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99–407 PDF 2016

S. HRG. 114–198 

THE IMPORTANCE OF ENACTING A NEW 

WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

ROGER WICKER, Mississippi 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

RYAN JACKSON, Majority Staff Director 

BETTINA POIRIER, Democratic Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .................... 1 

Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California ........................ 4 

Vitter, Hon. David, U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 50 

WITNESSES 

Portiss, Bob, Port Director, Tulsa Port of Catoosa ............................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8 

Swearingen, John, Senior Vice President, Marathon Petroleum Corporation ... 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14 

Roberson, Rob, Director of Corporate Logistics, Nucor Corporation ................... 17 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 

Mattei, Norma Jean, President-Elect, American Society of Civil Engineers ...... 23 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25 

Makarios, Kyle, Director of Government Affairs, North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters ............................................................................... 31 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

(1) 

THE IMPORTANCE OF ENACTING A NEW 

WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m. in room 

406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. James M. Inhofe (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Inhofe, Boxer, Barrasso, Capito, Crapo, 

Boozman, Wicker, Fischer, Sullivan, Carper, Cardin, Whitehouse, 

Gillibrand, Booker, and Markey. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. The hearing will come to order. 

Today’s hearing is on the importance of enacting a Water Resources Development Act. 

This is kind of interesting, because historically we have always 

wanted to have one every 2 years. So 2 years ago we had one, but 

before that it was 7 years. So this is significant. We are going to 

be highlighting the importance of rebuilding America’s crumbling 

infrastructure and the national economic benefits that this infrastructure supports. 

The U.S. marine transportation industry supports $2 trillion in 

commerce and creates jobs for over 13 million people. Forty States 

are directly served by Corps ports and waterways. The annual economic benefit to our Nation from our investments in Corps projects 

averages about $110 billion a year. That means for every dollar we 

invest, we get $16 in benefits. 

If we, as a country, ignore the problems facing our waterway and 

our port and our flood control infrastructure, those benefits and 

jobs will be at risk. That is why it is so important for Congress to 

enact our Water Resources Development Act every 2 years. 

You see, it is kind of our best kept secret, Senator Boxer. We are 

the Nation’s most eminent port, and a lot of people don’t know 

that. 

Senator BOXER. That is amazing. 

Senator INHOFE. If there was time, I would tell you the story 

that goes with it. And the guy we are looking at here, one of our 

witnesses, Bob Portiss, I have known him probably since he was in 

college, I guess. 
2 

Anyway, thanks to Oklahoma’s ports and robust lakes, we also 

have more miles of freshwater shoreline in the State of Oklahoma 

than any of the 50 States. Did you know that? 

Senator BOXER. Is there a test after this? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator INHOFE. The McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation 

System is one of those waterways that the Corps manages. It is 

445 miles long and spans Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma. The Port 

of Muskogee and the Tulsa Port of Catoosa are home to over 70 

companies and industries employing more than 6,500 Oklahomans, 

creating an overall economic impact of more than $400 million to 

my State each year. Bob Portiss can testify to that impact firsthand. We have had the opportunity to work with the Port of 

Catoosa and its economic development for years. 

However, the impact of the waterway is not limited to just Oklahoma and Arkansas. While Oklahoma ports are the furthest inland 

of any other port in the United States, our ports export products 

from other States, as close as Kansas and as far away as Idaho, 

which then travel to other ports around the United States and the 

world. 

Markets outside the United States represent 73 percent of the 

world’s purchasing power, 87 percent of its economic growth, and 

95 percent of its consumers. To be competitive, the United States 

must make infrastructure investment part of its growth strategy. 

We are also faced with aging reservoirs that provide our communities with water and protect them during flood events. In the past 

year, my State has experienced two significant rain events, and it 

is because of our existing infrastructure that we did not suffer 

more damage than we did. I remember going in a helicopter, seeing 

how they are containing just the right amount, and did a masterful 

job, you guys did in the State, Bob. 

Thanks to the projects of both the Arkansas River and the Red River Basin, more than $500 million in damages were prevented in 

Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana after historic 

rainfall this past spring. Overall, the Corps’ Southwest Division 

calculated that our water resources project saved our communities 

$13 billion in damages in the south central and southwest areas of 

the United States. 

This committee can’t singlehandedly direct more funds to our 

water resources, but we can create policies that foster more cooperation between those that maintain the infrastructure and those 

that depend on the infrastructure. What we are saying here is we 

are not an appropriation committee; we are an authorization committee. 

We created some of these policies in WRRDA 2014, but we need 

to do more by fostering partnerships between Federal, State, local, 

and private interests. We can unleash an investment in public infrastructure, and in doing so allow American businesses to remain 

competitive with global competitors. 

Both Senator Boxer and I have made passing the WRDA bill in 

2016 a top priority. With passage of the FAST Act, our transportation bill, our committee has proven that we are able to work together in a bipartisan level to develop legislation. Senator Boxer 

and I have a long history of working together and have proven that 
3 

when we share the common goal we are able to work together to 

accomplish it. That is why I am confident that we will be able to 

move a bill through the committee this spring and pass a WRDA 

bill for 2016. 

Senator Boxer. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Today’s hearing on the importance of enacting a Water Resources Development 

Act or WRDA will highlight the importance of rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure and the national economic benefits that this infrastructure supports. 

The U.S. marine transportation industry supports $2 trillion in commerce and creates jobs for over 13 million people. Forty States are directly served by Corps ports 

and waterways. The annual economic benefits to our Nation from our investments 

in Corps projects average about $110 billion a year. That means for every dollar we 

invest, we get $16.60 in benefits. If we as a country ignore the problems facing our 

waterway, port, and flood control infrastructure, those benefits and jobs will be at 

risk. That is why it is so important for Congress to enact a Water Resources Development Act every 2 years. 

Thanks to Oklahoma’s ports and our robust lake and flood control systems, I am 

very familiar with the importance of our Nation’s waterways and water resources 

infrastructure. 

The McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System (MKARNS) is one of those 

waterways that the Corps manages. It is 445 miles long and spans Arkansas and 

the eastern part of Oklahoma. The Port of Muskogee and the Tulsa Port of Catoosa 

are home to over 70 companies and industries employing more than 6,500 Oklahomans, creating an overall economic impact of more than $400 million to my State 

each year. Bob Portiss can testify to that impact first hand. We have had the opportunity to work with the Port of Catoosa and economic development for years. 

However, the impact of the MKARNS is not limited to just Oklahoma and Arkansas. While Oklahoma ports are the furthest inland of any other port in the U.S., 

our ports export products from other States as close as Kansas and as far as Idaho, 

which then travel to other ports around the U.S. and the world. 

Markets outside the United States represent 73 percent of the world’s purchasing 

power, 87 percent of its economic growth, and 95 percent of its consumers. To be 

competitive, the United States must make infrastructure investment part of its 

growth strategy. 

We are also faced with aging reservoirs that provide our communities with water 

and protect them during flood events. 

In Oklahoma we have more miles of freshwater shoreline than any other State, 

with 200 manmade lakes. In the past year my State has experienced two significant 

rain events, and it is because of our existing infrastructure that we did not suffer 

more than damage than we did. 

Thanks to the projects in both the Arkansas River and Red River Basins, more 

than $500 million in damages were prevented in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, 

Texas, and Louisiana after historic rainfall this past spring. Overall, the Corps’ 

Southwest Division calculated that our water resources projects saved our communities $13.3 billion in damages in the south central and southwest areas of the U.S. 

This committee can’t single-handedly direct more funds to our water resources. 

But we can create policies that foster more cooperation between those that maintain 

the infrastructure and those that depend on the infrastructure. 

We created some of these policies in WRRDA 2014, but we need to do more. By 

fostering partnerships between Federal, State, local, and private interests, we can 

unleash an investment in public infrastructure, and in doing so allow American 

businesses to remain competitive with global competitors. 

Both Senator Boxer and I have made passing a WRDA in 2016 a top priority. 

With passage of the FAST Act, our committee has proven that we are able to work 

together on a bi-partisan level to develop legislation. Senator Boxer and I have a 

long history of working together and have proven that when we share a common 

goal we are able to work together to accomplish it. That is why I am confident that 

we will move a bill through committee this spring and pass a WRDA in 2016. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I thank them for their testimony. 
4 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you, we are going to 

do this, and I am so excited to be working on WRDA with you 

again. We show the entire Senate that this committee can come together on infrastructure. We know there are other issues where it 

is just Venus and Mars, and that is the way it is. So, for me, I 

want to focus on this. 

Every time we had a hearing on the environment, I leaned over 

and said, when we are getting to WRDA? And I couldn’t be more 

pleased. And I think you teach us a lot about your State and how 

much it relies on this type of program, and how this type of program that we do in WRDA delivers sound economic growth and 

good jobs. It involves the movement of goods, it makes sure that 

we can deliver clean water, and that is what I want to really stress 

in my remarks, because the drinking water emergency in Flint, 

Michigan puts a spotlight on our national infrastructure challenges. 

This is a great Nation, but a lot of our infrastructure is getting 

old. And we all know, most of us who own our own homes, as an 

example, or we own our cars, for an example, you can’t just let it 

go; you have to stay on top of it, you have to maintain it. And in 

the case of water, the health and safety of children and families depend on safe drinking water. 

So as we develop our new WRDA, I am hopeful we can work together, and I know we will, to address the need to invest in our 

aging infrastructure. The lead poisoning of kids in Flint highlights 

the need for a modern infrastructure system that will keep our 

families safe from toxins such as lead in their drinking water. 

There is no safe level of lead in children. The effects of lead are 

generally irreversible, and it harms the brains and nervous system 

of children and developing fetuses. 

