[Senate Hearing 116-31]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 116-31
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE U.S. ARMY CORPS
OF ENGINEERS' CIVIL WORKS PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 8, 2019
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
63-654 WASHINGTON : 2026
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Chairman
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware,
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia Ranking Member
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
MIKE BRAUN, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
MIKE ROUNDS, Bututh Dakota SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York
ROGER WICKER, Mississippi CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JONI ERNST, Iowa TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
Richard M. Russell, Majority Staff Director
Mary Frances Repko, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
MAY 8, 2019
OPENING STATEMENTS
Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming...... 1
Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware.. 2
WITNESSES
James, Hon. R.D., Assistant Secretary of the Army Civil Works.... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Responses to additional questions from:
Chairman Barrasso........................................ 10
Ranking Member Carper.................................... 10
Senator Capito........................................... 19
Senator Markey........................................... 21
Senator Sullivan......................................... 23
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 23
Senator Wicker........................................... 25
Spellmon, Major General Scott, Deputy Commanding General, Civil
and Emergency Operations, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Civil
Works.......................................................... 27
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Responses to additional questions from:
Chairman Barrasso........................................ 29
Ranking Member Carper.................................... 30
Budd, Lynn, Director, Wyoming Office of Homeland Security........ 38
Prepared statement........................................... 40
Responses to additional questions from:
Chairman Barrasso........................................ 47
Ranking Member Carper.................................... 47
Kline, Kyle R. ``Chip'' Jr., Chairman, Coastal Protection and
Restoration Authority Board.................................... 49
Prepared statement........................................... 51
Responses to additional questions from:
Ranking Member Carper.................................... 63
Senator Markey........................................... 68
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 72
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Article: Cold Winter + Warm Spring Equals Ice Jams and Flooding;
Kamila Kudelska, The Mountrai West News Bureau................. 88
Letters from:
United States Department of the Interior..................... 103
Department of the Army, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers......... 128
Western Governors Association................................ 135
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE U.S. ARMY CORPS
OF ENGINEERS' CIVIL WORKS PROGRAM
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2019
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Barrasso
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Barrasso, Carper, Inhofe, Cramer, Braun,
Rounds, Sullivan, Boozman, Wicker, Ernst, Cardin, Whitehouse,
Markey, Duckworth, and Van Hollen.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Good morning. I call this hearing to
order.
The Committee has an important responsibility to maintain
oversight over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Civil Works
Program. Today's hearing is an opportunity to hear directly
from the leaders of the Army Corps.
The Army Corp's water infrastructure projects support
America's economy and help keep communities safe. These
projects include maintaining navigable waterways, managing the
risk from floods and coastal storms, and supporting aquatic
ecosystems. They also provide power and water to communities
around the Nation.
Over the last 2 months, extensive flooding has taken place
in the Midwest due to melting snow and intense rain. This
flooding has tragically resulted in loss of life, as well as
billions of dollars in damages.
In April, this Committee held a field hearing in Iowa to
examine the Army Corps' management of Midwest flooding. The
goal was to get to the bottom of this disaster and move toward
possible solutions. Given Wyoming's own experience with
flooding in places like Greybull and Worland, my constituents
and I can sympathize with those who have lost so much.
Today's hearing will provide the Committee another
opportunity to hear from the leadership of the Army Corps of
Engineers on the flood in the Midwest. It will also give
Committee members an opportunity to hear testimony about the
implementation of America's Water Infrastructure Act.
Since 2014, this Committee has worked in a bipartisan way
to pass critical water resource development legislation every 2
years. These water infrastructure laws benefit every State.
Last October, Congress passed, and President Trump signed
into law, America's Water Infrastructure Act. The legislation
passed the Senate by a vote of 99 to 1. When fully implemented,
the new law will have far-reaching impacts. These include
creating jobs, growing the economy, protecting lives and
property, cutting red tape, and promoting federalism.
The benefits of America's Water Infrastructure Act will be
evident in the West as well as all across the Country.
Nationally, the Act improves permitting reforms to allow for
the development of more water storage projects and it increases
local input in the prioritization process.
America's Water Infrastructure Act will reduce flood risk
through the construction of levees and the improvement of dams.
Key provisions will benefit farmers and ranchers. In my home
State of Wyoming, we will restore water storage capacity at
Federal reservoirs and expand the Fontenelle Reservoir in
Southwestern Wyoming. It also creates a permanent program to
help mitigate the threat of floods caused by ice jams.
The law requires the Army Corps to expedite snowpack
monitoring activities in the Upper Missouri River Basin. This
is to help predict and mitigate flood risks. This year's
increased snowpack is a serious concern to many of my
constituents, especially in northern Wyoming, including Teton
County. The law does all this while actually reducing the
deficit.
America's Water Infrastructure Act represented excellent
progress. Now it needs to be implemented, so I look forward to
hearing from today's witnesses on how the Army Corps of
Engineers is managing its Civil Works Program. I want to thank
you for coming before the Committee to testify, and we look
forward to hearing from you.
As I get ready to turn to Ranking Member Carper, I will
mention that we are in the middle of five roll call votes this
morning, so members of the Committee may be leaving and coming
back as we go to the floor, because each of the votes must be
cast in person.
With that, Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, thanks
for bringing us together.
I also want to apologize for the exercise we are about to
go through. When John Barrasso and I are running the U.S.
Senate, this will not happen during our hearings. On our
regular order we will do a lot better.
Mr. Chairman, thanks for convening this morning's hearing
to conduct oversight on the Civil Works Program run by the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers. We salute you all. Thank you all for
your service. Delighted that those in the audience have joined
us as well.
This hearing is a timely followup to the field hearing we
recently held in Iowa to examine flood protection efforts along
the Missouri River and its tributaries. This subject is still
particularly pertinent given that much of downtown Davenport
remains submerged under flood waters this morning.
While I am optimistic that this hearing will provide us
with some important insights, I do have some concerns that we
only have the Army Corps of Engineers at the table today.
During the drafting process for the last Water Resources
Development Act, also known as WRDA, one of the issues that
Chairman Barrasso and I and our staffs heard repeatedly raised
was that the OMB micromanages the Corps of Engineers and that
there is a troubling lack of transparency with respect to OMB's
Corps budgeting process.
While OMB continues to underfund the Army Corps'
infrastructure efforts in every budget, OMB also relies upon a
prioritization method that fails to capture all of a project's
benefits. This method is called the ``Benefit to Cost'' ratio.
It racks and stacks projects based solely on national economic
benefits. What that means, however, is that the needs of
smaller communities, the needs of rural communities, of Tribes
and, in many cases, the environment, our environment, lose.
At the same time, OMB can oftentimes be a ``black box.''
The agency rarely, if ever, discloses how each individual
project was evaluated, raising serious concerns about which
projects will make it into the final Army Corps workplan each
year. It may seem esoteric, but millions of Americans across
our Country really do rely on Army Corps projects in order to
safely navigate our waters, stay safe from flooding and storm
damage, or reap the benefits of healthy aquatic ecosystems and
marshlands.
At the hearing in Iowa, it was made clear that the Army
Corps is not the only agency that should be at the table if we
want to take a holistic view of civil works projects and
programs. Numerous other Federal agencies, State agencies,
local partners and communities all share a responsibility to be
part of the solution.
In the coming months, our Committee needs to conduct
additional oversight hearings on the implementation of the
America's Water Infrastructure Act. It is incumbent upon us to
hold agencies accountable to the reforms that our Committee and
the Congress supported in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way.
These reforms, including Benefit to Cost ratio transparency
reforms, flood mitigation studies, and local stakeholder
participation in district budget planning processes, must be
implemented to ensure we abate the damage of these floods and
storms before they occur, rather than fix the unmitigated
damage in their aftermath.
I want to thank our witnesses today. I am particularly
excited to hear from Mr. Chip Kline. Chip off the old block. I
said, Chip, who are you named after? He said, my dad; I'm a
chip off the old block. Whether you are a chip or not, we are
happy that you are here.
I think Mr. Kline is going to share some insights on
Louisiana projects. We welcome that, especially after that
State's experienced the devastation wrought by Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita, and God knows how many more.
In my home State of Delaware, we have witnessed the
destructive forces of climate change with hurricane max storms
like Superstorm Sandy. Scientists tell us that climate change
was connected to the torrential rains and snowfall conditions
that led to record-breaking flooding in the Midwest this
spring, just a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, in Louisiana, climate
change and sea level rise are eroding the coastline, forcing
the State to take on massive reconstructive efforts that we
will hear about later this morning. Climate change does impact
red States and blue States alike, and we need to work together
in a constructive bipartisan way to help address this issue.
From today's testimony I hope to learn more from the Army
Corps as to how the Civil Works Program should be improved to
better account for extreme weather events and sea level rise,
which our Nation's leading scientists tell us will be the new
norm, placing extreme burdens on the American people and our
economy.
As the adage goes, an ounce of prevention really is worth a
pound of cure. If we invest strategically in the maintenance of
our flood control infrastructure before the storms hit, many
problems could be prevented before they ever begin. In the case
of the Army Corps, however, I fear that this Administration may
be preventing the agency from preparing our Nation's levees,
dams, and ports to meet a new climate reality.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thanks so much for pulling us all
together. It is an important hearing. We look forward to
learning from our witnesses and I thank them all for taking the
time to share their experience and brilliance with each one of
us. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Senator Carper.
In just a few moments we will start hearing from our
witnesses.
We have R.D. James here, who is the Assistant Secretary of
the Army for Civil Works, the United States Department of the
Army; Major General Scott Spellmon, who is the Deputy
Commanding General for Civil and Emergency Operations from the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Lynn Budd, who is the Director of
the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security; and Chip Kline, who is
the Chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration
Authority.
Before we get to the opening statements, I would like to
personally welcome Director Lynn Budd, who has recently taken
over as the Director of the Office of Homeland Security in
Wyoming in January 2019. Director Budd has spent the last three
decades as a resident of Cheyenne.
She began her career at the Wyoming Office of Homeland
Security in 2011 as a Grants Specialist. From there she served
in a variety of different capacities, including Senior Planner,
Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Program
Manager, and Security Unit Chief.
Director Budd has also functioned as a Manager of the State
Operations Center, coordinating State resources in support of
local jurisdictions during times of emergency in Wyoming. Prior
to joining the State Office of Homeland Security, she worked in
the Wyoming Office of the Nature Conservancy. I have had the
privilege of knowing Director Budd for over 20 years and I am
very grateful that she is here with us today. Welcome.
I also want to remind all of the witnesses that your full
written testimony will be made part of the official hearing
today, so please try to keep your statements to 5 minutes so
that we may have time for questions.
I look forward to hearing your testimony, beginning with
Assistant Secretary James.
Secretary James, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. R.D. JAMES,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY CIVIL WORKS
Mr. James. Thank you, Chairman Barrasso, Ranking Member
Carper, and distinguished members of the Committee. Thank you
for the opportunity to be here today to discuss the oversight
of the Army Corps of Engineers program.
