U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

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April 28

Today’s post features a collaboration between guest author Julie Minerva and Scott and Andrea.

After a grueling six-week legislative stretch, Members of Congress have returned home for a two-week district work period (weeks of April 10 and April 17).  Senators are scheduled to return to the Capitol on Monday, April 24th, while the House of Representatives will follow one day behind with a series of evening votes on Tuesday, April 25th.  This schedule gives the House just three full legislative days before the current continuing resolution (CR) expires at midnight on Friday, April 28th.  In preparation for this looming deadline Congress essentially has five options:

Skinny Budget

Today’s post features a collaboration between guest author Julie Minerva and Scott and Andrea.

This morning the Trump Administration released its America First Budget (aka the Skinny Budget) for FY18. The text of the document contains much of the same rhetoric you heard in the President’s inaugural address as the budget proposes to focus on advancing the safety and security of the American people. Overall the budget proposes to increase spending for the Department of the Defense by $54B and it does this by eliminating or reducing most domestic discretionary budget items by an equivalent amount. For some agencies the America First Budget cuts straight into the bone. For the potential impact to flood protection programs, read on!

Washtington DCToday’s post features guest author Julie Minerva, a Civil Works Review Board veteran who has been engaging with the US Army Corps of Engineers at the federal level for the better part of 15 years.

As part of the Corps SMART Planning Process, all feasibility studies must complete a formal…

A little more than a year after the passage of the Water Resources Reform and Develop Act (WRRDA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has issued the draft guidance required by section 1018. And, from a local perspective, the draft guidance is quite good and appears to reflect a softening on some crediting issues that have plagued locally constructed projects for nearly five years.

Background

If we climbed into the “wayback” machine we would find that over the past decades Congress has passed a number of provisions that allowed non-Federal sponsors to do work in advance of Federal planning or construction and then treat those costs as a credit toward the non-Federal sponsor’s cost share on the related Federal project. One of the most popular provisions for this was Section 104 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1986. Section 104 was highly liberal in its ability to lock in potential credit, with very few limitations. Unfortunately for aggressive non-Federal sponsors, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (ASA) became concerned that as non-Federal sponsors were able to “lock in credit” for planning or construction activities, each of those investments made it harder and harder for USACE to ultimately recommend a project which didn’t align perfectly with the already-constructed and locally-performed work. In other words, USACE awarding credit was actually driving USACE decisions to be made later. As a result, the ASA decided that credit could no longer be issued under Section 104, and instead should be evaluated under Section 221 of the Flood Control Act of 1970 (as that section was amended by section 2003 of WRDA 2007).

When it comes to federal legislative actions that impact flood control, the passage of water infrastructure legislation was undoubtedly the most significant action in 2014. After months of difficult negotiations in Congress, the House and Senate passed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) and the President signed the bill into law in late spring of 2014. The legislation streamlines environmental review, increases flexibility for non-Federal sponsors, and authorizes key projects, most notably flood risk management projects.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) issued what can only be described as the mother of all Requests for Proposal (RFP). Under section 7001 of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 the USACE is to seek proposals for feasibility studies for, or modifications to existing Federal water resources development projects. USACE is to then compile the information into an annual report to be issued in February of each year.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) issued a new engineering circular (EC 1165-2-216) to provide policy and guidance for processing requests to alter USACE civil works projects pursuant to 33 U.S.C. section 408. This new circular collects existing guidance from several informal documents, codifies USACE practice from some USACE Districts that process many 408 requests, and expands the guidance to cover other objectives beyond flood risk reduction, such as water supply, hydroelectric, and ecosystem restoration. Section 408 (33 U.S.C. section) is a decades old provision of Federal law that prohibits a non-Federal interest from altering a Federally authorized water resources development project without advance permission from the Secretary of the Army. That authority has been delegated to the Assistant Secretary of the Army, then to the Chief of Engineers, and then to the Director of Civil Works.  This new Engineering Circular provides the rules associated with that delegation.