Mar. 16: On March 15th, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment held a hearing to hear testimony on the 2017 and 2018 Reports to Congress on Future Water Resources Development from R.D. James, Assistant Sec. of the Army (Civil Works) and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, Commanding General and Chief of Engineers of the US Army Corps of Engineers.
One of the main points of discussion was the estimated $96 billion backlog of critical water infrastructure projects. Mr. James told the subcommittee that a task force will be created to examine this backlog and what is hindering the US Army Corps of Engineers from reducing this backlog. These include repairing existing locks and dams and expanding ports and other water infrastructure used for shipping coal, wheat, and other commoditieson rivers, canals, and other inland waterways.
The task force will advise the Corps on projects such as dredging of rivers and expanding ports that face permitting, funding, or other hurdles.
The agency will examine these projects as they would be affected by President Donald Trump’s infrastructure proposal, which calls on Congress to provide for streamlined permitting, transfer more authority to states, and reduce opportunities for litigation. The Trump plan also calls for a “one agency, one decision” review structure for infrastructure projects to limit the slowdowns caused by overlapping jurisdictions and review schedules.
Rep. Garrett Graves (R-La.), who chairs thesubcommittee, said the current backlog of projects is unacceptable. “With an annual Corps construction budget of less than $2 billion, the simple reality is that we will likely never catch up,” Graves said, adding that “it is absolutely vital that the Corps is working as efficiently as possible.”
Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite agreed with Graves, saying there has to be a more efficient way of handling these projects. “At the current rate, it will take us 100 years to complete these projects,” he said. (Bloomberg BNA, 3/15/18)
