“America’s Waterways - Transitions Big and Small”

Remarks of Harry N. Cook
President Of The National Waterways Conference, Inc.
Luncheon [As Part Of The Annual Arkansas Navigation Conference Activities]
GOLD STRIKE CASINO, ROBINSONVILLE, MISSISSIPPI
May 8, 2002

I was asked to talk about “transitions” in Washington. Like the annual coming of the cherry blossoms, change is a part of the Washington scene. Policy-makers come and go, and the issues (or at least how the issues are framed) stay almost constantly in flux.

TRANSITIONS IN THE ADMINISTRATION. To you, transition probably means orderly change. Like many words, though, “transition” has its own peculiar meaning in Wash-ington. Transition (usually with a capital “T”) refers to the arrival of a new Presidential administration every four (or eight) years. Increasingly, however, we see evidence of a permanent state of transition: the numbers of high-level Presidential appointments have grown, each potential candidate is carefully vetted, then scrutinized again by the media when nominated, and the Senate often moves toward confirmation at a very deliberate pace. Today, more than 15 months after the inauguration, nominees have not been named to almost 20 percent of presidentially appointed positions, according to the Brookings Institution. In terms of waterways, we have seen the almost “permanent transition” in the position of Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works). In the last 15 years, has anyone held the job more than two years?

It took nine months for former Congr. Mike Parker of Mississippi to be nominated and installed as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works or ASA/CW, for short, and 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 may have been too strong an advocate, perhaps a bit too aggressive in championing the program within the Administration by seeking a higher funding and in the Congress by citing what he considered to be ample justification for increased spending, blaming the budgeteers at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the low-ball budget request.

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 after only five months on the job. Actually, he was caught up in a years-old conflict between the Congress and the Administration over the proper 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.

That puts us back to square one in securing leadership for the civil works program. In light of the pace of appointments to date, not to mention the historical trends, it seems likely that it could be at least another year before another ASA/CW comes on board. 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.

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. OMB Director Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., was directly involved in Mike Parker’s dismissal, 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. Furthermore, while civil works leadership often gets caught up in the “permanent transition,” there is little change in career staff at OMB. That might also explain the similarities between the budget proposals from the Clinton and Bush administrations; it certainly affirms the adage that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

TRANSITIONS IN THE CONGRESS. Let’s turn now from the “capital T” Transition to the other Washington transitions that impact the civil works program. On Capitol Hill, the U.S. Senate continues to adjust to last May’s historic mid-term change, when the Democratic party assumed leadership. The change in the Senate has left the two Chambers with leadership from opposing parties. The additional discord that has resulted has slowed the pace of legislative business of every kind, including civil works authorization and appropriations measures. It has challenged us with new committee chairmen and new key staff, many of whom are unfamiliar with the important role of the inland waterways. On the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, the new Democratic chairman - like his Republican predecessor - represents a desert state with significant interest in the energy portion of the annual energy and water bills.

On the House side, civil works advocates are already preparing for the sixth Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee chair in 12 years, with the pending retirement of Congr. Sonny Callahan of Alabama. At this time, the likely successor to Mr. Callahan is impossible to predict (and believe me, it’s not for our lack of trying!). He is one of two appropriations subcommittee chairmen retiring, and a shuffle is likely among the remaining chairs and other senior GOP committee members. All that, of course, assumes that the Republicans’ narrow margin in the House doesn’t evaporate in this fall’s election. (Remember that the party not in control of the White House often sees gains in the mid-term Congressional elections.)

Of course, the National Waterways Conference’s public awareness campaign, on your behalf, continues its outreach and education efforts with leaders and members in both chambers and both parties, telling the story about the importance of inland waterways. In the meantime, regardless of the ghosts of transitions past (as occurred last summer in the Senate) and the specter of transitions future (with Mr. Callahan’s retirement), we work to address the reality of the present.

Regrettably, many of the challenges remain the same, like inadequate funding. Just 13 months ago, President Bush proposed a 14 percent decrease in funding for the Corps of Engineers’ civil works program in his first budget request to Capitol Hill. 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 B by a whopping 10 percent.

The construction, operations and maintenance, and general investigations accounts all took a hit, 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 near the mouth of the Ohio River. Many other projects, such as Industrial Lock at New Orleans, the Houston-Galveston channel, and Montgomery Point came out with far less funding than anticipated.

It is now up to Congress to develop an appropriations bill that 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. But we do know that to carry out its civil works responsibilities, the Corps of Engineers needs at least $5 billion, but funding at this level may invite a Presidential veto, which no one wants.

