The Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for building and maintaining much of the federal water resources infrastructure in the United States. The Corps is faced with more demands for building and maintaining its projects than available federal funding allows. This situation raises a number of basic questions about how the Corps functions, including the efficacy, efficiency, and equity of Corps planning and implementation. Recently the National Research Council identified a number of challenges facing the Corps (see box below). This report discusses selected frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to Corps fiscal challenges which are commonly raised by congressional staff. Where available, it also includes related recommendations from expert and government reports, as well as current legislation that may be considered in regard to these challenges (see Table 8 for examples of legislation in the 112 th Congress). The FAQs are organized into four categories: Appropriations; Backlog and Project Delivery; Authorizations and Missions; and Navigation Trust Funds. For more detailed background on Corps processes, see CRS Report R41243, Army Corps of Engineers Water Resource Projects: Authorization and Appropriations , by [author name scrubbed] and [author name scrubbed]. The frequently asked questions on Corps appropriations address the Corps' annual appropriations and supplemental funding, trends and categories of funding, and earmarks and emergency operations. After the appropriations FAQs, Table 3 provides some of the recommendations made in government and expert reports for addressing issues raised in the appropriations FAQs. The Corps budget funds a wide variety of activities. The Corps owns and operates 650 dams and maintains 926 coastal and inland harbors, and 12,000 miles of inland waterways; it also has constructed over 11,750 miles of levees to manage flooding. The agency also undertakes environmental or ecosystem restoration activities. Some are required for compliance with federal law; others are authorized by Congress for environmental mitigation, protection, and restoration purposes, including in the Florida Everglades, Columbia River, and the Missouri River. These environmental projects are often closely associated with Corps navigation, flood control, and hydroelectric investments. Annual Corps appropriations are part of the Energy and Water Development (E&W) appropriations bill. Congressional action on Corps appropriations is organized by budget account. The Administration's budget request is presented to Congress by account. However, starting with FY2006, the Administration has developed the Corps budget along business lines (e.g., navigation, flood, ecosystem/environment) and increasingly has relied on performance-based metrics to prioritize funding within a business line. Prior to that, requests had been developed more on a geographic basis. Figure 1 shows the FY2010 enacted Corps appropriation first by business line and second by account. As shown in the first part of this figure, the FY2010 appropriation can be divided into three broad categories of Corps business lines—flood and coastal storm damage prevention (FSDR), navigation, and all other business lines, which includes Corps ecosystem restoration and environmental work. Looking at the Corps budget by account, the bottom half of Figure 1 shows that one of the primary Corps accounts, Construction, was dominated by flood-related investments in FY2010. Funding for flood-related investments also made up a significant share of the Corps Operations and Maintenance (O&M) account, although the majority of this account's budget was devoted to navigation. Although other business lines may be smaller, cumulatively they represent a significant share of the agency's appropriations. Figure 2 compares budget requests and enacted appropriations from FY1986 to FY2011. Congressional appropriations regularly exceeded the executive branch requests over this period. Because of inflation in the cost of civil works activities, the purchasing power of the Corps annual appropriations has been relatively flat for two decades. That is, while Figure 2 shows that the nominal value of the Corps budget has increased since 1986, the real value increase has been less dramatic. A comparison of the real values of the 1990 and 2010 appropriations, using a general GDP deflator, shows a 10% increase in Corps appropriations. These real values likely overestimate the Corps' ability to use appropriations to accomplish activities since they do not reflect inflation for the types of construction (e.g., steel and concrete material costs) and services associated with a Corps project. Figure 3 uses a construction cost index that reflects that these construction and service costs increased faster than the general GDP deflator; the graph shows that the real value of Corps construction appropriations has been flat over the last 20 years. Generally, supplemental funds are directed to flood fighting and repair of flood control infrastructure and navigation channels after floods. At times, such as in response to Hurricane Katrina, supplemental funds have also been provided for construction of flood and storm damage reduction infrastructure. In many recent years, supplemental appropriations for the Corps have significantly augmented annual appropriations, especially in FY2006, FY2007, and FY2008; and in FY2009 and FY2010 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Although the Corps received