Wednesday, August 2, 2006

July 19, 2006

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am very grateful to the chairman of the committee for giving me this opportunity to respond.

I was very pleased that my friend from Arizona finally called attention to the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid floodway project. This is a very important project. I invite the Senator out to see it sometime because this area, a large area of southeast Missouri, was converted to cropland in the early 1900s.

One can argue whether that was a good idea, but for over a century, it has been farmed and farmed successfully. They are not wetlands. There are no wetlands being drained there. This is cropland, and it is farmed. Some of the farming is done by very low economic people. Minority communities are located there. The minority community of Pinhook holds many of the farmers who farm this land.

We have had very compelling testimony before the Environment and Public Works Committee. When the late Jimmy Robbins, one of the leaders of Pinhook, came up and explained that without closing the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid floodway, every time the river comes up, the river floods Pinhook. The entire community is covered in floodwater. They have to get out high-wheel tractors and large farm tractors to ferry their children to school, to ferry them back and forth to work, to take care of their basic needs.

Do we want to subject these people to continued flooding?

My predecessor, Senator Tom Eagleton, back in 1976, proposed bringing relief to the minority communities living in the area that floods when the Mississippi River rises. Guess what. That was a mere 30 years ago because his project had been reviewed, re-reviewed, replanned, challenged, re-reviewed, re-reviewed, and the people of Pinhook continued to be flooded.

This is not about draining wetlands. This is a problem of what happens to the people who actually live there.

The purpose of the project is to protect communities, farmlands, and wildlife in a flood-prone area. No wetlands will be drained. The majority of the land has been leveled, improved, irrigated and is not functioning as wetlands habitat but is functioning as farmland.

The Corps has reevaluated operations for fishery habitat for the area and determined that this project still exceeds the 1-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio. I can tell you it is a whole lot more expensive than it would have been had the project been done in a timely fashion after 1976. That is what happens when you study, when you threaten to bankrupt local communities trying to pay their share. You put the State at great expense to continue these operations.

Yes, we should study, and the amendment that has been proposed by Senator Inhofe and me provides for review to make sure the review is accurate. But to provide the additional bureaucracy, the additional hassle that the Feingold-McCain amendment provides does not in any way assure that the taxpayers will get a better deal, the environment will be better or that the needs of the people in the communities will be better satisfied.

I want to discuss, very briefly, the technical and scientific independent review amendment offered by Senator Inhofe and me and the peer review amendment offered by Senators MCCAIN and FEINGOLD.

Although the difference between independent review and independent peer review appears to be semantic and minor, when you look at what is in them, you see the difference. Both proposed amendments address Corps reform and both address external review. Nobody is arguing to say there shouldn't be review, that we shouldn't take a look and see what needs to be done and how it needs to be done better. Everybody can focus on the problems of New Orleans. Well, when you look at the problems of New Orleans, there are many factors that go into account. We are not going to address those here. But you take a look at how money was spent locally that was supposed to be spent on levees, and you take a look at the decisions made along the way that were not well made.

Senator Inhofe and I have offered an amendment which is before us that is going to require an independent review by qualified, interested experts, compiled by the National Academy of Sciences, and the review will occur throughout the entire process. In other words, people such as representatives from the National Academy of Sciences, the IRC, the American Society of Civil Engineers, will be focusing on the project as it is developed. There are many stages in the development of these projects, and they need to be reviewed to make sure the work that is being done by the Corps is being done accurately.

This is a general operation of what happens before you go to a decision to move forward. There is the chief's report; it is referred. There are letters, OSA reviews, the Office of Management and Budget reviews, the Office of Management and Budget has to clear it, the Assistant Secretary of the Army recommends it to Congress, and then Congress approves it. All of these steps--there are about 103 separate steps that have to be followed. So it comes to the Congress as a policymaker to decide whether it is an appropriate policy. But all along that path, we want to have people who are scientifically qualified to make sure that if they are building a levee, they build a levee that will hold as projected. If they are building a lock, they want to make sure it will hold water, that it will be sound, that it will be safe, whether it is a levee or a lock.

