Ranking Member Kaptur Delivers Opening Remarks at Energy and Water Subcommittee FY24 Budget Request Hearing With Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation

Washington, DC – Today, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, delivered opening remarks at the FY24 Budget hearing with Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Mouton, Chief of Engineers and Commanding General at the Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant General Scott Alan Spellmon, and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Mike Connor. 

A full copy of her remarks as prepared can be found below:

We are here today to discuss the fiscal year 2024 budget request for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. Your agencies play a critical role in strengthening our economy, sustaining life on Earth, and ensuring public safety against the now constant onslaught of natural disasters across the country. 

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today. 

Investments in the critical water infrastructure of our nation put people to work in good-paying jobs and spur economic growth. The investments in the annual appropriations bills, combined with the historic Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, are addressing our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and building back a better America.

This last year – and just this last weekend – mark yet another extraordinary period for extreme weather across the country. 

California just faced the twelfth atmospheric river event since late December. These events are now too commonplace. The rain and snow they deposit, and the widespread flooding and hurricane-like winds that accompany them, take a particularly heavy toll on town after town and especially harm farmworkers and their communities.

Across the southwest, the severe drought has resulted in the Colorado River crisis. Experts are now saying that Lake Mead and Lake Powell are unlikely to refill for another 50 years.

In the southeast, Hurricane Ian devastated Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, causing more than $100 billion in damage and at least 150 fatalities.

Last summer, there was devastating flooding across Kentucky and Missouri, which damaged thousands of homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Deadly flooding hit Kentucky again just last month.

In my region, ice typically covers 70 percent of the Great Lakes. But this year it covered just 6 percent, the smallest amount ever recorded in mid-February. This may have serious implications across for our water and native species in our region for the coming spring and summer seasons.

The United States had 18 different billion-dollar weather disasters in 2022. And last year is building on an increasing trend. A recent report found that 90 percent of the counties in the United States suffered weather disasters in the last decade, impacting 93 percent of the country’s population – more than 300 million people. It is undeniable that we are witnessing growing weather events stemming from climate change occurring in real time before our very eyes.
With this new normal, it is critical for agencies that are project-based, like the Corps and Reclamation, to plan regionally and implement solutions on a watershed and sub-watershed basis to make our communities more resilient. 

In the Great Lakes region, projects like Soo Locks are a prime example of investments that will turbocharge the resiliency and efficiency of our maritime transportation system. Similarly, the Brandon Road project is addressing the economic and environmental damage unleashed by invasive carp species. I hope we can continue to work together to maintain support for Ohio’s ports, which not only play a vital role to support continued economic development, but also serve as source of dredged material that can be used to increase shoreline resilience to the impacts of climate change.

As we begin our discussion on fiscal year 2024, I must say I am again disappointed by the proposed reductions of $1.3 billion for the Corps of Engineers and $485 million for Reclamation. While historic investments were made through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act in both of your agencies, we have significant work to do to better protect Americans against severe drought, flooding, and storms.

There is bipartisan support in Congress for the work that your agencies undertake on behalf of the American people. Thank you for being here, and we look forward to your testimony.

With that, I’ll close my remarks, and I look forward to discussing this request.

A full video of Congresswoman Kaptur’s opening remarks can be found here.

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