Civil Works Nominee Has Smooth Confirmation Hearing
If confirmed, Woodley would become the main Dept. of Defense overseer for the Corps of Engineers. He would have to defend the Bush administration?s proposed budget cut for the civil works program to congressional appropriators who repeatedly have rejected such spending reductions.
At his hearing, Woodley pledged to follow a new congressional directive that bars DOD from transferring or privatizing any Corps civil works functions without specific approval from Capitol Hill. That mandate is contained in the recently enacted 2003 omnibus appropriations measure.