As a result of the admission from the Corps that some of the problems existed with the planning and construction of the New Orleans levees, no one--not even the Corps--is denying that realistic reform is an important component of this WRDA bill. The challenge is to enact realistic reform that provides sufficient project review without creating unnecessary costs.

The Inhofe-Bond amendment proposed does just that. It provides reform that will establish greater accountability and assure us that scientific, technical standards are observed without adding unjustified delays and costs.

The peer review panels in the Feingold-McCain amendment are not clearly restricted to reviewing the scientific and engineering basis. The panels are permitted to get into policy, value, public controversy, and make the decisions that Congress and the local community are supposed to make. The local community decides whether to support it. Congress makes a policy decision. Congress has provided already for public hearings, public comment. Yesterday I went through the process of the number of meetings that had been held with Governors, with public hearings on the locks projects on the upper Mississippi, with the number of comments, the number of people who participated. There is tremendous public participation and input. Setting up a separate body to judge that input, rather than the Congress, is not, I think, good policy. We are supposed to make the policy based on the best scientific recommendations we can get. OMB has a crack at the policy when they send it up. But these policy reviews would be second-guessing the scientific decisions.

Let's think about how this would play out in the transition. Once the comment period moves beyond the technicality and the science, what independent experts are dictating the project approval? We should not dilute public review by giving technocrats a larger role in policy recommendations than is given to the general public. There is a reason why we rely upon the appropriate training and expertise of the people who are generating the process to develop and construct our infrastructure and safety needs.

Let's take a look at the local cost share that would go into the Feingold-McCain process. It doesn't even provide for integration of peer review until the end of the process. Making sure that the independent review begins as the process goes forward is the way that we assure the process is better. We want integration of the review all throughout before you make a major mistake and go off in the wrong direction. When you wait to have end-of-the-line peer review--does it make any sense to wait until a car is coming off of an assembly line, is rolled off the assembly line, to test to make sure that the lights work and the switches work? You test them before you put them into the car. That is what we are doing, we test along the line to make sure that what you are putting into the process works. You don't want to put components into a car only to find out, Hey, the lights don't work, the switches don't work, and then have to start tearing the car apart.

That is what the Feingold-McCain amendment does. It is end-of-the-line peer review. It invites multiple passes through the study process with unacceptable expense and delay, and it would, in effect, become a second study process. The first go-round, the local cost share, would increase, because they have to pay for it, the locals have to pay for it. It takes 1 to 3 years to go through the process in the first place, and then you start a peer review at the end and it could take another period of time, and if they send it back, you start it 1 to 3 years over. That becomes extremely expensive for the local cosponsors. It becomes extremely expensive for the taxpayers who are paying for the tab if you redo it without reviewing the project as you go forward. Doubling the time and moving the costs of a project outside of the realm of the local community's ability to pay makes no sense.

Now, of course, beyond the peer review process, there is the congressional process. Congress must authorize and fund studies on each project and then authorize and appropriate funds to construct each project. As we all know, the congressional process does take years. If my ancient memory serves me, this is the 2002 Water Resources Development Act. This was the bill that was due in 2002. Here we are 4 years later. Don't let anybody tell you that Congress doesn't review it and review it and review it and review it until it is lying on the floor gasping for breath.

The amendment Senator Inhofe and I propose establishes a peer review panel that provides a safety net. We are elected to represent the interests of constituents. We are not appointed bureaucrats. The amendment takes away our authority to act on behalf of our constituents and meet the needs of our local communities. It removes the checks and balances set forth in our Constitution by shifting power away to other people.

Now, why do we wait until the end of the line to do this peer review in the first place? The collaborative solutions to urgent flood and storm control and other important questions would be moved to the end of the process and sent back to the drawing board.

Let's try another analogy. We test our schoolchildren throughout each grade level and assess their progress. If a child has difficulty reading, it is flagged, and intervention and extra help should be provided. We do not wait until students reach the end of the eighth grade and then test them to see if they have learned to read in the first grade and send them back to the first grade. You ought to be testing them each year to make sure they are proficient, and you ought to be testing the hypotheses of this process throughout.

