Dear Senator:
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is the independent political voice for the environment. Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of Members of Congress on environmental legislation. The Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide, and the press.
LCV urges you to support amendments to S. 728, the Water Resources Development Act, offered by Senators Feingold, McCain, Carper, Lieberman, and Jeffords, and oppose amendments offered by Senators Inhofe and Bond. The Feingold-McCain-Carper-Lieberman amendments will provide additional transparency and accountability for the Army Corps of Engineers, while the Inhofe-Bond amendments do little more than codify current practices, which have failed to protect the public and the environment. Hurricane Katrina offered a stark example of these failures.
Corps of Engineer projects have all too often been plagued with inadequate or erroneous environmental or economic studies. Recently, the American Society of Civil Engineers called for mandatory independent peer review at all phases of major Corps projects. The Feingold-McCain-Carper-Lieberman-Jeffords amendment ensures that studies for significant projects receive an independent, peer-reviewed assessment. This independent review is empowered to examine all aspects of the Corps analysis it believes are flawed. By contrast, an Inhofe-Bond amendment sharply limits which projects must receive this review, fails to ensure independence, and narrows the scope of that review.
The Corps of Engineers has a multi-decade backlog of authorized projects. In an era of limited resources, it is more important than ever that funds are focused on those projects that are most important to protecting public health and the environment. The McCain-Feingold-Lieberman amendment establishes an independent body that will determine criteria for setting priorities, and then issue a prioritization report to Congress. In contrast, the competing Inhofe-Bond amendment skews the prioritization process toward particular types of Corps projects, leaves the Corps to determine, in vague terms, what the priorities should be, and provides Congress with minimal information for decision-making.
We urge you to support the amendments to WRDA which increase accountability within the Corps of Engineers and to oppose those amendments which do not provide real reform. The LCV Political Advisory Committee will consider including these votes in compiling LCV's 2006 Scorecard. If you need additional information, please call Tiernan Sittenfeld or Nat Mund in my office at (202) 785-8683.
