Remarks of Harry N. Cook
President of the National Waterways Conference, Inc.
at the Warrior-Timbigbee Waterway Association's Annual Meeting
Adam's Mark Hotel, Mobile, Alabama
May 3, 2002
One of last year’s sleeper movies was "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" It included a song which surprisingly captured a prestigious Grammy award - "Man of Constant Sorrow," performed by the Soggy Bottom Boys. "Man of Constant Sorrow" tells a gloomy story.
Well, the civil works program strikes me as a mission in constant challenge. Think about it. We face challenges from almost every direction - in leadership, in adequate funding, in environmental compliance, in the mass media, and in pending legislation. Day in and day out, we confront challenges, both old and new ones, and there seems to be no end in sight.
To any other program, such constant challenges would be overwhelming. But we know water resources development is too important to America’s well-being. Too many people depend on ports and waterways, on economical and environmentally friendly water transportation, on flood control and hurricane protection and on all the other benefits of continued Federal investment. But if the beneficiaries of these program do not speak out and tell their success stories to lawmakers and opinion-leaders, the future becomes murky and far from certain.
Let me describe some of the major challenges we now face -
THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE. When the President tapped former Congr. Mike Parker of Mississippi as the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works), most waterways proponents were elated. Having served 10 years in the Congress and sat on the committees having jurisdiction over waterways programs, Mr. Parker did not need a lengthy indoctrination. And he quickly became a strong advocate of the Army Corps of Engineers’ civil works activities. In hindsight, he was perhaps too strong an advocate, perhaps too aggressive in championing the program within the Administration in seeking higher budget requests and in the Congress in testifying as to what he considered to be ample justification of increased funding, blaming the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) but not the President for the low-ball budget.
But the truth still got Mr. Parker in trouble. He was accused of not adequately defending the President’s budget request. OMB demanded his head and, despite appeals from numerous Congressional leaders and others, Mr. Parker was booted. Actually, he was caught up in a years-old conflict between the Congress and the Administration over the role of water resources development among national priorities. The Corps of Engineers, and its leadership, is tangled in the middle of this controversy, and Mr. Parker is gone, despite his many influential friends on Capitol Hill.
Where does this leave the civil works program? Since early March, it has really been at OMB’s mercy. To make matters worse, OMB Director Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., was directly involved in Mike Parker’s dismissal and wrote a memo characterizing certain statements by the Chief of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers, as "totally bogus." Although the two men have since had a cordial meeting, Mr. Daniels has not backed down. And his deputy, Nancy P. Dorn, was herself Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) in the last Bush Administration, and was generally considered at the time to be no fan of the Corps of Engineers.
In the last Administration, the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House was widely believed to be calling the shots on water policy issues. Now, the ball is back in OMB’s court, where it will stay until the President decides on a new ASA/CW and he or she is confirmed by the Senate. But this process will likely take at least a year. Ostensibly, the Under Secretary of the Army, Les Brownlee, is the acting ASA/CW but he has his hands full in running the Department of the Army, whose secretary is himself now under investigation.
In the meantime, the civil works program is without a Congressionally confirmed advocate.
THE CHALLENGE OF INADEQUATE FUNDING. Just 13 months ago, President Bush sent his first budget request to Capitol Hill, and it proposed a 14 percent decrease in funding for the Corps of Engineers’ civil works program. Fortunately, the Congress restored most of the cut, adding $600 million to the President’s request so that the Corps ended up with appropriations of $4.5 billion for the current fiscal year. During the summer and fall, waterway proponents met with OMB and other White House officials in an effort to convince them that the waterways program needed and deserved adequate funding in the FY 2003 budget. But when the budget request was announced back in February, the civil works program was again slashed more than any other major agency - by a whopping 10 percent.
The construction, operations and maintenance, and general investigations accounts all took hits, but there was one bright spot. The budget did provide for "efficient funding" for a couple of on-going projects, New York harbor improvements and Olmsted Locks and Dam at the mouth of the Ohio River. Many other projects, such as Industrial Lock at New Orleans and the Houston-Galveston channel, came out with far less funding than anticipated.
It is now up to Congress to develop an appropriations bill which keeps these and other projects on track and prevents the costly termination of construction contracts. We don’t yet know how much money will be available for so-called domestic discretionary program including civil works. That figure usually comes out of the annual Congressional Budget Resolution, only this year it appears unlikely that the House and the Senate will be able to agree on such a resolution. In fact, the Senate itself may not even bring its budget resolution to a floor vote. So how much money will be made available to the various appropriations subcommittees is still up in the air.
As you know, Congr. Sonny Callahan of Mobile, as chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, will be a key player in this "money chase" during the next few months. The President’s top priorities for funding are the war on terrorism, homeland defense, and economic recovery, but the Congress wants sufficient funding for domestic programs, too. Besides, there is ample evidence that civil works investments serve the President’s objectives, too, as Congr. Callahan has frequently pointed out.
