Corps found to be in blatant violation of deauthorization laws

Photo Credit: Olivia Dorothy

This summer, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluated the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) deauthorization process and found it to be woefully lacking and blatantly in violation of federal statute.

The Corps has been required to identify projects for deauthorization since 1974.  Almost every Water Resources Development Act has new language to prompt the Corps to get old projects off the books.  But guess what… almost no projects have been deauthorized!

The GAO found that the Corps does not even keep a comprehensive list of projects that have been authorized. And when the Corps did try to compile a list of projects for deauthorization, many districts removed eligible projects from the list due to local interest.  This is contrary to clear statutory requirements that deauthorization is based on actual appropriations and obligations, not private interest levels.

I’m not surprised by these findings.  I’ve encountered several instances where the Corps reprograms small amounts of funds to prevent deauthorization.  I’ve also seen the resurrection of projects that haven’t been funded in decades.  The GAO report found both of these strategies to be violations of the deauthorization statutes.

The Corps’ excuse?  They claimed that they could not follow the statute because implementation guidance was never developed for it.  Implementation guidance is the internal policy that guides day-to-day activities within the agency.  Who was supposed to develop that guidance? The Corps.   

The latest deauthorization law was passed in the 2014 Water Resources Reform and Development Act.  Congress is mandating that the Corps provide a list of projects that cost $18 billion to be summarily deauthorized.  Following this initial list, the Corps must provide annual deauthorization lists of projects that have not been funded in the proceeding seven years.  When those lists are provided, there will be a public commenting opportunity. If Congress does not provided funding for any of the projects listed, they are automatically deauthorized.

The Corps is developing a centralized database to track project authorizations and funding and they promise to submit the $18 billion list for deauthorization by March 2015.  I hope the Corps follows the new deauthorization law and not history.