[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 34 (Friday, February 27, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S1197]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have
printed in the Record a copy of my remarks at the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
This is the first hearing of not only our subcommittee but
the entire Senate Appropriations Committee.
How's that Senator Feinstein? We're the early bird, and I
want to say at the outset what a privilege it's been to work
with the Senator from California over the last few years.
She's been chairman, and I've been ranking member. Our seats
have switched, but the relationship hasn't changed. I look
forward to treating her with at least as much courtesy as
she's always treated me. Let's see if I can outdo her because
it's a treat to work with somebody who's capable of making a
decision, expressing herself well and easy to work with. So,
Senator Feinstein I look forward to our continued
relationship.
This morning we're having a hearing to review the
president's fiscal year 2016 budget request for the U.S. Army
Corp of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, which is
part of the Department of Interior.
Senator Feinstein and I will each have an opening statement
and then each senator may have up to five minutes for an
opening statement in the order in which they arrived. Senator
Graham has let me know that he has a 3 o'clock hearing, so if
the senators don't mind I'll try to work him in before 3
o'clock as a courtesy to him. We'll then turn to the
witnesses for their testimony. Each witness will have five
minutes. We'd appreciate your summarizing your testimony in
that time. We'll include their full statements in the record.
And then, senators will be recognized for five minutes of
questions in the order in which they arrived.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today and
thank Senator Feinstein for working with me on this. Our
witnesses include Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Assistant Secretary of
the Army for Civil Works. Welcome Assistant Secretary Darcy.
Estevan Lopez, Commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation.
Mr. Lopez, welcome. Jennifer Gimbel, the Principle Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. That's a long
title, nice to see you. And Lieutenant General Thomas P.
Bostick, Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers.
Governing is about setting priorities, and unfortunately,
the president's budget request for these agencies shows a
failure to do so.
The president's overall budget proposes spending that
exceeds the budget caps established by the Budget Control Act
of 2011 by about $74 billion. And one of the priorities the
president often speaks about often is our nation's
infrastructure.
Yet despite all that proposed new spending and all that
talk, this proposal cuts the Corps' budget by $751 million,
or about 14 percent below last year's actual spending level.
This budget proposes cutting the Corps' funding to the actual
level of spending in 2007--we are literally moving backward,
on an agency that is crucial to maintaining our country's
infrastructure.
The reason this is such a problem is that the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers touches the lives of almost every
American. The Corps maintains our inland waterways, it
deepens and keeps our ports open, looks after many of our
recreational waters and land, manages the river levels to
prevent flooding, and its dams provide emission-free,
renewable hydroelectric energy.
All of these activities attract the intense interest of the
American people, and of their United States senators. I can
recall when, I was a member of the Environmental and Public
Works Committee, after the Missouri and Mississippi rivers
flooded four years ago, a whole room full of senators showed
up to ask for more money to deal with what went wrong and
what went right with disaster relief efforts. So, there's a
real interest in these proposals.
The reality is that for all the Corps does there are many
things it could do better, and setting priorities in our
spending is one way to better invest taxpayer dollars.
An important example of the administration's failure to set
priorities in my home state of Tennessee is the lack of any
funds in the president's budget request to restart
replacement of Chickamauga Lock. Congress has done its job
the last three years to move ahead promptly on replacing
Chickamauga Lock, and it's disappointing the Obama
administration has failed to do its job.
Here's what we've done. Congress, first, passed a law that
reduced the amount of money that comes from the Inland
Waterways Trust Fund to replace Olmsted Lock, a project in
Illinois and Kentucky that was soaking up almost all of the
money that is available for inland waterway projects. Second,
Congress worked with the commercial waterways industry to
establish a priority list for projects that needed to be
funded, on which Chickamauga ranks near the top, in fourth
place. And third, just this past year, working together, we
enacted a user fee increase that commercial barge owners
asked to pay in order to provide more money to replace locks
and dams across the country, including Chickamauga Lock.
These are three extremely important steps to give our
country the inland waterways that we need. These three things
taken together should make it possible for the Corps of
Engineers to move rapidly to begin to replace Chickamauga
Lock. The problem with Chickamauga Lock is it's made of aging
concrete and could fail if we don't replace it. In fact, in
October of last year, the lock was closed for several days to
all navigation traffic for emergency repairs after an
inspection revealed cracks in the concrete.
This project's not just important to Chattanooga, but to
all of Eastern Tennessee because of the number of jobs
affected. We're almost out of time for a solution--the lock
could close in a few years unless progress is made. If this
happens it would throw 150,000 trucks on Interstate 75, it
would increase the cost of shipping to the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, the weapons complex and to manufacturers across
the state.
So you can see how Chickamauga Lock--and other projects
like it across the country--ought to be a priority, and why
the Corps' budget should make it a priority.
In addition to the Corps, we fund the Bureau of
Reclamation.
The Bureau of Reclamation delivers water to one in five
Western farmers, irrigating 10-million acres of some of the
most productive agricultural land in the world.
I would note that this is the first time that Commissioner
Lopez and Assistant Secretary Gimbel have appeared before
this subcommittee, and we welcome them both.
Without the infrastructure that these two agencies provide,
our nation would be vastly different. With that in mind, we
are here today to discuss the administration's fiscal year
2016 budget request for these both agencies. I look forward
to the testimony.
Before I turn to Senator Feinstein for her statement, I
would like to note that this is Roger Cockrell's last
hearing, at least the last one he'll attend in his capacity
with us as a staff member of the Senate Appropriations
Committee. He's retiring at the end of the month, and we're
going to miss him. For the past 14 budget cycles, senators on
the subcommittee, whether republicans or democrats, have been
well-served by Roger's expertise on both the Corps of
Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. It's hard to think
of anyone inside or outside of Washington who matches Roger
in knowledge or experience--and it is hard to think of a
water resources bill that hasn't benefited from his guidance.
So, Roger on behalf of the subcommittee, I wish to thank you
for your service over these many years and wish your family
best in your retirement.
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