no supplemental appropriations in FY2011, it continued to spend supplemental appropriations previously provided (e.g., contracts for hurricane storm damage protection projects for Louisiana). The figures below do not reflect supplemental appropriations (except where noted in Figure 2 ). If an annual Energy and Water Development appropriations bill has not been enacted at the start of a fiscal year, Congress typically uses a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the operations and activities of the Corps and other agencies. In recent years, the Corps often has operated under short-term CRs, and at times has long-term CRs (e.g., FY2007 and FY2011). Absent explicit congressional guidance on account or project funding levels in a CR, the Administration distributes funds among authorized activities using criteria crafted by the Corps and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Among other things, recent criteria have prioritized projects that are ongoing, projects that have high benefit-cost ratios (BCRs), and a few large-scale ecosystem restoration projects associated with Corps projects or legally required environmental actions. For the FY2011 long-term CR, Congress required the Corps to submit, within 60 days of enactment, a plan that provided funding information at a level below the account level (i.e., the project level). This enabled Congress to review final project-level allocations. Corps funding often is a part of the debate on congressionally directed spending, or "earmarks." Because Corps activities are typically geographically specific in their authorizations and appropriations, they have been subject to earmark disclosure rules. In the 112 th Congress, the House Republican Conference, Senate Republican Conference, and the Senate Appropriations Committee have all adopted moratoriums on earmark requests that are significant to how Congress directs the agency's activities. While congressionally directed spending makes up a relatively small percentage of most agencies' activities, a significant number of Corps activities have in the past been fully or partially funded through congressional earmarks (including O&M expenditures). Much of the congressional direction of the Corps budget historically has occurred through funds that Congress provided the agency that were above the President's budget request. From 2000 to 2010, Congress added an average of $533 million annually to the Corps budget. Most of these funds were directed to specific projects. The congressional increase in Corps funding and the projects specified by Congress can be seen as Congress adjusting the President's request to reflect its perception of the nation's water resource needs and its perception of shortcomings in the Administration's budget. Because much of the congressionally directed spending was for geographically specific projects, earmark opponents instead saw funding for these projects as circumventing the Administration's performance and metric-based budgeting process. Earmark moratoriums appear to be altering the makeup of Corps appropriations by reducing the addition of specific projects to the Corps budget and by funding broad categories of activities rather than specific projects. Some projects which have historically benefitted from congressional support have received less funding (or no funding) in FY2011 enacted appropriations and FY2012 markups, respectively. This includes individual projects, which typically receive little or no support in the Administration's budget proposal (e.g., ongoing projects with BCRs below the Administration's cutoff), as well as projects that the Administration typically considers outside of Corps mission areas (e.g., municipal water and wastewater projects). While the current earmark moratoriums have limited congressional ability to direct funding to individual Corps projects not included in the President's budget, funding levels for some projects and activities that were included in the President's budget request have been altered by Congress. Additionally, Congress has funded broad categories of Corps projects and has provided the agency discretion to select specific projects that will receive this funding. In addition to funding impacts, the earmark moratoriums also influence Corps authorizations and may contribute to deauthorization of Corps activities. Water Resources Development Acts (WRDAs), which are the primary vehicle for Corps authorizations, historically have been omnibus bills that include many provisions for site-specific activities. Consideration of a WRDA 2010 ( H.R. 5892 , 111 th Congress) in the House was affected by the House Republican Conference moratorium on members requesting congressional earmarks in 2010. H.Rept. 111-654 , accompanying the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee-reported version of H.R. 5892 , included a statement of "minority views" that cited numerous reasons, including economic conditions, for not supporting the bill at the time. Additionally, the decline in congressionally directed spending of specific Corps activities may contribute to more authorized projects and studies being deauthorized under established deauthorization procedures; many activities authorized in WRDA 2007 ( P.L. 110-114 ) have yet to receive funding. Overall, the Corps received less funding in FY2011 than in FY2010; funding decreased for most of the agency's business lines. Figure 4 provides a comparison of enacted Corps appropriations by business line for FY2010 and FY2011.