After Mike Parker was fired, many of his former colleagues in the Congress expressed the view that appropriations for civil works ought to be plussed up from $4.1 billion, which OMB had requested, to as much as $6.4 billion, which Mr. Parker has described as a Utopian budget. But the general view now is that Corps of Engineers’ spending will be pegged in the range of $4.5 billion to $5 billion. To perform its responsibilities in its traditional missions, we believe the Corps of Engineers needs a minimum of $5 billion next year. But if Congress appropriates civil works funding at this level, that may invite a Presidential veto - which no one wants.
Throughout his nine terms in the House, Congr. Callahan has been a champion of navigation, flood control and other water resources programs, and he has been a forceful and effective Appropriations Subcommittee chairman. His departure presents another challenge to the waterways community’s leadership in the Congress. At the moment, there is no anointed successor. The names of several lawmakers have been mentioned, and it will be our obligation to do everything we can to make sure that a strong advocate of the waterways program is installed as Sonny’s successor.
THE CHALLENGE OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS. The Flood Control Act of 1936 directed that the benefits of proposed projects exceed the costs, and the Corps of Engineers has long prided itself on thorough, detailed benefit/cost analysis. In fact, the Corps is the only Federal agency that even attempts to measure the benefits and costs of its projects over the next 50 years, discount both the benefits and costs to today’s values, and then come up with a specific benefit/cost ratio. The only problem is that this is a feat which is almost impossible to accomplish with any accuracy, especially in today’s fast changing world.
For years, the Corps of Engineers’ estimates were nearly always on the low side, with actual growth far outpacing earlier estimates. During the last couple of years, however, the Corps’ economic studies have taken a beating, first on the Upper Mississippi/Illinois Waterway modernization study, then on the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal linking the Ports of Baltimore and Philadelphia, and more recently the proposed deepening of the Columbia River between Portland and the Pacific. Within the last few days, the General Accounting Office has questioned the Corps’ estimate of the economic benefits accruing from the proposed deepening of the Delaware River to allow larger containerships to call at the Port of Philadelphia.
As a result of this latest challenge, the Corps’ director of civil works, Maj. Gen. Robert H. Griffin, has ordered a stand-down for all new construction projects which have been authorized but not yet started. The Corps wants to verify the economics (in particular), to make sure that the data is current, that the b/c ratio is defensible, and that there have been no "credible indications" of changes in economic conditions or engineering, scientific or environmental information. As a result, about 150 navigation, flood control and other projects throughout the Nation are being reviewed. It will be up to the Division Engineers to clear projects within their jurisdictions.
Corps officials are alarmed that so many of its major projects have encountered criticism in recent weeks and months. Gen. Griffin - whom many of you may remember from his days at Auburn University and later as District Engineer here in Mobile - and the Chief of Engineers, Gen. Flowers, want to restore their agency’s credibility. In a way, benefit/cost analysis is a trap. It is almost impossible to predict conditions 50 years into the future, including such factors as U.S. industrial and agricultural production over the next five decades, world demand, the financial health of our trading partners, changes in ship design and capacity, etc. For that reason, the Upper Mississippi study will display a series of possible scenarios, from which policy-makers can pick and choose.
THE "CORPS REFORM" CHALLENGE. Questions about the economic feasibility of deepening the Delaware River and Columbia River shipping channels could not have come at a worse time. The Congress is now developing the next Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). Typically, these biennial measures authorize a few new projects which have favorable feasibility reports and also include various policy reforms. And, as you might guess, our critics are now clamoring for various "Corps reform" provisions to be incorporated in the new legislation. Environmental and taxpayer groups, in particular, started their drum beat when Mr. Parker was fired, asserting that his dismissal was evidence that the Corps of Engineers was "out of control" and in need of "reform."
The tempo picked up when the American Rivers conservation group issued its latest "endangered rivers" report, which charged that dams and levees and maintenance dredging were degrading the Missouri and other rivers, including the Appalachicola. And the on-going review of pending construction projects will undoubtedly spur another spate of harsh editorials demanding that Congress "rein in" the Corps of Engineers, which some critics repeatedly refer to as a "rogue agency."
In June, the National Academy of Sciences plans to release a study assessing the possible independent peer review of all Corps of Engineers’ projects costing $25 million or more, or some such figure. Most Washington observers believe that the NAS is going to recommend that a peer-review procedure be incorporated as a part of feasibility reports. Although the review could conceivably take place concurrently with other studies, the process - if it is approved - will in all likelihood make the study process more complicated, costly and lengthy. In addition, Senators Smith of New Hampshire, McCain of Arizona and Feingold
of Wisconsin have introduced legislation to make feasibility criteria much more stringent. Companion legislation is also pending in the House.
There undoubtedly will be a major effort to incorporate some of the provisions in these pending bills, particularly peer review, in the next WRDA. However, only a handful of new projects are awaiting authorization, and so far the Administration has yet submit draft legislation. So, don’t be surprised if the controversy over "Corps reform" derails WRDA, delaying this legislation to the next Congress.
ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES. During the last few years, environmental interests have been campaigning to remove the four navigation dams on the Snake River. Their battle cry has been: "Save the Salmon!" But there is no creditable evidence that the dams are responsible for dwindling salmon populations. The culprit may be predator birds, seals and other species, net fishing by Indian tribes, over-fishing in the ocean by factory ships, and/or a host of other factors. Even if the dams were breached, no one can say with any certainty that more salmon would return to spawn. In fact, record numbers have been returning in the last year, negotiating fish ladders to get past the dams. But dam removal has become a national issue. And this may be our critics’ real agenda, not saving the salmon. Environmentalists want to return the Snake and other rivers to their "natural" hydrology - that is, with floods in the spring and droughts in the summer, mimicking Mother Nature. Obviously, our adversaries have never experienced the extreme difficulties posed by too much water or too little water. We keep hearing their demand for "flexible flows" in the rivers.
This is an argument now vogue in the Missouri Basin, where there is an on-going debate over flow regulation of the big dams in Montana and the Dakotas. How the dams are regulated will determine whether there is continued navigation on the Missouri River down-stream from Sioux City or, for that matter, on the Middle Mississippi during periods of low water. Restoring "natural flows" to America’s rivers is a rallying cry for environmentalists being heard in river valleys all over America.
Endangered salmon are found in the Snake River, threatened pallid sturgeon live in the Missouri River and the rare least tern and piping plover nest on its sandbars. In Alabama, you have long faced the threat of reduced barge operations because of the Alabama sturgeon. It seems as if some endangered or threatened species or sub-species inhabits every stream in America! We know there is strong support for saving species and restoring their habitat. Some of our critics would have you believe that you can’t sustain all the world’s species while supporting the world’s economic pursuits. But such goals are not mutually exclusive. At any rate, the environmental impacts of water transportation are certainly less than those of overland modes. Barges almost silently glide through waters near where whooping cranes, bald eagles, and other precious wildlife make their homes.
Water carriers have fewer accidents and spew less pollutants into the air. River and coastal barges take freight off congested highways, improving the quality of life for millions of our citizens. Channel maintenance often creates new wetlands and wildlife habitat, and new projects are increasing backwater channels and fish-spawning areas. It’s this positive picture of America’s waterways, and their contributions to environmental goals, which must be told.
As should be evident by now, there does not seem to be any shortages of challenges confronting the civil works program. It will survive, however, because water resources management is vital to ports, inland waterways, flood protection, and environmental restoration and these programs are good for America. The results are positive and proven.
Civil works projects produce "constant benefits" - lower transportation costs, regional development, export expansion, and enhanced international competitiveness, more jobs and incomes, a higher standard of living and a better quality of life. Navigation programs work to conserve our valuable resources - requiring less steel per ton of carrying capacity, less capital investment per ton-mile of commerce moved, less need for new rights-of-way or sprawling interchanges. Ports and inland waterways are basically in place and need only proper maintenance and some upgrading. Water transportation requires less fuel, produces less pollution, creates less noise and vibration, and requires less interruption of our daily lives.
Barges and ships are practically silent while under way and are generally unseen. But they are economical, and they are also compatible with the environmental values, natural beauty, and aesthetics of our rivers. Associated water resources projects afford protection against rampaging floods and hurricanes, provide abundant water supplies for homes and industries, generate hydroelectric power to supplement coal, oil and nuclear facilities, and attract millions of recreational boaters throughout our great Nation.
These and other constant benefits so pervasive that they far outweigh the constant challenges.
Consensus on national waterways policy is elusive. Those who advocate the removal of dams and levees make effective use of advertising campaigns, grassroots lobbying, innovative websites, tabloid newspapers and all sorts of public forums to advance their message. Unfortunately, they employ a lot of scare tactics, too, alarming everyone about the possibility of water transportation causing species to vanish, rivers to "die," and the environment to be further degraded.
That’s not the real story, of course. But no one will know that there is another side to this story unless we speak out. It is up to us to make sure that the public knows "our side," too, the rest of the story. What is lost in the confrontational style of the current debate over America’s rivers is that we can have waterway development - ports and intermodal terminals, industrial parks, grain elevators, and barge service - as well as environmental quality, with fishing, boating, healthy rivers and robust ecological systems at the same time. Both economic security and environmental health are vital national objectives.
There must be increased public awareness of what’s at stake in the on-going water policy debate. It’s a fight in which the National Waterways Conference has long been engaged. So has the Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway Association, the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association, our friends on the Tennessee-Tombigbee, Coosa-Alabama and other river systems and, more recently, the "Waterways Work!" campaign. We call it, "Spreading the word." It demands our continuous, day-in, day-out attention.
For all waterways proponents, getting the message out is our most pressing and our most important obligation. For us, this is really a constant challenge. If we fail, it is America which then will be in constant sorrow.
Thank you.
National Waterways Conference, Inc.
1130 17th Street, Northwest
Washington, DC 20036-4676
