Water Resources Development Act of 2020
Floor Speech
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Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, I extend my congratulations to the committee leaders for successfully reaching an agreement with the Senate on a final Water Resources Development Act for 2020. This is a wonderful bill.
We have $10 billion in new water infrastructure authorizations in this bill. It authorizes all of the pending Chief's reports. That includes two very important flood risk management projects in my district, which has been severely harmed by persistent flooding in recent years, as evidenced by the damage from Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind the Army Corps that it may fund the construction of these projects out of remaining funds provided in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and that construction of such projects in the Virgin Islands, as well as in Puerto Rico, with funds provided under that act shall be conducted at full Federal expense.
This bill also contains a long-sought reauthorization of projects for navigation in the harbors of St. Thomas and Christiansted, St. Croix. The reauthorization of these projects for navigation will provide the harbors access to Federal resources for maintenance dredging and improvements to navigational systems, which will allow them to accommodate more and larger cruise ships over the long term, thereby better competing in a competitive Caribbean market. This is a very strong bill for the ports and harbors of the United States.
Lastly, this bill is probably the most progressive bill in a generation in terms of directing the Army Corps toward greater resiliency of future water resources development projects. It includes several provisions to modernize how the Corps develops future projects to make sure that it is better able to deal with issues of climate change and extreme wet weather events.
All in all, this is a significant investment in water resources infrastructure, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
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