The American people have a right to expect us to make sure that 

their water is safe when they turn on their faucets, and it is truly 

a State and national priority and local priority. It is something we 

have to all work together on. But millions of homes across America 

receive water from pipes that date to an era before scientists knew 

the harm caused by lead exposure. And some major cities—including, I am sure, some of our cities—installed drinking water pipes 

more than 100 years ago. So, ipso facto, they are a potential crisis 

waiting to happen. 

In a recent New York Times, Eric Olsen—some of you may remember he was my former staffer here—said, ‘‘You think our roads 

and bridges aren’t being fixed? The stuff underground is totally ignored. We are mostly living off the investment of our parents and 

grandparents for our drinking water.’’ And that article was printed 

in the New York Times, actually, yesterday. 

Aging pipes, that is a nationwide problem, Mr. Chairman. As the 

Detroit Free Press recently reported. Listen to this: About 10 million American homes and buildings receive water from service lines 

that are at least partially lead, according to the EPA. And the 

American Society of Civil Engineers gives our Nation’s drinking 

water infrastructure a D. Now, we are going to hear this today; a 

D. And I hesitate to put this number out there because it is so big 
5 

it is frightening, but they say the aggregate investment that we 

need over time is $1.7 trillion, by 2050. So we have some years, but 

that is a number we have to grapple with. 

The next WRDA bill gives us a chance to address our aging 

drinking water infrastructure, and I believe the next bill should enable communities to identify the infrastructure that poses a threat 

to public health. And we can use existing programs, Mr. Chairman; 

we don’t need new programs. We could use the State Revolving 

Fund and WIFIA, which you and I created, to target investment 

where it is needed most. And according to your staff, Alex told me 

yesterday that the leverage of that WIFIA Fund is 60 to 1. That 

is incredible. 

Senator INHOFE. That is right, as opposed to 10 to 1 for TIFIA. 

Senator BOXER. I think it is 30 to 1 in TIFIA. 

Senator INHOFE. Is it? 

Senator BOXER. I do. But it is much greater. So we have a chance 

to do this. 

I just want to touch on a couple of other things. I will put my 

whole statement in the record, if you don’t mind. But I do want to 

close just talking about a couple of issues in my State that I am 

going to work hard to address. And it just doesn’t affect one State 

like mine. 

The drought is very serious. We have been so fortunate to have 

some really heavy snowfall, and all of a sudden it has turned dry 

and hot. My son was telling me yesterday, in Oakland, where it is 

usually really chilly at this time, it was 81 degrees. So we are facing changes in the climate. And without getting into an argument 

over why or how, it doesn’t matter, it is here, so we need to do 

something. 

So I am talking to my chairman about looking at Desal, recycling, things that we really should encourage. I met with my Republican mayor of San Diego yesterday, whom I love, and he is 

pushing hard on Desal. They actually have a plant, I am going to 

go see it. It is working. It is expensive. We need to help them get 

the costs down. 

I also think that we have to look at special bodies of water that 

are in trouble. The Salton Sea in California is an extraordinary 

iconic sea that had its heyday in the 1950s, and now, with the 

drought, it is in decline. And I won’t go into it here because I don’t 

want to take our time, except to say I will be working with colleagues to see if we can address the critical infrastructure needs, 

look at these water bodies that are in crisis, and work to create 

jobs that support commerce and protect public safety. 

Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege to work with you on WRDA. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Boxer was not received at 

time of print.] 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Boxer. 

We will go ahead and start with Bob Portiss and just work our 

way down, and if you will submit to questions, we will look forward 

to it. 

Bob Portiss. Let me introduce what he does. He runs our port 

there, the Port of Catoosa. For how many years now, Bob? 

Mr. PORTISS. About a hundred. 

[Laughter.] 
6 

Senator INHOFE. That is right. And I’ve been with you since the 

very beginning. 

All right. 

STATEMENT OF BOB PORTISS, PORT DIRECTOR, TULSA PORT 

OF CATOOSA 

Mr. PORTISS. Again, my name is Bob Portiss, and I have been affiliated with the Tulsa Port of Catoosa since 1973 and as its Port 

Director since July 1, 1984. Our port is located at the Head of 

Navigation for the 445-mile-long McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River 

Navigation System, located 15 miles from downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is both an honor and privilege for me to appear before you 

today, especially since my long-time friend and our senior Senator 

is chairman. Senator Inhofe’s numerous contributions to our industry and our port began in 1978, when he began his 6-year term as 

mayor of Tulsa. 

Prior to passage of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1946, which 

authorized construction of our waterway, Congress made it clear 

that before Federal moneys were invested in the new waterway the 

principal cities located along it would need to commit to develop a 

port to insure that business and industry would have access to 

barge transportation. 

Tulsa fulfilled this commitment by acquiring its current 2,500 

acres of contiguous land and developing it into one of our Nation’s 

largest inland ports with its current complement, as Senator Inhofe 

mentioned, of 72 industrial facilities that, as of a year ago, employed 4,200 people and whose annual waterborne commerce averaged 2.5 million tons. Congress, in turn, agreed to construct and 

maintain our waterway with its 18 locks and dams to provide a 

minimum depth of 9 feet. 

This partnership worked well until a few years ago when the 

backlog of maintenance reached an unprecedented $170 million, 

$70 million of which is now deemed critical by the Corps. As this 

backlog continues to increase so will the probability of lengthy failures. Recognizing this, we worked to include a provision in 

WRRDA 2014 that would allow us to partner with the Corps to 

help address such failures. 

That provision, specifically, is section 1024, which authorizes the 

Secretary of the Army to accept materials and services from us to 

be used to repair and restore projects that were damaged or destroyed as a result of an emergency. Implementation guidance, 

however, has not yet been released for this section. 

We are now very concerned because we understand that when 

the implementation guidance for this section is issued, it will be 

limited to emergencies resulting from a natural disaster. 

The Corps has stated that they embrace the intent of section 

1024, but have not found ways to overcome the legal constraints of 

the rules and regulations they must follow. In order to carry out 

section 1024 as intended, we believe that WRDA 2016 presents an 

opportunity for you to address any concerns that the Corps might 

have. In that regard, we would urge you to modify section 1024 of 

WRRDA 2014 to confirm that an emergency is not limited to natural disasters but includes failures resulting from a lack of maintenance. We would further recommend that authority to implement 
7 

this provision be delegated to the district commanders to ensure 

prompt action. 

Our Nation’s 25,000 miles of inland waterways handle over 600 million tons of cargo annually, at a cost typically $11 cheaper than 

other modes. This amounts to an average annual savings of $7 billion for our economy. 

As to the impact on the central portion of our Nation, over 20 

million bushels of grain from Kansas and Oklahoma wheat are 

shipped on our waterway annually to the Gulf of Mexico at a cost 

of about the same price as the price of a first-class postage stamp. 

Corresponding savings are realized for other commodities including 

project cargo that typically saves our shippers as much as $100,000 

per load. Last, but not least, more than 8,000 direct maritime jobs 

have been created along the McClellan-Kerr between Muskogee 

and Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a result of some $5 billion of industrial 

investments. All of this is now at risk if we do not adequately 

maintain our waterway, something that we are ready and willing 

to help with. 

One important answer to the critical needs of our Nation’s waterway system is to make sure the Congress passes a WRDA bill in 

2016 and every 2 years thereafter. The Congress made that commitment in WRRDA 2014, and we are very appreciative of this 

committee’s leadership and commitment in working to develop a 

WRDA this year to ensure the reliability of the system and to build 

upon the reforms adopted in WRRDA 2014. 

I also recognize that adequate funding needed to maintain our 

water resources infrastructure will continue to be a challenge. The 

Congress recognized this in WRRDA 2014 through several provisions that allowed for alternative funding mechanisms, including a 

public-private partnership model. WRDA 2016 presents an opportunity to further enhance and improve those provisions, which 

would enable us to overcome the current critical backlog that will 

ensure the reliability and sustainability of the MKARNS, and 

therefore our maritime ports. Given our ability to successfully work 

with our Corps Districts and Division, the partnership we have developed along our waterway may well serve as a model that can be 

looked upon nationwide. 

I really appreciate and am honored to have this opportunity. 

Thank you very much, and I look forward to working with you as 

you develop a WRDA 2016. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Portiss follows:] 
8 
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Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Portiss. 

John Swearingen is the Senior Vice President of Marathon Petroleum Corporation. 

Mr. Swearingen. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN SWEARINGEN, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT, MARATHON PETROLEUM CORPORATION 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Good morning, Chairman Inhofe, Ranking 

Member Boxer, and members of the Committee. My name is John 

Swearingen, and I am the Senior Vice President of Transportation 

and Logistics at Marathon Petroleum. Thank you for the opportunity to share our story about the importance of a strong 21st century energy transportation system. 

Such infrastructure plays a critical role in our company’s ability 

to continue to safely deliver affordable petroleum products to American consumers. Marathon Petroleum is headquartered in Findlay, 

Ohio, and with our seven plant refining network, we are the Nation’s fourth largest transportation fuel manufacturer. We are also 

one of the largest marketers and transporters of petroleum products in the U.S. 

A key part of our business is our inland river fleet, which is one 

of the largest private domestic fleets of inland petroleum product 

barges in the U.S. Our fleet consists of 219 inland waterway 

towboats and barges that we wholly own, accompanied by another 

22 towboats and barges which are leased. We also have another 30 

boats and 100 barges under contract with third parties. 

Our fleet carries products primarily on the Ohio River between 

Pittsburgh and Paducah, Kentucky. Other movements are also regularly scheduled on the Mississippi, Illinois, Allegheny, 

Monongahela, Kanawha, Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. All of 

these river systems have locks and dams built and maintained by 

the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We also own distribution storage facilities throughout the South and Midwest, which are also 

accessed via water. 

Just recently, the U.S. became the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas, and we are a net exporter of refined products. This has 

made energy more affordable and our country more energy secure. 

In order for Americans to fully realize the benefit of this abundant 

and affordable energy, investments in energy transportation infrastructure are absolutely critical. 