This reminds me that Harry Truman once said that the buck
stops here. Well, I propose that the buck starts here with this
Committee. Your deliberations, your oversight, your commitment
to the Civil Works Program of this Country has made it a better
place, and I look forward to working with you to continue to
try to do that and improve on what we have already got.
I was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of the Army 15 months
ago, and my goals today are the same as they were when I
started: focus on outcomes, not process, in order to get the
results. Since last year, I have had the pleasure to meet with
most of you one-on-one to discuss both your concerns and the
overall direction of the U.S. Army Civil Works Program. The
input that you provide is appreciated, and I remain committed
to working with each of you.
The Fiscal Year 2020 budget provides over $4.8 billion for
the Civil Works Program, with a focus on investments that will
yield high economic and environmental returns or address a
significant risk to public safety. This budget relies on a
foundation of strong relationships between the Corps and the
local communities, which allow us to work together to help
manage, develop, restore, and protect their water resources.
The budget focuses on the highest performing work within the
three main missions of the Corps: flood control and storm
damage reduction, commercial navigation, and aquatic ecosystem
restoration.
The Fiscal Year 2020 budget supports a Corps program that
has a diverse set of tools and approaches to working with local
communities, whether this means funding projects with our cost-
sharing partners, providing planning assistance and technical
expertise to help communities make better informed decisions,
or participating in the national and international
conversations on how to best address our water resource
challenges. The budget helps us maintain and improve our
efforts on resiliency and sustainability, one of the challenges
associated with the way we have used our water resources.
The Fiscal Year 2020 budget includes approximately $2.4
billion for the study, design, construction, operation, and
maintenance of inland and coastal navigation projects. The
Flood Risk Management program is funded at approximately $1
billion in the budget and includes funding to provide technical
and planning assistance to local communities to enable them to
understand and better manage their flood risk. The budget
provides $187 million to restore several large ecosystems that
have been the focus of interagency collaboration to support
restoring aquatic habitat in ecosystems where the aquatic
ecosystem structure, function, and processes have degraded.
The President signed the America's Water Infrastructure Act
of 2018 into law on 23d October 2018. Title I of the Act is
known as the Water Resource Development Act of 2018 and
included numerous provisions that apply directly to the three
main Corps mission areas described above. In October 2018, we
moved forward with implementation of the provisions in the law
that pertain to the Army Civil Works mission. I have provided
guidance, where needed, to ensure effective and efficient
implementation of the law.
I would also like to touch on the widespread devastation
and serious impacts that this spring's Missouri and Mississippi
River flooding has created for many people throughout the
Country. Major General Spellmon and I both visited the areas
personally and have seen the impacts. This year's flood season
has challenged many Federal and State agencies and local
communities across the Nation.
The extent of the damage to levees in the region is
catastrophic. Most levees extending from near Omaha, Nebraska
to near Kansas City, Missouri overtopped during the flood, and
most of them overtopped were blown out of position and were no
longer acceptable as levees. I am committed to helping this
region repair the damage to infrastructure as quickly as
possible and will assure this Committee the Corps' No. 1
priority is life and public safety.
Since receiving my appointment to be the ASA, I have one
mission: move dirt. The intention is to start, continue, and
finish projects in a more timely and efficient way to ensure a
better return on the taxpayers' investment and to better the
lives of Americans. Under my oversight and the direction, and
with the help of General Semonite and his team, the Corps of
Engineers' Civil Works Program is taking bold actions to
improve performance and engineer solutions for the Nation's
toughest challenges.
I am committed to ensuring that the United States Army
Corps of Engineers does what it does better than any other
organization in the world: design and build infrastructure
projects, projects that protect lives, improve commerce, and
benefit all Americans.
Thank you for inviting me today. I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. James follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Assistant Secretary
James.
Now, General Spellmon.
STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL SCOTT SPELLMON, DEPUTY COMMANDING
GENERAL, CIVIL AND EMERGENCY OPERATIONS, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF
ENGINEERS, CIVIL WORKS
General Spellmon. Sir, good morning, Mr. Chairman and
Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
speak with you todays about America's Water Infrastructure Act
of 2018, Corps execution of the Civil Works Program, and our
ongoing flood fights across the Nation.
Again, my name is Major General Scott Spellmon. I am the
Corps' Deputy Commanding General for Civil Works and Emergency
Operations.
To begin, the Corps would also like to acknowledge the
widespread devastation and serious impacts this spring's
flooding is creating for many people across the Country. The
Assistant Secretary and I have witnessed many of these impacts
firsthand during our visits to the field. Throughout, Corps
personnel have been working tirelessly to help mitigate the
effects of these events by providing assistance to States and
local communities, and we will continue to do so for the
foreseeable future.
Like Secretary James stated, this year's flood season is
challenging many Federal and State agencies, as well as local
communities. At our highest point, there were over 400 river
gages indicating flood stage across the Country and over 183
reported ice jams on our Nation's rivers. In the Ohio River
Valley, this past fall and winter were the wettest on record in
the past 124 years, and we have seen record reservoir levels in
our Cumberland River projects.
Our Mississippi Valley Division has been flood fighting on
the Lower Mississippi River for the past 200 days, and that
will continue for at least the next several weeks. Just this
week, flood stages on the Upper Mississippi River reached
record levels, impacting communities in Illinois, Iowa, and
Missouri.
In North Dakota, the Red River of the North presented
several challenges north of Fargo, with Corps reservoirs again
reaching full capacity. In Colorado, we are seeing near record
amounts of mountain snowpack, as well as in California, where
snowpack exceeds 160 percent of average in portions of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Additionally, significant weather systems have been coming
onshore along the West Coast, causing major flooding along the
Russian River, north of San Francisco, as well as in the
Willamette and Rogue River basins in Oregon. In many of these
watersheds, Corps dams and reservoirs have prevented
significant flooding downstream of those projects, averting
millions of dollars in property damage, as well as saving
countless lives.
On the Missouri River, the flood event that began on March
13th was a combination of rainfall, warmer temperatures, and
rapid snow melt, all on top of saturated and frozen soil. This
condition covered a large area, including central and western
Nebraska, southeastern South Dakota, western Iowa, and portions
of northern Missouri and Kansas. The ensuing runoff drained
into uncontrolled tributaries that were already subject to ice
jam conditions. This combination of events led to record
discharges on a number of rivers where we reached major flood
stage in less than 24 to 48 hours.
Today I want to assure the Committee that the Corps' No. 1
priority in all of its operations remains life and public
safety as we work to address the many flooding challenges
across the Country.
We also want to thank this Committee and the Congress for
the authorities and flexibilities it has provided the Corps to
address these and many other challenges. These tools,
accompanied with record levels of appropriation for the Civil
Works Program, is making a positive difference.
You may have heard our Chief of Engineers speak to ongoing
efforts to revolutionize the way we do business as an
enterprise. The authorities provided by this Committee continue
to enable this initiative. We are working to modernize the
traditional delivery of the Civil Works Program by utilizing
innovative tools to accelerate project delivery, explore
alternative financing approaches, and streamlining internal
processes to improve permitting and regulatory reform.
We recently completed an internal survey of our 43
districts to garner their initial feedback on project delivery
given the support provided by the Administration, Congress, and
our own internal initiatives. The early results of this survey
are impressive. Sixteen districts reported a combined 200
months of scheduled savings across numerous projects. That is
17 years of time shaved off of project schedules. They also
reported millions of dollars in cost savings attributed to
innovation, risk-informed decisionmaking, among many other
initiatives.
In the regulatory program we continue to streamline our
permit processes. Where modifications to existing Corps
structures are concerned, we have reduced pending Section 408
permission requests as much as 50 percent.
I look forward to highlighting these improvements to our
project delivery during our session today and I would welcome
any comments or questions that you may have. Thank you.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Now, Lynn Budd, Director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland
Security.
STATEMENT OF LYNN BUDD, DIRECTOR,
WYOMING OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Budd. Good morning, Chairman Barrasso, Minority Ranking
Member Carper, and distinguished members of the Committee. My
name is Lynn Budd. I am the Director of the Wyoming Office of
Homeland Security. We are the homeland security and emergency
management agency for the State of Wyoming. We support local
jurisdictions in times of emergency and disaster through the
coordination of State agency resources and facilitate
assistance from our Federal partners.
In Wyoming, the most frequent natural disaster events that
we face are flooding due to ice jams, spring runoff, and flash
flooding. Less frequently, tornadoes, landslides, and
wildfires.
Wyoming works with three Corps districts: Omaha,
Sacramento, and Walla Walla. As a headwater State, our water
passes through approximately two-thirds of the landmass of the
lower 48 States, and we take our stewardship of these waters
very seriously.
When we think about spring flooding, our focus starts in
October as we begin to monitor snowpack levels across the
State. In addition to monitoring snowpack levels, we closely
monitor seasonal water weather developments in coordination
with Jim Fahey, our NOAA hydrologist, who tailors a flood
forecasting outlook for Wyoming. This is an annual cycle for
us. Stream gauge data is critical to flood forecasting and
flood prediction, life safety, and property protection.
The Committee's inclusion of Section 1203(f) within AWIA
directed expedited activities to restore and maintain existing
mid-and high-level elevation snowpack monitoring sites operated
under the SNOTEL program, which is very important to our State.
Not only do these SNOTELs and stream gauges need to be restored
and maintained, but additional equipment should be deployed.
For example, in Teton County this year, above 8,000 feet, where
the SNOTELs are, the snowpack was reading at just above normal
or at normal, compared to the valley floor, which was at about
300 percent of normal level. This will create saturated soils
with no room for spring runoff.
This situation makes it more difficult to predict the level
of possible flooding. Stream gauge funding at the Federal level
needs to be rethought. A clearer funding mission and expedited
implementation would aid all users of this critical data.
Comparatively speaking, 2019's potential flood season for
Wyoming is not as severe as previous years. We are still
monitoring additional snow accumulation, temperature forecasts,
and any anticipated rain on snow events throughout the summer.
In the past decade we have worked closely with the Army
Corps in more than 25 technical and direct assistance projects
through the State in all 23 counties, including the Wind River
Reservation. As with any relationship, there are always
opportunities for improvement. We can identify three areas for
improvement with our relationship with the Corps.
First, the Snake River System. Better communication and
stakeholder engagement at the local level when evaluating water
management strategies for Jackson Lake in the spring and early
summer is very important. The potential for flooding on the
Snake River can create fear in residents and property owners
downstream. There is a lack of public confidence that the Corps
considers the impact of downstream tributaries when calculating
Jackson Lake releases into the Snake River.
Second, Glendo Reservoir. We support the implementation of
Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations, or FIRO, in Wyoming, as
demonstrated at the Lake Mendocino Reservoir in California. Our
arid western climate water management is the key.
