Water Resources Development Act of 2007--Conference Report

Floor Speech

WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2007--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - September 24, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator yielding me some time. This is a unique bill in many ways. It is unique because there is a different set of rules when it comes to the water projects bill and the water resources development in this country for the Army Corps of Engineers. I believe as a former auditor we should be allowing the Army Corps of Engineers to direct funding based on a cost-benefit analysis. A cost-benefit analysis would allow the prioritization of projects based on the best value for our dollar.

The law requires, unlike any other place in our Government--it was explained to me when I got here the law requires that Congress direct this spending. I am uncomfortable with that. This is the only place this year that my name is listed on a specific funding request for Missouri, and I am not comfortable with that. I understand it is a reality this law requires, that if Congress is not directing this funding, there is no funding. I believe very much we should reform the way we fund the Army Corps of Engineers projects. I believe it should be driven by a cost-benefit analysis.

It is hard to understand why in this area, unlike any other area, not only are we in a position to decide level of funding, we are going to decide every single project. Now, since this is so unique, it is even more important that we have complete transparency. Even though I was uncomfortable with requesting specific funding, I understood the unique nature of this particular bill, but I was comforted by the fact that I believed all the projects were going to have a public airing, that they were going to be included in either the House bill or the Senate bill, and that there were not going to be any projects that were put into the authorization bill through the conference process. Unfortunately, that happened. That would bring me to the point of having to vote no on this bill because I believe very strongly in the principle that whatever we include must be included in either the deliberations of the House or the Senate.

This isn't about the projects and the merit of the projects. I am sure they are all very meritorious. In fact, painfully for me, one of them is in Missouri. This isn't about the projects; this is about the process. This isn't about Democrats and this isn't about Republicans. This is about a bad habit. This is about getting into the habit of directing authorization or spending in a conference report instead of under the bright lights of the Senate floor, the House Floor or committee work. We need to stop putting projects in conference reports that were not in the bill. Some people will say it doesn't matter; we have a backlog of all these projects. Well, if it doesn't matter, why do we need to do it? If it does matter, it ought to be important enough to be in one bill or the other.

I believe we need to reform not only the way we fund the Corps of Engineers, to give more deference to their discretion based on cost-benefit analysis, and I believe we need to stop the bad habit of always putting projects in a conference report without the full affirmation and public airing that the House and Senate deliberations provide.

I yield the floor.

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