Mr. President, I would like to start off by making a general statement about the amendments we are going to offer, and I assume that time will come off the time of the amendment I will offer, the…
Mr. President, I would like to start off by making a general statement about the amendments we are going to offer, and I assume that time will come off the time of the amendment I will offer, the amendment on independent peer review. Is that correct?
Mr. President, I will make a few remarks, and then I would like to turn to the distinguished ranking member of the committee, my friend, Senator Jeffords, for a few remarks. Then after he has talked, I will offer the amendment.
Mr. President, today the Senate will consider two tremendously important amendments to the Water Resources Development Act. Those amendments are the Feingold-McCain-Carper-Lieberman-Jeffords-Collins independent peer review amendment and the McCain-Feingold-Lieberman- Feinstein prioritization amendment.
As many know, I have tried to work for a long time to modernize the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that this Federal agency is best situated to serve our great Nation. I have worked alongside Senator McCain in these efforts, and I thank him for his dedication to helping me bring attention to the need for congressional leadership to address what many have noted as fundamental problems with the Corps.
I want to be clear about my intentions with the amendments we will offer this morning, as well as our other efforts involving the Corps. We just want to get this agency back on track to serve the interests of all Americans. That is what it is about, period.
As many have noted over the past few days, I have been trying to bring up this issue for quite some time. In fact, I have waited 6 long years to come down to the floor of the Senate to push for meaningful reform of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Back in 2000, during debate on final passage of the last enacted WRDA, the former chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the current ranking member of the subcommittee of jurisdiction, my friend from Montana, Senator Baucus, made a commitment to me to address the issues that plagued the Corps.
At that time I sought to offer an amendment to WRDA 2000 to create an independent peer review process for the Army Corps. In response to my amendment, the bill managers adopted language to authorize the National Academy of Sciences to study peer review. This study has long been complete, and the final recommendation was clear. In a 2002 report-- Review Procedures for Water Resources Planning--the National Academy of Sciences recommended creation of a formalized process to independently review costly or controversial Corps projects.
Four years later, and with Corps reform bills in the 106th, 107th, 108th, and 109th Congresses, we are still trying to enact such a mechanism.
I would just like to note that I am pleased to see my friend involved in this issue, particularly given the role he played in 2000. My only hope is, after 6 years of work on this issue, we can go home tonight knowing we did right by the taxpayers, by the citizens of our country who rely on sound Corps projects to protect their families, their property, and the natural systems they want to protect for future generations.
Yes, Corps reform has been a work in progress. In 2001, I introduced a stand-alone bill to modernize the Corps. Later that Congress, I cosponsored a bill with Senator Smith from New Hampshire, Senator Daschle of South Dakota, Senator Ensign of Nevada, and Senator McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona. In March 2004 I introduced another stand-alone Corps reform bill along with Senator Daschle and Senator McCain. Then in the spring of 2005, Senator McCain and I offered another bill detailing the changes we hoped to see in the agency. And, finally, this spring we introduced another stand-alone bill.
What these efforts have been about is restoring credibility and accountability to this Federal agency that has been rocked by scandal, overextended to the tune of a 35-year backlog, and constrained by a gloomy fiscal picture. We can do that today. We can restore credibility and accountability to the Corps by passing the amendments that my friend, the Senator from Arizona, and I will be offering.
Some have said I have an ax to grind with the Corps. That is not true. The reason I am dedicated to improving this embattled agency is that I care about the Corps, and I want it to succeed. My home State of Wisconsin and numerous other States across our country rely on the Corps. From the Great Lakes to the Mississippi, the Corps is involved in providing aid to navigation, environmental restoration, flood control, and many other valuable services.
I want to improve the way this agency operates, so that not only Wisconsinites but all Americans--particularly those who help pay for Corps projects either through their Federal tax dollars or, in many cases, through taxes they pay at a local level as part of a non-Federal cost-sharing arrangement--can rest easy knowing that their flood control projects are not going to fail them, their ecosystem restoration projects are going to protect our environmental treasures, and their navigation projects are based on sound economics and reliable traffic projections.
Much of the work that has gone into reforming the Corps was done before our Nation saw a major U.S. city laid to waste. When Hurricane Katrina rocked New Orleans, none of us imagined the horrors that would ensue. None of us imagined that much of the flooding--much of the flooding--that occurred could have possibly been prevented had some of the reforms we will be discussing today been in place decades ago.
Despite every wish to the contrary, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina exposed serious problems that this body will be addressing for years to come. Many have stood on this floor and in their States and talked about what must be done to responsibly move forward in a post- Katrina landscape. And many of those discussions have, of course, centered, appropriately, on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
I am here to say that if you were outraged by FEMA's poor response, like me, then you should be equally outraged by problems with the Corps and the process that has determined where limited Federal resources are spent.
While any hurricane that makes landfall will leave some level of destruction behind, the country has been shocked to learn that there were engineering flaws in the New Orleans levees, and that important information was ignored by the Corps. According to one of the independent reviewers looking into what happened with the levee failures, the causes of the failures ``are firmly founded in organizational and institutional failures that are primarily focused in the Corps of Engineers.''
Now, I had the chance to visit New Orleans a little over a week ago, and I can attest that the sentiment toward the Corps is anything but cordial. There is a lot of anger toward the Corps down there, and we have a responsibility in Congress to address it.
Additionally, following the hurricane, we have faced questions from our constituents about where the Corps was spending its limited budget and why. We have a responsibility to address those legitimate concerns, too.
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans recently said the following:
Efforts to reform the agency, the Corps, are critical for
this state [meaning Louisiana, of course] which--after the
levee failures during Hurricane Katrina--could serve as the
poster child [the poster child] for the Corps' shortcomings.
The best chance for changing the way the Corps operates is
through reforms sought by Sens. John McCain and Russ
Feingold.
And finally,
Unfortunately, not everyone in Congress is interested in
changing the way the Corps does business. The McCain-Feingold
amendments face opposition and a rival set of measures by the
main authors of the water resources bill, Sens. James Inhofe
and Kit Bond. What those Senators offer as reform is
meaningless, however . . . Sham reform won't do anything
to restore confidence in the Corps and the Congress must
do better.
I agree that this body must do better than sham reform. Today Senator McCain and I will be offering amendments that we believe are the minimum changes this body must accept as we look to the future and reflect on the past. I sincerely hope my colleagues will join me in demonstrating that the Senate can respond to over 10 years of Government reports--from the Government Accountability Office, the National Academy of Sciences, and even the Army Inspector General--on the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and provide the leadership to move the Army Corps into the 21st century.
