CORPS OF ENGINEERS—CIVIL WORKS

Army Corps of Engineers—Civil Works John Paul Woodley, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Army www.hq.usace.army.mil/cepa/cepa.htm     703–697–8986 Number of Employees: 24,800 2005 Discretionary Budget Authority: $4.0 billion Major Assets: The Corps builds, maintains, and/or operates 8,000 water projects across the Nation. Each year, it dredges 900 harbors, operates 275 locks and dams and 78 hydropower facilities, and manages 4,300 recreation areas.

Assistant Secretary of the Army Woodley (second from right) breaking ground at a priority project in the Florida Everglades.

OVERVIEW

    The civil works program of the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) carries out three main missions: 1) reducing the damage caused by floods and storms; 2) facilitating commercial navigation; and 3) restoring aquatic ecosystems. In addition, Corps dams generate electric power and create lakes that provide recreation throughout the country. The Corps also regulates the development of roads, shopping centers and other construction affecting wetlands. The Corps carries out this work in partnership with State and local governments and other non-Federal entities, including port authorities and private contractors.

    The civil works responsibilities of the Corps date back to the 18^th Century when the Nation had no other cadre of engineers to survey and build the dirt roads, and later the canals, needed to reach the Alleghenies and the lands beyond. Since then, the Corps has become the largest of the Federal water resources agencies. Most recently, the expertise developed through the civil works program has been called upon by the Nation to support reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Balancing the “Scales”: Fish Recovery and Hydropower in the Pacific Northwest

The Budget funds projects with the highest economic and/or environmental benefits. For example, the President is committed to supporting salmon recovery efforts in the Pacific Northwest, while ensuring the availability of affordable hydroelectric power in the region.

Over the last three years, the Administration has provided $258 million for Columbia River Fish Recovery (WA, OR, ID), one of eight high-priority projects. The President’s Budget provides $107 million for this Corps construction project, which, together with other Administration-supported salmon recovery efforts, have yielded the following results:

• Since 2000, salmon returns in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho have improved dramatically. On the Columbia/Snake River salmon run, seven of its eight endangered salmon runs have shown marked improvement.
• During 2002, modifications at the 10 major Columbia/Snake River dams have improved fish passage and survival, 700 miles of streams are now accessible to salmon, and 19,000 acres of streamside buffers have been protected in the Columbia Basin.

    In the 20^th Century, intensive water resources development—by the Corps and several other Federal water resources agencies—transformed the American landscape. By providing an easier way to transport goods to distant markets, building dams that generate inexpensive power, and facilitating the development of flood plains, Corps water projects affected where and how people live and influenced how our country developed. While these accomplishments greatly benefited the country, the projects often resulted in a significant loss of natural habitat.

    The country today seeks economic development as well as the protection of environmental values. The Corps is now demonstrating that it is possible to have both if we proceed responsibly. This has required the Corps to improve the quality of its project planning and priority setting. This Administration has emphasized the need to allocate limited Federal funds to projects with a high environmental or economic return and the importance of completing the most deserving projects more quickly to realize these benefits. In the 2004 Budget, the President presented a strategy for achieving his objectives. The 2005 Budget keeps the focus on maximizing the benefits of Corps investments. Funding is targeted to completing the best existing projects, and to a limited number of new projects whose benefits to the Nation greatly exceed their costs, such as an important series of pilot projects in the Everglades.

    A concerted effort by this Administration and the Congress is needed to ensure that the ongoing and future efforts of the Corps are environmentally sustainable, economically responsible, and fiscally sound. Achieving this goal will require a transformation in cultural attitudes. That needed change has begun both in how the Corps approaches its work, and in the way that the Congress authorizes and funds the projects of the civil works program. This Budget further advances these reforms.

IMPROVING PROGRAM PERFORMANCE

    The 2005 Budget focuses resources on two priorities. First, it focuses on completing the work we have already started and, in particular, it accelerates the construction of eight ongoing projects that, once completed, will provide an extremely high net environmental or economic return to the Nation. The second priority is to investigate and start a few new projects with potentially large net benefits compared to their costs.

    Reducing the Backlog. The Corps’ enormous backlog of ongoing civil works construction represents a significant source of unrealized economic and environmental benefits. The size of the backlog and the amount of funding necessary to complete it have grown in recent years, largely because of the continued addition of new projects to the Corps workload each year. Unfortunately, many of these new projects have benefits that only marginally exceed their costs.

