[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 8, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3282-S3283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT

  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the Water 
Resources Development Act or the WRDA bill that we are considering on 
the Senate floor. I wanted to begin by thanking leadership on both 
sides of the aisle for moving this very important legislation to the 
floor so we can act on it.
  This legislation is important because it funds vital infrastructure 
projects that make our country stronger, safer, and more competitive. I 
wish to begin by talking about one of those flood protection projects, 
permanent flood protection for the Red River Valley. The Fargo-Moorhead 
Area Diversion Project will establish permanent flood protection 
measures for the Red River Valley region of North Dakota and Minnesota.
  It will, in essence, divert water around--actually water that is now 
almost an annual flood event--population centers, channel it safely 
downstream for both States. In fact, it will protect nearly one-quarter 
of a million people and billions of dollars of property in one of the 
Midwest's most dynamic, productive, and growing metro areas on both 
sides of the North Dakota-Minnesota border.
  Furthermore, this vital infrastructure will not only protect lives 
and property, it will actually save the Federal Government money. This 
is very important at a time when we face deficits and debt, something 
we very much need to address.
  So let me explain. This project will actually save the Federal 
Government money. When the waters threaten, as they have in 4 of the 
past 5 years, many agencies of the Federal Government are mobilized to 
protect life and property. That includes the Army Corps of Engineers, 
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, 
Coast Guard, even Customs and Border Protection, which has been called 
in to monitor the advancing waters of the flood from the air, and other 
agencies as well.
  Those are just Federal agencies. In addition, we have State and local 
agencies that respond as well. Many of them also rely on Federal 
funding. That includes agencies such as emergency management, the 
National Guard, State departments of transportation, highway patrol, 
water commission, human services, departments of health, and many 
others.
  The point is the flood fight requires a lot of work and it costs a 
lot of money. We are doing it every year. It involves the enormous task 
of building miles and miles--not feet, not yards, but miles of 
temporary earthen dams, dikes, and levees. That means moving heavy 
equipment such as backhoes, bulldozers, dump trucks, as well as tons 
and tons of dirt. It means activating the National Guard to devote its 
resources and equipment to the task of fighting the rising waters.
  The flood fight also involves filling sandbags, literally millions of 
sandbags to protect homes and businesses. It involves deploying 
industrial pumps to try to move water out faster than it is moving into 
the cities. That, I tell you, is very fast at the height of the flood, 
thousands of cubic feet per second.
  It means calling on local police and highway patrol officers to work 
overtime to direct traffic, provide security, and keep order. 
Ultimately it means paying out millions in taxpayer dollars year after 
year, and that is the point. We are fighting this flood every single 
year, and we are expending these dollars every single year.
  Then there is another phase after the water recedes and then comes 
the cleanup: removing those dams, dikes, and levees, disposing of those 
millions of sandbags, cleaning the streets, repairing the damage, and 
addressing the multitude of costs and time-consuming tests necessary to 
get things back to normal. Again, as I have said, you are doing all of 
this on a temporary basis, and you have to do it all over again the 
following year. In fact, the expense of mounting a successful flood 
fight year

[[Page S3283]]

in and year out amounts to many millions of dollars every year.
  For example, the successful flood fight of 2009 cost Fargo-Moorhead 
about $50 million. When you lose the flood fight, the cost is much 
greater in both human terms and in financial terms.
  For example, in another community, a much smaller community, Minot, 
ND, lost the flood fight in 2011, destroying or damaging more than 
4,000 homes and displacing thousands of people. The Federal Government 
has put more than $632 million--let me repeat--more than $632 million 
into the city's recovery efforts to date, and we are still not done.
  A similar flood in the Fargo-Moorhead metro area would be far worse 
and far more expensive. The Army Corps of Engineers predicts a 500-year 
flood in the Red River Valley would cost more than $10 million in 
damage, and that doesn't even take into account the impact in terms of 
human cost and difficulty to families and to businesses.
  Let's look at how the costs of such a flood are typically shared. 
This is very important when we do the cost-benefit analysis. Typically 
local government covers 15 percent of the cost. The State pays about 10 
percent of the cost, and the Federal Government pays by far the largest 
share of the cost. The Federal Government is paying 75 percent of the 
cost every single year--oh, except, in severe disasters, FEMA 
recommends raising the 75-percent Federal share for public assistance, 
the repair of infrastructure, to 90 percent Federal cost after you meet 
a certain threshold.
  When you have very significant damage and higher losses, now the 
Federal Government is picking up as much as 90 percent of the cost, 
particularly for the public infrastructure. That cost, in our case now, 
is incurred on a year-in and year-out basis.
  In fact, Fargo-Moorhead has not only had to mount a flood fight but 
then conduct cleanup afterwards in 4 out of the last 5 years, including 
this spring. That is my point. That is exactly my point. With permanent 
flood protection, which is provided through the WRDA bill, we can break 
that cycle. With one-time spending we can protect people on a permanent 
basis and do so much more cost-effectively. Once you build it, you are 
done with the endless and traumatic sequence of fighting floods and 
cleaning up after them. Not only that, but the cost-sharing for 
permanent flood protection is lower for the Federal Government. The 
Federal share would be less than half of the cost of the permanent 
project, 45 percent of the permanent project. That compares with 75 to 
90 percent the Federal Government is obliged to cover for the annual 
flood fight or, worse, if you lose the flood fight and you have that 
recovery effort.
  We are saying for the permanent protection, the non-Federal share, 
Federal share 45 percent. The non-Federal share is more than half, 
which means State and local government will cover 55 percent of the 
cost, which is actually the majority of the project. We have already 
lined up those funds. At that local level and the State level, we are 
ready to go.
  This is a two-State effort, as I said. That cost is incurred by the 
State of North Dakota, by local government, and Minnesota, and it 
breaks out as follows: Minnesota would cover about 10 percent of the 
non-Federal share or about $100 million. North Dakota will cover 90 
percent of the non-Federal share, about $900 million, divided evenly 
between the State and local municipalities, each putting in about $450 
million.
  In the end you can't put a price on the kind of hardship and despair 
that losing a home or a business means after the fact. You can help to 
spare people that hardship in the first place with permanent flood 
protection.
  That is what the Fargo-Moorhead diversion is all about, and that is 
why it is so important to North Dakota, to Minnesota, and to the Red 
River Valley region of the North. The Water Resources Development Act, 
however, does more. It is key to building and rebuilding vital water 
infrastructure projects throughout our Nation, projects that will make 
us stronger and safer.
  Moreover, the WRDA bill includes streamlining provisions to help us 
complete worthy projects more cost effectively with less bureaucracy, 
with greater savings, and with less redtape. In addition, we work 
conscientiously through the process to make sure we do these vital 
projects right. They have been subjected to full corps review, 
including cost-benefit analyses, in an open and transparent way.
  For all of these reasons and more, I urge my colleagues to support 
the Water Resources Development Act for the peace of mind permanent 
flood control and protection will give to the people of our region and 
other regions throughout the country.
  I yield the floor.

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