I want to publicly recognize the EPW Committee chairman and ranking member, Senators Inhofe and Jeffords, as well as the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure chairman and ranking member, Senators Bonds and Baucus. Late this spring those offices approached Senator McCain and me and indicated a willingness to talk about some of our interest with respect to the Corps. From those discussions came real compromise on both sides. The result is that the underlying WRDA bill does include significant language to ensure periodic updating of the principles and guidelines that form the foundation of every Corps project but which have not been updated since 1983.
The language also includes a minimum mitigation standard for Corps civil works projects. The Corps' track record on mitigation suggests that the Nation would be better served through the standard described in the underlying bill. As WRDA moves through conference, I look forward to the EPW Committee standing by the language we agreed on and included in the underlying bill in sections 2006 and 2008 so that it is included in any bill that comes out of Congress.
I will now give some of my time on the amendment to my friend, a distinguished leader in this area, the Senator from Vermont.
Mr. President, before yielding to the Senator from Vermont, I will offer the amendment, if there is no objection. I have an amendment at the desk numbered 4681 regarding independent peer review.
I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, I call up a modified version of the amendment which is at the desk.
I thank the Chair.
I offer this independent peer review amendment on behalf of myself, Senators McCain, Carper, Lieberman, and Collins. As we all know, Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman, through their leadership of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, have done an extensive investigation into all aspects of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I applaud their leadership and am proud they are cosponsoring this amendment, as I think it is a testament to the importance of implementing the changes included in this amendment. Additionally, Senator Jeffords has consistently pushed, through his position as ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, for many of the provisions of this amendment. I publicly thank him for all his attention to this matter.
Finally, Senator Carper has seen the need for an independent peer review amendment through both his Homeland Security Committee membership and his EPW Committee membership, and I appreciate his support in moving this issue forward.
Before I explain exactly what my amendment does, let me take a few minutes to talk about what various Government reports have said about the Corps' study process, as these reports have been the basis of my efforts over the last 6 years.
More than a decade of reports from the National Academy of Sciences, the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Army inspector general, U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, and other independent experts have revealed a pattern of stunning flaws in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project planning and implementation and urged substantial changes to the Corps' project planning process. Most recently, in June of this year, a report entitled ``U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Performance Evaluation of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System Draft Final Report on the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force'' acknowledged that the New Orleans levees failed catastrophically during Hurricane Katrina because of poor design and flawed construction. In planning the system, the Corps did not take into account poor soil quality and failed to account for the sinking of land which caused sections to be as much as 2 feet lower than other sections.
Breaches in four New Orleans canals were caused by foundation failures that were ``not considered in the original design.'' The system was designed to protect against a relatively low-strength hurricane, and the Corps did not respond to repeated warnings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that a stronger hurricane should have been the standard. The Corps also did not reexamine the heights of the levees after it had been warned about significant subsidence.
In discussing this report, the Corps' chief of engineers acknowledged that the agency must change, telling reporters that ``words alone will not restore trust in the Corps.''
Also, in June of this year, a report issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers, ``Project Engineering Peer Review Within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,'' recommends that Congress enact legislation to mandate external, independent peer reviews for all major Corps projects that would include reviews of the feasibility report, subsequent design and engineering reports, the project plans, and specifications and construction. Reviews should be carried out by experts who have no connection to the Corps, to the local project sponsor, or to the particular project contract.
In May of this year, we got ``A Nation Still Unprepared,'' a report that resulted from the excellent work of my friend from Maine, Senator Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and a cosponsor of our independent peer review amendment, and Senator Joe Lieberman, ranking member of the committee, and another cosponsor of our amendment.
That report recommends independent peer review of levee systems that protect population centers throughout the country. I don't know if Senator Collins or Senator Lieberman will have time to elaborate more on the thorough investigation their committee conducted and on their key findings and recommendations, but the report in many ways speaks volumes on its own.
One of the most striking reports, conducted by R.B. Seed in May of this year, ``Investigation of the Performance of the New Orleans Flood Protection Systems and Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, Draft Final Report,'' finds that the catastrophic failure of the New Orleans regional flood protection system was the result of ``engineering lapses, poor judgments, and efforts to reduce costs at the expense of system reliability.'' The Corps failed to design the system with appropriate safety standards, failed to adequately address the complex geology of the region, failed to provide adequate design oversight, and engaged in ``a persistent pattern of attempts to reduce costs of constructed works at the price of corollary reduction in safety and reliability.''
These failings led to the ``single most costly catastrophic failure of an engineered system in history'' that caused the deaths of more than 1,290 people and some $100 to $150 billion in damages to the greater New Orleans area.
I could go on, and I will. I want my colleagues to know what is at stake. In March 2006, the Government Accountability Office testified that ``the Corps' track record of providing reliable information that can be used by decision makers . . . is spotty, at best.'' Four recent Corps studies examined by GAO were ``fraught with errors, mistakes, and miscalculations and used invalid assumptions and outdated data.'' These studies ``did not provide a reasonable basis for decisionmaking.'' The recurring problems ``clearly indicate that the Corps' planning and project management processes cannot ensure that national priorities are appropriately established across the hundreds of civil works projects that are competing for scarce federal resources.'' Problems at the agency are ``systemic in nature and therefore prevalent throughout the Corps' Civil Works portfolio'' so that effectively addressing these issues ``may require a more global and comprehensive revamping of the Corps' planning and project management processes rather than a piecemeal approach.''
I commend to my coleagues this damning testimony before the House Energy and Resources Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Reform by Ann Mittal, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, GAO.
In March of 2006, the American Society of Civil Engineers External Review Panel for the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force letter to the Corps' chief of engineers found that decisions made during the original design phase led to the failure of the 17th Street canal floodwall in New Orleans and are representative of ``an overall pattern of engineering judgment inconsistent with that required for critical structures.'' These problems pose ``significant implications for the current and future safety offered by levees, floodwalls and control structures in New Orleans, and perhaps elsewhere.'' The External Review Panel recommends a number of immediate actions to improve Corps planning for ``levees and floodwalls in New Orleans and perhaps everywhere else in the nation,'' including external peer review of the Corps' design process for critical life safety structures.
In September 2005, the GAO issued a report which backs up our call for prioritization. ``Army Corps of Engineers, Improved Planning and Financial Management Should Replace Reliance on Reprogramming Actions to Manage Project Funds'' finds that the Corps' excessive use of reprogramming funds is being used as a substitute for an effective priority-setting system for the civil works program and as a substitute for sound fiscal and project management.
In fiscal years 2003 and 2004, the Corps reprogrammed funds over 7,000 times and moved over $2.1 billion among projects within the investigations and constructions account.
In September 2004, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy issued a report, ``An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century Final Report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy.'' This report recommends that the National Ocean Council review and recommend changes to the Corps' civil works program to ensure valid, peer-reviewed cost-benefit analyses of coastal projects; provide greater transparency to the public; enforce requirements for mitigating the impacts of coastal projects; and coordinate such projects with broader coastal planning efforts.
