[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 101 (Tuesday, September 5, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8031-S8033]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY AND WATER APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2002
Mr. REID. Mr. President, as always, I appreciate the hard work the
chairman and his staff put into drafting this annual appropriations
bill.
They have done an excellent job in pulling this bill together and I
appreciate the cooperative manner with which he and his staff have
worked with my staff. I also appreciate the consideration he has
provided to the requests of all Members.
This subcommittee received over 1,000 requests from Members this year
and majority and minority staff have combed through all of them.
As always, we are not able to accommodate as many of them as we would
like, and, frankly, not even as many as we need to.
There are a great many things to like in this bill:
Solid funding for the programs to keep our nation's nuclear arsenal
safe and secure.
Strong Army Corps and Bureau of Reclamation funding for work already
underway.
First time funding for the Delta Regional Commission.
Also, for the first time in many years, the bill contains nearly full
funding for the Solar and Renewable Energy programs.
I want to thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee, Mr. Domenici, for
working with me to send some more resources to renewables.
We received a bipartisan letter, signed by 56 of our colleagues,
requesting full funding for the Solar and Renewable accounts in this
bill. I am delighted to report that we have come very close to doing
so.
I believe that the Solar and Renewables programs are essential to our
nation's long-term energy security and appreciate your consideration,
Mr. Chairman.
As we have discussed, I am committed to producing a final energy and
water conference report that is balanced and takes into account the
wide variety of activities that we are called upon to fund.
Unfortunately, I do not believe that we can do justice to the non-
defense side of our bill without additional resources.
There are also several controversial items, including no funding for
Cal-Fed, no funding for the removal of a uranium tailings pile on the
shore of the Colorado River near Moab, and the inclusion of several
policy riders that will all need to be resolved in conference, or
possibly here on the floor.
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Additionally, it is my understanding that the administration has
issued a veto threat over several issues, including:
1. Language prohibiting the Secretary of Interior from allocating
water from the Central Arizona Project; and
2. A provision that prohibits the Army Corps of Engineers from
updating the Missouri River Operators Manual; this provision also
involves the Endangered Species Act.
This second item will be the subject of a fairly extensive debate
here on the floor between Senators Daschle and Baucus and Senator Bond
and others.
I take the veto threat seriously and encourage other Members to do
the same.
While I am not inclined to encourage Members to vote against this
bill at this time, it is my hope and expectation that these matters can
be worked out either here on the floor or in conference.
In short, the vote count on this bill today or whenever we vote
should not be considered indicative of the way I or other Members will
vote if the President vetoes this bill.
That said, given the unfortunate financial constraints that the
subcommittee had to work with--which I will discuss in a moment--this
is a good bill overall. I support it and encourage my colleagues to do
the same.
My overall message is simple today: This subcommittee simply does not
have the resources it needs to do the job that Congress, the
administration, and the American people expect of us.
I am not pointing fingers or attempting to assign blame: I am simply
stating a fact.
This is a very important appropriations bill, one where we are asked
to pay for a broad array of programs critical to our nation's future.
We fund:
The guardians of our nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.
Our nation's flood control and navigation systems, infrastructure
that contributes to human safety and economic growth.
Long-term research, development, and deployment of solar and
renewable technologies, programs critical to our nation's long-term
energy security and environmental future and;
Science programs that are unlocking the human genome and other
breakthroughs that help to keep the U.S. at the scientific forefront of
the world.
All of these are areas that are critical to our nation's independence
and security, yet, year after year, this subcommittee is called upon to
gut one or more of these programs to pay for other energy and water
programs, or spending in other subcommittees.
We cannot continue to do this. These activities are too important.
While most of these comments focus on our shortfalls on the non-
defense side of our ledger, they hold true for the defense programs, as
well.
The subcommittee allocation for non-defense activities of the Bureau
of Reclamation, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Energy
and others is over $600 million below the President's request.
Such a huge funding shortfall has required the subcommittee to impose
strict limits on the types of projects that can be funded this year.
For example, as Chairman Domenici mentioned, there are no new
construction new starts for BOR or the Army Corps in this bill.
As you can imagine, it is difficult to tell my colleagues that a
fully authorized water project, one that is completely ready to go, has
no shot at a construction new start this year. Only on-going work--
usually at a dollar level well below the President's request--and a
handful of new studies.
This is no way to run a robust national program.
But this year's numbers really only tell part of the story. All of us
know, we have good financial years and bad financial years around here.
However, short-falls year in and year out in the water accounts of the
Army Corps have now resulted in a backlog of $45--$50 billion in fully
authorized projects that are awaiting the first dollar in funding.
This shortfall just takes into account the Corps' historic mission of
navigation and flood control and does not take into account some of the
new directions that Congress has pushed the Corps in recent years.
It is wrong to give short shrift to important components of our
nation's critical infrastructure. Flood control protects human lives
and property; navigation projects ensure that our nation's economic
engine continues to hum.
I think it is important to take a few minutes to review our
``critical water infrastructure'' and what it means in real terms to
this country.
Our Nation's water resources infrastructure, developed over the past
two centuries, has improved the quality of our lives and provided a
foundation for the economic growth and development of this country.
Water supply systems, water treatment systems, flood protection
projects, and water transportation systems all contribute to our
national prosperity.
Our current economic expansion can be directly traced, at least in
part, to investment decisions made by our forebears in this body to
develop the nation's water resources.
They had the forethought to make these tough investment decisions and
fortunately they are still paying dividends today.
