Safeguarding Disaster-Recovery Funds for Army Corps Civil Works

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, today I introduce legislation to prevent the President from diverting disaster-recovery funds from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' civil works projects.

I want to thank my colleagues--Representatives Cisneros, Velazquez, Bera, Gomez, Takano, Lowenthal, Rouda, Carbajal, Huffman, Eshoo, Vargas, Roybal-Allard, Soto, Lofgren, Matsui, Serrano, Napolitano, Plaskett, and Harder--for their support as original cosponsors.

Last month, I received alarming reports that the President had reviewed a list of Army Corps civil works projects in California and Puerto Rico, totaling nearly $5 billion, from which to divert disaster- recovery funding for border wall construction.

Madam Speaker, it is morally reprehensible that any President would take recovery funds from disaster victims as ransom for a campaign promise. Targeting funds for Californians to make a craven political point and residents of Puerto Rico, who are denied voting rights in national elections and full representation in Congress, is equally low.

One of the Army Corps levee projects the Trump Administration may defund protects 12,000 residents of Marysville, California from hypothermia-inducing floodwaters that could inundate the town in a matter of hours. This is a matter of saving lives in my Congressional district and helping California communities rebuild.

My bill would eliminate a provision from the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-662), authorizing Presidents to divert funding from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' civil works directorate in exigent cases for national defense and emergencies. This obscure 1986 provision is the legal authority President Trump could invoke to divert disaster-recovery funding for his promised border wall.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, no President has ever invoked this 1986 legal authority, which was originally requested by the Reagan Administration for cases of Congressionally declared wars and presidentially declared national emergencies requiring civil defense during the Cold War.

In acting on my bill, the House can reassert its Constitutional authority to direct federal funding for national priorities that help communities rebuild and become more resilient to future natural disasters. Madam Speaker, I urge all Members to join us in cosponsoring this important legislation. I also expect my bill will be included in the next Water Resources Development Act.

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