FY 16 Omnibus Deal Reached
After months of wrangling, the Congress finally concluded negotiations on an omnibus spending bill to fund federal operations for the remainder of the fiscal year. Known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, the more than 2000-page measure sailed through the Congress, concluding the 1st session of the 114th Congress.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers civil works program fared well, receiving $5.898 billion, an increase of more than $500 million from the FY15 enacted levels, and more than $1.25 billion over the President’s FY16 request. The investigations program receives $121 million, and authority for up to 10 new study starts, with up to 7 studies where the majority of the benefits are derived from navigation and flood control and up to 3 from environmental restoration. Construction receives $1.862 billion, and authority for 6 new starts, 5 of which the majority of benefits derived are from navigation and flood control. Operation and maintenance nets $3.137 billion, Mississippi River and Tributaries is funded at $345 million, and regulatory at $200 million. Overall, the bill provides $2.6 billion for navigation, including $1.2 billion from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and full use of the estimated revenues from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, and $1.7 billion in support of flood and storm damage reduction activities.
Within 60 days, the Corps is directed to submit a work plan to the appropriations committees allocating the additional funding provided in the bill. Further, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works is permitted to obligate no more than 50% of its appropriation of $4,750,000 until submission of the work plan that allocates at least 95 percent of the additional funding.
The bill includes a provision that seeks to clarify which programs will be affected by the new Federal Flood Risk Management Standard in order to reduce uncertainty related to how each agency will implement the new standard, but concerns remain over how the new standard will be applied to numerous programs. Again this year, the explanatory statement expresses concern over the ongoing effort to revise the Principles and Guidelines and directs the Corps to continue to use the 1983 version.
The full text may be viewed here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d114:H.R.2029:
Subsequently, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter regarding the provision in the FY16 omnibus appropriations act pertaining to implementation of the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard.
In his letter, Chairman Cochran states “to ensure that Federal actions to manage flood risk support our national security interests and prudent stewardship of taxpayer dollars, the Consolidated Appropriations Act temporarily prohibits the application of Executive Order 13690 to any component of the Department of Defense.” Chairman Cochran further states “while improving the resiliency of federal investments to floods and other hazards has merit, compelling government agencies to spend taxpayer dollars to further mitigate against undefined threats deserves greater scrutiny. Section 750 [of the Act] has a clear aim, which is to provide the American public and their elected officials the opportunity to better understand the risk, benefits and other impacts of the standard prior to its implementation.”
The letter can be viewed here: Cochran Letter to Secretary Carter re FFRMS (52kb)