If the purpose of reform is to get better data, sooner, in a less expensive way, then I am absolutely for it.
If the purpose of so-called "reform" is to simply raise the bar and make it harder to approve projects, then I oppose it.
Clearly, if you don't like the Corps and you don't like flood protection and you don't like large river transportation and you do like railroad monopolies, then "reform" could be used in a way to paralyze movemen toward construction.
But that's not reform, that's obstruction and that's bureaucracy and its also expensive.
General, I had some African American constituents come the Washington last September for a meeting that I arranged to plead with EPA to let the Corps provide them flood protection.
These people come from a minority farming community and are part of what President Clinton designated as a rural enterprise community.
Mr. Rush and Mr. Cassell outlined to officials at EPA that when they experience backwater flooding, they load children up in livestock trailers to haul them to school and that contamination has lead to sickness and death.
These people have been promised flood control since 1976. After 24 years of study and re-study and delay, they know that further review is code that means the wealthy get flood protection and the poor get flood water.
Then there is the matter of the river study and I am pleased that we will have a hearing in April that will focus on whether we will have a modern waterway system or whether we will not.
For the benefit of my colleagues, I want to stress one thing for you to comprehend as you consider this Mississippi River study.
We have spent 12 years and $60 million trying to do a 50-year projection.
Hear me please. The Corps of Engineers is attempting to predict demand for water transportation between now and the year 2050 and calculate 50 years of environmental benefits and costs.
We have members of this body who are skeptical that the nation's best forecasters can predict GNP over a ten year period yet we are asking the Corps to tell us how many metric tons of beans and corn and coal and gravel and petrochemicals we will transport in the year 2040 and at what price.
I continue to believe that Congress may have to do what we are paid to do and decide if we are going to modernize our heartland's principal artery to the world or if we are going to unilaterally disarm because we can't agree on a 50-year projection.
In closing, General Flowers, it is easy for us to be abstract around here, but I think you know Col. Jim Mudd who took the fall for this study and I think you know what happened in the process.
I don't know what your commanders are permitting you to say here today and I don't want you to get in trouble for telling the truth, but I certainly hope you are at liberty to add enough to paint the big picture here because I am not convinced, as opponents of modernization are, that the IG report is ready to be incorporated into a new testament.
Mr. Chairman, Col. Mudd is now a civilian and served in General Schwarztkof's office and helped plan the Gulf war. This afternoon, he is getting his opportunity, to tell the second side to this story before a House Caucus hearing and we have a copy of his statement that I would like to place in the record here today.
Finally, General Flowers, you have come far in your distinguished career, but in the time ahead, I would advise you that the measure of your job performance will be determined by many important things, but editorial endorsement of the Washington Post should not be one of them.