TRANSITION IN INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT. Besides the minutiae of Washington politics, we face other transitions that will play an even greater role in the future of the Nation’s civil works program. Long-term policy shifts have changed our playing field. Over the past two decades, we have moved away from an ethos that supported govern-mental investment in infrastructure. Today, it appears that we are committed to living off earlier expenditures. That’s true across the entire transportation spectrum: airports and highways, as well as the water resources we are most concerned with. It will take concerted efforts to reverse this trend, more so now that the Federal government has returned to deficit spending in an era of new homeland defense needs. Deficit spending combined with the politically popular goals of less government and lower taxes is making it much more difficult to justify more spending for civil works.

In terms of overall government spending, transportation investment today pales in comparison to the 1950’s and 1960’s, when leaders of another generation championed infrastructure investment as the path to economic growth. Once, that goal of economic growth was paramount. Proponents justified projects with assurances that they would “promote growth,” which they usually did. Today, investment in search of growth doesn’t meet with the same sort of unqualified support. Instead, we see growing support for “smart growth” initiatives, with demands that our national wealth - in terms of natural resources and government funds - be allocated much more stringently.

A TRANSITION IN FEASIBILITY ASSESSMENT. To prove that water projects are not pork barrel, the Flood Control Act of 1936 decreed that project benefits over a typical 50-year life span must exceed project costs. The only problem is that this is a feat almost impossible to accomplish with any degree of accuracy, especially in our fast changing world.

For many years, the Corps of Engineers’ estimates of prospective benefits were nearly always on the low side. During the last couple of years, however, the Corps’ economic studies have been repeatedly challenged - on the Upper Mississippi/Illinois Waterway modernization, the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal linking the ports of Baltimore and Philadelphia and, more recently, the proposed deepening of the Columbia River channel downstream from Portland. Within the last few days, the U.S. 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, Maj. Gen. Robert H. Griffin, the director of civil works, 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, 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.

Even so, it is almost impossible to predict conditions 50 years into the future, including such factors as U.S. industrial and agricultural productivity, fluctuations in world demand, the financial health of our trading partners, future changes in ship design and capacity, etc. For that reason, the Upper Mississippi study will display a series of possible “future world” scenarios, from which policy-makers can pick and choose.

The on-going flap over Corps of Engineers studies is fueling a campaign by environmental and taxpayer groups to institute independent peer review. They want the next Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), now under consideration in the Congress, to include “peer review,” which - if approved - could make the study process a lot more complicated, costly and lengthy. As a result, some lawmakers are questioning whether they really need to enact a WRDA this year. In my judgment, Corps reform like peer review is a transition we really don’t need.

A TRANSITION IN ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES. The larger reality is that the court of public opinion has undergone a sea change, a “green revolution.” Not too long ago, the question of environmental impacts was secondary, and “green” interests faced the burden of proof when opposing a particular project or policy. Today, public opinion seems to assume damage to the environment, and it has become incumbent on business, industry and/or government to prove no environmental harm. Since you can’t prove a negative, that leaves proponents of development (including waterways development) in a conundrum, doesn’t it?

Now we see waterways opponents taking advantage of the assumptions of this new paradigm, too. Just last week, the state of South Dakota sued the Army Corps of Engineers to reduce the flows from one of the Missouri River dams, ostensibly to protect the smelt, an invasive species that is now a food for the river’s walleye population. [A federal appeals court later suspended the ruling, paving the way for the Corps to get the water it wanted.] Of course, if you are keeping score, this is the same state government that two months ago was calling for increased springtime releases to save the pallid sturgeon from extinction. Just where did they think those spring rises were going to come from? Clearly they are counting on uncritical public support for anything couched in environmental terms; they are certainly not relying on consistency in their positions!

Those who advocate the removal of dams and levees to return rivers to their “natural” hydrology 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.

This is not the case, as you know, but if the beneficiaries of navigation and other water resources programs do not speak out and tell their success stories to lawmakers and opinion-leaders, who will know the truth? The truth is, water transportation is environmentally friendly. The impact on fish and wildlife, birds and vegetation is certainly far less than that resulting from overland freight modes. Barges glide through waters near where whooping cranes, bald eagles and other precious wildlife make their homes.

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. Smart growth advocates should be pleased! Ports and inland waterways are basically in place and need only proper maintenance and some upgrading - relatively frugal investments for this period of fiscal restraint.

Water transportation uses less fuel, produces less pollution, creates less noise and vibration, and requires less interruption of our daily lives. 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.

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, as has the Arkansas-Oklahoma Port Operators Association, Arkansas Basin Development Association, Arkansas Waterways Association and many others. It is an initiative which demands our continuous, day-in, day-out attention.

Our challenges may change, but getting the message out-in a way that is appropriate to today’s climate-is our most pressing and our most important obligation.

We must frame our message in a positive way, changing the debate from a gloating “You lose, we win” refrain to a triumphant “You win, we win” outcome. For all waterway proponents, this could be our most significant and far-reaching transition.

National Waterways Conference, Inc.
1130 17th Street, Northwest
Washington, DC 20036-4676