House T&I advances water bill

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has advanced the Water Resources Development Act of 2024, a biennial bipartisan bill that would fund the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, invest in ports, harbors and inland waterways, and advance some of President Biden’s key environmental and resiliency goals.

“As the Committee advances the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2024, Congress is one step closer to setting the policies and creating the programs that provide our nation with flood control, environmental improvements, and maritime transportation,” Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., said in a statement. “I am particularly pleased that WRDA 2024 will make water supply a primary mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in order to use existing and new Corps resources more effectively to provide water to local communities. I am grateful to have the past 10 years working with leaders such as Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Larsen, and Chairman Rouzer to draft bipartisan WRDA legislation and I urge my House colleagues to pass the bill without delay.”

A similar bill was advanced in the Senate last month, which would for the first time establish a pilot public-private partnership program that was first proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers ten years ago, but was never funded.

This House version does not include nearly the amount of detail on public-private-partnerships than its Senate counterpart but still includes many provisions that would promote certain “non-Federal” interests.

For example, the bill would within a year establish a community project advisor, to assist “non-Federal interests in accessing Federal resources related to water resources development projects,” the bill said. The position would also “identify programs, services, and other assistance made available by other Federal and State agencies relating to water resources development projects for purposes of advising potential non-Federal interests on the best available applicable assistance.”

The bill would also authorize 12 new projects for construction that were studied and approved since the enactment of WRDA 2022, authorizes 124 new feasibility studies, provides $50 million for community revitalization projects as well as $28 million for the Tribal Partnership Program.

The bill would also update the 3x3x3 rule, which directs feasibility studies to take no more than three years, cost under $3 million and pass through three levels of review, to allow for studies to cost up to $5 million. It would also provide 100% federal investment in the restoration of the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, a major civil rights landmark.

“Today the T&I Committee advanced its sixth consecutive bipartisan Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) to invest in ports, harbors, and inland waterways across the country, creating jobs, strengthening supply chains and boosting the U.S. economy,” ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said in a statement. “It will build on a decade of work to strengthen flood control, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure, keeping people healthy and communities protected. Critically, WRDA 2024 will help communities increase resiliency in the face of climate change.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its 2024-2027 Climate Adaptation Plan last week, part of which was dedicated to “broadening the mission focus to describe mainstreaming adaptation into agency policies, programs, planning, budget formulation and external funding,” USACE said.

But that may have a bumpy road ahead, as just this week House Republicans proposed extensive cuts to the 2025 Transportation-HUD spending bill, targeting funding for grant programs and would block funding for the Biden Administration’s climate change initiatives, knocking its working budget down $7.1 billion from fiscal 2024 enacted levels, according to Republican summaries. 

The draft would provide $64.8 billion to HUD, $25.1 billion to the transportation department, which includes $378 million in defense spending for maritime programs. It would also cut $3 billion across 14 state DoT’s and HUD grant programs. After accounting for housing revenues, a total of $99 billion would be provided for federal transportation and housing programs, or a cut of $4.4 billion, House Democrats said. That bill was being marked up Thursday.

“While this bill would advance the safety of our airports and skies, expand community development in Tribal communities, and support community-led project funding for both sides of the aisle, it would also undercut necessary investments for Amtrak and transit projects with shovels already in the ground, push tens of thousands of low-income families out of stable housing, slow new housing construction and ignore the impacts of climate change,” said Rep. Mike Quigley , D-Ill. in a statement.