As Chairman of this subcommittee during the 106th Congress, I was pleased to have had the opportunity to help develop the Water Resources Development Act of 1999, and especially pleased to use that experience in drafting the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 including a provision to protect the Everglades.
Authorizations are a very important first part of the process of developing and maintaining our nation's water resources infrastructure. Equally important is having an adequate level of funding to construct as well as operate and maintain the water resources projects Congress authorizes.
Under the Bush Administration's fiscal year 2002 budget proposal, overall funding increases by 4%, although the Army Corps of Engineers faces significant cuts. I note that the budget funds no new starts, and provides only 60 percent of the optimum funding level needed for projects to move forward at an efficient schedule. For instance, the Corps' construction budget is nearly $400 million less - a 23 percent cut - than the level appropriated for fiscal year 2001.
Further, the Corps' budget for operation and maintenance is over $150 million less than the level appropriated for fiscal year 2001 - an 8 percent cut. This cut increases the backlog of critical maintenance needs from $415 million in fiscal year 2001, to $835 million in fiscal year 2002. That's a staggering 100 percent increase!
Overall, under the President's budget, the Corps will sustain a reduction of 14% in fiscal year 2002 as compared to fiscal year 2001.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, this nation has an aging national water resources infrastructure. If we continue to ignore the upkeep, the deterioration of our locks and dams, our flood and storm damage control projects and our navigation channels will continue, and we will risk disruptions in waterborne commerce, decreased protection against floods and damages to the environment. It is up to Congress to ensure that operation and maintenance funding levels are adequate and efficiently allocated to priority needs.
Mr. Chairman, since I have been a member of this Subcommittee, I have been concerned about the Corps overall infrastructure investment requirement estimate of $38 billion. There are already more water resources projects authorized for construction that can be completed in any timely and efficient construction schedule. At the current low levels of general construction appropriations, it would take 25 years to complete the active projects in the backlog without even considering additional project authorizations that were included in WRDA 2000, let alone future WRDAs.
There are a number of reasons why the Corps has such a large backlog. The most significant reason is the decreasing federal investment in water resources infrastructure over the last several decades. At the same time, the Corps' mission continues to expand into areas like environmental restoration.
I strongly believe that Congress and the Administration need to develop a strategy to address the Corps' growing backlog. This strategy should give paramount consideration to effective management of the backlog to assure that it only includes needed projects that are economicallyjustified, environmentally-acceptable, and supported by willing and financially-capable non-federal sponsors.
Senator Graham and I recently wrote to General Flowers asking the Corps to develop and implement a process of regular review for existing Corps projects and to make recommendations about the Corps' future involvement in those projects.
To determine the extent of unmet needs throughout our nation, I have asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct a study on the unmet infrastructure needs of our nation. This includes such items as: highways, mass transit, airports, drinking water supply and wastewater treatment, public buildings, water resources (flood control and navigation), and hydropower generating facilities. Addressing these unmet needs should be a priority in the Senate, and I intend to make it so.
I believe we need to spend our federal resources on the right things, and among the right things that are not receiving adequate funding are many of the worthy projects authorized by this committee.
We need to sit down and make some hard choices about where to allocate the taxpayers' money, where we want to increase spending, where we want to make cuts or where we want to flat-fund.
Take the National Institutes of Health, for example. The President has included a generous increase in the amount of money that the NIH will receive in his budget, boosting NIH spending by $2.8 billion in FY 2002 - a 13.8% increase.
The Senate added an additional $700 million in NIH funding. Therefore, under the Senate's plan, NIH funding would rise by 17.2% over last year.
Do I think we should spend money on important health research? Absolutely. But, how much is enough?
We need to remember that the true cost of what we spend in the federal budget is not just the dollar figure, it is what you give up, or what you could have purchased with that money. Economists call the concept "opportunity cost." When the Senate thinks about spending money on one thing, we need to recognize that we are giving up the ability to use the money for other worthy purposes.
Another thing we need to remember in figuring opportunity costs is the fact that we have a number of unmet Federal needs - needs that are a Federal responsibility, and which we should address as part of our full and balanced approach to the Federal budget.
Do we spend Federal dollars on things like school construction, which is a State and local responsibility, or do we prevent flood and storm damage from ravaging people's property?
These are the kinds of spending decisions that we, as elected officials, have to make. I realize that in virtually any situation, the easy decision would be to simply increase spending.
However, it is that logic that has caused us to spend well-beyond the rate of inflation over the past few years.
In my view, we need to stiffen our "backbones" and bring an end to Congress' spending habit. Families need to carefully budget their resources, and so do cities and states. So, too, should the federal government.
The American people want us to make hard choices regarding our budget priorities. I believe it should be this committee's responsibility to make sure that the projects we have authorized get funded.
We must convince our colleagues about the seriousness of the Corps' construction and operation and maintenance backlog and that the necessary resources for the Corps to adequately meet its current responsibilities must be provided.
I appreciate and support the fact that the President restrains the growth of federal spending in his 2002 budget proposal. He made hard choices that needed to be made. However, I would have placed greater emphasis on funding an important federal responsibility such as those undertaken by the Corps. With an overall cut of 14% in the Corps' fiscal year 2002 budget, we will not be able to fulfill these responsibilities. I'm sure many of my colleagues would agree with me.
Again, I don't believe that we should simply "tack on" new spending as some would like to do, and which the Senate did in the budget resolution, increasing spending by 8% of last year's level.
To counter rampant spending, we should re-establish our priorities, and shift funds away from clearly non-federal responsibilities, or, in the alternative, from programs that are clearly "over- funded" in order to more evenly distribute funds to cover a broader range of unmet needs.
Absent such action, I would be interested to hear if today's witness could possibly shed some light on how the Corps can address its backlog while simultaneously absorbing the reductions proposed in its budget request.
I look forward to the testimony of General Flowers and Ms. Tornblom and their responses to any questions that may follow.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.