Last, Big Horn Reservoir. Implementation of a regional
sedimentation management plan in the Big Horn Reservoir will be
very beneficial to ensure the restoration of active water
capacity as originally designed. While we have highlighted
these three actions, the application of these solutions
combined could receive exponential benefits for the State.
Last, funding the fight against aquatic invasive species.
With our Office's dual mission of emergency management and
homeland security, we have the mission of critical
infrastructure protection, specifically the water sector.
Wyoming sits as the headwaters State of the Nation. Rivers flow
downstream to the Missouri, Platte, Mississippi, Colorado,
Snake, and Columbia watersheds.
Quagga and zebra mussels represent the most immediate and
eminent AIS threat to Wyoming. We do not have those in our
State yet, but Colorado, Utah, South Dakota, and Nebraska do.
These mussels can choke off the water supply pipelines for
industry and municipalities and have other major economic
impacts for our State and others.
Wyoming's AIS prevention program started in 2010 with
public outreach, watercraft inspections, and monitoring of
waters. Every water user in Wyoming and every other State that
benefits from Wyoming waters will be impacted if these species
make their way to the Wyoming water system. Stable funding for
these prevention programs is imperative.
Overall, Wyoming has a very strong relationship with the
Corps. We look forward to continuing the development of new
projects in order to better protect the residents of Wyoming
and their property.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Budd follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Barrasso. Thank you so much for that very useful
testimony. We are grateful that you are here today with us.
Thank you.
Now, Chip Kline, the Chairman of the Coastal Protection and
Restoration Authority.
STATEMENT OF KYLE R. ``CHIP'' KLINE, JR., CHAIRMAN,
COASTAL PROTECTION AND RESTORATION AUTHORITY BOARD
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Carper, for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Chip
Kline, and I have the honor of serving as Executive Assistant
to Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards for Coastal Activities
and Chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration
Authority Board.
My message today is simple. It is one you have heard
before, and as recently as just last week from Senator
Whitehouse: It is time for the Federal Government to wake up.
Louisiana is a flood-prone State, and a State that has lost
close to 2,000 square miles of land since the 1930's. At the
same time, we are a State that is home to vitally important
assets and resources that provide value to this entire Nation.
In 2018, Congress provided $1.4 billion to the Corps for
projects in Louisiana to address flooding and hurricane
protection. Unfortunately, as is often the case, while the need
for these projects was identified many years ago, they were
only funded for construction after our communities suffered the
financial and disrupting challenges of a flood. This approach
is painful, costly, and unsustainable. Here are two examples:
A Comite River Diverse project completed its Chief's Report
8 years after the flood of record in 1983. Construction funds
were not appropriated until the area suffered another
catastrophic event in 2016. In the case of the West Shore
Hurricane Protection Project, the study phase began in 1971,
but construction funding was not provided until 2018, 6 years
after Hurricane Isaac flooded the communities the project would
have protected.
Louisiana has been proud to offer a different approach
through our Comprehensive Coastal Master Plan, a science-based
plan that combines hurricane protection and coastal restoration
into one mission and forces us to proactively address the
impacts of flood risks, climate change, and a lack of sediment
in our coastal marshes.
The single most effective hurricane protection project
identified in our Master Plan is the Morganza to the Gulf
Hurricane Protection System. It was authorized in 1992 and
would protect 150,000 people across two parishes. It is a
region of our State that is home to Port Fourchon, which
services over 90 percent of the oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of
Mexico, Louisiana Highway 1, a critical transportation corridor
that gives the entire Country access to infrastructure that
provides close to 20 percent of the Nation's oil and gas. This
project would protect resources that are critical to the
economic health of this Country. Yet, it has not received a
single dime of construction funding from the Federal
Government.
These examples are not unique and my message is not new,
but here it is again: the Federal Government needs to
fundamentally change how it funds hurricane protection and
coastal restoration projects in this Country. Yes, decisions to
allocate funds need to be made in a principled manner, but the
Federal Government's track record of constructing projects
after a disaster strikes means there is a flaw in your process,
a flaw that costs the taxpayers of this Country hundreds of
billions of dollars more by waiting on natural disasters to
happen.
We need the Federal Government to mimic Louisiana's
proactive mindset in addressing hurricane protection and
coastal restoration. In order for this to happen, the Corps
needs to expand its vision for what its mission is and Congress
needs to arm them with the resources to carry out that mission.
Coastal restoration should be just as much of a priority as
navigation and flood control.
The Mississippi River and its land building ability is
literally our lifeline to addressing the crisis of coastal land
loss. The Corps only manages the river as a navigation tool,
rather than a navigation and restoration tool. Together, the
Corps and Louisiana's Coastal Program can accomplish great
things together and be a model for the Nation, but more
resources are needed. Given the severity of the crisis we face
in South Louisiana, a different approach is also needed.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the over 2 million people who
call South Louisiana home, I implore this Administration and
this Congress to wake up to what is happening in South
Louisiana. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kline follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Rounds. [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Kline, and
thank you to all of you for your opening statements. They will
all be made a part of the record.
At this time we will go to individual questions.
For those of you who are here, we have five votes in a row
on the floor of the Senate right now. We are just in the middle
of them, so you will see a lot of members coming and going back
and forth as we try to keep the Committee hearing going and
also make those votes in a timely fashion.
With that, I will ask Senator Inhofe for any questions he
may have.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I might
add that when this happens, and it does happen quite often, we
normally get more stuff done with about half of them here, so I
think we are going to be all right.
I do have a couple questions. I am sorry, Mr. James, that I
was not here during your opening comments because I would have
enjoyed that. We have had some similarities in our background
and some of the frustrations are similarities, too.
Let me just mention to get one thing behind us here. I want
to thank the Corps for their work in getting WRDA 2018 guidance
done as quickly as you have. The city of Bartlesville,
Oklahoma, and this is one that we have worked on for a long
period of time, Bartlesville is a small city north of Tulsa. It
is one that had really serious problems in water storage, so
what we did was get together and try to find out a way that we
could knock down some of the price that came through as $100
million over a 10-year period. Now, that is something where
that community, there is just no way that they would be able to
come up with that, so people and communities are forced into
situations where they might have to do it themselves and figure
out ways to do it to come into compliance and all that.
What happened was, in that case, that was right before the
last WRDA bill, Water Resources Development Act, and I actually
had to put an amendment on there to negotiate that down to
something that was livable. Now, it ended up working. That is a
happy ending story.
By the way, none of the stuff I am going to mention
happened during your watch; it was always before. That is one
of the problems you and I talked about even before your
confirmation.
Unfortunately, there is another city, a larger city, Enid,
Oklahoma. It seems like the Corps price structure is affecting
that about the same way as it did Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
During talks with the local district, the Corps provided the
community with price estimates and the city planned
accordingly. Now, when I say planned accordingly, they actually
had to pass a bond issue, and we are talking about around a
$4.5 million estimate as to what it was going to cost for this
storage to take place.
Now, we passed the bond issue. In fact, the bond issue was
in 2016. After that took place, we found out that I would use
the word they were blindsided by the Corps coming in and saying
what they failed to do was to get all of the compound interest
rates from the time when this first went into effect, which
would have been in 1976. That is when Kaw Lake was actually
made.
Now, the Corps has the authority to make changes, and they
did not do it in the case of Bartlesville, so in Bartlesville I
had to actually put an amendment on the WRDA bill. Now, it
looks like, if this is not changed, we will have to do the same
thing here.
I would just like to kind of explore what your thoughts are
as you are faced with these situations and you are getting a
whisper from your left, so you might want to take that into
consideration, too, how we handle situations like this. Now, if
they had known that this thing that started out to be a $4.5
million contract or liability, they had to end up adding to
that $8.5 million, making the total amount $13 million instead
of the $4.5 that came from a bond issue, that is just, on its
face, something that should not happen. It happened because
they were not aware there is a lot of noise about when they
were preparing the $4.5 million bond issue what the cost was
going to be. That is what happened and that is how we got into
that situation.
I have two things that I am concerned about. I would like
to know, in that particular case, is there something that we
can actually do right now? I think it is within the purview and
authority of the Corps to do something about that. Then,
second, to preclude that from happening again.
Does all of that make sense to you in terms of what
happened?
Mr. James. Yes, sir. If I may let General Spellmon address
that first, and then I will followup quickly with my thoughts.
Senator Inhofe. Good.
General Spellmon. Yes, sir. We are taking action here. We
owe the Secretary, by August, a revised rulemaking for the
water supply rule. The situation that you are describing really
can be traced back to the 1958 Water Supply Act, where the
Secretary of the Army is authorized to provide storage to local
communities for water supply purposes, provided that those
entities agree to pay their fair share of the cost to store
that water.
In some of these cases, you have entities that are
requesting storage behind a dam that may have extensive
operation costs, maintenance costs, repair or rehabilitation
costs, so the entity ends up bearing a percentage of that
burden. The rule that we are taking to the Secretary in August,
we are trying to bring more consistency and clarity to the
public in the way we go about this at over 100 reservoirs
across the Corps.
Senator Inhofe. Well, yes, consistently. What about
fairness? Should not that be in there too? What is your
reaction? It always bothers me when I hear a response this is
something we started in 1958, as if we have been doing it wrong
all these years, so let's keep doing it wrong. That is my fear
is of what you are recommendation may be to the Secretary.
General Spellmon. Yes, sir. Over those 100 reservoirs that
I just described, I would tell you there is very little
consistency across the Corps in this practice, and that is the
intent of the revised rule that we want to take to the
Secretary.
Senator Inhofe. Mr. Secretary, is there anything
specifically on the Kaw Lake problem that could be, well, I
know it could be, but should be addressed now?
Mr. James. Yes, sir. To answer that directly, it should be
addressed the same way that the Bartlesville was addressed, in
my opinion. Hopefully, you would not have to add legislation to
do that.
I will just make this comment. I am looking forward to get
this water supply rule, this new one, on my desk. I am trying
to help the Corps stretch what appropriation we get as far as I
can help them stretch that appropriation.
Senator Inhofe. Sure. Sure.
Mr. James. You know, when I came to this town, I was kind
of known as the flood control guy, and I guess I was kind of
the flood control guy where I have lived all my life. I have
discovered since then that there are other issues in parts of
the Country that I was not aware of, water supply being one of
those issues. I have tried to learn that issue, tried very hard
to learn that issue, and I am looking forward to get that. In
the long run, I will try to be helping the users as best I can
without breaking law, and I will also try to be helping the
Corps get it right.
Senator Inhofe. I have extended my time here. I would only
say one thing, something the Chairman is fully familiar with. I
sometimes comment to people I had a hard job one time: I was
the mayor of a city. I would hate to be the mayor of the city
of Enid after going through all the expense of passing a $4.5
million bond issue only to find out it should have been $13
million. That is kind of awkward, isn't it?
