At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) spoke about the proposed budget for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.
00:00Put Senator Murray down as doubtful, gentlemen, about your budget.
00:12I look at your budget.
00:18A decrease of 23%, that's $2 billion, from fiscal year 25 enacted.
00:30A reduction in funding for the Mississippi River and tributaries account of 29%.
00:40That's $106 million.
00:43A reduction in funding for the operation and maintenance account of 28%, $1.6 billion.
00:55The budget doesn't propose any use.
00:58None of the Inland Waterways Trust Fund receipts and proposes to use only $1.7 billion from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.
01:14That's about $1.7 billion less than the congressional target.
01:22I was reading the other night, I don't remember the exact figures, but scientists estimate that there are 2 to 3 trillion galaxies in the universe.
01:41And in not a single one of those galaxies, is this Congress or any Congress likely to approve this budget?
01:56I mean, that's just a fact.
01:57Now, I understand the way it works, that you gentlemen didn't write this budget.
02:08Hopefully you had input, but you didn't write it.
02:11It came from OMB.
02:12And I also understand that Congress has never accepted a president's budget, any president's budget, and just enacted it without changes.
02:30That's never happened in the history of ever.
02:32So, I get all that.
02:39But having said that, this is obviously not acceptable, and I hope we can talk about that frankly today.
02:51I don't know what's going to happen this year in terms of a budget.
02:55I'm an optimist, but I am a paranoid optimist.
02:58Last year, I watched Senator Murray and Senator Collins work really, really hard to put together 12 bills.
03:11I watched the entire Appropriations Committee work very, very hard to approve those bills.
03:17And a lot of us had to, on both sides of the aisle, had to swallow things that we almost choked on, but we wanted to put together a budget because that's our first job.
03:33I know you hear a lot about the Senate being in the personnel business, and we are, but really our job is to put together a budget.
03:39And we did, and my friend Senator Schumer refused to bring any of those bills to the floor, not one, none, zero.
03:52My goal was to see the bills come to the floor, and then have an open amendment process where colleagues of mine, both on and off the Appropriations Committee, could weigh in.
04:08But Senator Schumer chose not to.
04:12That's just, I don't, I mean, that's just a fact.
04:15I don't know what's going to happen this year.
04:19Under President Biden, I want to try to be as impartial as I can be in making this statement, but I think it's accurate.
04:27Under President Biden, and the President set the tone in Washington.
04:32Under President Biden, the general discussion was, who needs to pay more in taxes?
04:40Under President Trump, it's clear to me, at this juncture, that the discussion has changed.
04:50The discussion is now, what the hell happened to the money?
04:55And that's a healthy discussion to have.
04:59But when it comes to the Corps of Engineers, and before I get there, and that leads me to believe that we may not have a budget this year.
05:14I just don't know if we can come together on it.
05:18It's always a challenge, but it's clear to me that, at least on my side of the aisle, we are expecting to reduce the amount of spending, strategically, but reduce it.
05:32And I know some of my friends in the Senate are going to have a problem with that, but that's the reality.
05:38Now, when it comes to the Corps of Engineers, that is slightly different, because there is bipartisan support for the important work that you do.
05:50It doesn't mean that we can't find savings, and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't make changes, and we're going to talk about that today.
06:00But a 23% decrease, I think Senator Murray, by her calculations, it might be a 30%.
06:11That's just not acceptable.
06:14So help us work through this and come up with a plan that looks like somebody designed it on purpose, which is not this one.
06:25Let me make one other comment, and then I want to hear from you gentlemen.
06:30Look, I know you have a tough job.
06:34I get that.
06:35Every senator, every congressperson wants their projects, and they want them first, and they want them yesterday.
06:45I get that.
06:47And you have finite resources.
06:49We all do.
06:50And you have a lot of smart people working at your agency, but you could use more.
07:02I get all of that.
07:04So I don't want to, I'm spending a few minutes on this, because I appreciate the job that you do.
07:09I do.
07:10But we've got to do better.
07:15Our estimates on the cost of projects are just too wide of a mark.
07:20I mean, I could give you, I'm not going to do it, but I could give you example after example after example.
07:27And we're not talking 10% off or 20% off or 30% off.
07:33We're talking squillions of dollars off.
07:37I understand inflation, but it doesn't account for this.
07:40We also have to figure out a way, you do, frankly, to bring these projects in on time, or at least closer to the estimated time.
07:56If you did in the private sector in terms of your delays, I'll say our cost overruns, if you did that in the private sector, you would be out of business.
08:09Nobody would hire you.
08:12And the penalties from not completing the project on time would put you out of business.
08:18We've just got to do better.
08:20It's just that simple.
08:21And I hope today you'll talk about how you're planning on doing that.
08:30Let's start with us today.
08:33I guess I should introduce our colleagues who are here today.
08:37Acting Secretary D. Lee Forgeman.
08:41He was appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Civil Works on March 31st.
08:50Welcome.
08:50Lieutenant General Williams H. Butch Graham, Jr.
08:59You're the 56th Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
09:07You assumed your duties on September 13th of 2024.
09:12Welcome.
09:13Acting Assistant Secretary for Water and Science.
09:16Scott Cameron.
09:20Secretary Cameron has been in this role since January 21st.