    This growth trend in the construction backlog unfairly penalizes both taxpayers and project sponsors. The addition of new construction projects diverts resources from completing ongoing construction work, so that the benefits that the public reasonably expects to receive from Corps projects are often deferred many years. In order to restore the long-term viability of the Corps construction program, the Budget proposes to direct most of the available funds toward those ongoing projects that are either nearing completion or offer the highest returns (environmental or economic) to the Nation. Toward that end, the funds provided for construction work in 2005 will result in the completion of 11 projects and enable significant progress on eight high-priority, high-return projects. Once completed, these projects will significantly reduce flood and storm damage, augment the capability of major commercial harbors and waterways, restore the aquatic environment, and reduce the impacts of major water projects on endangered species.

    Supporting New Starts. In addition to placing a priority on finishing backlogged projects, this Budget proposes funding for a limited number of new starts. This approach reflects the Corps commitment to a construction program that is guided by the Principles for Improving Program Performance, which were announced in the 2004 Budget. These principles stress the importance of using objective criteria, such as benefit-cost analyses, to compare and rank projects across the Nation. Using these data, the Budget directs funding to projects that will provide the highest net environmental and economic return to the Nation.

    The 2005 Budget includes construction funding to start two new flood damage reduction projects and one new aquatic ecosystem restoration program. The two flood control projects are expected to return to the Nation three dollars in net benefits for every dollar spent. The Budget also proposes several new high-priority reconnaissance-level studies. The Corps’ new performance-based budgeting process, discussed in the next section, is instrumental in identifying such “high return” projects.

    Mitigating Project Impacts. The Corps is committed to limiting the adverse environmental impacts of its projects. Its concurrent and post-construction mitigation activities permit the Corps to offset damage to natural habitat, while minimizing the impact on commercial navigation, flood damage reduction and other water uses. For example, the Budget includes $28 million for the Upper Mississippi River System Environmental Management Program to revitalize the side channels of the upper Mississippi, where habitat has been damaged by the construction and operation of a navigation channel.

    Responding to Change. The Corps is adapting its missions and processes to reflect advances in science, engineering and economics, changing public values and priorities, and new laws. This process has accelerated in recent years in response to a greater focus on efficiency and environmental challenges and opportunities. For example, the Corps has established five national centers of planning expertise and has begun using interagency groups to guide complex studies.

A Fiscally Responsible, Performance-Based Approach

    In developing its budget proposal for 2005, the Corps assessed the relative merits of each potential investment in each of its program areas. This approach represents an important step towards the President’s goal of making fiscally responsible funding decisions based more on results and less on factors such as “what did they get last year.” This is the essence of the Corps’ performance-based budget. The Administration funds activities that will yield the greatest net benefit to society per dollar invested, and evaluates them relative to the Corps’ three main mission areas:

A top bottom. The Budget provides $103 million to dredge and improve the Port of New York and New Jersey. This is one of eight top priority projects identified in the Budget. The estimated net benefits of the construction under way are two times greater than the costs.

    Commercial Navigation. The Corps ranked its potential operation and maintenance and construction priorities based on existing performance measures. The 2005 Budget provides $1.1 billion to operate and maintain ports and inland waterways, and $528 million for construction at these sites. This includes $103 million to deepen the New York/New Jersey Harbor and $75 million for Olmsted Locks and Dam in Illinois and Kentucky. Both of these projects have been high priorities of the Administration, and since 2001, the Administration has proposed more than $421 million and $259 million in funding, respectively, to complete construction of these projects.

    Flood/Storm Damage Reduction. The Budget provides $450 million to continue progress on flood damage reduction projects, including projects in Sims Bayou, Texas, and West Bank, Louisiana. In addition, the Budget proposes two new flood damage reduction construction starts in Rio Guanajibo, Puerto Rico, and in Washington, D.C., whose estimated net benefits are 2.5 and 3.6 times greater, respectively, than their costs. As with the budget for commercial navigation, existing performance measures informed the Administration’s funding decisions in this program area. The 2005 Budget continues progress on the construction of beach nourishment projects that will reduce storm damages. The Budget funds the initial construction phase of these projects, while shifting to non-Federal sponsors the responsibility for financing follow-up re-nourishment work.

    Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration. The 2005 Budget provides $408 million for restoration work, including significant funding for the two projects discussed below.

More like it used to be. The President’s Budget accelerates portions of the Everglades restoration project.