Senator Rounds. Yes, sir. Thank you.
I am going to followup on the same question to begin with,
gentlemen, with my first question, and that is, to Secretary
James and General Spellmon, the Army Corps of Engineers has
been grappling with the proposal of a so-called surplus water
rule for the better part of the last decade. I, myself, do not
even agree with how the Corps uses the term surplus water; it
is offensive to me and so many other citizens in the West who
view it as an unlawful taking of what is constitutionally
protected. It is a constitutionally protected right of the
States to the natural flows of river systems.
The Flood Control Act of 1944 highlights the preeminent
role of States and localities with respect to water rights.
Surplus water appears undefined in Section 6 of the Flood
Control Act. In the decades since passage of the Act, with the
exception of the previous Administration, the Corps has
declined to define surplus water.
Yet, in December 2016, the Corps sought comment on a
proposed surplus water rule. The original deadline of this
action was February 2017. The comment period was extended and
is now closed. According to OMB's Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs, the Army's final action on rulemaking is
expected in August 2019 and the rule is expected to go into
effect in October 2019.
First of all, it was never the intention of Congress to
Federalize all of the water in our Country's major rivers. My
question for you both is, where are we now with this proposed
rulemaking action and how will you balance the responsibilities
of the Corps as authorized by Congress with the rights and
interests of the States.
General Spellmon. Sir, with the Secretary's permission, I
will begin. Where we are today, we just ended an 11-month
comment period on the proposed rule. We are working our way
through about 180 comments that we received from a variety of
States, Tribes, and stakeholders; and certainly the topic that
you raised of natural flows was one of the recurring themes
that we heard.
In the revised rule there is no intention by the Corps to
impinge on States' rights to water or Tribal rights to water,
and we want to make sure that is clear in the rule that we
bring to Secretary James, but also is in our actions.
As you said, sir, our objective is to complete this rule in
2019. We have some more consultation with Tribes to conduct
next month and we look forward to getting this on the
Secretary's desk.
Senator Rounds. Very good.
Mr. Secretary, I understand you have been good in trying to
work through some of the issues with us with regard to getting
access to the water. As you know, this is one of those cases
where the States do have, and it is unquestioned, in my
opinion, that they have access to the natural flow of the river
systems. In some cases the Corps has actually tried to stop
access to that by prohibiting access across the Corps right-of-
way along those areas where the Corps manages the river
systems.
Is it your intent that that will not be an action that you
will continue on with while this rulemaking process continues?
Mr. James. That action will not continue unless it were to
impede or endanger a Corps project. In other words, they want
come in too close to the dam or something like that, sir.
Senator Rounds. Very good. That would be a change in policy
and I appreciate your work on that. I know we have talked about
that several times.
Mr. Secretary, first of all, I want to say also to you
thank you for meeting with me over the last few months to
discuss the authorities Congress provided to the Army Corps of
Engineers to use Operations and Maintenance funding to
implement a snowpack monitoring system in the Upper Missouri
River Basin.
You have a snowpack monitoring system right now in the
mountain States; you simply do not have one in the Plains
region. Your own internal recommendations suggested in 2014
that one be implemented.
I also want to thank you for putting the initial funding in
place, and I know that your team is reviewing your programs to
find unobligated funds to provide the remainder of the $1.5
million Fiscal Year 2019 commitment for this important system.
Finally, I want to thank you for the $3.5 million you have
programmed in for the President's Fiscal Year 2020 budget. This
system will give the good people of the Corps' Missouri River
Water Management team better information to make better
decisions in a more timely manner with respect to dam releases
that impact all of the people in both the Upper and the Lower
Basins, and I most certainly appreciate your assistance in
that. I know at times it sounds more like I am chewing on you,
but I do appreciate the work that you are doing to put that in
place.
General Spellmon, I urge you to personally review the
implementation plan that the Northwestern Division is currently
working on in order to immediately in-place snowpack monitoring
sites as soon as the final report is submitted this summer.
Synchronizing the planning, management, and technical teams,
now that the funding is in place, is critical to assuring that
the Corps reaches an initial operating capability this year and
the entire system is fully operational next year. The citizens
of every State in the entire Missouri River Basin will be safer
and more secure when this system is in place.
Would you give me your commitment to that, sir?
General Spellmon. Yes, sir.
Senator Rounds. Thank you.
Gentlemen, unofficial estimates for repair of the Corps'
infrastructure resulting from the March and April flooding has
ranged from $5 to $8 billion. The Corps' outreach to member
offices indicate that water levels are still not low enough to
permit detailed inspections of the entire system.
I know the Corps uses econometric and other analysis to
provide rough waters of magnitude of damages for floods. While
we know that any disaster supplemental needs to address the
devastation in the Midwest, and I am aware of the award of
initial repair contracts, I am curious to know how the Corps
can ever address design flaws or weaknesses if they begin
rebuilding the system to the same standard immediately after a
flood event. This does not show stewardship of the American
people's resources or common sense, especially when we know the
system should be improved or redesigned.
General Spellmon, in your professional military judgment,
what do you need to get us out of this continual loop where the
Corps rebuilds to the same standard after ever significant
flood, even though you know that the improvements should be
made to the system? Are the constraints that P.L. 84-99 places
on rebuilding too restrictive to permit an innovative
reconstruction effort? Do you need additional authorities? Are
there commonsense improvements that you could make now that
exceed the constraints of law or policy that Congress can help
you with?
Kind of an open-ended question, but I really would like to
have you work your way through that. Once again, I am asking
for this not so much in terms of the administrative side of
this thing, but in your professional military judgment.
General Spellmon. No, sir. Thank you for the question.
First, regarding the constraints on PL 84-99, no, sir, we do
not have a constraint. WRDA 2016 gave the Corps authority to do
some upgrades on levee systems in situations like this. We have
not used that authority. Let me explain why.
The levee systems that were overtopped between Omaha and
Kansas City were largely Federal. We could go in and upgrade
those levees, but that water is going to go to Missouri, where
the levees that overtopped were primarily non-Federal.
Sir, the authority that we would ask for from Congress
would be to do a comprehensive flood risk study on the Lower
Basin. What that would allow us to do would take some concepts
that have been a recommendation for over 26 years, put some
technical rigor behind them, bring in the public, get public
comment, and then we could bring those recommendations to
General Semonite, Secretary James, the Administration, and
eventually to Congress.
Senator Rounds. Thank you.
Secretary James, would you like to add anything to that?
Mr. James. Yes, sir, I would. In your opinion, General,
does that require an authority from the Committee?
General Spellmon. Sir, it would be a new start authority
for a study, a feasibility study.
Mr. James. That is what I thought.
That is the only way to fix that area. It has to be
designed as a system; and not only levees, but--may I just
speak for a moment?
Senator Rounds. Yes, sir.
Mr. James. In the MRT system in the Lower Mississippi
Valley, it is not just big levees from Cairo, Illinois all the
way to the Gulf, that is not what it is. There are three
floodways in it; it has backwater areas; it has levees on one
side of the river that are subservient to the elevation of the
levees on the other side of the river. That is due to the fact
that the hill line is very close on that less elevation levee,
so it is designed to go over it first, instead of going over
the other side of the river and maybe flooding 100 miles.
It is a system, it is not just levees. I would recommend,
after we have seen what happened in the Missouri Valley, that
the Corps be given the authority to at least look at what we
could do to help protect that area.
Now, sir, I might as well bring this up now, then you can
chew on me the next time you see me again. As you know, those
reservoirs upstream, up in the upper part of the Missouri
Valley, have eight different uses connected to them, and it is
very hard to manage those reservoirs. I think my opinion is
that we need--and I know how important water supply is in those
reservoirs, and I want to help. I also know how important flood
control is in those reservoirs.
For example, we have water supply allocated in reservoirs
up there and there is nowhere close to that much water being
used for water supply. If just temporarily, that water should
be able to be drawn down into the used area for flood
prevention. Instead, we stop it up here where it is not even
being used. You and I can talk about that, or the Committee,
later on, but all that needs to be looked at if we are going to
try to protect the Lower Missouri Basin in the future.
Speaking of the MRT Project, it has been flooding as well.
It is the top three or four floods of its history, as the
Missouri has been going on. It is not even in the paper. It was
designed in 1928. I know we can design a system, it is just a
matter of authority and, of course, the appropriation.
Senator Rounds. I look forward to working with you on that
process in the future.
Mr. James. Thank you.
Senator Rounds. My time has expired and our members are
starting to come back in.
Senator Carper, are you ready with your questions?
Senator Carper. You know I am.
Senator Rounds. There we go.
Senator Carper. How did he do, pretty good? He is going to
make a hell of a chairman, isn't he? He and Ben. Ben has
already been chairman.
The real Chairman has rejoined. Mr. Chairman, Senator
Rounds has been kind enough to recognize me to take the next
questions, and I am ready to.
Again, thanks for bearing with us this morning as we go
through all these votes. It is very strange to have five
consecutive votes like this on a Wednesday morning when
everybody is having hearings, but it is what it is. Thanks for
your patience.
My first question would be, Mr. Secretary, for you and for
General Spellmon, if I could. It deals with AWIA
implementation. What I am going to ask you to do is give us an
update on three sections of AWIA that were required in 2018
legislation. I hope we telegraphed this pitch so you are
prepared to address this. The three sections we are interested
in hearing about today are Section 1102, Section 1103, and
Section 1207.
Section 1102 deals, as you may recall, with a study of the
future of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Section
1103 deals with a study on economic and budgetary analyses, and
Section 1207 calls for a study on innovative ports for offshore
wind development. If we could just take them in that order.
Again, I just want to get an update on what is going on with
respect to the studies required by Section 1102, 1103, and
Section 1207.
Mr. Secretary, please.
Mr. James. Yes, sir. As far as the studies on the Corps of
Engineers, there were studies proposed by the Administration
that there be studies done to look at moving the Corps of
Engineers outside of the U.S. Army. That study has not been
funded and we can not do that study.
Now, the Secretary of the Army did order me to do a study
from the Army Science Board for both the processes of the
Corps, which bothered us, and General Spellmon indicated how
much progress we have made on that, and the other thing was the
permitting, how do we do our permitting and how effective or
ineffective is that, and we are required to do just a multitude
of permits a year. That study is going on now and we will
forward the results of that study to you immediately.
Senator Carper. Now, last evening I was told by John Keane,
who is sitting right behind me, that we received a report from
the Bureau of Reclamation on Snake River that was mandated in
WRDA without a specific appropriation. I would just suggest
that maybe the Corps should be able to do the same with respect
to Section 1102, 1103, and 1207.
General Spellmon, any thoughts?
General Spellmon. Sir, I think the actual provision is for
the Secretary of the Army to reach out to the National Academy
of Sciences to conduct this study. It is not an internal look
by the Corps of the Corps.
