Senate Begins Consideration of WRDA
Subcommittee Begins Long-Awaited Consideration
The Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee held a hearing to examine the role of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in meeting the nation's water resource needs in the 21st century on March 31, 2004.

This is the first step the Senate will take in its efforts to follow through on its promise to take up WRDA this year. Subcommittee Chairman Kit Bond said that after four years without passing a WRDA bill, it is time for Congress to shaping the Nation’s future and put together a bipartisan effort to modernize the nation’s waterways system. Chairman Bond and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair James Inhofe pledged to deliver a WRDA bill out of Committee by the Memorial Day break.

Lieutenant General Robert Flowers, Commanding General, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, testified that Congress will need to address some basic questions about how to use and protect the Nation’s water resources and how the Corps can help address those needs. With Corps reform at the top of the agenda, LTG Flowers testified that the Corps is transforming itself for the 21st Century by addressing three major challenges: 1) tackling its numerous backlog of projects; 2) reforming many of its internal processes, including its communications strategy, internal review capability, engaging all stakeholders in its planning processes; and 3) moving the Corps towards a Watershed Approach in how it manages the sustainable development, management and protection of our Nation’s water and related land resources. [ return to top ]