[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 15926]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              UPPER MISSISSIPPI NAVIGATIONAL LOCKS PROJECT

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, today, we begin debate on the Water 
Resources Development Act, a serious effort by the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) to start fixing a seriously broken system with 
almost $60 billion in construction backlog which includes projects 
which range from the good to the bad to the ugly and the obsolete.
  Since the corps is overwhelmed with projects and labors under 
outmoded principles and guidelines which Congress and the corps have 
not updated in over 20 years, the process is inherently, intensely 
political.
  The poster child for that is the upper Mississippi lock project, the 
most expensive navigation project in history, the dinosaur of these 
projects. An inspector general found that the Corps cooked the books 
and fired somebody trying to do his job telling the truth.
  The Blumenauer-Flake amendment will provide a safety valve to ensure 
that the project will not go forward unless it is economically 
justified, and will speed the long overdue process of reforming the 
operation of the Army Corps of Engineers so it can be about the 
important water resources projects our country needs.

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