Common sense says that independent review is effective only if it is used throughout the process. Can you imagine an employee working on a project and planning for several years, and then during the end-of-the-line review finding a technical error and having to go back to the beginning? Not only is that unnecessarily delaying and expensive, but it kills the motivation of employees, and it delays. I, along with Senator Inhofe, propose independent peer review during this study process.

One other thing, the inclusion of the expectation of litigation. Their amendment talks about judicial review and invites judicial review. Well, that is another cost adder that will continue to impose burdens on communities and delay the effectiveness of the ability to construct needed projects. With the clear-cut incentives to litigate, we are going to see more lawsuits and less projects. Clear-cut opportunities to litigate, if the committee is unhappy with the chief's report, will only complicate the cost-benefit analysis, when it is already too challenging to place a value on human life and the economic lifeline of the country. The Corps study process already takes too long and will be too expensive, and it will continue to delay the progress we need.

Media reports and editorials have criticized what went on, and they play the blame game--they burden the Corps with the blame. But Senators should understand that the Corps needs to have an improved process, and we are going to do our best to make sure that process is driven by sound science throughout the process.

About 80 of our colleagues signed a letter saying, Bring this bill to the floor. The 80 colleagues who are signed on to that letter believe they have projects in their communities, in their States, that are important. If you wish to continue to delay the passage of the WRDA bill for another 2, 4, 6, 8 years, then forget about the environmental benefits--the environmental benefits which are more than half of the authorization of this project, and the environmental benefits which the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, and other responsible environmental groups say need to happen. Trying to delay the bill or trying to delay the process of implementation of Corps studies and recommendations is very costly and denies us the ability to accomplish things that are important for the safety, the well-being of our communities and the people who live in them.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, we have had a lot of talk about all of the things that the Corps has done wrong and the problems in the past. I don't think anybody believes that there is not a need for reform, review, independent review by experts who can comment on and who can provide valuable input to the Corps. The Corps has learned a lot of lessons, and the Inhofe-Bond proposal creates a mechanism for improving technical quality of the projects that move forward, not an incubator for more lawsuits to delay needed projects.

The Inhofe-Bond amendment would encourage independent review of technical information and science, not a review of policy decisions, which are appropriately made in the executive branch and by this body. We don't want to outsource our policy decisions to some other group, as the Feingold-McCain amendment would do. We want to continue an open, fair, and public review of recommendations, and not create a public review created by special interests designed to undo projects for reasons other than policy reasons.

We support stabilizing, not destabilizing, Federal/ non-Federal interests in reliance on the Corps. We support Presidential oversight of independent review, not handing government functions over to some unelected commission.

When you take a look at the past work of the Corps, you see that the Corps now currently provides 3 trillion gallons of water for use by local communities and businesses. The Corps manages a supply of one-quarter of our Nation's hydropower. The Corps operates 463 lake recreation areas. The Corps moves 630 million tons of cargo valued at over $73 billion annually over the inland water system. It manages over 12 million acres of land and water.

The levees that have been properly constructed have prevented an estimated $76 billion in flood damage within the past 25 years, with an investment of one-seventh of that value. These are the tremendous values that can be provided if we can pass this bill and if we can make sensible Corps reform, without providing major hindrances and roadblocks.

I hope that the 80 Senators who joined with us in saying ``bring this bill to the floor'' will realize that there is such a thing as appropriate review and there is such a thing as unnecessary, late-stage second guessing, which can be extremely expensive and can delay the benefits that could come from the work of the Corps.

The McCain-Feingold independent review amendment has a tremendous potential to delay project construction. They wait until the end of the process, and any mistakes found at the end of the process, as envisioned in the Feingold-McCain amendment, would necessitate a repeat of the study to correct the problems--beginning over again. Clearly, this would delay project construction and drive up costs.