The water infrastructure provided by the Army Corps alone provides an
annual rate of return of approximately 26 percent. The stream of
benefits are realized as flood damages prevented, reduced
transportation costs, electricity, recreation, and water supply
services.
Navigable channels provide an efficient and economic corridor for
moving more than 2 billion tons of the Nation's domestic and foreign
commerce. The value of this commerce is in excess of $660 billion.
Total jobs generated are about $13 million and Federal taxes
generated by this commerce is estimated at nearly $150 billion. For
every dollar invested to improve navigation infrastructure, U.S. Gross
Domestic Product rises more than $3 dollars.
About 660 million of the 2.2 billion tons of cargo are moved on the
nation's inland waterway system. That equates to 440,000 barges.
To move this cargo by alternative means would require an additional
17.6 million trucks on our nation's highway system or an additional 5.8
million rail cars on the nation's rail system.
That is a considerable amount of traffic to add to these overburdened
systems.
The Army Corps manages 383 major lakes and reservoirs for flood
control and has 8500 miles of levees in place. The flood protection
provided by these structures, on average, prevents $20 billion in
damages per year. That is a saving of $6 for every dollar invested in
flood control projects.
Thousands of cities, towns and industries rely on the roughly 9.5
million acre feet of water supply storage from 116 lakes and reservoirs
in the U.S. built by the Army Corps.
Army Corps owned and operated hydroelectric power plants produce
enough electricity to supply almost 5 million homes with power. That is
24 percent of the total U.S. hydropower capacity of 3 percent of total
U.S. electric capacity. Additionally, these plants annually return over
half a billion dollars to the Federal Treasury.
Coastal projects protect almost 500 miles of our nation's critical
eroding shoreline.
Over 30 percent of the recreation and tourism occurring on Federal
lands takes place on Army Corps water resource projects. These visitors
spend $10 billion annually on these recreational pursuits resulting in
over 600,000 full and part-time jobs.
In addition to the direct benefits provided by this water
infrastructure, substantial secondary or indirect economic benefits are
realized.
I am also very familiar with the great work that the Bureau of
Reclamation does for the 17 Western states, including mine. Its
facilities include: 348 reservoirs providing 245 million acre-feet of
water storage for municipal, rural and industrial uses to over 31
million people in the Western states. Irrigation water to 1 in every 5
western farmers for about 10 million acres of irrigated land.
Additionally, the Bureau is the second largest producer of
hydroelectric power generating 40 billion kilowatt hours of energy each
year from 58 powerplants. Its facilities also provide substantial flood
control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits.
The great urbanization of the west could not be accomplished without
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their management of scarce water resources.
Unfortunately, in recent years national investment has not kept pace
with our level of economic and social expansion.
Public infrastructure investments including those for water resources
infrastructure in 1960 amounted to 3.9 percent of the Gross Domestic
Product.
Today the figure is more like 2.6 percent of the GDP.
That may not sound like much of a change, but let's look at the Army
Corps during that period.
In the mid 1960s, the country was investing $4.5 billion annually in
new water infrastructure, today it is less than $1.5 billion (measured
in 1996 dollars).
Our water resources needs are no less today than they were 40 years
ago. Yet we are investing one third as much.
One major impact of that reduction is the increasingly drawn out
construction schedules forced by underfunding these projects.
These artificially lengthened schedules cause the loss of some $5
billion in annual benefits and increase the cost of these projects by
some $500 million.
Failure to invest in maintenance, major rehabilitation, research and
development, and new infrastructure has resulted in the gradual
reduction in the value of our capital water resources stocks, and in
turn the benefits we receive.
The value of the Army Corps' capital stock peaked in 1981 with a
replacement value of $150 billion. Today its estimated value has
decreased to $124 billion measured in 1995 dollars.
The Army Corps' estimates that their backlog for critical maintenance
work is $400 million and is projected to grow by $100 million per year
at current funding levels.
Our Nation's water infrastructure continues to perform as designed,
but evidence of the need for reconstruction or modernization is
becoming evident.
Some facilities have reached their capacity and some have reached the
end of their design lives. New or shifting populations and growth have
created unmet demands.
Finally, society's values are increasingly emphasizing sustainability
and ecological considerations in water infrastructure management and
development.
As you can see, I am one who firmly believes that investments in our
nation's infrastructure more than pay for themselves through improved
productivity and efficiency. To ignore these needs in the short term is
going to cause us problems over the long haul.
Before I close today, I want to say some words of praise for the
federal employees and contractors that populate the Departments,
Agencies, and other organizations that are funded under this bill.
In the last year there has been a considerable amount of press and
congressional attention surrounding issues such as security lapses at
our National Labs and criticism of processes and procedures at the Army
Corps.
From time to time we summons the political leadership of these
organizations to the Hill to criticize, chide, or impress upon them the
wisdom of our thinking. Often, it can be a pretty warm seat that we put
them on.
None of that is to suggest that the Members of this body are anything
other than respectful and proud of the hard work and accomplishments of
our federal workforce, including contractors, lab employees, and others
that make these important organizations run.
We expect a lot of you and, with very few exceptions, you live up to
all of the expectations and demands that we impose on you. You serve
your nation with distinction and we appreciate it.
I thank the Chairman, and the subcommittee staff for all of their
hard work in getting us to this point. His team of Clay Sell, David
Gwaltney, and LaShawnda Smith have been great to work with. On the
minority staff, I want to say a word of thanks to Roger Cockrell, who
is on detail from the Army Corps of Engineers office in Vicksburg,
Mississippi, and Liz Blevins of the subcommittee staff.
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