The budget for the Corps is not adequate to meet the nation's needs and some of the "interests" that I have sought funding for are environmental interests.
These environmental programs include the Environmental Management Program, the Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Program and the new program included by the Subcommittee in the last WRDA, the Missouri and Middle Mississippi Rivers Habitat Program.
There are a number of issues I would like to raise.
Among them include asking the Corps if they could send out a search party to find the Northwest Division's preferred alternative for amending the Missouri River Master Manuel since it arrived at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. We should have CEQ and Fish and Wildlife quit hiding behind the Corps and do the public hearings themselves if they are the ones choosing the alternatives. I wish CEQ were as interested in Devil's Lake and Garrison Diversion projects.
However, I'll focus my brief remarks today on the importance of the Mississippi River to our region and our country's competitive position.
The Mississippi River sees shipping in the magnitude of over 300 million tons annually.
The locks on the Upper Mississippi that are currently being studied were built during the Depression-era with a 50 year design length and are in poor condition.
The people in my region believe that as we modernize and improve the capacity for highways, we should do the same for our waterways.
For the good of this nation, I hope the Corps has the same view.
The Washington Post 2/13/00 story "How Corps Turned Doubt Into a Lock" continues the newspaper's campaign against the Corps of Engineers and its mission which is critical to the safety and economic health of my region.
While it may be news to the Post, between, Washington, DC and California, there is the quiet and flat region of the country we refer to as the Midwest where people rely on the inland waterways for efficient transportation of goods.
There live the people who feed us and who provide this nation over $50 billion in exports with nearly $20 billion in trade surplus. Last year, a relatively minor 30-day repair project on Locks 26 and 27 forced tows to use auxiliary chambers and pushed rates up 5-7 cents per bushel.
While the Post can dismiss this critical relationship, those of us who are interested in the future of the rural economy cannot.
The prosperity of the rural economy depends on having safe, efficient and reliable transportation alternatives to help expand export markets.
Two-thirds of the corn and bean exports travel down the Mississippi and the aging locks in question are creating bottlenecks because they are beyond their original design capacity.
After $54 million and seven years, shippers and carriers in the Mississippi River basin want to see at least some of their barge fuels taxes put to work on the Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I want to provide just a hint of context to this whole discussion about the modeling and the economic analysis.
While I cannot speak to maters internal to the Corps, I am willing to express some healthy skepticism that any economist can predict the next 50 years of benefits based on variables such as crop prices, crop uses, fuel prices, export demand and the availability and cost of shipping substitutes. Here in DC, we watch OMB disagree with CBO on current year forecasts. In short, I don't trust anyone, even a proud economist at the Corps, to tell me what they think the price of a bushel of beans will be and who will want to buy them in the year 2050 but that is what we ask the Corps to do when we ask them to "provide an estimate of the growth in the demand for barge transportation through 2050."
It should come as no surprise that there may be internal debate, a variety of outside views, and a desire to err on the side of caution from leaders who have a responsibility to the people.
Without taking issue with the competence of the Corps' economists, on behalf of the Midwest, I am more interested in the cost of being wrong.
If we neglect the system and fail to provide sufficient capacity, the cost of lost export markets will not be hundreds of millions of dollars but billions of dollars.
Given historic growth, most anticipate further growth.
Furthermore, capacity is provided not just to facilitate expected export growth but to encourage export growth. As the Post noted, one of the many items that must be considered is the transportation alternatives to barge transportation.
As one medium-sized barge tow can carry the grain of over 800 trucks, a model shift from barge to truck is intuitively not efficient, safe, or good for the environment.
That leaves rail. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Post may trust the tender mercies of those in the rail industry not to raise rates and delay shipments, but try suggesting that to farmers who have experience with these giants that speaks to the contrary.
Mr. Chairman, our farmers cannot afford a railroad monopoly. We have seen it in areas of the Midwest and West and it is reminiscent of grain piled on the ground in the old Soviet Union. The Post attacks a critical agency, its mission, and the fine uniformed people who are conscientiously looking ahead to provide our region modern and efficient transportation alternatives that serve the best interests of this nation.
I know General Anderson and Colonel Mudd and they care about process and they care about this nation and have a record to prove it.
Meanwhile, our foreign competitors are not spending $54 million on a five year-study and debating about whether the value of "n" in an abstract formula equals 1.5 or 1.2.
Our foreign competitors are pressing ahead with billions of dollars in investments to seize advantage by digging, building, plowing, planting, and exporting. (Note press clippings)
The Post story and the economist attack the reputation of honorable people in the Corps not for taking a narrow view, which is typically the fault of government servants, but for taking a broad one.
While I understand that a review of the economist's complaints must take place in response to the complaint, we need to press ahead with the study. We have had 7 years of study and $54 million and we do not have anything to show for it.
Its time for the Corps to release it and put it in the public domain and if they will not provide a forward-looking recommendation, then Congress should do it for them.