A Senate committee will be holding its second hearing on a key water resources bill on May 17th. Assistant Secretary of the Army, R.D. James will be providing the Administration’s views about the bill. You can watch the hearing here. My colleague Dan Ginolfi has prepared this analysis of some of the bill’s key provisions.…
The House Energy & Water Appropriations Committee meets at 5:30 pm ET today to act on its version of the Corps’ funding bill for FY19. You can find the text of the draft bill and watch the “markup” meeting here. Note: I taught government at the high school and undergrad college levels before I came…
Lots of May water resources activity in Congress! The Water Resources Development Act of 2018 is about to get legislative legs. This is the legislation that authorizes (but doesn’t provide funding for) new Corps projects and studies and also will likely contain new policy initiatives. Senate WRDA: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has…
While we (patiently?) wait for the Corps to release its FY18 Work Plan, a House Appropriations subcommittee has announced that it will vote on a Corps budget for FY19 on May 7th 4. You can get more information, including a link to watch the “markup” or business meeting here: https://appropriations.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=395272 Our sources tell us the…
One Federal Decision: The White House has announced that it has come up with a way to shorten the time it takes for environmental permit reviews. Saying “No longer will we allow the infrastructure of our magnificent country to crumble and decay,” the President is quoted as declaring, “While protecting the environment, we will build…
A month ago, I bemoaned March as the month of now Federal holidays. But at its very end, it gave us Passover and the start of the baseball season. Then came Easter as we embarked on April and out came some flowers, still not any more sure than humans whether Spring had arrived here in…
The Northeast has been hit by the third major Nor’easter storm this winter as March does its best to remind the East Coast that winter isn’t finished with us. Meteorologists are calling DC a “weather hole.” We’ve been called worse, but this honor is being bestowed because it has snowed to the south and north…
Welcome to March, the month without a Federal holiday, but the month that baseball gets started with Spring Training!! Hold onto your seats, and not just if your along those parts of the East Coast being battered by strong winds and precipitation caused by a nor’easter. We’ve got a lot to cover today. Infrastructure: …
Corps FY19 Budget: In this update, here’s the link to the President’s Corps earmarks for FY19. As you probably know, each Corps study, project and (most) programs are funded by earmarks. The President can make his; Congress cannot make any of their own. Here’s the link to the document that provides all the information about…
Another bad year for coastal storm risk management (aka shore protection) as far as President’s budgets go. The chart below is my listing of everything I could fine in the budget for FY19 released by President Trump moments ago. There are $0 entries wherever I assumed that a study funded by the President last year…