Moving commodities by barge and tanker is extremely efficient. 

For example, moving the amount of liquid volume on just five 8- 

barge towboats is equivalent to moving the same volume over the 

road with 5,000 semi-tractor trailers. However, inadequate investment can minimize these efficiencies and result in bottlenecks in 

commerce. 

Unscheduled and unplanned lock outages, like those we have experienced on the Ohio River over the past decade, are extremely 

disruptive and lead to increased cost of everyday products, commodities, and raw materials for the end consumer. Nearly 40 percent of all domestic waterborne trade is crude oil or petroleum 

products, and 40 percent of the crude oil arriving at refineries is 

being shipped via water. Therefore, the longer it takes for a ship-
13 

ment to arrive due to backlogs at locks and dams, the more expensive petroleum products will become. 

It is well known the Army Corps of Engineers has billions of dollars of deferred maintenance activities due to insufficient funding. 

These maintenance projects are critical to our industry’s operation. 

Today we functionally have a fix-as-fail posture when it comes to 

our inland waterway infrastructure. We cannot afford to move toward a fail-to-fix posture. 

Congress has already taken a number of positive steps forward 

in the long road toward recovery. The 2014 WRDA bill established 

a framework for authorizing full distribution of the revenues paid 

by the inland towing industry into the Harbor Maintenance Trust 

Fund. We appreciate that Congress included this provision and appropriated the authorized amounts last year. We now encourage 

Congress to maintain the WRDA authorized distribution levels and 

to appropriate the authorized amount of 71 percent of Trust Fund 

revenues expected for fiscal year 2017. We also encourage Congress to appropriate the $3.1 billion in the 

operations and maintenance account for the Army Corps of Engineers and further appropriate the full use of the Inland Waterways 

Trust Fund, which is based on a 29 cents per gallon user fee assessed on vessels operating on the inland system. 

Last, there is currently a near final feasibility study for the Pittsburgh area to modernize Emsworth, Dashields, and Montgomery 

Locks and Dams. This study has been under development for more 

than 12 years and has cost more than $17 million. We strongly encourage the committee to authorize the Upper Ohio River Navigation Study in the 2016 WRDA bill. 

Marathon Petroleum Corporation stands ready to work with the 

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee as well as other 

committees of jurisdiction and appropriators. We are a willing partner in the effort to build and maintain a 21st century energy infrastructure network. The American public deserves no less. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Swearingen follows:] 
14 
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Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Swearingen. 

Rob Roberson is the Director of Corporate Logistics at Nucor Corporation. 

Mr. Roberson. 

STATEMENT OF ROB ROBERSON, DIRECTOR OF CORPORATE 

LOGISTICS, NUCOR CORPORATION 

Mr. ROBERSON. Good morning, Chairman Inhofe and Ranking 

Member Boxer. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. As 

the Chairman said, I am Rob Roberson, Director of Corporate Logistics for Nucor Corporation. 

Nucor is the Nation’s largest steel manufacturer and recycler, 

with the capacity to produce almost 29 million tons of steel annually. Last year, the company recycled nearly 17 million tons of 

scrap steel and turned it into new steel that is used in construction, automotive, and energy applications, just to name a few. We 

are a company of over 23,000 teammates, located primarily in the 

U.S. and Canada. 

Inland waterways and ports are an essential part of our Nation’s 

transportation system and economy, creating jobs and revenue regionally and nationally. As a company that relies on just-in-time 

delivery of products to our customers, an efficient transportation 

infrastructure is vitally important. Waterway infrastructure is not 

only important for moving finished steel products to market, but 

also for bringing raw materials to our steel mills. We have several 

steel mills located on rivers which bring in more than 90 percent 

of their raw materials by water. Nucor’s scrap steel business, The 

David J. Joseph Company, transports approximately 3,500 barges 

per year. Barges provide a safe, efficient, environmentally friendly 

and cost-effective way to move goods. 

In order for the U.S. to remain economically competitive, we 

must continue to invest in our ports and inland waterways. Every 

barge we utilize can move up to 1,700 net tons of raw material or 

product. This is the equivalent of 17 railcars, or almost 80 trucks. 

When we fail to adequately maintain our ports and inland waterways, companies like ours are forced to use more costly and less 

efficient shipping alternatives, which threatens our ability to deliver goods to our customers in a cost-effective manner, a key competitive strength of our company for almost 50 years. 

A well-functioning inland waterways and port system also gives 

Nucor access to an effective distribution channel to fight against 

surging steel imports that have crippled much of the domestic steel 

industry. 

The American steel industry is in crisis. A glut of global steel 

production has led to the dumping of steel into the U.S. market at 

historic levels and in violation of international trade rules. Despite 

the highest level of domestic steel consumption since 2006, less efficient foreign producers are benefiting, not domestic producers. Due 

to unfairly traded imports, the American steel industry’s capacity 

utilization in 2015 was less than 70 percent, and pricing for most 

steel products collapsed. 

To help fight the import surge and to better serve the needs of 

our customers, Nucor is expanding our capabilities to produce higher quality offerings. We recently invested $100 million to modernize 
18 

our South Carolina mill in order to produce wider and lighter sheet 

steel for the automotive industry. The ability to use our ports and 

our waterways as a means to provide the most competitive freight 

solution to the market gives us an advantage over our foreign competitors. 

For these reasons, we appreciate the action Congress took in 

2014 passing the Water Resources and Reform Development Act, 

and we are pleased Congress is getting an early start on the next 

WRDA reauthorization. 

The 2014 legislation made many important changes to the way 

water infrastructure projects are approved and funded. That bill 

helped streamline project approval by removing redundant studies 

and expediting permits. It also recognized the importance of funding for harbor maintenance and the dredging of inland waterways. 

We were pleased that the legislation also encouraged the use of resilient construction techniques and materials. The 2016 reauthorization can build on these changes and address several issues that 

have emerged since the last WRDA bill was passed. 

The last WRDA legislation included Buy America provisions in 

the newly created WIFIA program and permanently applied Buy 

America to the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund projects. 

We would like to see these provisions permanently applied to the 

EPA’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund in the upcoming reauthorization. We believe that it is good policy to apply Buy America 

preferences to taxpayer-funded programs, particularly those administered by the EPA, which heavily regulates domestic industries. 

This will help stimulate job growth in the iron and steel industries 

and encourage research and development and capital investment 

here at home. 

Regular investment will ensure our waterway infrastructure remains competitive and our economy will continue to grow, and we 

appreciate the work this committee will undertake to reauthorize 

WRDA. We also encourage appropriators to follow through with 

funding to ensure that the merits of WRDA 2016 are fully 

achieved. 

Since 2009, Nucor has invested over $6 billion in our U.S. facilities because we believe so strongly in the American economy and 

American workers. We want to continue investing here in America. 

We need Congress’ help to ensure a competitive environment here 

at home that allows domestic steel producers to realize the benefits 

of a growing U.S. economy. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Roberson follows:] 
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Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Roberson. 

Norma Jean Mattei is President-Elect of American Society of 

Civil Engineers. 

Dr. Mattei. 

STATEMENT OF NORMA JEAN MATTEI, PRESIDENT-ELECT, 

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS 

Ms. MATTEI. Good morning, Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member 

Boxer, committee members and staff. Thank you for this invitation. 

My name is Norma Jean Mattei, and I am a professional engineer 

in the State of Louisiana, I am Professor of Civil Engineering at 

the University of New Orleans; I am a member of the Mississippi 

River Commission. But I am here today as President-Elect of the 

American Society of Civil Engineers. 

The American Society of Civil Engineers has over 150,000 civil 

engineers globally. We are well known, as Senator Boxer mentioned, for our report card. This is our 2013 report card on America’s infrastructure. It is a comprehensive document that takes a 

look at assessing 16 sectors of infrastructure across the Nation. We 

are about to work on our 2017 report card, just as you are working 

on WRDA 2016, and we are hoping that this important work that 

you do will raise the grades, because let me tell you about the 

grades. 

Our 2013 report card gave a grade overall to our infrastructure 

of D∂. When you look at levees, a D¥; inland waterways D¥; 

dams a D; drinking water a D; wastewater a D; ports a C. 

[Laughter.] 

Those grades really aren’t that good, are they? So, frankly, I am 

going to steal a line from a fellow professor and GM of D.C. Water: 

‘‘We sometimes give people Ds because it is just too hard to flunk 

them.’’ 

If we don’t invest in our infrastructure, the U.S. risks losing competitiveness, we risk losing jobs; it costs our Government and it 

cost the American family. In our Failure to Act economic report we 

assess long-term economic impacts of not properly investing in our 

infrastructure. The report concludes that our Nation’s deteriorating 

ports and inland waterways infrastructure will cost the American 

economy more than 800,000 jobs and suppress the growth of our 

GDP by a little less than $7 billion in 2020. 

But we know that flood control projects, as an example, have a 

return on investment of between 4 and 20, and sometimes more, 

times their cost. It’s not only a good return on investment; it is 

simply good fiscal responsive policy. 

WRDA bills are powerful; they are important. More than 20 

years ago, Congress authorized the National Dam Safety Program. 

WRRDA 14 reauthorized that program, and it also created a new 

national levee safety initiative. Let’s talk about the dams. 

We now know that we have an inventory nationally of over 

87,000 dams. We assess their condition. We know how they are 

doing; we know their age. Their average age is about 54 years. 

That is about as old as me. And some of them are older than me. 

We now provide training to State dam safety programs. 

With increasing population and greater development below those 

dams, we continued to see the numbers of high hazard dams in-
24 

crease to nearly 14,000 in 2012. The deficient dams number about 

4,000, and unfortunately, 2,000 of those are high hazard also. 

I couldn’t tell these numbers to you, we wouldn’t know them but 

for WRDA. So an authorization is very, very important to public 

safety programs. 

