Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of my amendment, which modestly reduces funding for the Missouri River recovery program.
Since 2006, the Federal Government has spent more than $468 million on the Missouri River recovery program. This program is primarily intended to improve the ecosystem for the piping plover, the least tern, and the pallid sturgeon within the Missouri River basin.
Projects funded through this program include shallow water habitat creation, land acquisition, and emergent sandbar habitat. It also supports unknown numbers of positions and departments within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service, generates thousands of pages of documents, and pays for numerous conferences and conference calls.
Many of my constituents along the Missouri River have been flooded for the last several years due to mismanagement and misplaced priorities in the Federal Government. Congress practically writes a blank check for the Missouri River recovery program while providing far less than sufficient funds for levee maintenance and repair. This is unacceptable.
It is also important to note that many projects funded by the Missouri River recovery program increase the chance of flooding by weakening flood protection systems. Further, a recent independent review of major initiatives of the Missouri River recovery program concludes that the current mitigation strategy does not mitigate losses of the pallid sturgeon, the least tern, and the piping plover, or the degradation of their habitats. So Congress is essentially spending millions of dollars on projects that are unproven. And at the very least, these funds are diverted away from critically important and proven flood mitigation projects.
My amendment won't prevent future floods, but it will show those located in the Missouri River basin that Congress is serious about getting its priorities straight. My amendment does not gut the Missouri River recovery program--it's only a small reduction from the amount provided in the underlying bill. The underlying bill provides $71 million and my amendment reduces that to $50 million, which is consistent with the level of funding provided in 2008.
I believe conservation is important, but we should not overlook what it is we sometimes sacrifice to achieve conservation. In this case, it is the livelihood of businesses, farms, and families. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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