I would just add that the studies are important, but we are
not waiting for the studies. We have heard the frustration from
the field and member stakeholders and, as the Secretary said,
we are taking a number of actions in our construction program
and our regulatory program to get after those frustrations and
get better at project delivery.
Senator Carper. I understand it is not just about
reorganization, but also about budgetary techniques, and I
would just ask you to think about that and share any thoughts
you have with me.
Let me just back up a little bit. I understand a number of
reports that I have mentioned have been started. As I
understand it, the implementation guidelines for the 2018 AWIA
law indicates that commencement of the reports is subject to
appropriations. I also understand that Congress has provided
the Corps with $193 million in funding for Fiscal Year 2019 in
the Expenses account that can and some have believed should be
used to complete these reports.
Am I correct in my understanding that funds in the Expense
accounts can be used to complete the reports? If not, who
determines whether a congressionally mandated report needs a
specific appropriation to complete it versus a report being
funded generally under the expense account? Is it the Corps who
makes the decision or OMB that actually has that call?
General Spellmon. Sir, I will start. You are correct, we
can use expense dollars, and we have used expense dollars
already to complete several of the 47 reports that are required
by the Corps in this particular legislation. Our immediate
focus has been getting out the implementation guidance to the
field. With the Secretary's approval, we will now transition
and do our mission analysis on those 47 reports and start
teeing up the dollars what we can do internally, and then we
will come back to the Chief and the Secretary where we may need
some additional help.
Senator Carper. All right. We will come back and explore
this with you further. Thank you both.
Senator Barrasso. [Presiding.] Thank you, Senator Carper.
Senator Ernst.
Senator Ernst. Thank you very much.
General Spellmon, I want to thank you very much for coming
to Iowa, doing that field hearing; that was very, very helpful
not only to the local stakeholders, but those of us that were
able to take that information and present that back to the
Committee. Again, General, thank you so much for that.
General Spellmon, I know that Senator Rounds had already
touched largely on this, but I would like to go back and
revisit it. Just because our flood season is not over yet, and
as long as those levees are down, the farms, the businesses,
the homes, everything, those communities will remain at risk.
I know that you are currently working on the levees,
several of those major breaches in southwest Iowa, but, going
forward, what administrative tools, authorities, or additional
funds does the Corps need to expedite and fully carry out the
levee repair and rebuilding process under the 84-99 program?
Just go a little bit further with that and be specific maybe to
southwest Iowa as you could, sir, please. Additionally, if we
do need to provide additional authorities and flexibility,
please let us know what that is.
General Spellmon. Yes, ma'am. Since the field hearing, just
a couple of updates. At the field hearing, I mentioned to you
there were four critical levee repairs that we needed to put in
place essentially to stop the bleeding, to help get some of
that water off of the basin. We have contracted already three
of those that are underway.
The fourth is being contracted today. They have a period of
performance anywhere from 60 to 90 days. What that will allow
us to do is get the water off of the floodplain, and then we
get into the detailed assessments on the other 110 breaches
that we know we have to get out and repair.
Ma'am, I do not have any restrictions to report to you from
PL 84-99. The only additional authority I mentioned to Senator
Rounds that would be helpful for the Corps is a study
authority, and that is to do a comprehensive study on the lower
basin so that we can add some technical rigor to concepts that
people have been discussing for about 20 years, and I am
talking about flood easements, potentially some limited levee
realignments, some storage basins, if you will. Then we can get
public comment on those ideas and bring those back to the Chief
and Assistant Secretary James, and then eventually to Congress.
Senator Ernst. OK. I appreciate that very much. If we were
to do a study like that, what would an anticipated timeframe of
a study be, General?
General Spellmon. Ma'am, obviously, we would want to
expedite this. We have to get some repairs on the levee
breaches that I mentioned earlier because, obviously, farmers
have crops they have to get in the field. Before we rebuild
that entire system the way it is today, we would want to
expedite this study. We are not starting from ground zero. A
lot of work has already been done on this particular topic on
this basin that we could leverage to expedite.
Senator Ernst. OK. I appreciate that very much.
As well, Secretary James, thank you again for all of the
great work that you have been able to do in the last couple of
years. Very impressive work has been done, especially in Iowa.
Thank you for that. I have been told by various Corps officials
that the mainstem system has been operated with flood control
as the No. 1 priority for the past 12 to 13 months, but during
this particular event, a significant amount of water entered
the Missouri and its tributaries below those reservoirs on the
system, meaning that the role of the reservoirs was minimized
in this latest event.
Do you believe that making flood control the unquestioned
No. 1 purpose of the system would decrease the likelihood and
the severity of damage from most of our flood events?
Mr. James. Senator, when I came here last year, I was known
as the flood control guy, and I still believe in flood control.
There has got to be everything, the environmental restoration,
flood control, navigation, water supply, recreation, and so
forth, particularly in reservoirs. If you do not assess and
take care of the flood control first, the rest of it does not
matter, because sooner or later you are going to get wiped out
just like this year.
Senator Ernst. Right.
Mr. James. I mentioned to Senator Rounds a few moments ago,
before you came in, that this study that the General is talking
about for the lower Missouri system, that also has to look into
the upper system and take that into account. We have to decide
how much water we can withdraw from those reservoirs without
hurting their water supply in order to be ready to catch some
flood water.
Now, I know this one came from down south, I get that, but
I will grant you they all do not do that.
Senator Ernst. Exactly. Large in part what we have seen in
the past is more of the water coming from below or, excuse me,
above those reservoir systems.
Mr. James. Exactly.
Senator Ernst. I do appreciate it.
Gentlemen, I appreciate the fact that you know how
significant this is to the Midwest, and what we have seen in my
home State of Iowa we see it now on the eastern side as well.
Thank you for putting the attention into it, and I look forward
to working with you on this issue.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Ernst.
I would just, to the members of the panel, again apologize
on behalf of the Committee. We just started the third of five
votes. They just rang the buzzer for that, so it is possible
that some of us may ask questions that have previously been
asked by other senators, as we are coming and going, so we
apologize for any redundancy and we appreciate your patience
with all of us.
Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I do thank our witnesses, particularly our governmental
witnesses, for what you are doing in regard to very important
water projects. As the Senator from Maryland, you are not going
to be surprised to learn that my principal concerns are going
to be with the Chesapeake Bay and the work that the Army Corps
is doing with the Chesapeake Bay, and I thank you very much for
that.
There are several Senators that are part of the six States
that represent the Chesapeake Bay watershed. I am working with
Senator Capito on the reauthorization of the Chesapeake Bay
program. It is bipartisan. We have the support in the House of
our colleagues to increase the authorization on that program to
$90 million. I also point out that the Army Corps is a key
partner in that arrangement.
Secretary James, I very much appreciate your personal visit
to Poplar Island and see firsthand, yes, the importance of
having sites where we can take dredge material, because the
economic impact that has on keeping our channels at the depths
that they need to be, but also how unique, no longer unique,
but for its time doing an environmental restoration, so it had
the popular support of the community, but also the positive
impact it had on our environment.
As you know, Poplar Island was once a habitable island on
the Chesapeake Bay. It eroded to virtually nothing and now is a
vibrant environmental restoration project, and we see the
completion of that in sight with Mid Bay being the next. I
appreciate the Army Corps' support for that and the continued
funding that we have been able to get, so that, to me, has been
a good news story and I thank you very much for all your help
in that regard.
The Chesapeake Bay Comprehensive Plan was just recently
submitted by the Baltimore District. We are pleased about that.
It carries out the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement of 2014,
with all stakeholders participating. I think that the major
strength of the Chesapeake Bay program is that the stakeholders
have all bought in, States have all bought in, and we need the
Army Corps to carry out many of the projects.
I want to ask you specifically about oyster restoration,
because oyster restoration is one of the key elements in
restoring the Chesapeake Bay. Over the last century we have
seen a loss of oysters in the Bay to about less than 1 percent
of its historic level. That is an incredible loss of the most
important filtering agent for clean water in the Chesapeake
Bay.
The Army Corps has participated in 740 acres of oyster bars
in the State of Maryland. General, we thank you for that help;
that has been encouraging and been very helpful. Congress has
encouraged more funding for oyster restorations. They are in
more general funding categories in which we need to do a better
job in funding. I will be the first to acknowledge that.
The Water Resources Development Act was very, I think,
forward in saying we need to deal with water infrastructure in
America, with resiliency, with adaptation, deal with our
coastal waterways, etcetera.
My question to you is what can we do to accelerate the
oyster restoration efforts in the Bay and other areas, and how
are those decisions affected by the funds that are made
available to you in the various programs that you have.
General Spellmon. Sir, I will start. First of all, we do
acknowledge in the Corps that these are important projects not
only to the economy, but to the ecosystem, as you have
outlined.
In the Corps, we have been working to ensure that we
maintain a capability to leverage about $5 to $8 million each
year, pending appropriations, to get after this program. There
are many other worthy projects just like this across the
Nation, so we have been able to keep going on this particular
program in the Chesapeake, frankly, largely through approved
reprogramming off of a variety of budget lines, so we will
continue to exercise all the flexibility we can to get after
this important set of projects.
Senator Cardin. I thank you for that. We would like to be
more specific, and under our rules we have restrictions on what
we can do because of restrictions on so-called earmarks, so we
have to work with you to find creative ways, since you have the
resources, because I think we all agree that we have to be more
aggressive. It is working; it just takes time and it takes a
lot of effort, and the leadership in the Army Corps is vitally
important.
I really do thank you for that commitment, and let's find
ways that we can advance these programs and help you during the
appropriation process.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Cardin.
General Spellmon, the people of Teton County in my State
remember vividly the flooding from the Gros Ventre River and
Flat Creek in 2017. They are concerned about inadequate
preventive drawdown of water from the Jackson and the Palisades
Reservoirs to capture the snowpack runoff, as you can imagine.
As you know, both your agency and the Bureau of Reclamation
have a responsibility to protect these communities from flood
risk. America's Water Infrastructure Act requires the Corps and
the Bureau of Reclamation to develop a Flood Prevention Action
Plan, key word action. The Flood Prevention Action Plan should
include actions that the Corps and the Bureau will take to
mitigate flood risk in the Snake River Basin.
The law required the plan to be provided to this Committee
by April 21st, last month. The Corps did not meet the deadline.
The Committee received a report yesterday, the day before this
hearing. The report is 20 pages long. It restates what the
Bureau and the Corps already do to mitigate flood risk in the
Snake River Basin.
The only new actions, if you will, that the Corps and the
Bureau will take to protect my constituents, and you are
sitting next to our Director of Homeland Security for Wyoming,
involves, No. 1, inviting one Corps staffer to an informal
meeting in May, adding a Bureau of Reclamation staffer to an
email list, and having the Bureau work better with the media to
highlight public informational meetings.
I would just say, Senator Spellmon, do you think this is
really sufficient to reduce the flooding risk for the people of
Teton County?