The report also recommends that Congress modify its current authorization and funding processes to encourage the Corps to monitor outcomes from past projects and study the cumulative and regional impacts of its activities within coastal watersheds and ecosystems.
In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences issued a slew of reports:
The ``U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service'' recommends modernizing the Corps's authorities, planning approaches, and guidelines to better match contemporary water resources management challenges.
``Adaptive Management for Water Resources Project Planning'' recommends needed changes to ensure effective use of the adaptive management by the Corps for its civil works projects.
``River Basins and Coastal Systems Planning Within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers'' describes the challenges to water resources planning at the scale of river basins and coastal systems and recommends needed changes to the Corps' current planning practices.
``Analytical Methods and Approaches for Water Resources Planning'' recommends needed changes to the Corps' ``Principles and Guidelines'' in planning guidance policies.
In May 2003, the Pew Oceans Commission's ``America's Living Oceans, Charting a Course for Sea Change, A Report to the Nation, Recommendations for a New Ocean Policy'' recommends enactment of ``substantial reforms'' of the Corps, including legislation to ensure that Corps projects are environmentally and economically sound and reflect national priorities. The Pew report recommends development of uniform standards for Corps participation in shoreline restoration projects and transformation of the Corps over the long term into a strong and reliable force for environmental restoration. The report also recommends that Congress direct the Corps and other Federal agencies to develop a comprehensive floodplain management policy that emphasizes nonstructural control measures.
In May 2002, the GAO found in its report ``Scientific Panel's Assessment of Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Guidance'' that the Corps has proposed no mitigation for almost 70 percent of its projects. And for those few projects where the Corps does perform mitigation, 80 percent of the time it does not carry out the mitigation concurrently with project construction.
In response to language that was included in the WRDA 2000 bill, the National Academy of Sciences, in ``Review Procedures for Water Resources Planning'' issued in 2002, recommends creation of a formalized process to independently review costly or controversial Corps projects. And in one of the most disturbing of the numerous reports on the Corps and the problems endemic in this agency, in November 2000, the Department of the Army Inspector General issued a report entitled ``Investigation of Allegations Against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Involving Manipulation of Studies Related to the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway Navigation Systems.'' Their report found that the Corps deceptively and intentionally manipulated data in an attempt to justify a $1.2 billion expansion of locks on the upper Mississippi River and that the Corps has an institutional bias for constructing costly, large-scale structural projects.
Back in 1999--yes, 7 years ago--the National Academy of Sciences, in their report titled ``New Directions in Water Resources Planning for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers'' recommends key changes to the Corps' planning process and examines the length of time and cost of Corps studies in comparison with similar studies carried out by the private sector.
Twelve years ago, in June of 1994, the Interagency Floodplain Management Review Committee report, ``Sharing the Challenge: Floodplain Management Into the 21st Century,'' a Report to the Administration Floodplain Management Task Force--often referred to as the Galloway Report after the report's primary author, BG Gerald Galloway-- recommends changes to the Nation's water resources policies based on lessons learned from the great Midwest Flood of 1993, including modernizing the Corps' Principles and Guidelines, requiring the Corps to give full consideration to nonstructural flood damage reduction alternatives, requiring periodic reviews of completed Corps projects, adopting floodplain management guidelines that would minimize impacts to floodplains land reduce vulnerabilities to population centers and critical infrastructure, and reinstituting the Water Resources Council to facilitate improvement in Federal water resources planning.
Lastly, but certainly not least, in 1994 that very busy National Academy of Sciences issued yet another scathing report, ``Restoring and Protecting Marine Habitat: The Role of Engineering and Technology,'' which finds, among other things, that the Corps and all Federal agencies with responsibility for marine habitat management should revise their policies and procedures to increase use of restoration technologies; take into account which natural functions can be restored or facilitated; improve coordination concerning marine resources; include environmental and economic benefits derived from nonstrucural measures in benefit/cost ratios of marine habitat projects; and examine the feasibility of improving economic incentives for marine habitat restoration. It has been a long recitation of these reports, but it is an amazing record.
Over 12 years of analysis on how we can improve the Corps of Engineers. During that time, WRDA bills passed in 1996, 1999, and 2000, with the only reform coming in the NAS study I got included in the 2000 bill. That is why today is the day to implement the knowledge we have from all of this expert consideration of the Corps. Today is the day for action.
With that history in mind, let me describe what our independent peer review amendment does: No. 1, it requires independent review of projects that are costly, controversial, or critical to public safety. Under my amendment Corps project planning will be independently reviewed if the project costs more than $40 million, a Governor requests a review, a Federal agency finds the project will have a significant adverse impact, or the Secretary of the Army determines that the project is controversial; No. 2, it ensures truly independent review panels by implementing National Academy of Sciences criteria about who would be eligible to provide expert review; No. 3, if implements the recommendation of the 2002 National Academy of Sciences report on peer review that said that independent reviewers should be given the flexibility to bring important issues to the attention of decisionmakers; No. 4, it includes strict deadlines for reviews. Reviews are subject to a strict timeline that requires independent review panels to complete the review 180 days after being impaneled or 90 days following the close of public comment, whichever provides the most time. This timeline balances the need to not delay the planning process with the need to ensure that the panel will be able to review the full draft study and to consider any relevant public comments; and No. 5, it implements recommendations from the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee's Katrina report by requiring review of the more detailed technical design and construction work for Corps flood control projects where failure could jeopardize the public safety.
In a nutshell, that is what the amendment does.
Mr. President, when you have worked on an issue as long as I have worked on Corps reform, you are likely to hear your intentions mischaracterized.
I wish to address at some point today some of the myths out there about what we are trying to do here. At this point, I inquire whether my cosponsor, the Senator from Arizona, is interested in addressing this issue.
I yield time to the Senator from Arizona.
Madam President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New York, who will speak in morning business, but I understand the time will be charged to my side of the amendment.
Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his continued cooperation in the way in which this debate is proceeding. I will use a few minutes of my time to bring us back to the debate on these two amendments that are before us. First, to make it absolutely clear to people that the amendment that Senator McCain and I are offering certainly would not slow down the bill in any way or delude the bill; we have a time agreement. However, it turns out the legislation will go forward and there is an obvious expectation that the bill will pass. In light of the remarks of the Senator from Iowa, I want to make it clear to people that this in no way is going to somehow stop the bill from going through this body. We will let the chips fall where they may based on the results of the
votes, but there is no slowing down of the bill.