Unfortunately, the levee side of the story is very different. While 

the dam safety program has been 20 years old, it wasn’t until 2014 

that Congress authorized the first program to inventory levees. The 

sad truth is we have not invested a single dollar into that program. 

So levees and dams, we don’t really want to see those things fail. 

We use them every day, but the public does not really see the benefit until we have a disaster. They protect billions of dollars of 

property and hundreds of thousands of families. But we simply 

struggle today with maintaining this infrastructure, let alone building new and modernized sustainable infrastructure. 

I have an example, though, of where we did build something that 

is state-of-the-art. I live in New Orleans, and because of a disaster, 

the Hurricane Storm Surge and Risk Reduction System outside of 

New Orleans is remarkable. But it was completed because there 

was a sense of urgency, there were enough funds appropriated, and 

there was a project delivery process that worked. If these investments are not made in conjunction with policy reforms, families 

will have a lower standard of living. Our Nation will lose ground 

in the global economy. As conditions continue to deteriorate, we estimate that the cost to American families alone each year is a little 

over $3,000. 

We look forward to working with the committee as it drafts this 

new legislation. Pay special attention to alternate financing, multiple project benefits and ecosystem restoration. New legislation 

this Congress will give regular order again; it will allow project 

managers certainty, the ability to plan. 

And finally, in a few weeks, members from 50 States of our organization will come to D.C. to meet with you, so please take the time 

to meet with these experts in infrastructure. They will be able to 

give you some information and more details on the state of our infrastructure and how important investment is to us. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mattei follows:] 
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Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Dr. Mattei. 

Kyle Makarios is the Director of Government Affairs, North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters. 

Mr. Makarios. 

STATEMENT OF KYLE MAKARIOS, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, NORTH CENTRAL STATES REGIONAL COUNCIL OF CARPENTERS 

Mr. MAKARIOS. Thank you, Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member 

Boxer, distinguished members of this committee. I am honored to 

join you today. My name is Kyle Makarios, and I am the Director 

of Government Affairs for the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters. My union represents 25,000 carpenters, millwrights, pile drivers, and floor coverers in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. I also serve on 

the Board of the Upper Mississippi Waterways Association, a Minnesota-based association of businesses who rely on reliable navigation on the Mississippi River to move goods. 

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, 

my national union, represents over a half-million men and women 

who make their living building our Nation. Many of those members 

are employed building the projects directly under the purview of 

this committee, the public works and infrastructure projects that 

connect our country internally and to the world. Along with several 

other crafts, including operating engineers and laborers, our members perform the bulk of the heavy construction and maintenance 

of the Nation’s ports and waterways, locks, and dams. Every day 

across this country, thousands of our members go to work for hundreds of construction contractors building and providing maintenance on locks and dams and keeping our key navigation channels 

open. 

I am here today to assure this committee that enacting a new 

Water Resources Development Act is very important to our Nation’s construction workers and the businesses who hire them, as 

well as those that are part of our supply chain. Previous enactments of WRDA have authorized projects that are currently putting thousands of our members to work, and more steps are needed 

to continue to upgrade and modernize the navigation potential of 

our country’s inland waterways. 

As you just heard, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2013 

Report Card for America’s Infrastructure points out the dramatic 

need to increase investment in order to ensure reliable, efficient 

movement of commodities in this country. I applaud the bipartisan 

effort that this committee has helped lead—both in this Congress 

and in the previous—to address this urgent need to upgrade both 

surface and waterways transportation infrastructure. 

Not only is enacting a new Water Resources Development Act 

important to our members who work directly on heavy construction 

and civil works projects, but it is equally important to many other 

members. Farmers and businesses rely on a reliable and efficient 

transportation network to get goods to market. A barge leaving my 

home town of Saint Paul, Minnesota, must travel through 27 lock 

chambers to get downriver to the Port of New Orleans. It is critically important for the economy of States along the Upper Mis-
32 

sissippi River that those businesses and farmers have a high degree of confidence in that system so that they can continue to employ our members building and maintaining their grain elevators, 

steel mills, manufacturing plants, power generation facilities, cement plants, oil refineries, and hundreds of other businesses that 

rely on river transportation. 

As the committee considers reauthorization of the Water Resources Development Act, I would respectfully voice support for a 

couple of key policy initiatives being advocated by the Waterways 

Council, Inc., a national coalition of which we are a member. We 

support increasing the existing threshold defining a major rehabilitation project from $20 million to $50 million, and authorizing the 

Calcasieu Lock, Louisiana, and the Upper Ohio River Chief’s Reports. 

We also recognize and applaud the waterways industry’s successful advocacy for an increase in their own user fee on fuel that was 

implemented by the last WRDA and oppose additional fees on the 

waterways at this time. But it is very certain that Congress should 

maximize the investment levels in these projects in order to put 

our members and other construction workers to work. 

Mr. Chairman, let me wrap up by reiterating that Congress, and 

this committee in particular, can serve a critical need for this country by leading a bipartisan effort to ensure that our Nation’s inland 

waterways remain a reliable and cost-effective route for moving 

bulk commodities to and from the businesses and farms in our communities. In doing so, you will directly employ many thousands of 

construction workers and give confidence to private business whose 

investments will employ many thousands more. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Makarios follows:] 
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35 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Makarios. 

We will now have questions. And I think it would be very important, all of the members of the panel stress this every 2 years to 

have one. As I mentioned before, we went 7 years the one before 

last without having one. That is very important. So it is important 

that your members be aware to use their influence on members to 

make this very popular program, and I say the same thing to all 

of you. 

Mr. Portiss, Mr. Swearingen talked about the bottleneck that can 

happen on the waterways, and that is a frightening thing. Every 

time I look at one of our locks and dams, I think what more is that 

going to affect. 

What would be the financial loss to the State of Oklahoma if a 

lock failure closed the McClelland-Kerr? 

Mr. PORTISS. Excellent question, sir. Thank you. Two million dollars a day would be the hit on our State if that waterway were to 

shut down. We determined that through an input-output analysis 

about 6 years ago; and that is just the economic loss as far as the 

State as a whole is concerned. But the investment by the citizens 

of city of Tulsa and Rogers County, gone; no more waterway. We 

would have a nice industrial park, but no port. 

Senator INHOFE. You spent some time in your testimony talking 

about the thing that we put in the last WRDA bill that allows 

other people to get involved financially to help, and the interpretation by the Corps of Engineers seemed to be that it has to be a result of a natural disaster. Is that accurate? 

Mr. PORTISS. That is correct. Right. 

Senator INHOFE. Did you think at the time, when we added that 

language, that that would be the problem, that would happen? 

Mr. PORTISS. Absolutely not. 

Senator INHOFE. I didn’t either. I would ask you this question. 

What difference does it make if it is using outside Government resources to do something, to make an approval on a public project, 

whether that resulted from a natural disaster or otherwise? 

Mr. PORTISS. Senator, it shouldn’t make any difference at all. If 

you have an emergency situation occur or we have a failure, goodness sakes, why can’t we step in and provide and help them with 

resources they don’t have to fix the problem? I am not talking 

about long-term; I am just talking about putting a Band-Aid on it, 

so to speak, so that the waterway can continue to operate. 

Senator INHOFE. Do the rest of you agree with that? I am talking 

to the rest of them now. 

Did you agree, Mr. Swearingen? Did you believe that that is the 

way it would be interpreted when that language went in? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Yes, Senator. I think it is important, though, 

anything the committee can do to incentivize the Army Corps of 

Engineers to maintain the infrastructure. We have seen a number 

of situations up and down the Ohio River where gates have failed 

to function, and we have been stopped for 50, 60 days at a cost of 

millions of dollars. There was one lock where the gate literally fell 

off that took months to repair. So I think anything that the committee can do that would incentivize the Corps to maintain and do 

the proactive maintenance that is necessary to avoid the significant 

maintenance outages I think is well served. 
36 

Senator INHOFE. That is not my question, though. My question 

is, in the absence of that, we should take full advantage of what 

is out there, outside of Government, to put the Band-Aid on, to 

keep everything moving. That is the concern that I have. 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. I think any kind of resourcing needs to be 

brought to bear on the issue, yes, sir. 

Senator INHOFE. How, Mr. Swearingen, would your companies 

and your customers be affected if you couldn’t use the waterway to 

ship your fuel, steel, and other products that you make? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Many routes that we move, that is the primary 

route for distribution of petroleum products, so any time you have 

some kind of delay or outage for extended period, then you have 

to find alternate transportation routes. Typically, that is long-haul 

trucks, which just simply drives the price up. 

Senator INHOFE. And you heard Bob Portiss talk about the public-private partnerships. Would your companies benefit and be willing to participate in those partnerships also? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Well, I think we would have to really take a 

look at it, Senator. I think, again, any kind of resourcing that can 

be brought to bear, we would really have to take a look at it and 

see if that would be something that provides an efficient and effective infrastructure funding mechanism. So I would not close off any 

opportunity. 

Senator INHOFE. Senator Boxer. 

Senator BOXER. I want to thank you all for your testimony. It is 

very clear, and it is a call to this committee to step up, and we are 

going to. We are going to step up. 

Mr. Portiss, in your many years of experience, you point out in 

your way that our ports are an economic engine, and certainly in 

Oklahoma. I wanted to point out in California our ports employ 

more than 500,000 people. And if you take a look at the indirect 

jobs across the country because of all the work that comes when 

you are shipping, it is 3 million indirect jobs. 

So just in one State, albeit the largest State, 500,000 direct jobs 

and 3 million indirect jobs. So I am glad that our ports are rated 

a C. We ought to do a lot better than that given the greatness of 

this Nation. 

Now, Doctor, in your presentation, which I found to be a real 

wake up call, you went through the report card, and I would ask 

unanimous consent to place that in the record at this time. 

Senator INHOFE. Without objection. 

[The referenced information was not received at time of print.] 

