WCI Reacts To President’s Fy ’16 Budget Request
Waterways Council, Inc
3 February 2015
Washington, DC – Waterways Council, Inc. (WCI) reacted to the FY
2016 budget request made by President Obama yesterday, as detailed
below.
The budget
- proposes $4.732 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers’ Civil Works program, a 13.25% cut from the $5.454
billion FY’15 appropriation for the program;
- proposes a 28.5% reduction to the Construction
account, from FY15’s $1.639 billion to a proposed $1.172
billion;
- proposes $2.710 billion for the Operations and
Maintenance (O&M) account, $110 million more than the
Administration requested last year for the account, but a
$198.5 million cut (6.8%) from what Congress appropriated for
the current fiscal year;
- requests $97 million for General Investigations, but
provides no funds for Preliminary Engineering and Design
(PED) for the Navigation Ecosystem Sustainability Program
(NESP), authorized in WRDA 2007;
- proposes funding as recommended by the Inland Waterways
Users Board at $180 million for the Olmsted Lock and Dam
Project and $52 million for the Lower Mon 2, 3, 4 Project --
both to be cost-shared from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund
(IWTF). Of note is that the Administration request for
IWTF projects is more than $100 million below what could be
supported by revenues going into the Trust Fund;
- once again, suggests a $1 billion inland waterways user
fee that has been proposed in past budgets and rejected by
Congress;
- provides no funding for Kentucky Lock or Chickamauga
Lock, leaving that $100 million in supportable investment from
the Trust Fund to languish;
- requests only $915 million be appropriated from the
Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF), which is well below
expected revenues into the Trust Fund for FY 2016, and is
significantly less than WRRDA’s target level for FY16, and
which would leave a balance of just under $10 billion in the
HMTF on September 30, 2016.
The Corps’ Civil Works Work Plan Fiscal Year 2015 (how the Corps
will spend the money it received) is online at
http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Budget.aspx
The work plan allocates funding for FY ‘15 as follows:
Olmsted Lock and Dam Project will receive $205 million (a $45
million increase); Lower Mon 2, 3, 4 will get $58 million (a $49
million increase); and Kentucky Lock will receive $12 million (all
$12 million is from additional funds provided by Congress). Only
$106 million of the Congressionally-mandated $112 million increase
for IWTF-funded projects is being allocated in the workplan,
leaving $6 million unallocated.
In a press release issued today, Michael J. Toohey, WCI
President/CEO, said, “Given recent austere budget proposals for
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it is not surprising that the
Administration has slashed FY ’16 transportation infrastructure
funding, but it is nonetheless disappointing to see so little
appropriations funding requested for lock and dam modernization in
a Presidential budget portrayed as focused on infrastructure
investment. In fact, a new National Waterways Foundation
study indicates that if 21 priority navigation projects on our
inland waterways could be completed at an estimated total cost of
just $5.8 billion, the 20-year sum of related economic output
activity would exceed $82 billion that would benefit our nation’s
overall economy.”