Secondly, I was struck by the response to our amendment. Senator McCain and I laid out some pretty damning evidence about what the Army Corps of Engineers' role may have been in the Katrina disaster, which everybody admits is one of the worst disasters in the history of our country. I think the Senator from Missouri indicated that he didn't think we ought to engage in a blame game. I wouldn't call it a blame game, but somebody has to be held responsible. We have to acknowledge what might have caused this horrendous problem, and the evidence is overwhelming. Just as FEMA's performance was abysmal, so, too, was the role of the Army Corps of Engineers in properly establishing levees and other engineering that had to be done. And it may well have been significantly responsible for the tragedy that occurred in New Orleans. I don't know if they plan to mount a response to that, but I hope the record makes it clear that this New Orleans situation is Exhibit A in the kinds of problems that can occur if you don't have appropriate review of these Army Corps of Engineers projects.
I wanted to also respond to some of the specific issues the Senator from Missouri spoke about. He talked about what issues an independent review group could consider. I want to make it very clear. Under my amendment, which directly implements the recommendations of the 2002 National Academy of Sciences' report on peer review, independent panels will ensure that the Corps' proposed approach to a problem will work to resolve the identified problem and not cause unintended adverse consequences. Independent review panels will not take away any decisionmaking responsibilities. I want to be clear on that because a couple of the comments today could at least be interpreted to suggest that somehow this is going to take away the decisionmaking power from those who have it. Under my amendment, no decisionmaking responsibilities are taken away from the Army Corps of Engineers. The amendment simply allows for independent experts to identify problems in the best possible way.
Why would anyone not want to hear the important feedback from independent experts?
I would like to talk a little more in detail about one of the biggest differences between our independent review amendment and the Inhofe- Bond alternative which will be voted on side by side starting at 2:30, as the Senator from Oklahoma indicated. One of the very clear recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences' 2002 report on peer review is that reviewers should have the flexibility to comment on important issues to decisionmakers.
On this point, the two competing amendments are very different. I want my colleagues to understand the importance and the potential ramifications of the difference as they consider these two amendments.
My amendment implements the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences by allowing a thorough analysis of a Corps feasibility study. The Inhofe-Bond amendment ignores this recommendation by sharply limiting what independent reviewers would be allowed to consider. On this point, it is good to give an example of why this matters. Many of us know about the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, MRGO, in Louisiana. In Louisiana, MRGO is what this project is referred as.
According to most scientists who have looked at it, MRGO, a Corps navigation channel, greatly exacerbated the impact of Hurricane Katrina by funneling and intensifying Katrina's storm surge directly into New Orleans and by destroying 20,000 acres of coastal wetlands that could have buffered the storm's surge. These same experts, including the independent reviewers looking into what happened in New Orleans, have said that the devastating flooding that overwhelmed St. Bernard Parish and the lower ninth ward of New Orleans came from the MRGO. I was in both of those parishes 10 days ago, and that is exactly what the National Guard and other people and experts indicated to me while I was physically looking at this destruction.
Only 52 of the 28,000 structures in St. Bernard Parish escaped unscathed from Katrina. For years, community leaders, including the St. Bernard Parish Council, activists, and scientists warned that the MRGO was a hurricane highway and called for closing the outlet. This is not merely an after-the-fact recognition that something was wrong. People who lived and some who died in these communities were warning about this potential disaster before it occurred.
Why is this relevant? Under the Inhofe-Bond limited review, the other amendment, a panel would not have been able to examine the full implications of constructing the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet or MRGO in New Orleans. While reviewers would have been able to assess whether the Corps properly calculated the wetlands impact of the MRGO, they would not have been able to comment on the fact that the recommended plan would put New Orleans at risk by destroying wetlands vital for buffering storm surge and by creating a funneling effect that would intensify the storm surge. The Inhofe-Bond review also would not have allowed any comment on the appropriateness of proceeding with the MRGO in light of the increased danger to the city and the fact that traffic projections were vastly overstated.
I think we can all agree that this example shows what can be at stake if we don't allow reviewers some flexibility to bring up important issues. This isn't the only example of where the Inhofe-Bond amendment falls short, but I will try to say more about that later. This is a timely and very serious example of the dramatic difference between the amendment that Senator McCain and I have offered and the, frankly, inadequate amendment that is offered as an alternative.
I retain the remainder of my time.
Madam President, I am pleased to yield 12 minutes to one of our strong supporters and cosponsors of the amendment, the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper.
Mr. President, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from California in support of our amendment.
Mr. President, I wish to respond to a couple of arguments in the debate. How much time remains on our side?
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I heard the comment from some of my colleagues on the other side offering the alternative amendment that somehow this independent peer review will create a bureaucracy. I find that a little ironic because to me the definition of ``bureaucracy'' is an agency, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, that has $68 billion in authorized projects that apparently would take 35 years to build if everything was done in a sort of rational manner. That is how long it would take. It is sort of the definition of a bureaucracy that has gone awry, where there are not priorities, where there isn't clarity, where there really isn't any sense of what is more important than something else or what situation is more dangerous than another situation, what is more threatening to people's lives than another situation.
The notion that an independent peer review would not be binding, to have experts give us guidance as to what is more important as opposed to what is less important to fix or change, to me, is the opposite of bureaucracy. It is bringing rationality and a good government approach to what is currently a very troubled and in-need-of-reform bureaucracy.
I certainly expected the other side would try to raise the notion that somehow our amendment, our new system of independent review, would lead to more litigation. Of course, that is a standard argument against everything, and sometimes it is true, but here it is not.
The judicial deference provision makes it clear that the Corps must give serious consideration and review to an independent panel's findings. Unless that happens, independent review will just be another box to be checked off in project planning and will not result in better and safer projects.
The Corps, unfortunately, has a history of ignoring independent panel recommendations, even when those panels have been hand picked by the Corps, and that is unacceptable.
To ensure the independent review process is meaningful and produces real improvements for project planning, the amendment gives the recommendations of a panel equal deference with the Corps's recommendation in any judicial proceeding regarding the project in question if the Corps rejects the expert panel's finding without good cause.
That is what it does, and that is all it does. It provides an alternative view that the Corps can consider, but there is the key point. The judicial deference provision clearly does not--does not-- create any new cause of action. It does not create a new basis for somebody to litigate. So it is false that somehow this creates the opportunity for new litigation. It does not even anticipate that projects subject to independent review will ever be involved in litigation at all. It simply notes that where there is judicial review of a project where the Corps did not follow an independent panel's findings, the Corps will need to explain that decision to the court.
The Corps would then be given ample opportunity to demonstrate to the court that it has rejected an expert panel finding for a valid reason, good cause--not a difficult judicial standard to meet.
If the Corps cannot do so, the court will give equal consideration to both the panel and the Corps's recommendations.
So just as the argument that we are creating somehow a new bureaucracy is just the opposite of the fact, there is no basis, no validity whatsoever to the notion that this creates some new legal cause of action that didn't exist before.
I have two more points with regard to independence. I have heard the manager of the bill and the Senator from Missouri indicate that they are for some kind of independent review and that their alternative provides for it. But, of course, it is only in the most narrow of circumstances, only in projects that are over $100 million. That is essentially wiping out independent review on almost every single project.
