM, 
California
 TODD TIAHRT, Kansas
 ZACH WAMP, Tennessee
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa
 ANNE M. NORTHUP, Kentucky
 ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
 JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
 JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire
 KAY GRANGER, Texas
 JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
 VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia     DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin
                                    JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania
                                    NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
                                    MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota
                                    JULIAN C. DIXON, California
                                    STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
                                    ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia
                                    MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
                                    NANCY PELOSI, California
                                    PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
                                    NITA M. LOWEY, New York
                                    JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
                                    ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
                                    JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
                                    JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
                                    ED PASTOR, Arizona
                                    CARRIE P. MEEK, Florida
                                    DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
                                    MICHAEL P. FORBES, New York
                                    CHET EDWARDS, Texas
                                    ROBERT E. ``BUD'' CRAMER, Jr., 
                                    Alabama
                                    MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
                                    LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
                                    SAM FARR, California
                                    JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
                                    CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
                                    ALLEN BOYD, Florida

                 James W. Dyer, Clerk and Staff Director

                                  (ii)
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