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NFC: Fw: SENATE APPROPRIATION RIDER WOULD BLOCK CORPS REFORM!
SENATE APPROPRIATION RIDER WOULD BLOCK CORPS REFORM!
We need your help NOW to stop an amendment attached to the
FY’01 Senate Appropriations Bill for Agriculture and Rural
Development. The rider would block much-needed reform of
the Army Corps of Engineers.
Please call Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), Ranking Member of
the Senate Appropriations Committee, and urge him to vote
against the anti-Corps reform rider. Senator Byrd’s number
is 202-224-3954.
Key points about the rider:
1) It offends the constitution because president is
supposed to control agencies, especially military branches;
2) The absence of oversight allows Corps to bend the rules
to justify wasteful, environmentally destructive projects;
3) We need to reform the Corps to make projects are
economically justified and that environmental impacts are
adequately assessed and mitigated;
4) The rider violates federal statutes making Asst.
Secretary of Army the boss of Chief of Engineers; and
5) The rider goes overboard – it would block Corps reform
forever.
The rider -- Sec.3102 attached to the Senate Agriculture
funding bill for fiscal year 2001 – reads: "None of the
funds made available in this or any other act may be used
to restructure, reorganize, abolish, transfer, consolidate,
or otherwise alter or modify the organization or management
oversight structure, existing delegations or functions or
activities applicable to the Army Corps of Engineers."
To see testimony offered by Scott Faber before the Senate
Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Transportation
and Infrastructure, visit
http://www.amrivers.org/corpsreform.html
Background:
In mid-February, newspapers including the Washington Post
reported that the chief economist on the seven-year, $50
million study about whether to expand barge facilities on
the Upper Mississippi River had filed an affidavit saying
he and others had been ordered to cook the books to justify
the project. A week later, other documents came to life
showing that top officials had launched an effort to grow
the Corp budget by $2 billion by aggressively approving new
projects in a strategy that was unknown to civilian
overseers. For more information, visit
http://www.amrivers.org/corpsreform.html
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