Senator BOXER. What we are looking at is the best we do in this 

WRDA bill to look at our responsibility is the ports; they are a C. 

But dams are a D, drinking water is a D, inland waterways D¥, 

levees a D¥. That is just a sad, sad report card. If our kids came 

home with this, we would really be upset, and I hope we are going 

to be upset, and we are going to step up to the plate. So we will 

put that in the record, and I thank you for that, and I am so happy 

you were here and so articulate. 

Now, another thing you say in this report, which I am going to 

quote word for word. When we look at Flint, we all get so sad and 

sick about it, but listen to this: ‘‘It’s estimated that more than 1 

million miles of water mains are in place in the United States. The 
37 

condition of many of these pipes are unknown because they’re buried underground, out of sight, they’re owned and operated by various local entities. Some pipes date back to the Civil War era and 

often are not examined until there is a problem or water main 

break, and these breaks are becoming more common as there are 

an estimated 240,000 water main breaks per year in the United 

States.’’ 

So I would ask if I could put that document in the record as well. 

Senator INHOFE. Without objection. 

[The referenced information was not received at time of print.] 

Senator BOXER. So, again, Flint is a warning to us, it is a wake 

up call to us. It is something that we have now a moral obligation 

and I think a fiscal obligation to step up to the plate on, because 

when these things happen it costs taxpayers a fortune. 

Look what is going on in Flint. We still can’t figure that out. We 

are going back and forth, how do you pay for it. Prevention is key 

here, and we know what we have to do. In the case of Flint, had 

they treated the pipes immediately, we wouldn’t have seen the lead 

poisoning that we have seen. 

So we have to act. And I often say once you know there is a problem and it is hurting people, we have an obligation. 

Now, Mr. Makarios, in your testimony you discuss your support 

for a WRDA bill and the job it represents, and I think all of you 

have made the case; business, labor, everyone. Are the jobs created 

by projects authorized in WRDA good jobs that help workers support themselves and their families? Because we watch the Presidential, every candidate, whether Republican or Democrat, is saying that we have to raise wages and create good jobs. Are these 

good jobs? And could you give us an example of the types of jobs 

supported by WRDA projects? 

Mr. MAKARIOS. Thank you, Senator, I would be happy to. I think 

it is important to keep in mind that a construction worker, every 

job they are ever on, they are working themselves out of a job because they are working for a project, and when that project ends 

they have to move on, and there has to be another job for them to 

continue. 

But having said that, these are very good jobs. Our members, 

when they are working, work very hard. When they are working 

today in Minnesota, it is in single digits; they are working outside 

and working very hard under tough conditions. And it is hot in the 

summer, and sometimes they are in the mud, and certainly when 

they are on heavy infrastructure projects, they are working on lock 

and dam projects, that is tough work. 

But they are compensated well. They have great benefits to take 

care of their families. They are paid good wages that take care of 

their families, and when they retire they are able to retire with 

dignity. 

Senator BOXER. Well, thank you for that. 

So I will close with this. We are still recovering from the great 

recession, and what we did on the highway bill was really beautiful, how we came together, and we were so proud as a committee. 

No one thought we could do it. We locked in economic growth in 

the transportation industry for 5 years, and we need to do the 
38 

same thing for WRDA every couple years. I am so excited about the 

opportunity. 

And I couldn’t imagine a better panel, in all sincerity, and I 

thank you all for your contribution. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Boxer. 

Senator Capito. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to begin 

by thanking the Chairman and Ranking Member, and really this 

committee for beginning early steps to take action on WRDA, because it is important that we exercise our constitutional authority 

to make sure that the projects that will be studied and constructed 

by the Corps of Engineers are followed through. I was a conferee 

on the 2014 bill when I was in the House, and I remind everybody 

we had 91 votes in the Senate and 412 in the House, so it was a 

very overwhelming bipartisan support. 

And I would agree with the Ranking Member, it is nice when we 

have consensus that we can build together, because on this committee sometimes we just don’t have that. 

So I think the panelists have all said it is universally agreed that 

waiting 7 years has a detrimental effect way far too long. So this 

is important to my home State. I am going to highlight a little bit. 

As you know, we have a lot of rivers, Mr. Swearingen, move a 

lot of product on our rivers, and one-third of our State’s coal is 

shipped by barge. And shipping by barge is large for not just coal, 

but also natural gas and our chemical industry. According to the 

Corps, 32 million tons of commodities are moved by barge to and 

out of West Virginia, and more than half of these are shipped to 

our surrounding States. 

But water navigation is not the only benefit that we see. West 

Virginia’s mountainous terrain makes us particularly vulnerable 

for flooding. Currently, thanks to previous WRDA legislation, the 

Corps is working to improve the Bluestone Dam, for instance, in 

Hinton, West Virginia. These improvements on this dam will not 

only allow our families to rest easier, but the annual flood damages 

prevented is estimated to be around $80 million. 

So, Mr. Swearingen, you mentioned several details that would 

prove beneficial if we successfully enacted the legislation. Could 

you kind of take the flip side of that and highlight for us maybe 

some of the difficulties and uncertainties are that would be associated with us failing to act every 2 years? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Yes, Senator. I think, again, it comes back to 

the assuredness of affordable, available energy supply, because, as 

you well know, a lot of these water routes are truly the only effective, efficient way to deliver transportation fuels into the various 

markets. So if you don’t have access to those, if you don’t have certainty of access, then it simply drives up cost to the end consumer. 

Senator CAPITO. Does it have an impact on your company’s willingness to invest and reinvest when the uncertainty is not there for 

the next several years? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. It certainly is a factor. We are very committed 

to our traditional Midwestern markets, South and Southeast. But 

even with that long-term commitment, if you have higher costs, 

higher operating costs, you have to factor that in to your long-term 

decisionmaking. So absolutely it can have a negative impact. 
39 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. One of the significant policy changes 

that we enacted in the last WRDA bill was the 3-by-3-by-3 process, 

where feasibility studies must be completed by all three levels of 

the Corps in 3 years at a cost of no more than $3 million. Now, 

I know it has been less than 3 years since the 2014 WRDA bill, 

but I am wondering has anybody had any experience with the 3- 

by-3-by-3? No. I see a no, no, no, no, no. All right, that’s five by 

three nos. 

OK, I assume that probably will take longer to get into reality 

to see how that works. Obviously it is streamlining, trying to move 

these projects further, because time is money. These are very expensive projects. 

Dr. Mattei, you mentioned a report card, and I am with the 

Ranking Member there; if my children had brought home those report cards, I would go into immediate panic. And I started thinking, besides devoting resources and time, how would I get out of 

that, and I think one of the things I would have done would be to 

prioritize levees, dams. They are all very, very important. Is there 

any way from a civil engineering perspective that you would 

prioritize which one of those categories needs to bubble up first in 

terms of repairing our Nation’s infrastructure? 

Ms. MATTEI. Well, I don’t think we really should limit ourselves 

to looking at one sector being more important than another. It is 

possibly better to look at each sector, prioritize and rank those 

projects within a sector, and then take across all sectors the 

riskiest, the ones that pose the most risk to the American public. 

Senator CAPITO. So make the decisions based on a risk-based decision, which makes a lot of sense when you consider what could 

happen if some of these failures would occur not only in commerce, 

but loss of life, property, and all those other things. 

Thank you very much. This has been a great panel. Thank you. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Capito. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you to both 

you and the Ranking Member for taking up WRDA again. 

Rhode Island was first settled in the 1600s, and in the 1700s 

Newport, Rhode Island, was a bigger deal than New York, New 

York. The British put an end to that when they occupied the place, 

and they were not good occupiers. But the result of it being a longold, original State is that we have a lot of old infrastructure. 

Here is some new infrastructure from Rhode Island. See that? 

This is a pipe from Kingston Village, 1920s installed, and it is already corroded. You can see how little comes through that compared to original; and there is a lot more of that around for us to 

work on. There is plenty to be done. 

Senator BOXER. Can we look at that? 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Just be careful; it is a little dirty. Don’t 

get it on your clothes. 

So thank you very much for keeping the focus on this. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I wanted to make an additional point, and 

I think I have the sympathy of the Chairman and the Ranking 

Member in this, which is that when we disarmed ourselves of being 

able to do what were then called earmarks, i.e., have any specific 
40 

congressional control over anything, we gave up enormous amounts 

of our legislative power. I had a conversation with Chairman Enzi 

the other day and I said, you know, there are lots of traditional 

fights in Washington; one is party versus party. We all know that 

one. One is executive versus legislative; one is member versus staff, 

we see a certain amount of that. And he said don’t forget Senate 

versus House. So those are our big four fights. And in the executive 

versus legislative fight, I don’t think we have ever seen unilateral 

disarmament by a legislature to the point virtually of self-mutilation that we did by handing all of this authority over to the executive branch. 

Senator INHOFE. This will surprise you, Senator. I agree with 

you. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Exactly. We pour money into the Army 

Corps of Engineers and it goes into a pile where they have huge 

lists of projects, and they pick and choose without virtually any 

input from us. Unless you are, I think, one of the real senior masters of the universe who they need for appropriations and things 

like that, then I suspect that there is a back channel that gets 

things done. That, to me, is no improvement over an open earmark 

in a public process in a formal committee. 

So I am keen to work with members of this committee to try as 

best we can to define and refine our response to the earmark rule 

so we are not simply emasculating ourselves and shifting the power 

over to executive officials who then have zero accountability to us, 

particularly if we only do this every 7 years. So for all those reasons doing this every 2 years is something that I applaud. I know 

it takes a lot of effort, and for the Chairman and the Ranking 

Member to have done this, I appreciate it. 

I would like to mention one other topic just by way of if somebody else is interested in working with me on this. When we think 

of dams, we often think of big working dams. We think of power 

generating dams, Hoover Dam, we think of people damming the 

Columbia and things like that. 

