WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The President's Budget
for fiscal year 2009 (FY09) transmitted to Congress today includes $4.741
billion in new federal funding for the annual Civil Works program of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and an additional $5.761 billion in an
emergency request for a total request of $10.502 billion.
Mr. John Paul Woodley, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil
Works, said, "This year's civil works budget provides critical funding for
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue to contribute to the nation's
economic and environmental well being.
"The budget funds the planning, design and construction of projects for
the three main water resources mission areas of the Corps, which are
commercial navigation, flood and coastal storm damage reduction, and
aquatic ecosystem restoration, and gives priority to those projects that
will provide the highest returns on the nation's investment," Woodley
continued.
The Army Civil Works program additionally contributes to the protection
of the nation's waters and wetlands; the restoration of sites contaminated
as a result of the nation's early atomic weapons development program; and
emergency preparedness for natural disasters.
The new federal funding in the Civil Works budget consists of $3.844
billion from the general fund, $729 million from the Harbor Maintenance
Trust Fund, $167 million from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, and $1
million from Disposal Facilities User Fees.
The new federal funding will be distributed as follows among the
appropriation accounts:
-- $2.475 billion for Operation and Maintenance
-- $1.402 billion for Construction
-- $240 million for Flood Control, Mississippi River and Tributaries
-- $180 million for the Regulatory Program
-- $177 million for Expenses
-- $130 million for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program
-- $91 million for Investigations
-- $40 million for Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies
-- $6 million for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army,
Civil Works
Other sources of funding are estimated at $501 million, which includes
federal funding of $84 million from the Coastal Wetlands Restoration Trust
Fund and $17 million in Permanent Appropriations. It also includes $400
million paid by non-federal interests as Rivers and Harbors Contributed
Funds.
The Budget also provides $5.761 billion in an FY09 emergency request
for the additional federal funds needed to reduce the risk to the greater
New Orleans, Louisiana, area from storm surges that have a 1 percent annual
chance of occurring and to improve internal drainage; to restore and
complete construction of hurricane and storm damage reduction features in
surrounding areas to previously authorized levels of protection; and to
incorporate certain non-federal levees into the federal system. The Budget
proposes to authorize the works in greater New Orleans (including certain
internal drainage) as a single project, to be constructed with the state as
cost-sharing partner, and subsequently maintained and operated by the
state. Pre-Katrina, storm damage reduction was provided through separately
authorized projects, which were designed to different standards, subject to
different requirements for non-federal cost sharing, and managed by
different local entities.
The total FY09 Operation and Maintenance (O&M) program is funded at
$2.638 billion, including $163 million in the Mississippi River and
Tributaries (MR&T) account. The Budget emphasizes performance of existing
projects by focusing on the maintenance of key commercial navigation, flood
and storm damage reduction, and other facilities.
The FY09 Budget is the first to present information for Operation and
Maintenance activities by 54 areas based on USGS sub-watersheds.
Among existing navigation projects, the FY09 Budget gives priority to
the operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation of harbors and waterway
segments that support high volumes of commercial traffic, including three
of the nation's most heavily-used inland waterways - the Ohio River, the
Mississippi River, and the Illinois Waterway. The Budget also funds harbors
that support significant commercial fishing, subsistence, or public
transportation benefits.
The FY09 Budget funds several activities in the O&M account that have
been funded in the past in the construction account. Transferring these
activities to and funding them in the O&M program, as the Administration
proposed in the FY07 and FY08 Budgets, will improve investment decisions on
project operation and maintenance, and better provide accountability and
oversight for those decisions. The activities are:
-- Compliance with the Endangered Species Act at operating projects.
-- Rehabilitation of components of existing projects.
-- Replacement of sand lost due to the operation and maintenance of
federal navigation projects.
-- Construction of dredged material placement facilities, projects or
features (including islands and wetlands) to use materials dredged during
federal navigation operation and maintenance activities.
The FY09 O&M account also includes $10 million for the National Levee
Inventory Program.
The total FY09 Construction program is $1.478 billion, including $76
million in the MR&T account. The Construction program uses six objective,
performance-based guidelines to guide the allocation of funding towards the
highest performing construction projects. One key performance measure
includes project rankings. Flood and storm damage reduction, navigation and
hydropower projects are ranked by their Benefit-to-Cost Ratio (BCR).
