Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the ranking member, and I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), the chairman, as well as the subcommittee chair and ranking member.
This is a recognition of the extraordinary importance of Federal investment in the infrastructure of the United States of America to engage in both domestic and international commerce. Sometimes that seems to be lacking around here. We seem to lump everything the Federal Government does into one big pot, and if you have got something you don't like, it kind of all gets associated together.
This is a program that will be paid for out of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. Yes, there is a trust fund--sort of, kind of. It has got $7 billion of theoretical balance in it. Unfortunately, our friends on the Appropriations Committee have seen fit to spend that $7 billion on other things because it is not a real trust fund.
This legislation will begin to move us back toward utilizing those dedicated tax dollars in a dedicated way to maintaining the port and maritime infrastructure of the United States of America. I mean, here we are today, the Corps of Engineers has stopped dredging all small ports. I will tell you what; that is kind of a disaster in my State, and it is a disaster all around the country.
I have one port where they have to take the boats out of the water onto a dock, and they are having trouble even now getting into that port at high tide to get the boats up onto the dock. I have other channel entrances that are shoaling and becoming dangerous. We are going to lose lives because the Corps doesn't have the money to do the work. We have jetties that are failing. If we fix them now, $10 million, $15 million; if they go totally a failure, $50 million. Now, what sense does that make? But we are the United States of America. We can't afford to do the $10 to $15 million now. We have dams and locks that are failing. Are we going to wait until they fail or are we going to do the repairs now?
This bill begins to move us in the direction of doing the repairs that are needed to better move commerce, people, and goods in this country. It is long, long overdue. And this bill has a 10 percent set-aside which will be dedicated to the small ports.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. RAHALL. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
Mr. DeFAZIO. This year, I had to get my State to partner with the Federal Government so the Federal Government would bring the four dredges with the Corps crews down to dredge my small ports, paid for by the State of Oregon. My State doesn't have a lot of money, but we partnered and we did that. There are innovative solutions that will work, too. But long term, we need the full investment. We need the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund dollars to be spent on needed harbor maintenance.
As I mentioned earlier, I have a jetty at Coos Bay that is failing. We could fix it now for less or a lot more later. We have a jetty on the Columbia River that is failing. We can fix it now for less or a lot more later. That is repeated all around the country.
And I am glad to see today the bipartisan work here and the agreement on the critical infrastructure role that only the Federal Government can play using funds raised federally on imports into the United States of America, a tariff that is placed on those that is dedicated to these functions. It is a paid-for program. We need it now.
I congratulate Members for their good work.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would delay the environmental shortcuts in section 103 until the Secretary certifies that the Corps has significantly reduced the backlog of projects that have already been approved, using the current environmental review process--already been approved.
The reason we are doing this is to make the point that this shortcut process would undermine environmental protections and critical public participation under NEPA and other conservation laws. Combined with strict timelines and limited funding for feasibility studies, it guarantees the Corps will not have the information it needs to plan major projects with broad environmental impact.
There is no evidence that the public participation environmental review process has caused delay. In the hearings on H.R. 3080, no witness identified a single project where that had been the case. When asked directly about why Corps projects take years to implement, the common answer was: lack of available appropriations at critical times during project development and construction.
The problem is not NEPA. The problem is that this Congress has failed to appropriate enough money to keep up with the projects we authorized. WRDA 2007 authorized $23 billion in new projects. Few have even been started. The estimated cost of completion of Corps projects currently under construction is another $20 billion.
In stark contrast, the most recent appropriation of the Corps' construction budget was $12.2 billion. If the Ryan budget is adopted--well, it was adopted in the House, but not implemented--that number would be even lower, pathetically lower.
Clearly, complying with NEPA and other environmental and public participation requirements is not the reason we have a backlog of projects worth billions of dollars.
Congress should appropriate--and this bill is a start--the funding needed to allow these projects which have already been approved, using all existing environmental review requirements, to be completed before we implement any new shortcuts.
A more thoughtful approach, as we work through this backlog over the next 5, 6, 10, 15 years at the current rate of spending--or 25 or 50 years at Ryan spending--would be to bifurcate the process. If we identified that there was a delay, particularly for repair, rehabilitation, replacement, or minor projects, we could streamline those under the House or Senate provisions, but major projects should still go through a full review so that we don't end up later in endless litigation over those very same projects.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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