Rhode Island has hundreds of dams. We are not a big State. We 

have hundreds of dams going back through our whole history. 

Some of them it is not even clear from their title who even owns 

them any longer. And trying to get a little hydro system installed, 

trying to get a canoe or kayak passage approved, trying to get permission to just route the stupid thing out so that its collapse in a 

crisis is no longer a health or safety threat to people below is a 

very, very complicated set of procedures. It is not significantly different to do that versus to do dam across the Columbia River. 

So the result is hundreds of these old dams get no attention because the bureaucratic and administrative costs of addressing them 

is so high that it is not worth the candle to deal with it. So finding 

a way to deal with these old dams I think would be a very useful 

process. If anybody else is interested, I put up my flag on that 

issue and look forward to hoping that that could be a bipartisan 

issue. 

So thank you. Let’s get these rotten old pipes replaced. Well done 

on reasserting our legislative authority, and let’s see what we can 

do about the old dams that are a threat but there is too much bureaucracy around fixing them to get it actually fixed. 
41 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. I might add on 

your comment on earmarks, since the moratorium originally went 

in, not one cent was saved. Did you know that? 

Senator Fischer. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Roberson, I just wanted to thank you for being here today. 

As you know, I had a field hearing for the EPW Committee in August, and I was very, very pleased that John Kinter, the Environmental Manager at that great Nucor plant that we have in Norfolk, 

Nebraska, was there to testify, and he did an absolutely wonderful 

job in providing this committee with appropriate good information. 

So thank you for being here. 

I do have a question for you. Congress addressed the importance 

of resilient construction in the 2014 WRDA, and in your opinion, 

what was the intent of that? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for the kind 

words about our nice plant, and thank you for the platform that 

you provided for us. 

Senator FISCHER. Well, we love having you in Nebraska. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Outstanding. We love being there. 

The Army Corps of Engineers sets the standards for the large infrastructure projects with respect to resiliency, so I don’t know that 

I can speak to what qualifies for that. What I can tell you is that 

steel is a resilient, durable product that, irrespective of that standard, we are prepared to provide material in support of that. In fact, 

the Rhode Island pipes that I saw, they are just dying for some 

Nucor steel in the new pipe manufacturing process. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Swearingen, your testimony mentions the necessity of investing in energy transportation infrastructure. How will these infrastructure investments ensure American families have access to affordable energy? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Senator, great question. I think with the energy boom and the renaissance in the United States, it is great to 

have the production, but you have to get it to the markets. The energy infrastructure, whether it is pipe, whether it is waterways, 

whether it is rail, whether it is truck, are all necessary, all of the 

above, in order to get that abundant affordable energy, keep it affordable, and get it to the end consumer. 

Senator FISCHER. And will that help to make energy more affordable for our families? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Absolutely. 

Senator FISCHER. It definitely will. How are we going to move 

ahead on that? What are your recommendations? 

Mr. SWEARINGEN. Well, I think certainly with the WRDA bill, 

moving forward with that and maintaining the infrastructure, I 

think continued work on pipeline safety authorization to enable 

pipelines, continued infrastructure development on the roads and 

the rails. It is really an all-of-the-above necessary infrastructure. 

Senator FISCHER. I am glad you mentioned pipelines. I have a 

Safe Pipes Act that I am hoping we can get passed here in the Senate. I think it is very important that we move that bill forward. It 

helps with the regulations; it is going to help make our pipelines 

safer. So thank you for mentioning that. 
42 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Fischer. 

Senator Booker. 

Senator BOOKER. I want to thank Senator Fischer also for mentioning our Safe Pipes Act; we are working on together in the spirit 

of bipartisanship, which I hope makes the Chairman happy. And 

I want to thank the panel for being here today in general. 

I just cannot emphasize enough, after going to visit New Jersey 

and seeing the storm we just had, where in some areas the flooding 

was worse than Super Storm Sandy; to see people lose their homes, 

to see people who have had their livelihoods affected. The urgency 

that exists with us doing work that is improving our resiliency. 

And it is the most fiscally conservative thing I can think to do, 

which is to make a small investment up front to prevent from having to make a massive investment later on. 

So I cannot emphasize enough, as we start to talk about WRDA, 

about the urgency for resiliency efforts. It is the fiscally conservative thing to do, it is the enlightened thing to do. And after seeing 

the damage again in Cape May County last month, it is the humane thing to do, to empower families to persevere despite the 

wacky weather that we are having. 

The second thing that is very important to me is just this outrageous reality we have in this country where we have such an 

aged, decrepit system of delivering water to people. Literally, New 

Jersey, probably about $4 billion of deficit in terms of keeping the 

systems up, hundreds of billions of dollars nationally, that right 

now, and I am not just talking about Flint, but right now is putting 

our families, our children, our elderly folks in danger. 

Lead poisoning is not just something that happened in Flint, 

Michigan; it is happening based upon aged infrastructure all across 

our Nation, endangering young people, endangering elderly, endangering health and safety, particularly in poor neighborhoods. 

If the greatest natural resource this country has is not oil or gas, 

it is the genius of our children, then what we are doing with our 

inability to invest in improving this infrastructure is, to me, such 

an affront to everything we say we are as a Nation. And again, it 

is the fiscally conservative thing to do, upgrading these pipes, protecting health and safety, saving on medical costs, unleashing the 

economic potential. And the data shows, in fact, that investments 

in water infrastructure create an economic return in the same year 

that you make that investment that is far greater than what folks 

on Wall Street struggle to get every single day. 

So I just want to just emphasize those two urgencies. 

But very specifically to Dr. Mattei, I am working on a potential 

Senate companion bill to Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s bipartisan Water Infrastructure Trust Fund Act that he introduced just 

last week with two of his Republican colleagues. The Trust Fund 

would provide resources, as you know, to improve our water infrastructure through the creation of a labeling system that would 

allow companies to voluntarily contribute to improving our water 

infrastructure. I am interested in working with my colleagues on 

the EPW Committee to include this proposal like the Water Infrastructure Trust Fund in this year’s WRDA bill. I think it is an important step to addressing some of the issues I just talked about. 
43 

So in the brief moment I have left in my time, Dr. Mattei, can 

you provide some of your thoughts on how the Water Infrastructure 

Trust Fund Act could help us address our chronic underfunding of 

our watershed and drinking water infrastructure? 

Ms. MATTEI. Thank you for that question. Drinking water received a grade of D, and there is about a quarter of a million water 

main breaks a year. 

Senator BOOKER. Even beyond water main breaks, we are just 

leaching water out. There are leaks consistently where we are losing a tremendous amount of water we are treating and pumping 

as well. 

Ms. MATTEI. Right. Back in my hometown it is about 40 percent. 

So the older the city is, the leakier the connections of the distribution system. So we treat this water, which costs us money, and 

then we allow for some of that product to leak out, and that costs 

the American public. 

Senator BOOKER. So can you speak to Blumenauer’s introduction? Is that something that would help getting more resources for 

our water infrastructure? 

Ms. MATTEI. Of course it would. It is voluntary but it would 

allow for another source of funding in order to address some of the 

needs that we have in the area of drinking water. 

Senator BOOKER. Yes. You call it common sense. You would call 

it something that is just common sense allowing for that? 

Ms. MATTEI. Just common sense to fix the leaks so that we drink 

what we clean. 

Senator BOOKER. All right. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Booker. 

Senator Boozman. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank all of you all so much for being here. We do appreciate all of your expertise and your willingness to come and share 

with us. 

Mr. Roberson, in Arkansas alone I understand that the Nucor facilities can recycle over 6 million tons of steel per year. You have 

some of the lowest emissions in the steel industry anywhere in the 

world. I believe that you have reduced energy intensity by more 

than 30 percent since 1990, and greenhouse gas emissions have 

fallen by 35 percent over the same time period, which is excellent. 

In short, Nucor is a global steel producing powerhouse, and your 

locations in Arkansas near the Mississippi River are globally competitive because of the waterway. That is one of the major things. 

Could you talk about how you are able to keep jobs in Arkansas 

and achieve environmental goals in part by remaining competitive 

globally? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Well, thank you, Senator. In Arkansas, I spent 

the first part of my career actually at one of the plants there in 

Arkansas, about 7 years. We locate those facilities where good 

American workers with good strong work ethics reside. They have 

a natural transferrable skill set that supports manufacturing steel, 

and that is one of the things that has driven the ability to do that 

in that State. 
44 

Senator BOOZMAN. Can you talk a little bit more about the importance of the inland waterways and how they affect your ability 

to transport your product in a very environmentally sensitive way, 

compared to being on trucks or on rail or whatever, and how that 

allows us to keep jobs at home as we compete in a very, very tough 

environment globally with others throughout the world? 

Mr. ROBERSON. Absolutely. So I mentioned in my testimony that 

1,700 tons move on a barge. Many of our plants, the plants that 

you mentioned, 90 percent of their raw materials that come into 

their plants are moved on the waterway system. If you think about 

a catastrophic failure or the deterioration of service on the waterways, moving that to the rail system, that same 1,700 tons would 

now equate to 17 additional railcars moving product or, conversely, 

80 truckloads. So if you think about that times bringing in 6 million tons of product and comparing that to our highways, it just 

doesn’t make a lot of good common sense. 

Senator BOOZMAN. So lots more emissions and lots more expense. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Lots more emissions, yes. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Lots more of expense for your company in trying to compete. 

Mr. ROBERSON. Absolutely. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Mr. Portiss, I would like to follow up a little 

bit on Senator Inhofe’s question and your comment about what we 

try to do in the WRDA bill regarding the Corps’ ability to accept 

help in an emergency. You said that in Oklahoma it would cost, what, $2 million a day, 

is that right? 

Mr. PORTISS. That would be the economic loss to the State if a 

failure should occur, yes, sir. 

Senator BOOZMAN. The other problem is one of the situations 

that we are always fighting with inland waterways is reliability. 