General Spellmon. Sir, we did have the opportunity to
review and work with the Bureau of Reclamation on this
particular report. In fact, I had a good conversation with the
Regional Director for the Bureau just this weekend. There were
five broader focus areas that we took away from this particular
report that we want to work on and, frankly, sir, I had a
conversation with our Walla Walla District Commander just this
past week on this effort and he even shared with me that the
district could do better in the State of Wyoming on
communicating with stakeholders about the level of flood risk.
Sir, we are going to take this on, the broad focus areas,
and get after it with all of your constituents and
stakeholders.
Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you. It is good to hear that
we are going to get there.
Director Budd, your agency is tasked with mitigating and
responding to flood risk in Wyoming, is that correct?
Ms. Budd. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Senator Barrasso. Has the Corps or the Bureau consulted
with your agency in developing a Flood Prevention Action Plan?
Ms. Budd. No, they have not.
Senator Barrasso. Have you heard from other relevant
officials in the State about whether they have been consulted?
Ms. Budd. In preparation for this testimony today, we
contacted several State agencies, as well as our partners on
the ground in Teton County, and there was one contact made with
the local emergency manager in Teton County by the Bureau of
Rec, and that is all we could find.
Senator Barrasso. You would agree with the General that
they can really step this up; more needs to be done to focus on
the concerns of the people.
Ms. Budd. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Barrasso. The reason I raise all this is, as you
know, in Wyoming we are entering flooding season. Last month
Wyoming Public Media ran an article with a warning: ``Cold
Winter and Warm Spring Equals Ice Jams and Flooding.''
I am going to have this submitted into the record.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Barrasso. Wyoming has always faced flood risks,
especially in northern Wyoming, northwestern Wyoming, in
Worland and Greybull, communities along the Snake River in
Teton County.
Director Budd, in your opinion, what are some ways that the
Corps could better help the State of Wyoming mitigate this
flood risk?
Ms. Budd. Mr. Chairman, we would like to see continued work
at the local level with our rural communities on projects such
as you mentioned, Worland, the removal of Goose Island to
mitigate the risk of ice jam flooding, as well as the Silver
Jackets project that is ongoing in Hudson, Wyoming, in Fremont
County, where we had a lot of flooding in the past year. More
projects on the ground.
Senator Barrasso. To Secretary James, will you pledge to
work with my State to do all that you can to get input and to
help mitigate this flood risk?
Mr. James. Absolutely. I can not imagine two agencies like
Bureau of Rec and the Corps of Engineers not working together
on flood risk. I discovered, after I got here to this job, that
Bureau of Rec has many reservoirs out west that I was not aware
of, and I think it gets a little complicated sometimes.
Sometimes the Bureau of Rec is responsible for the flood risk
management and sometimes the Corps is, but we need to do all we
can do to help protect the people.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Senator Duckworth, I think you are next.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you and the Ranking Member for holding today's hearing.
Secretary James, I want to commend your leadership in
helping to advance several important projects in Illinois
toward completion, including the McCook Reservoir agreement and
the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, among others. I also want to
thank you and the rest of the Corps of Engineers for your
efforts to protect communities across Illinois during what has
turned out to be a season of tremendous rainfall with
significant flooding throughout Illinois and the Midwest. We
have had a lot of discussion of flooding, but I really want to
focus on urban flooding challenges here with my questions.
As you know, flooding, both rural and urban, is a key
justification for the McCook Reservoir project is that it will
help to protect 500,000 homes across the Chicago land region
from flooding, and much more must be done. Unfortunately,
outdated Corps policies greatly undermine your ability to help
urban areas address flooding issues, and I fear that we need to
fix this issue. It is why I authored Section 1211 of the most
recent WRDA bill to require the Corps review Federal policies
that restrain its ability to address urban flooding, like the
800 cubic feet per second rule, and report back to Congress
within 1 year on potential fixes.
As the law was enacted in late October 2018, this critical
review should be half done, but I am told that you have not
even started the review, which is very frustrating. I would
appreciate your personal commitment, Mr. Secretary, to
completing this review before September 30th of 2019, which
would be the 1-year mark; ideally well before that date.
Mr. James. Yes, ma'am, you have got my commitment.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
In addition, if the Corps is running into bureaucratic
hurdles with the Office of Management and Budget in this
process, I would first note that this review is not optional,
it is required by law; and, second, I am confident this
Committee would be very interested if OMB is interfering with
implementation of the bipartisan WRDA bill, which Congress
passed and the President has signed into law.
Major General Spellmon, will you commit to getting this
study done this year also?
General Spellmon. Ma'am, we will commit to getting the
study done. I would just say the 800 cfs rule is a matter of
Corps policy; it does not require legislation to change. We
will take action to get the report done, but I would just offer
an interim. We have made exceptions to this particular policy
before, so if there is a particular urban area or project set
that you would like us to give up, we can get started and not
have to wait for a report or change to policy.
Senator Duckworth. OK. I will take you up on that. Thank
you.
I know Senator Carper already touched on the Corps' expense
account, but can you talk a little bit about trying to get this
done this year, this study?
General Spellmon. Yes, ma'am. This bill required 47 reports
from the Corps and other Federal agencies. Our initial focus,
as the legislation was passed, was to work through about 39
sets of implementation guidance out to the field so they could
get started. Our focus now will transition to the 47 reports,
what can we do with the expense account dollars that we do
have, and then we will come back to General Semonite and
Secretary James, possibly to Congress, if we need additional
funds to complete the remaining reports.
Senator Duckworth. OK, thank you. It is a testament to the
Corps' expertise and dedication that most of our Nation's locks
and dams continue functioning well beyond their original life
cycle. Congress and Administrations past and present have not
provided the Corps with the resources that you need to address
the 8 billion inland waterway construction backlog. I have
toured some of those locks and dams where you have actually had
to preventively knock over walls so that they would collapse in
the correct way and not impede the locks. As we know, every
time an unscheduled lock closure occurs, it raises the cost for
shippers, ship freight traffic onto our roadways and rail, and
undermines our global competitiveness.
Secretary James, Highway Trust Fund construction projects
generally enjoy an 80:20 cost share between Federal and non-
Federal sponsors, and construction projects using Airport Trust
Fund dollars generally receive a 75:25 cost share, as do harbor
construction projects. Yet, lock and dam constructions using
Inland Waterways Trust Fund dollars must divide costs between
Federal and non-Federal sponsors of 50:50.
If this Committee was able to secure an increase in Federal
cost share for lock and dam projects in the next Water
Reauthorization, can you describe how this change would benefit
inland water projects throughout the Country? If we could find
you the money, how would that affect how they would move
forward, and would it affect the cost share?
Mr. James. Senator, we always can use money.
[Laughter.]
Mr. James. I will tell you that. The cost share is out of
my hands. From what I understand the Administration set that
50:50 cost share on the Inland Waterway Trust Fund several
years ago. I do not think I can influence that myself.
Senator Duckworth. Well, I think you have given me
something to work on. Thank you.
I yield back.
Senator Cramer. [Presiding.] Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
our witnesses here today. In particular, I want to thank
Secretary James, General Spellmon. Your work, both of you, is
very much appreciated, I think throughout the Country,
certainly my State, great State of Alaska. I know we have had a
lot of discussions on some of the issues.
Mr. Secretary, I really want to thank you for your
responsiveness. You probably know more about Alaska than you
ever thought you would, and I appreciate that. I am not sure
you do, but it is what it is.
Let's talk about some of the Arctic issues that are
happening. I think that both in this Committee and your
jurisdiction as both, obviously, the Army Corps, but it relates
to national security as well, and I just wanted to touch on a
couple of projects.
Secretary of State Pompeo was in Finland yesterday at the
Arctic Council and really kind of emphasizing the importance of
what is going on in the Arctic. I think it is recognized we are
pretty far behind from an infrastructure and national security
perspective, but we are actually starting to wake up to this.
It is quite bipartisan on the Armed Services Committee to do
this kind of work.
There are three potential Arctic projects included in the
2020 WRDA, that is the Barrow Coastal Erosion Project, that is
literally at the top of the world for us, the furthest northern
community in North America; the Cape Blossom Port in Kotzebue;
and the Gnome Arctic Deepwater Port.
Can I just get an update from you, Mr. Secretary, or
General? We want you to try to meet the timing on these. We
know that you are very familiar with them and appreciate your
focus. A lot of times, again, these do not get focus, but there
is no infrastructure in the Arctic; the Russians are building
massive amounts of ports and airfields and we have essentially
nothing, and we have to get out act together, so we need your
help.
General Spellmon. Yes, sir. Thank you. I have the
opportunity to travel to visit with our Alaska District next
week and look forward to getting out and seeing a number of
these projects.
Senator Sullivan. Are you going to go out to western
Alaska, where all these are?
General Spellmon. Yes, sir.
Senator Sullivan. Great.
General Spellmon. The Corps has been building harbors and
channels for over 100 years in Alaska; we are committed to it.
I think 57 of them are still in operation, but the Port of
Gnome, as you know better than anyone, sir, is a great example
of why we need to modernize. That draft feasibility report will
go out by the end of this week, and I will just refer to my
notes. We are on schedule to have a final chief's report by
June of next year.
Senator Sullivan. Great. On that issue, you know, we have
talked, Mr. Secretary, there is this issue of what kind of
draft we would want for that, particularly as the Navy, the
Secretary of the Navy has talked about doing more freedom of
navigation operations up there. I know you are waiting
essentially for word from DOD, OSD, and the Secretary of the
Navy on the demand signal for something that could at least, in
my view, hold a destroyer, so we are going to work on that.
Do you have any thoughts on that right now? We actually
think if we are looking at a strategic deep draft port and it
can not handle a basic size Navy ship, it is a very significant
missed opportunity. The Secretary has stated they are going to
do a freedom of navigation operation with Navy destroyers up
and over the Pole this summer. First time we have done that
since the 1980's, but importantly.
Do you have any thoughts on that in terms of what is needed
and what we need to do or the Secretary of the Navy needs to do
to make it so your draft report can handle the size ships we
need? Heck, I would like to be able to handle an aircraft
carrier there, but what do you think, Mr. Secretary?
Mr. James. Well, sir, if you can get the authority, I will
support anything you get.
Senator Sullivan. Right now you are not hearing directly--
you need that authority--my understanding is not the authority,
but the demand signal, as the Pentagon likes to use that term,
from the Navy, is that correct, on what they need?
Mr. James. The demand signal, I think that is correct,
probably. Is that where we are on that, is that the Navy would
need to concur that that needs to be there? I am sorry, sir, I
am just not sure where we are.
Senator Sullivan. OK. Well, look, we have had a good
working relationship, Mr. Secretary. We will work together with
you on that and the Secretary of the Navy. What I do not want
to do is have a report, and you know we have been working on
this Gnome project for quite some time and there has been some
back and forth. It has been, to be frank, a little bit
frustrating for all of us.
