Congress and the Corps

• By GERARD SHIELDS
• Advocate Washington bureau
• Published: Nov 9, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faced a backlog of 1,600 undone projects at a cost of $58 billion last year when Congress took up the massive water bill that tells the agency what to build.

When House and Senate members were finished, they had saddled the Corps with 900 new or modified projects for their districts, adding about $21 billion worth of work.

That left the Corps with $79 billion in projects to do. But when it comes to funding, Congress passes an annual bill with only $2 billion or so set aside for new Corps ventures.

“It would take 40 years just to meet the current backlog,” said David Conrad, senior water resource specialist for the National Wildlife Federation. “The Corps is trying to change, but there is so much political baggage that it is extremely hard for the agency to move.”

Citing “pork barrel” projects, President Bush vetoed the water legislation, which included replacing a canal lock in New Orleans and building the Morganza-to-the-Gulf levee system in south Louisiana.

But Congress — which battles fiercely over most legislation — came together to override his veto.

Bush became the latest in a long line of presidents, dating to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who were unable to tame the thirst of members of Congress for water projects in their districts.

“All roads lead to the Corps, and the road to the Corps leads to those who fund them — the president and Congress,” said former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

Blanco dealt extensively with the Corps after levee failures during Hurricane Katrina left most of New Orleans under water in 2005. She says constantly adding new Corps projects hampers its ability to maintain older ones, such as the floodwalls that gave way in Katrina.

“It’s like buying a couch,” she said. “You save up the money to buy a new couch, and your washing machine breaks. You’ve got to put the money into the maintenance of the washing machine, but it’s more fun to buy the couch to show off to your friends.”

Many longtime Corps observers point to problems that undermine its performance: The Corps has limited say on new projects, faces intense lobbying from Congress, has an authorization system that leaves work undone for decades, and suffers high leadership turnover.

No state in the union relies more on the Corps than Louisiana. In the first four years of the Bush administration, before Katrina, the state received over $1.6 billion in Corps funding, far exceeding any other state. In the three years after Katrina, Louisiana has received almost $14 billion, mostly to bolster New Orleans-area levees.

“We live and die by what the Corps of Engineers does or doesn’t do, literally,” said John Breaux, a Democrat who represented Louisiana in the U.S. Senate for 18 years. “The Corps are us.”