Obama overreach targeted in Army Corps budget
By John Siciliano • 2/26/16 12:45 PM
The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee said Friday that he will seek to pare back the Obama administration's overreaching environmental agenda in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' new budget, saying its core economic mission has been usurped.
The Army Corps of Engineers' "projects have crucial economic impact," said Hal Rogers, R-Ky., at a hearing on the Corps' fiscal 2017 budget request. "Unfortunately, in recent years much of the Corps work has been overshadowed."
"First, you allowed an overtly partisan White House and the [Environmental Protection Agency] to dictate to you your regulatory agenda to usurp the authority provided by Congress to the Corps under the Clean Water Act," Rogers scolded. He said the results have been a devastated coal-mining industry, which has left his district in Kentucky in a state of economic depression.
"The effects have been dramatic and devastating," he said. "My district is a disaster zone."
The eastern part of his district used to have 15,000 coal miners, he said. "Now we have around 5,000 jobs."
Most of the resident are "laid off, trying to find a job at McDonald's. Most unsuccessfully."
"Not only do these policies turn coal communities upside down, but they weaken our national economic energy policies by neglecting our most plentiful and reliable natural resource," Rogers said.
He also scolded the Corps' involvement in the EPA's Waters of the United States regulations, which seek to enforce rules on ditches on private lands by designating them waterways. He said the Corps went along with that agenda, despite opposition from Congress and dozens of states and the courts halting the regulations.
"The Corps surrendered to the EPA to expand federal jurisdiction over every so-called waterway that they could get their hands on, and we're feeling the impact of that regulatory overreach in my district and across that country," Rogers said.
Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, responded that the water regulation was jointly developed rule with the EPA and the administration. The Army Corps was not forced into it.
Rogers also said he was afraid the Army Corps "has almost lost sight of its role in economic development and its commitment to it recreation mission."
Recreation and tourism are important to economic development, but the Army Corps has put up roadblocks instead of fast tracking development in struggling economies.
"My hope is that we can set the right priorities in the budget in order to ensure the Corps is enabling the success of these communities and not holding them back," he said.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2584341