What we do not want to do is having something and then,
like, a year from now go, geez, we actually really should have
made that at least acceptable for a Navy destroyer, when,
remember, in the Arctic, in the western part of Alaska, America
is an Arctic nation because of Alaska, but we do not have
anything capable of doing that right now, and the Russians and,
heck, the Chinese, I mean, go read the reports, they are all
over the Arctic because of the resources, because of the
opening sea lanes.
We clearly need infrastructure, and what I do not want to
have happen is us, a year and a half from now, going, darn, you
know that report, we should have been able to make sure we had
at least a destroyer capability to resupply and refuel, if not
something like a carrier.
Mr. James. Sir, I will work with you any way I can on that.
You let me know and I will come visit.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary,
General, and the rest of the witnesses. I appreciate the
cooperation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Cramer. Thank you, Senator Sullivan.
Senator Whitehouse.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
Welcome, all. Particularly welcome to Chip Kline, and thank
you for your hospitality during my climate visit to Louisiana.
You and Governor Edwards were extremely helpful and I
appreciate it.
Secretary James, I am looking forward to the June 14th
meeting in Rhode Island for the coordination between our
projects and the Army Corps, but I wanted to go over some of
the projects that seem to be stalled in various places that we
have talked about. You were kind enough to visit, so you have
seen some of this.
The project for the abandoned pilings in the waterway
between Providence and East Providence that I showed you that
morning was authorized first in 2016 after a lot of
conversation with the Army Corps about how they were not
obstructions to navigation because boats could navigate around
them. Just think about that for a second. It is my view as a
boatman that that is actually the definition of what an
obstruction to navigation is; you have to navigate around it.
When we failed at that, we actually got it into the
authorization thanks to bipartisan support from my colleagues,
and I really would like to move forward on that project. There
is a small sum in your current budget for a derelict bridge
that is in the target area, and I hope we can work together to
expand the funding so that, as long as you are in the target
area, we can do the whole job rather than just do part of the
job.
We have the contractors available; we have the design and
testing of the specialized equipment to remove the pilings
accomplished. Everything is green-lighted and go if we can only
get this to move forward, so I would ask you to lean in a
little bit on your team and see if they can be a little bit
more cooperative with respect to finishing off that project.
Mr. James. I would be happy to, sir. I did visit with you
there and it is definitely a danger to navigation and
recreation, from my viewpoint.
Senator Whitehouse. We spent a lot of money in Rhode Island
cleaning up that waterway so that it is actually fishable and
swimmable now, so there is a whole different set of
recreational uses than originally when, in ancient times, it
was a part of commercial traffic up to Pawtucket. There is no
commercial traffic up to Pawtucket now; it is recreational, and
we need to clean this up.
Mr. James. When I was there, there was a guy working on how
to get those pilings out without disturbing the soil.
Senator Whitehouse. Yes.
Mr. James. Was that perfected? Is that what you are talking
about?
Senator Whitehouse. Yes. Kent Dresser is his name, Captain
Dresser.
Mr. James. Good.
Senator Whitehouse. We have actually even modeled it with
some private funding to make sure that it works. Now that we
have everything ready to go, and as long as you are there to
take down the derelict bridge end, it would be great to just
finish the job up there and do it all at once.
Mr. James. All right, sir. We will look at it.
Senator Whitehouse. In 2016 I got a new authorization for a
study on innovative materials through the National Academy of
Sciences. The Army Corps said, no, we are not going to do that,
so I got it again in 2018 to require it out of existing Army
Corps resources. I do not know if there has been any progress
made on that study, but I would like to move that forward. I do
not know how many times I have to get these things into
legislation that passes in strong bipartisan fashion before the
Corps responds, but could you get me a response? Are you
familiar with that?
Mr. James. Absolutely, sir. I know exactly what you are
talking about.
Senator Whitehouse. If you can give that a little boot
also, I would appreciate it.
Mr. James. A what?
Senator Whitehouse. A little boot in the rear end.
Mr. James. Oh, OK. OK, I got it.
Senator Whitehouse. A little encouragement; put it that
way.
Mr. James. OK. All right. Yes, sir. We will talk about
that.
Senator Whitehouse. Particularly if sea level rise comes on
to have new materials that are less immune to rust and
corrosion to find the role for composites. It is really hard to
design that in if the book has not been developed that says
what the standards are for the new materials. That is basically
the problems that we are trying to solve.
A third issue is the antiquated Corps permit for the
Providence and Worcester property that is just up the river
from all those pilings that we saw. There is an ongoing
negotiation between the local city, East Providence, our major
environmental group, Save the Bay, the owners of the property;
and we would like to make sure that the Army Corps joins in a
productive way in those negotiations. What we are trying to do
is come up with a solution for the property that suits the
modern uses and needs. The permit was decades ago, when a
commercial use was planned. There is going to be no commercial
use.
There is a whole plan along that shorefront for residential
and recreational development, and we need you guys to be a part
of that conversation, because otherwise we are stuck in a
situation which we are negotiating with each other and then
throwing things up to you, and then it is like, nope, go back
and do it again. We need you actually in the room being
productive.
You do not need to give away any particular position. I am
not trying to tell you what your negotiating position should
be, but if you are not in the room, it is a big time waste for
everybody else, because ultimately you have to rewrite that
permit.
General Spellmon. Sir, I am not familiar with this, and we
will dive in and get you a response.
Senator Whitehouse. OK. I appreciate it. I have raised it I
can not tell you how many times, so it would be great to have
it get a little bit of attention.
The last thing is--I guess my time is out--you have a flood
and coastal storm damage reduction business line. You are
familiar with that. It says coastal storm damage right in it,
but over the past 10 years the Corps has spent between 19 times
and 120 times more on inland versus coastal. I keep asking for
you to report on what is the deal and why can not we get more
resources into coastal, particularly when we have people like
Mr. Kline here saying we have huge problems coming and we need
a lot of resources not just to respond when the disaster
happens, but to know how to prepare to save property, to save
lives, to protect assets and all of that.
It is not as if there is not a massive need. I know you are
down to 13 to 1 in the coming budget, which is, I guess, a step
in right direction from 120 to 1, but on behalf of coastal
States everywhere, I know you guys love the Mississippi River,
but you are the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it would be
really great to step up for this account to meet the coastal
storm damage responsibilities, particularly the planning ones.
Comment, response?
General Spellmon. Sir, I will start. First of all, there
are many worthy projects on the coast, and I would just say we
want to thank Congress. In the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018,
Congress provided the Corps about $4.3 billion for just coastal
projects alone, so that is about 20 that we are setting now,
writing contracts on, and will go into construction next year,
but we realize we have more work to do.
Senator Whitehouse. Good. The report was due March 19th. It
is not here.
General Spellmon. Sir, I will followup with you.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you.
Senator Cramer. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.
At this point I will recognize myself and start out,
General Spellmon, by just associating myself with the comments
of Senator Rounds regarding the surplus water rule, the
definition of surplus water. For the life of me, how we can
even have something like this is beyond me, but, nevertheless,
we look forward to the new rule in the definition. Just know
that I support what Mike was saying.
I also say, Secretary James, one of the things I noticed
about moving from the House to the Senate is it is much easier
to get a secretary to come to your office, but I have to say on
your behalf that you came to my office when I was a House
member too, so I appreciate your responsiveness and your
attention. That means a lot.
With that in mind, I very much appreciate the recent visit.
We have a number of issues and I just want to address one of
them with you here in this forum because I think a little bit
of progress has been made since you and I visited, and that is
with regard to Select Energy's application for increase flows
and volumes for out at Lake Sakakawea, the Missouri River
system, for use in fracking.
As I stated then, these are applications that have been
pending for 2 years, since May 2017. They got lost in the
shuffle, somehow got caught up in an order to consider them at
a different level, including Washington, DC.
Just to put some context around it for everybody, Lake
Sakakawea, of course, is a large reservoir on the Missouri
system. It usually has too much water and, of course, right now
not only does it have a lot of water, there is a lot still
coming, and probably the worst yet to come.
These requests are well under the State of North Dakota's
allocations; they are well under even the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers' additional 100,000 acre feet decision that came out
of an environmental assessment in 2012. They are existing
permits that are just asking for greater volumes. It should not
be a complicated matter. It has been 2 years.
Since you and I talked, our staffs have been talking and
evidently there is an agreement that it should be settled
within 30 days. My only question to you in this hearing is
would you commit to that, to getting that resolved in the next
30 days.
Mr. James. Sir, I reserve not committing to it getting it
solved, but I will commit to making every effort in my office I
can to get it resolved. If it has been going on 2 years, there
must be some kind of reason, and I do not want to tell you
something that I can not come through on.
Senator Cramer. Well, I appreciate that, but the reason
clearly is not a lack of water in the Missouri River system.
These are people who have committed that if it ever gets to a
drought stage, that they would no longer take the water. In
other words, the private sector has agreed to terms that should
never be a problem, and this little bit of water, it is hard to
describe how quickly water goes into the system versus goes
out.
You could not come up with a number large enough for it to
make a difference to the people being flooded downstream from
us, so I know deadlines are very difficult for the Corps. We
all know deadlines are very difficult for the Corps. They are
difficult for most of Federal Government, but the Corps has
really written the book on not meeting deadlines and
commitments; and what is at stake here is human safety. That
water will move throughout North Dakota, and still does, in
trucks on highways and bridges. That water will move; just not
in as efficient or safe a manner as it can if we use the
existing pipeline infrastructure.
The other thing that is at stake is America's national
security. I find it ironic that the Army itself has stonewalled
American Energy Security, because I would much rather, much
rather use the peaceful tools of energy development than the
weapons of war in an energy fight. I appreciate your commitment
to do everything you can. I will call you in 30 days, and let's
hope that we are successful.
Mr. James. I hope I will have it to you in 10, but I can
not promise it.
Senator Cramer. All right. Thank you.
I just want to make sure, before we go to a second round--
all right, Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Much appreciated.
Thank you all so much for what you do. Mr. Secretary, I am
not telling you anything you do not know, Mr. Secretary. Cape
Cod is the arm of Massachusetts. The two bridges spanning the
Cape Cod Canal are the vital arteries delivering the island's
life blood. All 200,000 residents rely on these bridges for
access to the mainland, but during the summer, as you know, the
population explodes three, four, five, six times on a daily
basis; and, unfortunately, regrettably, these two 80-year-old
bridges, which are crucial evacuation routes as well, are
deteriorating.
You were kind enough to join me to take a look at those
bridges and the Army Corps of Engineers does maintain the Cape
Cod Canal bridges and is currently conducting a study which
will almost certainly conclude that the bridges need to be
replaced within the next 5 to 10 years, which could cost $800
million to $1 billion. If the Sagamore Bridge is not replaced
within the next 5 years, the Corps may need to perform a major
rehabilitation that could cost $150 million just to repair it,
and still have to replace the bridge in the next decade or so
after that. That is $150 million that could be spent, I think,
more wisely. Extending the life of a functionally obsolete
bridge, one that does not have adequate lane and shoulder
widths, is an infrastructure nightmare.
