Congress begins process of reforming the Corps

Posted on October 3, 2007 | Filed Under Flood Protection, Government Affairs, River Renewal 

JoyceJoyce Wu, Program Associate
Natural Flood Protection

With the Senate’s passage of the conference report for the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2007 last Monday (read the press release), Congress will be sending to the President a bill authorizing water resources projects and reforming the Army Corps of Engineers for the first time in 7 years. (The conference report passed the House on August 1, 2007.)

This $21 billion bill, which the President has threatened to veto, is a mixed bag for river enthusiasts. While the bill does include some long-sought changes to how the Corps plans and designs flood control, navigation, and other projects, it also lacks key reforms that would help to ensure that Corps projects are safe, cost-justified, and as little harmful to the environment as possible.

Here’s what the bill does include:

  1. It would require the Corps to update its obsolete planning guidelines, which have not been revised in over 20 years;
  2. It would require the Corps to do a much better job of replacing habitat lost to water projects, which can be enormously destructive to wetlands; and
  3. It would call for a comprehensive study of the nation’s flood risks and flood management programs.

These gains would not have been possible without the tireless leadership of Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ) who have long championed reforming the Corps. Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN), and Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) also deserve praise for improving key aspects of how the Corps operates.

However, it is clear that the job of reforming the Corps is far from finished. The Corps is the nation’s primary river management agency. The quality of its work has been under fire by government and independent experts for decades, and the gains in this bill would only partially address their criticisms. For example, the bill Congress has approved strips down the robust provision for independent review of costly and controversial projects that Senators Feingold, McCain and others had twice secured in the Senate version of the WRDA bill. This provision in particular would have acted as a safeguard to help prevent future Katrina disasters, which was caused in large part by faulty Corps engineering and design of New Orleans’ levees.

For more detailed information, please read our press release on WRDA 2007.

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