Our view is this probably involves, maybe on average of less than one project a year that would receive that kind of independent review. We compromised to make sure that our figure would be acceptable to the body. We started with $25 million and went up as high as $41 million. But $100 million essentially makes a mockery of the whole idea of independent review because it would only apply in the most rare cases.
Finally, of course, the argument is, apart from the notion that somehow this creates new litigation, which is not the case, somehow this will cause things to take longer in terms of approving projects and reviewing projects.
That also is incorrect. The Senator from Missouri is incorrect about our amendment and the timing of review. To quote from page 8:
Panels may be established as early in the planning process
as deemed appropriate by the director of independent review.
So this whole idea that he indicated of somehow waiting until the eighth grade for somebody who needs help in the first grade--I heard that analogy--is not true. The Director has the power to do this whenever he deems this appropriate. He has that discretion. He has that flexibility, so it is not some kind of a locked-in delay at the end of the process review.
I encourage my colleagues to read the text of the bill on each of these points which I think will bear out the validity of the arguments I made.
Mr. President, I retain the remainder of my time.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I yield myself some additional time.
When you have worked on an issue as long as I have worked on Corps reform, sometimes people don't always understand your intentions and maybe, in some cases, mischaracterize them.
But I am astonished at the extent to which my opponents, those who like the status quo, those who benefit from the status quo, are saying about the Feingold-McCain-Lieberman-Carper-Jeffords-Collins Independent Peer Review Amendment. If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify some of the myths I have heard and set the record straight.
Myth No. 1: The Feingold-McCain independent peer review amendment will delay project construction.
This just is not true. Our amendment will not delay projects. We agree, projects do take some time. That's why we were very sensitive to ensure that independent peer review of Army Corps feasibility studies overlays with the existing process. Furthermore, our amendment includes strict deadlines for the panel to report and, if they fail to report in the allotted time, the Chief of Engineers is directed to proceed with planning. In fact, the Inhofe-Bond amendment uses some of the same timing criteria.
Independent review will ensure that communities will actually get the projects they are being told they will get. The independent review can start as early in the process as deemed appropriate, and for projects costing more than $40 million, must end within 90 days after the close of the public comment period.
Under the most ideal circumstances the Corps takes 11 to 12 months from the close of the public comment period to the time it issues a Chief's report for a project. And under current law, the Corps must take into account all the public and agency comment submitted during the public comment period. For large and controversial projects the time from draft feasibility study to final Chief's report takes much longer. So the independent review of feasibility studies in our amendment, which balances the absolute need to allow for a thorough review with the need to move forward in a timely fashion, fits well within the current timelines and will not delay project planning. The Nation will get better projects under this amendment.
Myth No. 2: The Feingold-McCain amendment will require reviews of too many projects.
Mr. President, the $40 million review trigger in our amendment will, on average, subject about five projects a year to independent review. This is a highly valuable use of resources. And, I believe it will promote better and more efficient studies for Corps projects throughout all of the Corps' 38 domestic districts.
Just this March, the GAO testified to the House Committee on Government Reform that:
GAO's recent reviews of four Corps civil works projects and
actions found that the planning studies conducted by the
Corps . . . were fraught with errors, mistakes, and
miscalculations, and used invalid assumptions and outdated
data.
GAO went on to note that the planning studies:
did not provide a reasonable basis for decision-making.
Later in its report, GAO even says:
The Corps' track record for providing reliable information
that can be used by decision makers . . . is spotty, at best.
This is simply unacceptable for a Federal agency and it should get the attention of every Member of this body.
Given the Corps' track record, we really should be requiring reviews of all studies until the agency improves its record. The $40 million trigger, however, is a reasonable and appropriate compromise that will sweep in the largest and costliest Corps projects. The other triggers will ensure that any less costly projects that could be very problematic do not fall through the cracks in the study process. We must be able to rely on the integrity of Corps project studies and their recommendations to Congress. And unfortunately, right now we cannot.
Myth No. 3: The Feingold-McCain amendment will increase project costs.
Independenter peer review is a critical taxpayer investment. The country cannot afford to have costly mistakes like the levee failures in the aftermath of Katrina. The Corps, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the National Academy of Sciences have all said that faulty design and construction by the Corps resulted in the levee failures. We cannot afford any more examples like what we saw in New Orleans. We also cannot afford to build projects based on economic or engineering errors. We have tight water resource budgets, thus we must spend every dime wisely and judiciously. I believe, and my cosponsors agree, independent peer review will help us do that.
Myth No. 4: The Feingold-McCain amendment will open the door to more litigation.
The Corps must give serious consideration and review to an independent peer review panel's findings. Without that hook, the concept is useless. We do not want independent review to be just another box to be checked off in project planning, for I think we can all agree that doing so will not yield better or safer projects. The Corps unfortunately has a history of ignoring independent panel recommendations, even when those panels have been hand picked by the Corps. This can happen no longer.
To ensure that the independent review process is meaningful and produces real improvements to project planning, the amendment gives the recommendations of an independent peer review panel equal deference with the Corps' recommendations in any judicial proceeding regarding the project in question if the Corps rejects the expert panel's findings without good cause.
The judicial deference provision clearly does not create any new cause of action, and it does not even anticipate that projects subject to independent review will ever be involved in litigation at all. It simply notes that where there is judicial review of a project where the Corps did not follow an independent panel's findings, the Corps will need to explain that decision to the court. The Corps would then be given ample opportunity to demonstrate to the court that it has rejected an expert panel's findings for a valid reason. If the Corps cannot do so, the court will give equal consideration to both the panel's and the Corps' recommendations.
Myth No. 5: The Feingold-McCain independent peer review will apply to all projects, even those that are already authorized.
The independent peer review of Corps studies applies to projects as they enter the feasibility stage, not after authorization, at which point the Chief's report is already complete. However, my amendment will ensure that flood control projects whose failure could endanger people and communities will be properly designed and constructed with adequate review. If such a project is in the post authorization design phase or construction phase it will receive the benefit of the safety assurance review required by the amendment. This comes directly from the recommendations of the Senate Homeland Security Committee's Katrina report, and I am sure my colleagues will agree that we need to make sure key flood control projects are designed and built properly.
Myth No. 6: The Feingold-McCain amendment will create a whole new layer of bureaucracy.
The amendment does not create a bureaucracy; it establishes a workable system to address a very real problem--poorly planned and designed projects that put people at risk, unnecessarily damage the environment and waste taxpayer dollars.
I would like to address one final myth, and that is that the Inhofe- Bond amendment would create a system of true independent project review.
