House and Senate lawmakers are moving forward with plans for new legislation that would authorize billions of dollars for Army Corps of Engineers flood protection, harbor dredging, locks and dams rivers, the restoration of ecosystems and other projects.
Leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee outlined their goals for the Water Resources Development Act of 2024, or WRDA, at a Feb. 28 hearing. Previous WRDAs have been bipartisan and there is no indication that 2024 will be any different.
Although lawmakers do not face a binding deadline to pass a new WRDA bill, they made it clear they want a measure passed this year. If they achieve this goal, it would continue a streak of enacting a WRDA every two years since 2014.
In the House, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Mo.) “aims to pass a bipartisan WRDA this year,” a committee spokesman told ENR in a Feb. 29 email. He added: “It’s in development as we speak.” [House committee backgrounder here.]
The centerpiece of WRDA’s bills has long been its federal funding authorizations for individual projects. The 2022 measure authorized federal funds for 25 new projects, totaling an estimated $30 billion. Most projects also receive non-federal funding.
The WRDAs have also included provisions to change the Corps’ civil works policies.
At the Senate hearing, Committee Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) and the panel’s top Republican, Shelley Moore Capito (RW.Va.), made clear that the new bill will focus on projects instead of adding more policy provisions.
Carper said a draft-focused bill would allow the Corps to “dedicate more time and additional resources to fully implement the changes we’ve already made in previous laws.”
One theme of the hearing was lawmakers’ dissatisfaction with the Corps’ pace in carrying out policy provisions of the 2022 and earlier WRDA.
Carper said, “Implementation of these laws is taking longer than we expected, in some cases much longer.”
Capito said the Corps had not yet met a requirement added to the 2022 WRDA to produce a system to track and provide annual reports on how long it has taken to complete environmental reviews of Corps water resource projects under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.
Additionally, Capito said the Corps had told the committee it would need an additional $3 million to establish the reporting system.
Carper said the Corps has been making “some significant progress,” citing revised principles, requirements and guidelines for evaluating planned water resource projects. Carper said the proposal, released Feb. 15, “goes a long way toward building community resilience to climate change.”
Michael Connor, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, told the panel he appreciated committee members’ idea of producing a 2024 WRDA “because we need to catch up and implement” the policy provisions of previous WRDAs.
Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon, the Army chief of engineers and commanding general of the corps, told the committee that one factor behind project delays is fitting all of the corps’ worthy projects within the overall budget “top line.”
Connor also pointed to the uncertainty caused by congressional agitation over the appropriations bills. He said: “In this day and age, we don’t even know what now [fiscal] 2024 looks like … We have no idea if there’s going to be an appropriations bill or if there’s going to be a continuing resolution.” Connor added, “That affects our ability to move forward.”
The planned WRDA 2024 is shaping up to be popular. A request by Carper and Capito to their Senate colleagues for articles they would like to see included in the upcoming water resources bill drew more than 1,200 responses. It was unclear how many of those responses were seeking funding for new projects.
For a new project to be listed in WRDA, it must first receive a favorable report from the Army Chief of Engineers.
As of Feb. 29, Spellmon had signed off on “head reports” for six new projects, according to the Corps. More projects are sure to be approved and added to the WRDA 2024 list in the coming months.
