Editorial: WRDA—The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Over the next days and weeks, members of Congress will be trying to work out differences between the Senate and House versions of the Water Resources Development Act. River industry leaders will be trying to explain the impact of various amendments that are designed to police the Corps, principally because there are critics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who disagree with just about everything the agency does. So today we will deal with oversight and why critics are wrong.

Passage of WRDA is the good. The bad and the ugly are made up of proposals to hamstring the Corps and make inoperative a perfectly fine system of project analysis.

Before launching into that issue, three points must be emphasized. First, water resource projects are the only infrastructure projects in the nation required to have cost-benefit ratios grounded in economic theory. Second, as we are reminded by National Waterways Conference President Worth Hager, “…nobody, including the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), has offered better economic models than the Corps uses.” During the flap over the proposed Upper Mississippi/Illinois river projects, even the NAS acknowledged that it would take a decade to develop and test the kind of models NAS would like to see. And third, the civil works program of the Corps is already subject to an exhaustive in-house process of budget prioritization. Because of cost-benefit ratio requirements, the Corps has developed a vast amount of data for use in its economic evaluations of projects.

The three points we’ve mentioned are the heart of the ongoing debate focused on Corps oversight. They beg the question: Does the Corps actually need more stringent oversight? It does not!

Many enemies of the Corps—we might just as well call a spade a spade—fight the agency at every opportunity. Yet, the Corps is doing its best to solve problems to the extent that conflicting federal laws will allow. The plight of Missouri River stakeholders, for example, was created by an eight-year drought, not by the Corps. One unfortunate action forced upon the Corps by law recently cost stakeholders about $80 million in lost power production, while the action saved 20 fish.

In a recent letter to the American Spectator, Hager pointed out that “By advocating budgets that are almost half of what is needed to maintain the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and substituting their own priorities (most notably large and expensive environmental restoration projects and endangered species protection projects), OMB [Office of Management and Budget] has ensured that this nation is ignoring construction projects such as levees that give us almost a three-to-one return just in national benefits and [is] promoting a ‘fix as fail’ operation and maintenance program. These are not ‘pork barrel’ projects; these are the basics we need for our American way of life, such as those for flood control, transportation, hydropower, water supply and recreation,” Hager said.

Now back to the Corps’ method for budget prioritization. Each “economic water resources infrastructure project” goes through multiple winnowing processes. Samples taken from data over several years indicates only about 16 percent of the projects pass the test and eventually are sent on, along with other engineering and scientific analysis, to the chief of engineers.

The second winnowing process is a cost-sharing requirement. Both project studies and construction require percentages of local monies that match amounts from the federal government. In the case of waterway projects, that money comes from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, comprising funds collected through the 20-cent-a-gallon fuel tax. Unless exempted by Congress, if a local cost-sharing agreement is not finalized, the project is not eligible for federal funds to move forward.

Eighteen months before the president’s budget is forwarded to Congress, the Corps begins its actual budget apportionment process, which starts at the agency’s 41 districts. The projects are sorted by benefits and costs and rated. Each project is subjected to a diminishing-returns analysis. Projects that have unique circumstances or elements that are vital to economic/national security are flagged. All district recommendations are then sent to Corps division offices, after which division recommendations are forwarded to Washington. Transportation missions (projects) are compared to flood control and hydropower, etc. All projects in the nation are ranked in a cost/benefit scale, and the list is delivered to OMB.

Ironically, even critics agree that the Corps is woefully under-funded. Sen. John McCain—a dedicated promoter of more restrictions on the Corps—admits that we are dealing with a construction backlog of $58 billion. The Corps gets only $2 billion annually for construction.

Since McCain and others are aware that underfunding is the problem, why try to further hobble the Corps? Just increase funding. What can we gain by tearing apart an efficient system and putting in its place an increasingly more complicated and political system?

The Journal sees no reason to discontinue its long and continuous support of the Corps. We believe that Congress should listen closely to industry leaders as they explain the impact of further restrictions on the agency and then act accordingly. There is no telling what the Corps can accomplish if funded properly and allowed to do its job. If an overly restrictive system of oversight is imposed upon the Corps, we will be forced to live with the undesirable delays and disruptions.

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