What would that do in the sense of if you had to shut down for 

many months, what would that do as you divert traffic off of that 

and people figure out, well, maybe we ought to shift to something 

else that is more reliable? What would that do to the system? Has 

anybody studied the long-term effect of the loss of business in the 

system in that regard? 

Mr. PORTISS. There have been a multitude, Senator, of studies 

that have been done to try and figure out what would happen if 

we lost the waterway completely; what would be the alternatives 

for us to move those same products. Quite frankly, to me, having 

been in this business all these years, it would be devastating. We 

have worked for 45 years to try and develop our ports along our 

waterway, and I think we have done a respectable job. Now, all of 

a sudden, the whole waterway is at risk. So, therefore, those companies that we have been able to attract to locate in Arkansas and 

Oklahoma, gone. 

They are talking about doubling of international trade, at least, 

over the next 10 years. Our highways, our railroads do not have 

the capacity to be able to handle that. My friends that run the Port 

of L.A. in Long Beach, used to have a good friend out there by the 

name of Geraldine Nance, and she said, Bob, we don’t have any 

more capacity here. It is just an example of why it is so important 

for us as a Nation to keep our inland waterway system viable. 
45 

Selfishly, in Oklahoma, we are kind of new, but we are adding 

tremendously every single year. But that all would be lost if we 

lost this waterway. And I can give you company upon company 

names where I don’t know what they would do. They would have 

to cut back production, cut back jobs, and the impact would be literally devastating. 

Senator BOOZMAN. No, that is an excellent point. We talk about 

our farmers working hard to feed the world with the need in the 

future, and they can produce it, but if you can’t get it there, then 

you have big problems. 

Thank you all very much. We appreciate your being here. 

Mr. PORTISS. Thank you for the question, sir. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Boozman. 

Senator Cardin. 

Senator CARDIN. Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you, and 

I want to thank Senator Boxer for the manner in which you have 

always worked together on the WRDA bill. You both understand 

how critically important it is to our Nation’s future. 

And I know that this committee wants to get the most robust 

WRDA bill done because we recognize it’s jobs and it’s economic 

growth and it enables so many important activities in our States. 

And you open up the process, and I really appreciate, and I will 

be coming to you on individual projects such as Smith Island, the 

last inhabitable island on the Chesapeake Bay, along with 

Tangiers, which is in Virginia. But in Maryland, Smith Island is 

the only—important to the Port of Baltimore, not only to commerce 

in my State, but the entire country, and how we need to pay attention in the WRDA bill to those types of economic activities. 

I talk about the Chesapeake Bay. I talk about Chesapeake Bay 

whenever I can, and the WRDA bill is an important tool in preserving this national treasure. And I certainly will be talking to 

you about Baltimore City and its economic development future. It 

has certain issues that I think we can deal with in the WRDA bill. 

But let me just use my time to underscore what many of my colleagues have talked about, and that is the importance for us, as the 

authorizing committee, to speak to a crisis we have in America, 

and that is the water infrastructure of America is in crisis. Now, 

we saw that in Flint. Flint was a very obvious symbol of drinking 

water pipes that are old, contain lead, and then inaction and, in 

many cases, failure to act when they should, put children and families at risk. And I hope before we go home for this recess that we 

will deal with this in the energy bill, dealing with Flint’s issue, but 

I want to make sure we deal with the specifics. 

But the problem is nationwide. Let me just give you some of my 

figures on lead. In Washington, DC, in the early part of the last 

decade, lead leached into the water of possibly 42,000 children. In 

the city of Baltimore, high lead levels in the school prompted officials to turn off drinking fountains and pass out bottled water. We 

don’t use drinking fountains in our schools, we don’t; we use bottled water in our schools in Baltimore City. We have been doing 

that for a while. And across the State of Maryland, every 1- and 

2-year-old in the entire State will be tested for lead. That is 

175,000 children will be tested for lead because we believe that 
46 

there has been too much exposure in our State, and we want to do 

something about it. 

I think everybody has heard the circumstances about Freddie 

Gray and the tragedy that occurred in Baltimore. He suffered from 

lead poisoning. 

So we have to do something about the water infrastructure in 

America. This committee has tried to do things in the past. We 

have not been able to get to the finish line on some of these. The 

EPA estimates that our water infrastructure needs about $655 billion, $655 billion. We appropriate $2 billion a year in the State revolving funds, and we have not reauthorized the safe drinking 

water. I hope that in WRDA there will be an opportunity for us to 

take up the reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water Revolving 

Fund. 

I noticed the President’s budget is terribly inadequate in this 

area, Mr. Chairman. It is inadequate in the drinking water, and it 

is certainly inadequate in the clean water, where he cuts the Clean 

Water Fund. And as we all know, if you don’t deal with the safe 

handling of our wastewater supplies, it affects the quality of water 

that goes into our drinking water, as well as into our streams, as 

well as into our environment. 

So I appreciate that the American Society of Civil Engineers 

gives us a report card every 4 years. 

Could you just explain, Doctor, why we got a D∂? I didn’t know 

we deserved a D∂. Is there some improvement that I didn’t know 

about? Obviously, that is an unacceptable grade. Tell me why we 

are deficient. This is the greatest Nation in the world. 

Ms. MATTEI. This is the greatest Nation in the world, but we 

have been really riding on the coattails of our parents and our 

grandparents, and the investments that they made, and we have 

not really maintained it properly, nor have we modernized this infrastructure properly. We really need to be smarter and build 

smarter. 

We determined these grades based on eight different areas: Capacity. So we need the capacity. Condition. What is the condition 

of each of these items? What is the funding that is in the pipe already? What is the future need? Because we see growth in many 

areas. O&M, operations and maintenance, which we have been 

pretty bad as a Nation on maintaining our infrastructure properly. 

Public Safety. Resilience, as has been mentioned. It is a lot cheaper 

to create resilient infrastructure than to throw money at it when 

it breaks and there is a disaster. And finally, Innovation. So those 

are how we get those grades. And across the board, in all sectors, 

we are not doing a good job at any of those eight areas. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you for your testimony. I do know that 

this committee wants to do something about it, and we are going 

to try to find a way to make that a reality. Thank you for your testimony. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Before Senator Cardin 

heads for the floor to help manage the Career Sanctions bill, what 

I am going to talk about here today is the damage we sustain on 

beaches from the southern part of your State all the way to the 
47 

northern part of my State, and you were a partner in this, but the 

great work that is done by the Army Corps of Engineers to help 

restore the dunes that are on our beaches from Fenwick Island, 

which is just north of Ocean City, Maryland, all the way up to 

Lewes, Delaware. 

We went through a nor’easter, I was told it was the worst 

nor’easter we have had since maybe 1962, and it occurred that this 

nor’easter of 1962 pretty much—I don’t know if it destroyed all of 

our coastal towns, but it came pretty darn close. And in this case 

we had a nor’easter almost as bad as that one, and when the winds 

subsided and the storm subsided, the buildings in all these towns 

were still standing, the homes were still standing; the infrastructure, the roads, the sewer systems were still operable, and the 

boardwalks were still there, and it is because of the work that was 

done in preparing defense against the onslaughts of Mother Nature. Some of those dunes are largely eroded, largely gone, but they 

need to be maintained and sort of rebuilt. Mother Nature is beginning to bring sand back onto the beach, and we are bulldozing that 

sand up to the boardwalks, so we are getting a little helping hand 

there from Mother Nature, but there is more work to be done. 

I am not sure who to start off with this question, but I understand one of you is a president-elect, so we will just start with you. 

President Mattei, Dr. Mattei, your first name is Norma Jean. 

Ms. MATTEI. Norma Jean. My momma did that to me. 

Senator CARPER. Has anyone asked you about your name today? 

Ms. MATTEI. Not yet, but people sing the song to me, Goodbye, 

Norma Jean, all the time. 

Senator CARPER. Hello, Norma Jean. 

Ms. MATTEI. Thank you. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. I want to echo Senator Booker’s comments on 

the importance of investments to protect life and property along 

our coasts. In the middle of our Nation we invest in dams and levees and flood control, but on our coast—as I have alluded to, and 

Senator Cardin would agree with this—it is beaches and dunes 

that protect us and help us to save money when we get hit by a 

big one, as we were a couple of weeks ago. 

Unfortunately, we are seeing damaging storms come along more 

frequently. As I mentioned, a couple weeks ago a storm called 

Jonas did more damage in Delaware than many summer hurricanes. Nor’easters are what we fear really more than hurricanes 

these days. 

But I will be touring these areas. I have been down to them a 

couple of times with our Governor, our congressional delegation. I 

am going to go back later this week. What I am hearing is that the 

Army Corps is running low on funds to complete disaster repairs, 

and here is my question: Should Congress examine potentially increasing the amount of authorized emergency repair funding? And 

what else can we do to protect coastal residents from storm and 

flood damage? 

If we can start with you, Dr. Mattei. 

Ms. MATTEI. So people love the water, they love to be by the 

water, they love to be by the beach, so I don’t think that that trend 

of the population moving to the coasts or the inland coasts is going 
48 

to change anytime soon. Regardless of the cause, we are suffering 

from an increase in sea level, so we know, as engineers, that we 

can design properly, but you need to fund and innovate. So it is a 

question of innovation, I think, and that costs money. 

So when you talk about coastal areas, and my hometown is the 

poster child for the issues that we are talking about. 

Senator CARPER. Where is your hometown? 

Ms. MATTEI. New Orleans. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Ms. MATTEI. So we have subsidence issues that the net difference 

that we are going to see in the future is, quite frankly, a little 

frightening. 

So there are measures that we can take to restore coastlines, but 

it is costly. And, as you mentioned, a storm can take away what 

you shore up along coasts, as far as sand dunes. So any measures 

to work with Mother Nature are usually a very wise thing so a 

healthy coastline is more resilient, it is more able to bounce back 

from a disaster. 