Their amendment makes the Chief of Engineers the final arbiter of whether an independent review will happen at all. This is like puttingy the fox in charge of the henhouse. The Corps gets to select the reviewers, and there are no criteria at all for ensuring independence of those reviewers. Review is not independent if the Corps has control over whether, how, and who will review projects.
As you can see, the naysayers want to keep saying no, but we need to move beyond this game and start implementing policy that has a real chance of improving a broken system, protecting lives and property, and restoring integrity to a Federal agency
charged with providing the first line of defense against storms, charged with protecting and restoring some of our most precious natural resources and charged with providing efficient commerce.
Let me say a bit about what editorials from across the country have said. It has been just an overwhelming response. They are from communities large and small, but they all have the same message: Congress must reform the Corps. I don't have every editorial ever written about a need for a change in the Corps. I do have a good number.
I ask unanimous consent they be printed following my remarks.
Let me ask again, how much time do I have remaining?
In the Northeast, the New York Times and the Washington Post have been leaders in calling for reform. While some Members will jokingly say they don't read the New York Times or the Washington Post, maybe they have heard of some of the others--the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, the Delaware News Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Moving to the South, in Florida alone, a State with numerous Corps projects, including projects to help restore the Everglades, five papers have called for enactment of the reforms the Senator from Arizona and I are offering today. In addition, the Winston-Salem Journal, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Most importantly, in my regard, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has called not only for passage of our reform amendments but flatout rejection of the competing amendments that will be offered today.
In the Midwest, where I hail from, the editorial boards for the Wisconsin State Journal, the Star Tribune in Minnesota, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Let me repeat that: the St. Louis Post Dispatch has editorialized on the need for modernization of the Corps of Engineers.
Those of us familiar with the players on this issue in the Senate will be interested to note that in fact the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran an editorial today, supporting the Feingold-McCain amendment.
I ask unanimous consent that be printed in the Record.
Winston-Salem Journal:
After Hurricane Katrina, to vote with Inhofe and Bond to
block reform of the Corps would be downright reckless.
The Miami Herald:
A bipartisan Senate proposal to overhaul the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers deserves approval to eliminate some of
Congress' most nefarious pork-barrel spending and improve the
process that determines which projects are worthwhile.
San Francisco Chronicle:
This reform is not only about saving money, it's about
saving lives.
The Commercial Appeal--Tennessee:
At the very least, evaluations of proposed corps projects,
their environmental impact and especially their cost and
benefits, should be in independent and impartial hands.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer:
This singular study of failure no doubt will become a
standard reference work in engineering school libraries. It
should be cross-referenced, as well, to those who study
political science and philosophy, for between its lines it
reveals a government authority in which a region's trust was
misplaced, and a hubris in the face of the inevitable that
cost more than 1,200 lives and as-yet uncounted billions of
dollars in damage. Congress must read it, too, for it
describes flaws in corps management that demand fixing before
the next levee fails.
I reserve the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
[From the Times-Picayune, July 16, 2006]
Counting on Corps Reform
Louisiana urgently needs hurricane protection and coastal
restoration projects contained in the Water Resources
Development Act, and for that reason alone it's critical for
Congress to move on this long-delayed measure.
But Louisiana's fortunes are also tied, for better or
worse, to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Efforts to reform
the agency are critical for this state, which--after the
levee failures during Hurricane Katrina--could serve as the
poster child for the corps' shortcomings.
Congress is four years overdue in adopting a new water
resources bill, in part because of disagreements over corps
reform. But the Senate is expected to vote on the measure
this week, and Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter need to
do more than push for crucial Louisiana projects. They need
to push for changes that will make the corps a better, more
responsible agency in the future.
The best chance for changing the way the corps operates is
through reforms sought by Sens. John McCain and Russ
Feingold. They're offering two amendments to the water
resources bill. One would establish independent review of
corps projects from planning and design to construction. The
other would require corps projects to be ranked in importance
based on three national priorities: flood and storm damage
reduction, navigation and environmental restoration.
While the McCain-Feingold amendments won't fix everything
that's wrong with the corps, Louisiana stands to benefit from
both proposed changes.
The catastrophic failure during Katrina of canal floodwalls
built by the corps is Exhibit A in the case for independent
review. If such a process had been in place, surely
subsidence wouldn't have been discounted when New Orleans'
levee system was being built, and research on soil strength
wouldn't have been ignored.
Louisiana also should fare better under a system that uses
criteria other than political clout to decide which projects
should be done. The corps already has a $58 billion project
backlog--an amount that will grow by another $10 billion if
the water resources bill is adopted. That means competition
for the $2 billion per year that the corps gets for projects
is intense.
Without a rational system for prioritizing that work,
there's no guarantee that Louisiana's critically needed flood
control project will prevail even over less-needed or
justified projects. While there's a danger that a Louisiana
project could be pushed aside in a priority-based system,
this state is helped by the fact that the McCain-Feingold
approach favors projects that reduce flood damage and restore
the environment.
The effectiveness of the proposed changes will depend on
details. If an independent review panel isn't given adequate
time to evaluate a project, for example, the benefit of
oversight could be lost. Conversely, a cumbersome review
process could end up further delaying badly needed projects.
But an independent review process that works, combined with
a ranking policy that makes sense, should result in a better-
performing agency.
Unfortunately, not everyone in Congress is interested in
changing the way the corps does business. The McCain-Feingold
amendments face opposition and a rival set of measures by the
main authors of the water resources bill, Sens. James Inhofe
and Kit Bond.
What those senators offer as reform is meaningless,
however. The Inhofe-Bond review process would be controlled
by the corps and would only apply to projects that exceed
$100 million, compared to a $40 million threshold in the
McCain-Feingold measures. The Inhofe-Bond amendments also
call for prioritization, but their system would simply
measure projects against a set of national priorities without
actually ranking them.
Sham reform won't do anything to restore confidence in the
corps, and Congress must do better. The public should be able
to rely on the agency that builds levees and dams to do work
that will stand up to independent scrutiny. Taxpayers
shouldn't have to wonder if there's a rational basis for
spending billions of dollars.
And Louisianians should be able to believe that the corps,
which is rebuilding our levee system and restoring our
coastline, is a wiser, better managed and more reliable
agency than the one that failed us when Hurricane Katrina
came to town.
Mr. President, continuing the debate, I appreciate the Senator mentioning my home State of Wisconsin. I think that is an opportunity to quote from one of the leading newspapers in our State, the Wisconsin State Journal. It in the past has not always agreed with me on this issue. But they have come down strongly this year, and I would like to read what they said.
The title of the editorial is ``Protect taxpayers from boondoggles,'' and I am going to read it in its entirety.
If the United States is to rein in the billions of dollars
misspent on pork-barrel projects each year, a top priority
should be reforming the way the Army Corps of Engineers does
business.
