ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT MONDAY, APRIL 14, 1986 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m. in room SD-192, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thad Cochran presiding. Present: Senators Cochran, Mattingly, and Johnston; also present: Senators Dole, Bentsen, and Denton. NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES Senator COCHRAN. The subcommittee will please come to order. This morning, the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee continues its hearings on the budget for the next fiscal year. This morning, we have public witnesses scheduled to testify and are very happy and honored to have the majority leader, Robert Dole, the Senator from Kansas, here today to be our leadoff witness and to introduce some of those who are testifying before the subcommittee today. Senator Dole, you may proceed. KANSAS WATER RESOURCE PROJECTS STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. DOLE, U.S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS Senator DOLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to thank not only the chairman, but the members of this committee. I know this is long, arduous work. I haven't had the opportunity to visit many times, to hear the testimony given today, and probably many other days, and I certainly appreciate your cooperation today, Senator Cochran. INTRODUCTION OF WITNESS It is my pleasure to introduce Jim Foster of Witchita, KS, a long time acquaintance. Mr. Foster is the business manager for the Boeing Co. and is now chairman of the five-State committee, the Arkansas River Basin Interstate Committee, and is speaking today on behalf of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. In his testimony today, Mr. Foster will discuss projects located within the Arkansas River basin, specifically addressed to projects of great im portance to the State of Kansas; namely, the Great Bend flood control project and the Halstead project. Both these projects are contained within the President's fiscal 1987 budget and have been on the books for years. The President has recommended that $2.6 million be approved for the Great Bend flood control project and $1.1 million be approved for Halstead. Mr. Chairman, I know the witnesses will go into more detail, but I am here now to introduce the witnesses who support these projects and others that will be testifying with reference to, and he will give you the details on all of these projects. Again, I appreciate the chance to be here and to recognize not only Mr. Foster, but others in this group who will be testifying this morning. Thank you. Senator COCHRAN. Thank you very much, Senator Dole. We appreciate your being here and presenting these important witnesses to the subcommittee. We will be hearing from them later on, and we will certainly carefully review the testimony that they will make to the subcommittee. Because Senator Bentsen is involved, as you are, in the markup of the tax bill in the Finance Committee, I think we will now proceed to hear from Senator Bentsen, who has witnesses and projects in which he is interested. TEXAS WATER RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS STATEMENT OF HON. LLOYD M. BENTSEN, U.S. SENATOR FROM TEXAS We welcome the distinguished Senator from Texas. We know of your interest in the projects that affect the State of Texas. We are glad to have the benefit of your presence this morning, Senator. Welcome to the committee. You may proceed in any manner you wish. Senator BENTSEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am certainly pleased to be before this Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development to testify on Bureau of Reclamation and Corps of Engineers projects in the State of Texas. Those two agencies, of course, have contributed a great deal to the economic well-being of the State which I have the honor of representing. I am pleased to note that the fiscal year 1987 budget request for the Corps of Engineers is substantially more than that requested for the current fiscal year. MOVE TOWARD INCREASED COST SHARING I think that statement requires an explanation in this day of budget squeezes and trying to cut back on the deficit. I think the two things are compatible, because we are talking about a change in philosophy on the part of the Congress and the administration in authorizing these projects. We are talking about changes in cost-sharing formulas which were contained in our bill, S. 1567, the Water Resources Development Act, which passed the Senate only a few weeks ago. Now, that is the first major water resource authorizing legislation passed by both bodies of the Congress since 1976, over 9 years, and it mandates an expanded role for project beneficiaries in planning, construction, and maintenance of water projects. I believe this is something that is absolutely necessary for the future of our country. One of the things that has taken place in past years is projects being approved in the middle of the night when Members are not on the floor trying to show who had the most muscle in trying to accomplish a goal or, in many cases, an imprudent bill. I really think the best judge of the worthiness and the need of a project are the folks back home who live with it, and now, in this instance, are going to have to make a substantial contribution to it. If the Federal Government pays for the entire project, then everybody supports it. But if local interests are required to be involved and pay for part of it, then they do that kind of an evaluation. Mr. Chairman, I, to my knowledge, have never supported a project from the State of Texas that didn't have a positive benefit-cost ratio, and I think that is terribly important if the taxpayers of this country are going to get their dollar's worth of tax money that is spent up here. FUNDING REQUEST I strongly support this committee's approval of funding for all of the Texas projects that are included in the President's budget. Every one of them, to the best of my knowledge, has a positive cost-benefit ratio. I intend to file a substantially longer statement for the hearing record in which I will comment on a number of projects. Also, I ask unanimous consent that the full statements of a distinguished number of my constituents who are here today be taken into the record in their entirety. Senator COCHRAN. Without objection, your statement and those which you have submitted will be included in the record in their entirety. COOPER LAKE, TX Senator BENTSEN. Mr. Chairman, I request additional funding on only one project, and that is the Cooper Lake project in northeast Texas. Construction is finally underway after extensive delays caused by court injunction. The project is 18-percent complete. An amount of $3.7 million has been requested for the coming fiscal year, but the Fort Worth District has expressed the capability for an additional $3.1 million, indicating that such increased funding would expedite completion of the project by 12 to 18 months. I, therefore, strongly urge the subcommittee to increase the fiscal year 1987 allotment for the Cooper Lake project from $3.7 to $6.8 million. In recent years, Mr. Chairman, I have not asked for additional funding for Texas projects, but this project is badly needed to supply flood protection in the south Sulphur River area as well as water supply to much of northeast Texas. INTRODUCTION OF TEXAS WITNESSES Mr. Chairman, we have here many of the distinguished members of the Trinity River Improvement Association. Representatives of the Gulf Intercoastal Canal Association, the Port of Corpus Christi, and the Red River Authority will be appearing later in the course of these hearings. These are people who have spent their lives working on water resource development. I had some of them in my office the other day. I was recalling that it was about 35 years ago when I first met with them on some of these projects. So they have been totally committed and they have worked at it on a day-to-day basis. The vast majority are strictly pro bono, no type of compensation except their own satisfaction that they are doing something for their community, their region, and their State that they believe will improve the lot of all of our people. So while I am submitting a more detailed statement for the hearing record, I hope that this committee will listen carefully to the Texas witnesses that will be testifying on projects that are so important to our State. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator COCHRAN. Thank you, Senator Bentsen. We appreciate having the benefit of your counsel and your statement this morning. Senator BENTSEN. Mr. Chairman, I would say that this committee and the committee I am going back to work on, the Finance Committee, are the two most important committees in the U.S. Senate. As was once stated by the late Senator Bob Kerr, Appropriations and Finance are the taking and the giving committees, and you are the giving committee, and I am going back to the taking committee. [Laughter.] PREPARED STATEMENTS Senator COCHRAN. We wish you well. We know you have a lot of things to work on this morning. Thanks for coming over and being one of our first witnesses. [The statements follow:] |