WASHINGTON - A new bipartisan Senate bill authorizing billions of dollars worth of water projects includes reforms that sponsors say will speed up the Army Corps of Engineers lengthy study procedures and increase available financing for harbor dredging work. The draft bill, authored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and David Vitter, R-La., is scheduled to be taken up Wednesday...
WASHINGTON - A new bipartisan Senate bill authorizing billions of dollars worth of water projects includes reforms that sponsors say will speed up the Army Corps of Engineers lengthy study procedures and increase available financing for harbor dredging work.
The draft bill, authored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and David Vitter, R-La., is scheduled to be taken up Wednesday at a meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Boxer is the chair and Vitter the top Republican on the committee.
Despite the concurrence of Boxer, one of the Senate's leading advocates for tough environmental regulation, and Vitter, who argues for significantly less intrusive regulations, the bill faces many obstacles. Given the growing influences of fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party, and new congressional rules that make it impossible to draw support for legislation by earmarking projects in members' states and districts, passage won't be easy.
It also faces opposition, at least for some components of the bill, from environmental groups that argue the new streamlined authorization process, while expediting coastal restoration work in Louisiana that they support, would lead to more big Corps projects that will damage the environment.
Vitter said the bill will help speed up some needed projects in Louisiana.
Vitter said to deal with continued delays for the Morganza to the Gulf hurricane protection and other stalled Corps projects, the bill includes language that authorize projects that receive favorable chief's report, as well as concurrence from the Office of Management and Budget and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for civil works. That, Vitter staffers said, would help deal with continued missed deadlines by the Corps of Engineers that resulted in the termination of previous congressional authorizations.
The bill also includes a provision allowing the Corps to hand over some projects to state and local officials - a process Vitter says can speed construction of some needed work.
And to deal with a backlog of dredging and harbor maintenance projects, a Vitter provision would require the government to spend the proceeds of a 0.125 percent ad valoreum tax on goods that arrive on U.S. docks for their intended purpose - harbor maintenance. The levy generates about $1.5 billion annually, but only about half of it is used for harbor maintenance.
The rest of the money has been used for the federal government's general fund.
The water resources bill, which would be the first in six years, would also raise the Corps threshold for maintaining waterways from the current level of 45 feet to 50 feet, a depth Metro New Orleans port officials say is critical to handle ships from the recently expanded Panama Canal.
"I'm very encouraged to moving this bipartisan WRDA forward, along with Chairman Boxer," Vitter said. "Our bill will implement some real, necessary reforms to the Corps of Engineers and decrease project delivery time so folks will be better protected from flooding and other projects that will help jumpstart increased commerce."
Boxer, who has totally different views than Vitter on environmental issues, including global warming, said it was important for her and Vitter to come together on a water resources bill.
"This bill is a victory for bipartisanship, for jobs and for economic growth," Boxer said.
Environmentalists had mixed views.
In a memo on the WRDA proposal, the National Wildlife Federation said this about the new authorization process for Corps projects:
"This provision will allow continued progress toward restoring America's Everglades and coastal Louisiana as key restoration projects meet these criteria. Delay in restoring these two environmentally and economically valuable ecosystems would result in further degradation and higher costs in the long-ruin. However, other projects that meet these criteria would cost taxpayers billions of dollars while creating large scale environmental destruction and producing questionable benefits. In addition, the public currently has no way of knowing the full suite of projects that may be authorized through this provis