Mr. Secretary, you are the steward of our Nation's water
resource funding. Would you support swiftly replacing these
bridges so that we can avoid spending $150 million to repair a
bridge that would still need to be replaced in a decade or so?
Mr. James. Senator Markey, I will have to check on my
authority to do that. The Corps is not in the bridge business,
as you know, sir, and at one time since you and I met, I
understood that the DOT there was looking at maybe replacing or
restoring those bridges at the State level, so until I find out
those answers, sir, I really can not give you a promise other
than to promise you I will get those answers and get back with
you.
Senator Markey. I appreciate that. Our problem is that the
Army Corps does own the bridges.
Mr. James. Yes, sir.
Senator Markey. The Massachusetts Department of
Transportation does not own them.
Mr. James. You know, when I went there with you, I came
back and asked how in the world does the Corps own two bridges,
and they said back when that was done, that was a Federal
channel and the bridges over those became owned by the Corps,
which does not make sense to me because there are bridges in
St. Louis, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee, and Caruthersville,
Missouri and up the Ohio River system, and the Corps do not own
those bridges. I don't think I got a very good answer.
Senator Markey. Did they tell you how great the
Massachusetts congressional delegation was in the 1930's?
[Laughter.]
Mr. James. I was told that.
Senator Markey. It does make sense, though, to rebuild
rather than repair those bridges, you do agree with that?
Mr. James. From an engineering perspective, yes, sir, I
think so.
Senator Markey. That is why I think it is so important for
us to work together here, because this is kind of an
opportunity, the way we had in the 1930's, to pass a big
infrastructure bill, to pass a surface transportation bill so
that we are providing the funding at a magnitude that makes it
possible for us to provide funding that can help to solve these
problems that are created only because of the great work that
was done in the 1930's.
The dependence which we have on the work that was done by
the Army Corps back then is now far greater than it was then.
Our population is three or four times greater as a State, and
the whole world comes to the Cape as well. That is why I am
looking forward to working with the Chairman and the Ranking
Member of this Committee to put together a supplemental funding
program that can help to provide for the reconstruction or
building anew of a lot of the infrastructure from times gone by
and to just put it on a separate track.
Just one final thing. Does the Corps support divesting of
the bridges? Would it be helpful if Congress provided the Corps
with more directives and authorities on how to divest the
Corps-owned bridges to willing State and non-Federal sponsors?
Mr. James. I really hate to answer that directly, but I
would say yes, they would certainly entertain a way to divest
of those bridges, because that is really not their work, their
expertise.
Senator Markey. Thank you. By the way, again, I thank you
for your great work, and all of you on this panel.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. I am looking forward again, Mr. Chairman,
Senator Carper, to working with you going forward so that in
this reauthorization bill we have a chance to make some
legislative changes as well as funding changes as well. Thank
you.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
A question if I could for Mr. Kline, Chip Kline. One of the
Corps' most significant problems, as you know, is the agency's
limited resources. We are culpable for that, we are complicit
in that because we do not provide enough resources; and I think
you and our panel of witnesses are aware of that. Consistently,
Congress seems to give the Corps more work to do than we give
them the resources to do that work, so they limp along each
year.
We fund, too often, projects piece by piece rather than
fully funding projects upfront. Then a storm hits and the
Federal Government has to spend large amounts of money to
rebuild projects over and over again. One of the key themes of
last year's WRDA bill, as you may recall, was that the Corps
should be building an entire project once and doing so in a
resilient way, rather than on a piecemeal basis.
I want us just to focus on Louisiana for just a moment in
this regard. Would you just talk with us a little bit about how
this piecemeal funding has impacted your State, the State of
Louisiana? Compare that to funding provided to the new sea wall
and pump station in New Orleans.
Mr. Kline. Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator Carper. I do not
think that there is a better example to point to than the
hurricane protection system around the greater New Orleans area
to answer your question, and I think it is important for
members of this Committee to realize that the hurricane
protection system around the greater New Orleans area was first
authorized in the 1950's.
Fast forward to 1965, Hurricane Betsy hits. The system was
not yet complete. There were portions of the system that were
funded, there were portions that were not, and, as a result,
catastrophic flooding happened as a result of Hurricane Betsy.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were then expended to respond
to the disaster.
Fast forward 40 years, from 1965 to 2005. Hurricane Katrina
hits. The hurricane protection system around the greater New
Orleans area was not yet complete. The components that were
complete failed because they were not built properly and, as a
result, thousands of people lost their lives, livelihoods were
destroyed because of that piecemeal approach.
As I referenced in my opening comments, Senator Carper, the
process by which the Federal Government funds these projects is
flawed. If full funding was appropriated on the front end, you
and I would probably not be having this conversation right now.
Senator Carper. Thank you, sir.
A question for the whole panel, and we will start with Lynn
Budd, from Wyoming, right? I was in Wyoming this last weekend.
Ms. Budd. Very good. It is wonderful.
Senator Carper. It is called Camden Wyoming in Delaware.
Ms. Budd. Well, you will have to come to our State.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I have been, and I will be back. I will be
back. I might bring my wife.
The Army Corps reports that it has a major backlog of
construction projects now estimated to say, they used to say
just over $90 billion, now I am told it is close to $100
billion. That is not a good direction to be going. These
projects include both those that have been authorized but
unfunded and those that have started and stopped due to funding
constraints. It is clear that the Army Corps needs more
resources, looking at a $90 billion plus backlog, because $7
billion in annual civil works funding is obviously not enough
to reduce the kind of backlog, so a question for each of you.
If you want to lead off, you can; if you do not want to, you do
not have to.
A two-part question: how can Congress assist the Corps in
working with local sponsors so we can get our Nation's critical
infrastructure projects moving, more of them? In addition to
the lack of sufficient funding, because it always does come
back to money, does the Corps face other obstacles as it
attempts to reduce its backlog that Congress should be
examining?
That may not be a fair question for you, but I am sure it
is for others at the table. Maybe someone whose first name is
General, Major General Spellmon, please. You want to take a
shot at that? Anything in addition to the lack of sufficient
funding that the Corps faces as it attempts to reduce its
backlog that Congress should be examining?
General Spellmon. Yes, sir. You are correct, the backlog,
by our latest estimates, is about $98 billion, one-third of
that being flood risk management projects.
Sir, the example I would give you would be the commitment
to fund projects to completion. That is, after Congress
appropriates dollars to begin a project, we ought to see it all
the way through. The example I like to give the Herbert Hoover
Dike. This is a 143-mile dike around Lake Okeechobee in
southern Florida. It has had some seepage and stability
concerns for some time, so we are in the process of putting in
a 56-mile cutoff wall about 80 feet below the dike surface.
With incremental funding, it took us 13.5 years to get to the
halfway point of that cutoff wall. Congress has made the
decision in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 to fully fund the
remainder, so it will only take us 3 years to get the second
half of that project complete.
That would be my recommendation, sir, to the Committee and
to Congress, is once we start, a commitment to finish our work.
Senator Carper. All right, thanks.
All right, we have been joined by one of our colleagues. I
will yield back my time so Roger has a shot. Go ahead.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Carper.
Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Thank you. I know how it feels to be
chairing a committee and see a straggler come in the last
minute.
Senator Barrasso. Let the record reflect that this
Committee would never consider the senior Senator from the fine
State of Mississippi as a straggler; only a stalwart member of
this Committee and a valued member, and we always welcome his
presence and his thoughtful questioning.
Senator Wicker. Well, thank you for that.
Senator Carper. I am Tom Carper and I approved this
message.
[Laughter.]
Senator Wicker. I hate to complain, but, Mr. James, let me
ask you about the Jackson County Airport Authority. The Mobile
District Corps has denied a request to extend a regional
general permit, RGP, for the Jackson County Airport. This
permit allows for Clean Water Act compliance for aviation-
related development on a 300-acre site near the Trent Lott
International Airport. This means economic development and jobs
for the Americans who live in and around the area of Jackson
County.
First issued in 2005, the permit had been extended twice,
in 2009 and 2014. Suddenly it is not OK to do that anymore
according to the Mobile Corps of Engineers. The District gave
only 2 weeks' notice that the permit would be allowed to
expire. Of course, this caught our economic developers and job
creators off guard and presents a crippling blow to economic
possibilities on the site.
Secretary James, you and President Trump have said
repeatedly that we need to find ways to streamline the
bureaucracy and move much quicker for construction of projects,
so I wonder how this action by one Corps district, who has
decided to do it differently than other Corps districts and
differently than they have done in the past, I wonder how this
complies with this.
I think we have made you aware, at least made staff aware
of this. I realize it is a rather detailed and complex issue,
but are you aware of this? If not, will you look into it and
see if you can help us get through this bureaucratic roadblock
to creating jobs and economic development for Americans?
Mr. James. Senator Wicker, I apologize, I am not aware of
it, but we will get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.
Senator Wicker. OK.
Mr. James. We will report back to you on it.
Senator Wicker. I do appreciate that. You might want to put
something on the record there; the Chair might appreciate this.
If these streamline approaches to economic development are not
utilized, then we are going to be hurting for job creation in
an area where this has come to be something that we have
expected and something that we have enjoyed working with.
I do appreciate that and, with that, Mr. Chairman, I will
forego other questions, submit some for the record, perhaps,
and yield back my time.
Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you very much, Senator
Wicker. I know as Chairman of the Commerce Committee you have a
lot of additional responsibility, so I appreciate you always
focusing and getting the job done for the people of your home
State. Thank you very much.
In closing, I would like to say that this Committee
authored, and Congress passed, America's Water Infrastructure
act for a reason. We gave the Corps deadlines in the Act for a
reason. I think it is unfortunate that the April 21st deadline
for the submittal of the Snake River Flood Prevention Action
Plan was not met and that the report, I believe, is light, as
we have heard today, on new substantive actions to better
protect my constituents from flood risk. Wyoming has not been
adequately consulted by the Corps, as we have heard from our
Director of Homeland Security. Had it been, the Corps could
have produced a substantive Action Plan by now.
Today, Secretary James has pledged to work with us in
Wyoming to improve our ability to mitigate our flood risk. I
think this is an important step forward and I promise you that
I will hold the Secretary, as well as the Corps of Engineers,
their feet to their fire on this important step.
If there are no more questions, and there are not, members
may also submit followup questions for the record. The hearing
record will remain open for 2 weeks.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here, for their
time and their testimony, especially Lynn Budd, the Director of
Homeland Security for the State of Wyoming, and Leland
Christensen, who is sitting behind her, who is the Assistant
who I have served with in the Wyoming legislature. It is good
to have all of you here today.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12 p.m. the committee was adjourned.]
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