Senator CARPER. All right. My time has almost expired. Could 

one more person just comment very briefly in response to the question? 

Thank you, Doctor, and good luck in your administration. 

Anyone else want to comment? Please. All right, I guess you said 

it all. Thanks very much. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator Gillibrand. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Chairman Inhofe. Thank you 

both for holding this hearing today. I appreciate it very much. 

I am pleased that investing in our infrastructure is a bipartisan 

issue for our committee, and we all agree that investing in our infrastructure is critical for a growing economy, creating good paying 

jobs here at home and remaining competitive. 

As this committee puts together a new WRDA bill this year, we 

also have the opportunity to ensure that we are improving the safety of our water infrastructure, restoring our environment, and protecting coastal communities like those on Long Island and Staten 

Island against the effects of climate change and extreme weather 

such as Super Storm Sandy. 

As we are still rebuilding from the devastation of Super Storm 

Sandy, we have to actually rebuild smarter to ensure that our flood 

protection strategies will result in more resilient communities that 

are prepared to withstand future storms. We should look at additional steps we can take to encourage and support the use of natural infrastructure to protect against flood risk. Restoring coastal 

wetlands and other natural buffer zones against storm surge is 

critical to coastal States like mine. 

In addition to making our coastlines more resilient, we must also 

ensure that we are addressing the safety of hundreds of dams in 

upstate New York, many of which are beginning to show signs of 

aging. I hope that we can work together to address concerns that 

New York has about the continued maintenance of Army Corpsbuilt infrastructure and find a way for the Corps to provide more 

technical assistance, and where necessary, funding to assist States 

with aging infrastructure. 
49 

So I hope that this year’s WRDA bill will also address the continued funding needs of the Great Lakes navigation system, including 

the commercial and recreational harbors along Lake Erie and Lake 

Ontario in New York. 

I just have a couple questions for Dr. Mattei. Dr. Mattei, what 

are the benefits of investing in environmental restoration and natural infrastructure to protect against the threat of extreme weather 

and storm surges? 

Ms. MATTEI. So as I mentioned before, a healthy coastline or 

healthy estuaries are more capable of bouncing back from a storm 

or from riverine flooding, depending on where your high water 

comes from. So if you engineer those properly and smartly, sometimes it is not trying to restore a coastline to where it used to look, 

the way it used to look, but putting it where it needs to be in order 

to protect the public, in order to protect plants, industries. So you 

really have to be wise in where you put these coastal restoration 

projects. And if you work with healthy plant life, that can really 

provide resilience against storm surge or flooding. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. According to the American Society of Civil 

Engineers’ 2015 Infrastructure Report Card for New York, we have 

399 high-hazard dams, and $152 million are needed to repair dams 

in my State. What more should the Federal Government be doing 

to address these critical inspection repair needs to ensure the safety of communities near those dams? 

Ms. MATTEI. Well, that is the million dollar question, or maybe 

it is more. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. No, it is $152 million. 

Ms. MATTEI. And again it may be if Federal expenditures are not 

going to increase, then the costs perhaps are going to be pushed 

onto the States and to municipalities. At least in the dam arena 

we know how many we have and what the conditions are, so you 

know the number. Unfortunately, I don’t have a crystal ball to tell 

you what is the one that is going to go first, if we do have a failure. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Could the Federal Government at least do 

a review and prioritize them? These are Army Corps projects. 

Ms. MATTEI. That is exactly where I was going. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. They should have the expertise to at least 

assess these ones are going to be the ones that will breach, that 

will harm human health more in a more likely way or more urgently. I would expect the Army Corps having an opinion about 

which projects are urgent would be useful. 

Ms. MATTEI. So it is a matter of risk, so when you measure risk 

and you can rank them appropriately. Risk is, you take a look at 

the probability of a failure and also the consequences of that failure, so you might have a dam that is perhaps not highly probable 

of failing, but it is really protecting a lot, so the consequences of 

that failure then put it up in a higher priority level. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. OK. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. 

And we thank the panel. 

Any final comments, Senator Boxer? 

Senator BOXER. No. I am with you in your final. 

Senator INHOFE. OK, that is good. 
50 

Well, we appreciate very much your coming. This is something, 

for those who are outside observing this committee for the first 

time, it is not always this friendly. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator INHOFE. But we get things done. While other people talk 

about it, we do it, with the help of people on the outside, like you. 

I appreciate very much each one of you taking the time to come, 

particularly Bob Portiss because he came from my hometown. 

We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:34 a.m. the committee was adjourned.] 

[An additional statement submitted for the record follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID VITTER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

Thank you, Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Boxer, for holding this very 

important hearing on the Water Resources and Development Act. Three years ago, 

this committee, and ultimately Congress, passed a bipartisan WRRDA bill that addressed many of our Nation’s water resources needs and the Army Corps of Engineers’ project delivery process. Success was achieved through this committee’s deliberative process, and the same success can be achieved if we follow the formula that 

gave us a bill in 2014. 

This hearing to discuss the importance of passing another Water Resources and 

Development Act is a critical first step to achieving a successful bipartisan solution 

to the problems that face our Nation’s water resources infrastructure. However, success can only be achieved if concerns from members of this committee, and the full 

Senate, are properly addressed to the fullest extent possible. 

Accordingly, this committee must ensure that our partner in water resources development, the Army Corps of Engineers, is held accountable for their actions—or 

inaction—to properly maintain our waterways, dams, locks, and levees, and protect 

those in harm’s way from catastrophic natural disasters like hurricanes Katrina, 

Rita, Irene, and Sandy. 

To achieve the aforementioned success in developing a bipartisan WRDA bill, I 

believe we must use the deliberative hearing process of this committee to address 

some very important issues affecting the Corps and our Nation’s water resources 

projects. 

Several times over the past decade, I embedded myself with the Corps’ New Orleans District as hurricanes and tropical storms made landfall in south Louisiana. It 

was important to me and my constituents to see how the Corps operated their disaster management plan and how the nearly complete $14 billion post-Katrina hurricane protection system performed when pushed to the limits of Mother Nature. 

While the Corps’ post-Katrina hurricane protection system has worked without incident and kept the metropolitan New Orleans area virtually free of flood waters 

on several occasions, many communities surrounding the protection system were inundated with upwards of 14 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Isaac. I visited 

many of those communities after the storm and witnessed firsthand the destruction 

caused by flood waters. 

One such community is LaPlace, Louisiana. This community of 32,000 is located 

west of New Orleans along the east bank of the Mississippi River and south of Lake 

Pontchartrain. Local officials and the levee board have been trying for almost 40 

years to get a hurricane protection project, as Congress first authorized a recon 

study in 1971 and again in 1974. Over the past four decades, the Corps has unnecessarily delayed the project, changed the alignments, and increased the construction 

cost exponentially. 

Finally, after decades of work, the Corps has given Congress a favorable Chief’s 

Report recommending construction of a critical flood protection measure to protect 

those people who have experienced the devastation of hurricanes in south Louisiana. 

To make this project a reality, Congress must authorize this project for construction, 

and it begins by passing a WRDA bill this year. Had there been some level, any 

level, of flood protection in place before Hurricane Isaac, much of the storm surge 

would have been prevented. 

I’m pretty confident that many of my fellow colleagues on this committee have 

water resources projects in their States that have been on the Corps’ books for many 

years, decades in some cases. The current Corps study and construction schedule 

is approximately 20 years, and in some cases much longer. This lengthy process is 
51 

unacceptable to the taxpayers who depend on the Corps to provide expeditious delivery of critical projects for flood protection, navigation, ecosystem restoration, and 

other water resource projects. 

It is imperative that this committee continue to build upon reforms to the Corps’ 

current project delivery process outlined in WRRDA 2014 so the time to construct 

water resources projects is a few years and not a few decades. Simple reforms to 

how the Corps does business with States and local stakeholders are what this committee needs to address as we move forward on the WRDA bill. 

Another issue affecting not only Louisiana, but our Nation, is the ineffective operation and use of the Inland Waterway and Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. Under 

the current Inland Waterway Trust Fund model, critical lock and dam projects are 

being constructed at a slow crawl, and several have experienced serious cost overruns since construction began. The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal is a project in 

Louisiana that will be constructed using IWTF dollars, but at the rate the Corps 

is constructing other projects on the trust fund’s list, the Corps will not complete 

the IHNC before 2075. 

The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund is not much different. This fund collects 

nearly $1.7 billion in excise tax on a yearly basis, but the administration and Corps 

only budget about half of that for use to operate and maintain our Nation’s ports 

and coastal waterways. This is particularly unacceptable on the Mississippi River, 

which flows through the entire State of Louisiana into the Gulf. Historically, the 

cost to operate and maintain the lower Mississippi River, from Baton Rouge to the 

Gulf, is about $100 million–$120 million a year. However, the administration and 

the Corps only budget a little more than half of what it costs to operate and maintain this economic superhighway, which consequently is experiencing severe 

shoaling and vessel draft restrictions as a result. 

We must build upon the legislative fixes to these trust funds included in WRRDA 

2014 to improve our Nation’s competitive advantage in world markets, especially 

with the expansion of the Panama Canal. This committee must ensure that our Nation’s ports and waterways are operated and maintained at their full width and 

depth, and water resources infrastructure on those waterways are built in a more 

expedited manner than the Corps’ current schedule. 

I am appreciative of the efforts of Chairman Inhofe for holding this critical hearing to move forward on WRDA. I encourage the Chairman to work with the members of this committee in a transparent, bipartisan manner to find solutions to the 

issues affecting our Nation’s water resource projects and policies that govern their 

success. In the interest of all taxpayers, we cannot afford to hastily push a bill 

through this committee without addressing these key issues. I look forward to working with you and your staff in an expeditious manner to help achieve passage of 

the next WRDA bill. 

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