Under our proposal, since reviews are integrated into the process, any mistakes made or improvements suggested could be corrected and incorporated at the time. As I said earlier today, it is like waiting to test students in the eighth grade to see if they have first-grade reading capabilities. If a child cannot read at the first-grade level when he or she finishes the first grade, give them remediation then, help prepare them for the second grade; don't wait until they get to the eighth grade and say we just wasted 8 years of this child's education because they could not read at the first-grade level. This essentially--testing at the eighth grade level for first-grade compliance--is what the Feingold-McCain amendment would do.

Let's be clear about it. We passed a bill 2 years ago that had all sorts of regulatory redtape and delays. This was opposed by the House, which could not agree on a conference with us. That is why we lost this bill. Putting in a batch of redtape and bureaucratic delays is going to make possible negotiations with the House extremely difficult and could lead to no bill being passed again.

So the 2002 Water Resources Development Act that we are still trying to pass in 2006 would go into 2007 and 2008. The benefits that come from the authorized projects in this bill will be delayed. I want the 80 Senators who want to see this bill passed--because they have projects that are important--to understand that the review that is necessary is being incorporated in the Inhofe-Bond amendment. It is being incorporated in a sensible timeframe, reviewing with representatives from the National Academy of Science, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Independent Research Council, as the project goes along.

Everybody knows there needs to be review. The Corps has learned a lot of lessons from mistakes. We ought to learn from our mistakes. One of the mistakes we have made is to try to burden the process and make it so cumbersome it can't work.

If you don't want to see the Corps providing water supply, protecting against floods and hurricanes, making sure we have the most efficient, economical, environmentally friendly, energy-friendly means of transportation, then support more bureaucracy, more redtape, and more delays.

If, on the other hand, you want to see the Corps do the job and get the job done right, then I ask my colleagues to support the Inhofe-Bond amendment and let us get on about the business of protecting people from floods, from hurricanes, and making sure that our waterways continue to be an efficient energy-conserving means of transporting bulk commodities.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the time and also for the kind remarks. I appreciate the excellent leadership he has provided and the bipartisan nature with which he and Senator Jeffords brought this bill to the Senate.

It is important to take a look at the substance of what is going on in these prioritization amendments now before the Senate which deal with fiscal deadlines and requirements and, in turn, how projects should be prioritized. I hope our colleagues will listen carefully to the context of the WRDA legislation and the Corps reform.

Worthwhile projects of the Corps of Engineers should be funded. The inadequate funding of the levees in New Orleans was a bad mistake. We need to fund worthwhile levees, but the best route is not the total overhaul of the Corps and passage of the Feingold-McCain amendments, in this case, specifically, the prioritization amendment.

The Feingold-McCain amendment proposes a complete overhaul by establishing a new bureaucracy, the Water Resources Planning Coordinating Committee. We need another bureaucracy in the Federal Government like a bear needs tennis shoes. This idea is essentially a reprise of the Water Resources Council that existed during the Carter administration which was discredited due to its inability to get anything done. That is not surprising when you have members ranging from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Secretary of Homeland Security. These are just a few of the Cabinet members, along with others, proposed to provide review under the Feingold-McCain amendment. The Secretary of the Army is on there, not even a Cabinet position. I look forward to the Secretary of the Army, for example, providing input and review to the Department of Education on No Child Left Behind. That is essentially the same thing as having the proposed Feingold-McCain council consisting of noninterested, nontrained Cabinet members with other heavy responsibilities involved in the Corps of Engineers' very complicated 103-step process to come up with priorities and approval of projects.

Beyond a lack of interest in expertise, this council is structured for projects to fail. A meeting of the minds is very difficult. This is probably the reason such a council does not exist in any other forum. In the rare event a consensus would emerge, the 50 percent local cost share would increase to the point where communities could no longer afford to make their contributions for essential projects.

It sounds like a time-consuming, expensive, headache-producing bureaucracy to me, and I have seen them before. I can tell one when I see it. This is one area where trained experts who understand the process, from planning to construction, should be running our water project formulation process. There is a reason we rely upon those with appropriate training and expertise to develop and construct our infrastructure and safety needs. These decisions should be based on sound science, not on political judgment of people with no expertise in the area.

