WRRDA: Water infrastructure bill finally headed to Obamas desk Annie Snider, E&E reporter Published: Thursday, May 22, 2014 With a decisive vote of 91-7 by the Senate this afternoon, Congress is sending President Obama the first water resources bill to authorize new port, levee and ecosystem restoration projects without earmarks. The conference report to the Water Resources Reform and Development Act would give the go-ahead to 34 new projects at an estimated cost of $12.3 billion over the next decade. Thats just under half the cost of the last WRDA bill, passed in 2007 over a veto from President George W. Bush, which rang in at more than $23 billion. In the current era of fiscal constraint, lawmakers have touted the business communitys support for the measure. Many of the countrys most powerful business groups, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the American Farm Bureau Federation, have stressed the importance of water infrastructure for getting goods to market. A handful of fiscal conservative groups still opposed the measure, though, saying it didnt go far enough in making difficult choices at an agency facing a roughly $60 billion backlog of authorized projects and receiving only about $2 billion a year in construction funds. And Heritage Action issued a key vote alert against the bill, arguing that lawmakers had simply contrived a way around the earmark ban. But congressional Republicans voted for the bill anyway, with the conference report approved by the lower chamber Tuesday, 412-4. The seven no votes in the Senate today came from some of the chambers most conservative Republicans: Richard Burr (N.C.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Mike Lee (Utah), John McCain (Ariz.) and Pat Roberts (Kan.). I am so proud of the overwhelming bipartisan vote in both the Senate and the House to pass this strong water infrastructure bill today, Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said in a statement following passage. Our bill invests in vital water infrastructure that protects communities from flooding, maintains navigation routes for commerce and the movement of goods, restores vital ecosystems and provides a boost to our economy by creating jobs. In addition to authorizing new projects, the measure includes provisions aimed at moving project proposals through the corps study process more quickly. Environmental groups objected to provisions that change the review process under the National Environmental Policy Act, although greens ultimately saw the provisions in the conferenced bill as the best they could get under the circumstances.
Posted on: Fri, 23 May 2014 13:43:15 +0000
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