Aquatic ecosystem restoration projects are ranked by the extent that they
are cost-effective in helping to restore a regionally or nationally
significant ecosystem that has become degraded as a result of a Civil Works
project or to a restoration effort that requires the Corps' unique
expertise in modifying an aquatic regime. Two other key performance
guidelines give priority to projects that address a significant risk to
human safety, and projects that are funded in the construction program to
provide dam safety assurance, seepage control, or static instability
correction.
In recent years, many more construction projects have been authorized,
initiated and continued than can be constructed efficiently. The funding of
projects with low economic and environmental returns and of projects that
are not within the main mission areas of the Corps has postponed benefits
from the most worthy projects and significantly reduced overall program
performance. To remedy this and achieve greater value from the Civil Works
construction program, the Budget funds 79 construction projects, consisting
of 11 dam safety assurance, seepage control, and static instability
correction projects; 16 projects that address a significant risk to human
safety, including the St. Louis Flood Protection, MO, and Wood River Levee,
IL, deficiency corrections; and 52 other continuing projects.
By Corps business line, the 79 funded construction projects comprise 50
Flood and Coastal Storm Damage Reduction projects (five budgeted for
completion), 19 Navigation projects (seven budgeted for completion), five
Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration projects, and five Hydropower replacement
projects.
Among the construction projects funded in the FY09 Budget are the New
York and New Jersey Harbor deepening project ($90 million); Olmsted Locks
and Dam, IL & KY ($114 million); the South Florida/Everglades ecosystem
restoration program ($185 million); Wolf Creek Dam, Lake Cumberland, KY,
seepage control ($57 million); and Columbia River channel improvements ($36
million).
The FY09 Regulatory Program is budgeted at $180 million, which matches
the program's FY08 enacted appropriation. With these funds, the Corps will
continue to protect and preserve the nation's water-related resources,
improve compliance and enforcement of wetlands regulations, and improve the
permitting process.
Emergency Management is provided $40 million in the Flood Control and
Coastal Emergencies account to prepare for flood and coastal emergencies,
and other natural disasters. The Emergency Management program also includes
$6 million for the National Emergency Preparedness Program and $12 million
for facility protection and security, both funded in the Operation and
Maintenance account.
Recreation activities are provided a total of $270 million in FY09 from
the O&M and MR&T accounts. The Budget re-proposes a recreation facility
modernization initiative through which the Corps would fund a portion of
the cost to maintain and upgrade recreation facilities through the
collection of additional user fees and partnerships with non-federal
interests.
For FY09, the Administration proposes to collect lockage-based user
fees for commercial barges on the inland waterways to address the declining
balance in the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, and to phase out the existing
diesel fuel tax for these waterways. Enacting the legislation will provide
the revenue needed to avoid depleting the trust fund by the end of calendar
year 2008, and support ongoing and future inland waterways projects. The
proposal would ensure that the commercial users of the Corps locks continue
to cover their share of project costs, which is financed from the Inland
Waterways Trust Fund. The amount of the user fee would be tied to the level
of spending for inland waterways construction, replacement, expansion and
rehabilitation work.
The mission of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the world's
preeminent public engineering agency, is to provide quality, responsive
engineering services to the Nation and its armed forces. The Corps plans,
designs, builds and operates water resources projects; designs and manages
military facilities construction for the Army and Air Force at home and
abroad; provides design and construction management support for other
Defense and federal agencies; cleans hazardous areas across the nation
through the Formerly Used Defense Sites program and the Formerly Utilized
Sites Remedial Action Program; and conducts state of the art engineering
research and design at its Engineer Research and Development Center.
The FY09 Army Civil Works budget information, including a
state-by-state breakdown, is available at
http://www.usace.army.mil/cw/cecwb/budget/budget.pdf.
SOURCE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
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Related links:
http://www.usace.army.mil/
CONTACT:
Gene Pawlik, +1-202-761-7690,
Eugene.A.Pawlik@usace.army.mil, or Doug Garman, +1-202-761-1807,
Doug.M.Garman@usace.army.mil, both of U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers
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