With thousands of projects and costs that change annually, prioritization of the projects and the process directed by Feingold-McCain would be extremely cumbersome. Achieving stability and prioritization would be nearly impossible.

The amendment Senator Inhofe and I have proposed would categorize and prioritize projects on scientifically sustainable reports. These reports will provide Congress with the necessary information to make tough values-related decisions. Our proposed approach supports and encourages a holistic approach to water resource management by considering a wide range of important factors.

Feingold-McCain fails to address multipurpose projects and thus results in inadequate cost-benefit ratios. Modernizing our locks and dams and improving our levees contribute to the entire way of American life: enhancing flood control, transportation, hydropower, water supply, and recreation. Each purpose of the project served determines demands prioritization, weighing all benefits in the analysis. And even then, how do you truly value safety and the health of human life?

Media reports and editorials have criticized and played the blame game. As a result, the Corps has received more than its share of public ridicule. What is not well publicized is the good work that the Civil Works Program of the United States Army Corps of Engineers has already done in its exhaustive inhouse budget prioritization. The Civil Works Program has the only infrastructure project analysis that is required to have cost-benefit ratios grounded in economic theory and extensive ongoing economic analysis.

From its inception, each economic water resource infrastructure project goes through multiple ``winnowing'' processes. In recent years, only 16 percent of the proposed projects generally pass on a ``national benefit,'' a positive benefit to cost ratio. Unless a project meets this threshold, the process will not allow for a favorable report of the chief of engineers.

The second winnowing is cost-share requirements where both studies and construction require percentages of local moneys to match the amounts from the Federal Government as well as other contributions such as lands, easements, and rights-of-way.

Unless exempted by Congress, if a local cost-sharing agreement does not come forward, a project is not eligible for Federal funds.

Next is the actual budget appropriations process, which begins at the 38 districts of the Corps of Engineers 18 months before a President's budget is delivered.

Performance-based budgeting requires a highly detailed process, sorting the projects by benefits and costs and rated in a variety of categories, including risk factors for the environment, safety, security, and operations.

Each of the ``economic'' Corps projects is then subject to ``diminishing returns'' analysis that defines specific measurable performance benefits that may be gained through a number of levels of incremental funding.

In addition, unique elements or circumstances, such as judicial findings and orders, are taken into account. The recommendation is then sent to the Corps Division office that merges all district inputs into a division recommendation which goes to the Corps headquarters in Washington.

Once at headquarters, they are reviewed, merged, cross-walked, racked, stacked, jacked, and tacked, and finally nationally ranked on a benefit scale, to deliver a list to OMB.

I am exhausted--and I know my listeners are exhausted, those who are still listening--merely summarizing the current standards and the process that has to be followed--and we did not go into the 103 steps currently existing before the request even reaches Congress for appropriations.

But the Bond-Inhofe amendment goes further and categorizes and prioritizes projects scientifically and makes a supportable report to make it easier for us to make the important judgments. It is a time-consuming and extensive process already. The last thing the process needs is additional bureaucratic steps and redtape from those who have already skewed priorities and lack the expertise to make decisions.

OMB has its own criteria and priorities, with recent trend analysis showing they favor environmental restoration projects. For example, within the fiscal year 2007 construction account, only 90 out of the approximately 655 projects were accorded ``priority status'' that would allow for some level of funding.

The Feingold-McCain amendment would only add additional steps, lengthen the timetable, with fewer funded projects, the loss of jobs, and the inability to provide safety and the transportation we need.

Finally, of course, there is a congressional process where we must authorize and fund the projects. We establish our priorities, and they are contained in the amendment, the Bond-Inhofe amendment.

The Feingold-McCain amendment proposes a council that lacks the necessary expertise and adds redtape. We believe the Bond-Inhofe amendment makes sense, and it will add to what the WRDA legislation already includes: reasonable Corps reform amendments that would strike a balance, that disciplines new projects to criteria fairly applied, while addressing a greater number of water resources multipurpose priorities.

I urge my colleagues to support the Inhofe-Bond amendment and to oppose the Feingold-McCain amendment.

I yield the floor.