Corps Releases Details For Infrastructure Plan

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made waves February 23 with the release of its “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative, aimed at providing greater focus on the Corps of Engineers’ core Civil Works mission, minimizing tangental programs and directing funding to priority water resources projects that benefit the nation.

“President Trump has empowered his administration to work with lightspeed efficiency to make our government deliver more for all Americans,” said Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works. “The Army Civil Works’ ‘Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork’ initiative will enable the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deliver critical projects and programs for the nation more efficiently, sooner and at less cost than the current ways of doing business. This will eliminate bureaucratic delays and provide fast, clear decisions needed to save lives and empower our economy.”

The initial rollout lacked specifics, opting instead for quotations from Telle, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and various district commanders.

Exactly a week after the plan was first announced, though, Corps districts updated their initial press release to include a list of memorandums from Telle that shed light on the potential impacts of the “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative.

First, Telle has directed Lt. Gen. Butch Graham, commanding general of the Corps of Engineers, to develop a list of projects subject to deauthorization. Eligible water resources development projects and separable elements of projects must have been authorized for construction before June 10, 2014 and must meet one of the three criteria set forth in the memo. Criteria include a lack of local support, lack of available federal or non-federal resources and an authorizing purpose that is no longer relevant or feasible. The memo further states that only projects for which planning, design or construction was not initiated before January 4, 2025, or that was initiated but had no funds obligated for the past decade.

“The projects identified for this list should include those that may have been authorized or received funding more recently, but construction may no longer be viable due to factors including exorbitant cost growth, change in conditions making the project irrelevant, lack of non-federal resources or interest, or interest by non-federal sponsors to deauthorize obsolete infrastructure projects or separable elements to reduce their operations and maintenance-related financial obligations, among others,” Telle wrote.

Telle directed the Corps to submit the list within 15 days.

Telle’s memos also include policy on the use of project labor agreements in order for the Corps’ Civil Works program to be “optimized for quality, speed and cost to deliver for the American people. Cost disciple is key,” Telle wrote. Another memo directs district commanders to identify and rank at least five priority projects, forwarding the lists to division commanders by March 6, with division commanders then ranking and forwarding their top 20 projects to Corps Headquarters by March 13. Graham is charged with forwarding a prioritized list of 20 projects to Telle by March 20.

In his 12 memorandums, Telle also addresses planning, design and construction policies, the Corps’ reassignment-reallocation strategy, the task of increasing dredging capacity through mitigation banking, the realignment of the project investigation phase and federal interest determination, real estate acquisition policies, the use of ship simulation in navigation project design, and the development and investment of hydropower through non-federal investment at Corps facilities.

The full announcement is available online at www.usace.army.mil/media/news.