STATEMENT OF SENATOR BARBARA BOXER
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Hearing for Major General Robert B. Flowers to be Chief of Engineers, Department of the Army
September 14, 2000

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to welcome Major General Flowers to the Committee this morning. It was my pleasure to meet with Major General Flowers earlier this week to discuss the work of the Corps in California and the Nation. I congratulate you on your appointment to this post.

The Corps has been a positive partner in many projects in California. The Corps, for example, has worked closely with Napa County, California, to provide flood protection not by taming the Napa River, but by restoring the River's natural floodplain.

I think it's fair to say, though, that this and the other positive work of the Corps in my State has been overshadowed today by the constant reports of Corps mismanagement.

We've learned of the Corps military commanders lobbying Congress for $2 billion more in appropriations without authorization from their civilian leaders or this Administration. We've learned that Corps military commanders have directed their civilian staffs to rig cost-benefit analyses to justify otherwise unjustifiable billion dollar projects. We've learned that the Corps sometimes flouts the very environmental laws they are charged with enforcing against the private sector.

I think that it is in this Committee's strong interest and in the Corps' strong interest to begin to seriously look at common sense reforms.

I believe that meaningful reform is the only way to restore the public trust and integrity that I know is so important to both the civilian and military leaders of the Corps. Reforms like subjecting Corps' projects to independent review and modernizing the environmental rules that guide the Corps' work could go a long way to accomplishing those goals.

And there are specific cases in California where the Corps can put those reforms to work even before we formalize nationwide policy or legislation to do so.

Independent review of the Corps' work, for example, is something that critically important to the local residents of San Bernardino, California. There the Corps has studied and recommended the removal of the Deer Creek levee. The Corps says removal of the levee will not decrease the community's flood protection. The community funded their own study which raised substantial questions about the Corps analysis.

Independent review in this case would ensure that mistakes are not made that endanger the health and safety of the people or that lead to flood damage. I hope that you will work with me by committing to subjecting the Corps' study in this case to an independent review.

The Corps can also go a long way to restoring the public trust in my State by removing the 2,200 tons of radioactive waste it dumped in an unlicensed California dump. I have had countless meetings with the Corps, co-chaired a hearing of this Committee on this incident and continued to press the Corps to remove this waste from California.

Much to my great disappointment and the disappointment of the people I serve, that waste is still sitting in an unlicensed California dump. I hope that you will work with me to put the Corps' reputation right on this issue by removing that waste from my state.

I look forward to working with you on these issues. I think we can make progress on them.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.