Federal Funding
As Congressional Spending Bills Advance, Corps 2024 Numbers Look Strong
Corps Chickamauga Lock project receives $236.8-million allocation in House Appropriations committee’s energy-water bill.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers / Photo by Lee Roberts
At the congressional July 4 break, House and Senate appropriations committees had made some headway on bills that would fund federal agencies through fiscal year 2024 but much work remained.
So far the outlook looks bright for the Army Corps of Engineers' civil works program.
Lawmakers also face a new threat this year—a provision in the Fiscal Responsibility Act that mandates a 1% wide-ranging spending cut if Congress fails to pass all of the appropriations measures by yearend.
The scorecard so far shows that only two of the 12 annual spending bills had cleared committee in both the House and Senate—the military construction-Veterans Affairs measure and the agriculture bill.
The House Appropriations Committee also had approved four other 2024 bills, including the energy and water programs bill, which includes Army Corps civil works.
Military Construction-VA Bill
The Senate committee's milcon-VA bill includes $19.1 billion for military construction, including family housing, an increase of just $70 million from the 2023 enacted level.
For VA’s major construction program, the Senate panel’s bill recommends $881 million, down 30% from the 2023 enacted level of $1.4 billion. Major projects are those whose cost exceeds $20 million.
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On top of the regular VA appropriations, the measure includes an additional $600 million from VA’s "transformational" funds account. The account includes unobligated funds from previous years' expired appropriations and can be used for infrastructure improvements and other uses.
The 2023 VA transformational funding totaled $963 million.
For VA's minor construction projects—those costing $20 million or less—the Senate bill includes $680 million, a 9% increase from 2023.
The House Appropriations Committee's milcon-VA bill would provide $17.7 billion for Dept. of Defense construction and family housing, a cut of $1.3 billion, or about 7%.
Threat of Across-the-Board Cut
Congress has frequently missed the Oct. 1 fiscal year-end deadline in recent years, turning instead to short-term stopgaps or continuing resolutions and then belated omnibus spending packages.
But this year lawmakers have added deadline pressure. The Fiscal Responsibility Act includes a provision stating that if Congress fails to pass spending measures by Dec. 31, a 1% across-the-board spending cut will kick in. The provision will be in effect this year and next year.
Corps Civil Works Fares Well
House Republicans have taken a hard line on nondefense federal spending. But House appropriators’ energy-water bill provides surprisingly strong numbers for the Corps of Engineers civil works program. The House panel's bill recommends $9.6 billion for the civil works program, up about $1.3 billion, or 16%, from 2023 levels.
Within the $9.6-billion total, the civil works construction account would receive $2 billion, up about 11% from 2023.
Waterways Council Inc. welcomed the House committee’s recommended Corps funding level, which also was more than $2.1 billion above the amount President Joe Biden had proposed in his 2024 budget.
In particular, the council points to the House panel's inclusion of $456 million for inland waterways projects, including $159.6 million from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. Biden had proposed no funds from the trust fund.
Inland Waterways Projects
Tracy Zea, the Waterways Council’s president and chief executive officer, said the inland waterways project funding “will continue critical modernization on the nation’s inland waterways, a vital part of our transportation supply chain.”
The trust fund-aided projects' allocations include: $236.8 million for the Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River; $41 million for the lower Monongahela River in Pennsylvania; $103.2 million for the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System Three Rivers project in Arkansas; and $75 million for the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program's navigation portion, in Illinois.
Elsewhere in the energy-water bill, Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger (R-Texas) said that the measure "eliminates funds from climate change initiatives in order to responsibly maintain programs that ensure affordable and reliable energy."
The American Council on Renewable Energy said that the bill "would decimate Dept. of Energy funding for clean energy and grid deployment."
As of the end of June, the Senate Appropriations Committee had yet to act on its version of the energy-water measure.
