Dear Chairman Hobson and Representative Visclosky:
Taxpayers for Common Sense Action (TCS Action), a non-partisan, budget watchdog group, urges you not to include funding for wasteful, anti-taxpayer projects and programs in the Energy and Water Development Appropriation bill for FY 2004. Our budget deficit has grown to more than $400 billion, making it more important than ever to exercise fiscal restraint in federal spending.
We are particularly concerned with funding being provided for the following projects / programs:
Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program
Delaware River Main Channel Deepening Project (Construction, General - New Jersey) This $420 million boondoggle would deepen the Delaware River to 45 feet, and was heavily criticized by the General Accounting Office. The Corps reanalysis to justify this project was not credible and should be reinvestigated by the GAO. Due to concerns over the feasibility of the project, the New Jersey and Delaware legislatures have refused to commit funds for the non-federal cost-shares for the project during the past two years. The Bush administration provided $300,000 for construction of this project in its FY04 budget. We urge the subcommittee not to include construction funding for this project.
The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lock (Construction, General - Louisiana) Since Congress authorized construction of this more than $700 million project, several significant controversies have arisen. Project costs have increased more than $100 million from the original $531 million plan presented in the Corps' 1997 Evaluation Report. At the same time, the need for the project has decreased as barge traffic patterns have shifted during the 1990s and traffic levels on the canal have fallen 30 percent. The Bush administration provided $7 million in its FY04 budget for this project. Congress should not include funding for the construction of the canal lock until these issues have been further examined and satisfactorily resolved to ensure that taxpayers are receiving a proper return on their investment.
Removable Spillway Weir at Ice Harbor Dam (Washington) The Corps would like to construct a scientifically and economically unjustified weir at a dam which could very well be obsolete in the next decade. The total cost of the weir would be $45 million but instead of waiting to determine if this technology even works, the Corps wants to begin construction. Tests on the effectiveness of the technology have not been completed, making this request extremely premature. The Bush administration gave $10 million to this project in its FY04 budget. We urge the subcommittee not to include funding for this project until the weir is proven to be a sound and effective use of taxpayer dollars.
Dallas Floodway Extension Project (Construction, General - Texas) There are cheaper and more economically justified alternatives to this $76 million flood control project. The Bush administration gave no funding to this project. We urge the subcommittee not to include funding for this project in the appropriations process.
Grand Prairie Irrigation Project (MR&T account, Arkansas) This more than $300 million irrigation demonstration project would pump billions of gallons of water from the White River every year. Irrigation is not within the mission of the Corps, and such a project is unprecedented for the agency. It has the support of only half of its rice farmer beneficiaries. A much less expensive and collaborative alternative has been proposed by a broad coalition of farmers, sportsmen, local chambers of commerce, and conservationists, but this option has not been evaluated by the Corps. The Bush administration gave no funding to this project in its FY04 budget. We urge this subcommittee not to include funding for this project in the FY04 appropriations process.
Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant Project (MR&T account - Mississippi) The Yazoo Pumps project provides little, if any, flood control benefits. The Corps is proposing to spend $207 million federal tax dollars (100% federal funding with no non-federal cost sharing) to build the world's largest hydraulic pumping plants in the most sparsely populated area in the state of Mississippi. Though billed as a flood control project, the Yazoo Pumps are fundamentally designed to drain more than 200,000 acres of wetlands in order to allow landowners to increase agricultural production on marginal lands that have always flooded. According to an independent analysis commissioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Corps has overestimated the claimed benefits by $144 million. Additionally, the Corps has not identified a single home that would be free from flooding once the project is built. The Bush administration gave no funding to this project in its FY04 budget. We urge you not to include any funding for this project.
Big Sunflower River Dredging Project (MR&T account - Mississippi) The $62.5 million Big Sunflower River Maintenance project is part of the Corps' plan to replumb the Mississippi River Delta through a series of water diversions and channelizations. Very few of the claimed benefits to this project would reduce flood risk to homes or businesses, but instead would primarily protect marginal farmland to allow farming in risky flood prone areas. The Corps contends that the Big Sunflower project is not new construction - only "maintenance" of an existing 14-mile river channel - and is therefore exempt from cost-sharing requirements. This claim is made despite new project specifications that include dredging a river channel nearly seven times longer than the existing project. The Bush administration provides no funding for this project in its FY04 budget. We encourage you to not include funding for the Sunflower River Maintenance project.
Bureau of Reclamation
CALFED Program The FY03 Omnibus Appropriations bill contained a CALFED Program rider that abandoned essential taxpayer protections enumerated in the CALFED Record of Decision (ROD) and jumpstarted several potentially wasteful water projects. CALFED legislation should include the principle of "beneficiary pays" agreed upon by stakeholders, state, federal, and local governments during a seven-year negotiation process. This concept protects federal taxpayers by requiring future CALFED water development to be paid for by project beneficiaries. At a time when the nation is facing its biggest budget deficit in a decade, California cannot continue expecting federal taxpayers to pick up the tab for its expensive water projects. The Bush administration requested $15 million in for this program in its FY04 budget. We urge the subcommittee not to include funding for this program until responsible legislation is passed that reauthorizes federal participation in CALFED.
Bonneville Power Administration
We thank the subcommittee for its request to the General Accounting Office for a financial audit of Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). As the subcommittee is aware, BPA was haphazardly awarded $700 million in borrowing authority in the Omnibus Appropriations bill of FY03 and until BPA proves it is on solid financial ground and can maintain compliance with federal laws and treaties, they should not be awarded additional money. TCS Action strongly believes the financial situation BPA faces is largely of its own making and the agency needs to be held accountable for its actions. Taxpayers across the nation should not have to bail out this agency. We urge the subcommittee to include no additional borrowing authority for FY04 and to call for additional oversight of BPA's fiscal decisions.
Department of Energy
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has expanded its request for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI), which combines particle accelerators, new types of reactors, and a nuclear processing technology known as "pyroprocessing." The technology is a vestige of the nuclear breeder reactor program killed by Congress in 1994, and is too expensive for commercial use. Rather than reducing the amount of nuclear waste requiring repository, this program creates its own waste stream that will require additional storage space at considerable taxpayer expense. This program also counters a long-standing U.S. policy that prohibits reprocessing spent fuel because of nuclear proliferation risks. We urge you to not include any funding for this program.
National Ignition Facility The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a DOE nuclear weapons project being constructed at the Livermore Laboratory in northern California. NIF is a mega-laser designed to create a fusion explosion inside a reactor vessel. Since 1993 cost estimates for construction have exploded-from $677 million to $5 billion. This extremely expensive project is behind schedule and is billions of dollars over budget. We urge the subcommittee not to include funding for this project in the appropriations bill.
Again, we urge you to deny funding for these fiscally irresponsible projects in the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill of FY04. We would be happy to discuss these issues with you further. Please contact Aileen Roder at (202) 546-8500 x130 or info@taxpayer.net with questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Steve Ellis
Vice President for Programs
Cc: The Honorable C.W. Bill Young, Chairman Appropriations Committee
The Honorable David Obey
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