[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2883-2884]
[From the U.S. 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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