That's why Congress should pass the Army Corps reforms
proposed by Senators Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and John McCain,
R-Ariz. The Feingold-McCain proposal would improve the
public's ability to make sure limited federal resources are
spent on cost-effective projects for flood control,
navigation, environmental protection and related goals,
rather than on boondoggles.
At stake is how the Corps spends its $12-billion-a-year
budget, which includes nearly $5 billion for civil works
projects, from levees to canals to coastal restoration.
Analyses of last year's hurricane disaster in New Orleans
helped to expose costly, even deadly flaws in how the Corps
decides where to spend the public's money. For example,
before the flooding from Hurricane Katrina breached the levee
on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Corps had begun a
$748 million project at that exact spot.
The project, however, was not flood control but rather a
new lock for the canal. The lock, favored by local
politicians, was supposed to accommodate barge traffic. Barge
traffic on the canal, however, was decreasing.
The New Orleans experience highlighted the Corps' long
history of mutual back-scratching with members of Congress:
The Corps caters to pet projects, even if their costs far
outweigh the benefits, and Congress in return makes sure the
Corps gets a big fat budget all at the expense of fiscal
responsibility and long-term water resource strategy.
The Feingold-McCain proposal would modernize the Corps'
cost-benefit analysis to make it more about project merit and
less about political influence. One provision would require
independent review of any project estimated to cost more than
$40 million, requested by a governor, determined to have
significant adverse impact, or judged by the secretary of the
Army to be controversial.
Another provision would require a cabinet-level committee
to work with the secretary of the Army to annually establish
a list of water source project priorities to give Congress
guidance.
Wisconsin taxpayers would benefit if Congress limits the
influence of pork-barrel politics in the Army Corps of
Engineers. So would Corps projects affecting the state, from
the modernization of the Mississippi River's lock-and-dam
system to efforts to keep invasive species out of the Great
Lakes.
The State's congressional delegation should support the
Feingold-McCain reforms.
I could go on.
There are more editorials coming online every day. These editorials are coming from States that have projects in this bill, projects that would be subject to the prioritization amendment, projects that would be subject to the independent peer review amendment. These editorials are coming from small States and large cities. Yet they still support reform. And I believe that is because any State that might be the non- Federal cosponsor of a project should want these reforms to ensure that their investment is a wise one.
As the Senator from Oklahoma mentioned some of the groups that support his position, let me also briefly touch on the amazing support for our independent review amendment. There are letters of support from all of the following groups and individuals: League of Conservation Voters; Taxpayers for Common Sense; American Rivers; National Taxpayers Union; National Wildlife Federation; Environmental Defense; the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana; Association of State Floodplain Managers; Republicans for Environmental Protection; Defenders of Wildlife; Louisiana Wildlife Federation; Natural Resources Defense Council; Sierra Club; the Garden Club of America; Council for Citizens Against Government Waste; Earthjustice; the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency; the Isaak Walton League of America; World Wildlife Fund; Friends of the Earth; The John Muir Chapter of the Sierra Club; U.S. Public Interest Research Group; a letter from G. Paul Kemp, a professor at Louisiana State University and a member of the Louisiana Forensics Team investigating the Corps' engineering failures; more Great Lakes groups than I can describe here, including Great Lakes United, Alliance for the Great Lakes, Lake Erie Region Conservancy, the Ohio Environmental Council, Environment Michigan, and the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy; Columbia River Fisherman's Protective Union and Columbia Riverkeeper; Environment Maine; National Audubon Society; and finally, a letter that is signed by over 120 grassroots groups from across the country that supports our stand-alone bill, from which today's Feingold and McCain amendments come. The States represented on the letter are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, and, of course, Wisconsin.
I ask unanimous consent that several of these letters be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, the need for change could not be more clear, and I hope that today the Senate will adopt the Feingold-McCain- Carper-Lieberman-Jeffords-Collins independent peer review amendment and reject the Inhofe-Bond counter amendment.
I reserve the remainder of my time. I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the time be equally divided during the quorum.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Iowa. He is going to speak as in morning business, but I understand it will be charged against my time.
Mr. President, the amendment cosponsored by Senators McCain, Carper, Lieberman, Jeffords and Collins will ensure independent review of Army Corps projects that are costly, controversial or critical to public safety. The amendment responds to over 10 years of studies, including analysis of the Katrina disaster, documenting serious problems with planning and design of Army Corps projects. We owe it to the people of New Orleans, and to all of our constituents, to ensure close scrutiny of critical flood control projects, as recommended by the Homeland Security Committee. That is what our amendment does.
Despite any outcome on my amendment, I urge my colleagues to vote ``nay'' on the Inhofe-Bond amendment which maintains the unacceptable status quo.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Vote on Amendment No. 4682
Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
I yield myself time off of the McCain-Feingold prioritization amendment.
I rise in strong support of the McCain-Feingold prioritization amendment. I am pleased to be a cosponsor. As Senator McCain points out, it recognizes we must respond to the tragedy of Katrina and to our current flawed planning process by making sure that limited taxpayer dollars go to the most worthy water resources projects.
That doesn't sound like a lot to ask. As we all know, our Nation is staring down deficits that just a few years ago were unimaginable. We have a backlog of $58 billion in projects that are authorized but not built, and that number will be closer to $70 billion when this bill passes. Clearly, we need some way of identifying projects that are most needed.
Right now, Congress does not have any information about the relative priority of the current massive backlog of unauthorized projects, and we don't have any way of evaluating the relative priority of the new projects. What we do have is individual Members arguing for projects in their States or districts but no information about which projects are most important to the country's economic development or transportation systems or our ability to protect our citizens and our property from natural disasters.
Our current prioritization process is not serving the public good. The McCain amendment would make sure Congress has the tools to more wisely invest limited resources while also increasing public transparency in decisionmaking. It does so by utilizing an interagency task force set up in the underlying bill, the Water Resources Coordinating Committee, to evaluate likely Corps projects in three different categories: flood damage reduction, navigation, and ecosystem restoration. The committee will establish broad national priorities to apply to those projects.
The amendment sets out minimum requirements that projects in each category have to meet, so that, for example, flood reduction projects must be evaluated in part whether they reduce the risk of loss of life. But the committee is free to consider other factors as long as it is clear about which factors it is considering.
Projects in each of these project types will be placed in tiers based on how great a priority they represent, and this information will be provided to Congress and the public in a nonbinding annual report. That is it. Congress and the public get information to help them make decisions involving millions--or even billions--of dollars. Surely that isn't too much to ask.
Modernizing all aspects of our water resources policy will help restore credibility to a Federal agency that is plagued by public skepticism in the wake of Katrina. The Corps has admitted serious design flaws in the levees it built in New Orleans, and it is clear that the Corps' mistakes contributed significantly to the damage New Orleans suffered.
I can tell you, when I was down in New Orleans just last week, even more than complaints about FEMA, I heard complaints about the Corps. And just as we have worked as a body to improve FEMA, we need to work to improve the Corps. Our constituents and the people of New Orleans deserve no less.
The Corps does important work. The real problem, as the senior Senator
from Arizona points out, that this amendment seeks to get at is us in Congress. Congress has long used the Army Corps of Engineers to facilitate favored pork-barrel projects, while periodically expressing a desire to change its ways. If we want to change our ways, we can start by passing the McCain prioritization amendment which will help us make sure the Corps continues to contribute to our safety, environment, and economy, without wasting taxpayer dollars.
The Inhofe-Bond so-called prioritization amendment does not accomplish that. In fact, that competing amendment would do nothing more than create a bureaucratic nightmare. It would require every project in the $58 billion backlog to be rated. Even the Corps admits there are many projects in the backlog that will never be built. Some of the projects being deauthorized in this WRDA bill were first authorized in the 19th century. So why would we expend such time and resources evaluating projects that have no chance of being built? We can prioritize in a smarter, more manageable way.
Their amendment creates an ill-defined relative rating system for criteria but doesn't require any final analysis or ranking. How is that going to help us decide where to allocate taxpayer dollars? It won't. The relative rating system is nothing more than a throwaway single line with no substance.
What is most telling is that there is no provision to allow for the information to be made available to the public so they can look over our shoulders and make sense of whether our decisions about national water resource priorities make sense.
Furthermore, their amendment, rather than using impartial criteria on which to weigh projects, would use criteria which would be applied across project types and which appear to be reverse-engineered to elevate inland navigation projects: for example, criteria such as ``availability cost alternate transportation methods relating to the project''; ``[R]eduction of dependence on foreign oil associated with using water as a method of transportation of goods''; ``pollution reduction benefits associated with using water as a method of transportation of goods.''
These criteria serve to elevate generically inland navigation projects at the expense of flood and storm damage reduction projects and environmental restoration projects.
Obviously, I do not have an issue with inland navigation projects.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may continue under the remaining time on the bill.
I thank my colleagues.
The Mississippi River is a critical artery for Wisconsin and national commerce, and many other rivers serve the same role. However, I do take issue with the process that uses broadly applied criteria that will obviously only be met by a small subset of projects at the expense of other valuable project types that fall within the mission area of the Corps of Engineers.
Lastly, if any of my colleagues are tempted to vote for the Inhofe- Bond alternative, I encourage them to take a close look at it. It is clearly designed to look more substantial than it really is because in a nine-page amendment, four pages are dedicated to simply reinserting the same language on a fiscal transparency report that the amendment initially deleted.
Unfortunately, the existing inadequate, opaque funding process is better than the prioritization process created by the Inhofe-Bond amendment. A deliberately flawed and skewed prioritization system would be more harmful than the current ineffective one. As such, whatever one's position may be on the McCain-Feingold-Lieberman-Feinstein amendment, I strongly encourage my colleagues to oppose the Inhofe-Bond prioritization amendment.
I certainly thank my colleagues for the additional time, and I yield the floor.
Senator Nelson, I am familiar with the excellent peer review system that has been established for the comprehensive Everglades project. In many ways, that peer review system is a model for this amendment. There is nothing in this amendment that would keep the Director of Independent Peer Review from determining that the Everglades peer review is the functional equivalent of the peer review or substitute for the peer review required by this amendment and satisfies this requirement. In many ways, the Everglades peer review goes beyond that required by this amendment, and works smoothly with the requirements of this amendment.
Absolutely.
Mr. President, when a bill like this one comes to the floor, especially after 6 years, there are so many people to thank. First, I want to thank the support of my principal cosponsor, the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, who has worked with me since the 108th Congress.
I know he shares my view that future Corps projects should no longer fail to produce predicted benefits, should stop costing the taxpayers more than the Corps estimated, should not have unanticipated environmental impacts, and should be built in an environmentally compatible way.
He saw the importance of ensuring that the Corps does a better job, which is what the taxpayers and the environment deserve. He and his staffer, Becky Jensen, deserve commendation.
I am particularly grateful for the help and support of the chairman of the committee, Mr. Inhofe. He directed his staff to work closely with mine, and Ruth Van Mark, Angie Giancarlo, and Steven Aaron did so ably, and I thank them, and the majority staff director, Andy Wheeler.
I would also be remiss if I did not acknowledge the support of another former EPW chairman, the former Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Smith. It was he who brought conservative groups and taxpayer groups to the table on these issues, honored my request for a hearing in 2002 along with then-Ranking Member Baucus, and I am deeply grateful.
I want to thank our current esteemed and retiring ranking member, the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords. This may be the committee's last major bill this Congress, and he is to be commended for his leadership.
He and I have spoken personally about my interests in improving the Corps, and I am grateful for his support.
Several of the minority staff of the committee have been working on the issues I am raising in my amendments since my first independent review amendment on the 2000 WRDA bill. At the time, Jo-Ellen Darcy worked on the committee for the Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus, who was then the ranking member, and she has followed my interest in these issues for Senator Baucus, Senator Reid, and now Senator Jeffords.
I also want to acknowledge the help and support of several others on the minority staff, Catharine Ransom, Alison Taylor, Ken Connolly, and Mary Frances Repko, who worked for me until 2003, and provided invaluable help to me with my first Corps reform bill in the 107th Congress and the WRDA amendment that preceded it.
I also have a long history working with the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Bond, on Corps issues. I appreciate the effort that he, and his staffers, Brian Klippenstein and Letmon Lee, have made to improve the Corps' performance.
Our work together goes back to 1999. The reauthorization of the Environmental Management Program in the
Upper Mississippi was the only permanent authorization in WRDA 99. Included in the final EMP provisions was a requirement that Senator Bond and I developed to have the Corps create an independent technical advisory committee to review EMP projects, monitoring plans, and habitat and natural resource needs assessments. Our work helped to cement the Environment Committee's commitment to secure outside technical advice in Corps habitat restoration programs, like the EMP.
The amendments I offered to the WRDA bill are widely supported in the environmental and taxpayer community, and several individuals have worked hard for this day, including Chelsea Maxwell, former staffer to the retired Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Smith, and now with National Wildlife Federation, Adam Kolton, David Conrad and Tim Eder with National Wildlife Federation, Joan Mulhern with Earth Justice, Melissa Samet with American Rivers, Steve Ellis and Jill Lancelot with Taxpayers for Common Sense, Tim Searchinger with Environmental Defense, and Pete Sepp and Kristina Rasmussen with the National Taxpayers Union.
Finally, I want to thank my own staff. My staffer, Jessica Maher, has worked tirelessly on this legislation. She has talked to countless offices and constituents, and has worked to address their concerns and questions with grace and good humor, as has Mike Schmidt, another member of my staff. I am deeply grateful to Jess and to her predecessor, Heather White.
