The House passed the $12.3 billion Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), by a vote of 412 to 4, on May 20.
The measure passed the House by a vote of 417 to 3 in October 2013; House and Senate conferees reached agreement on a final measure last week. Now the Senate must approve the WRRDA Conference Report in order to send it to the president to be signed into law.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, WRRDA streamlines the project delivery process, promotes fiscal responsibility and strengthens water transportation networks to promote competitiveness, prosperity and economic growth.
Other highlights of the WRRDA include:
Reforms Bureaucracy, Accelerates Project Delivery, and Streamlines Environmental Reviews
- • Sets hard deadlines on the time and cost of studies
- • Consolidates or eliminates duplicative or unnecessary studies and requires concurrent reviews
- • Streamlines environmental reviews
Fiscally Responsible
- • Deauthorizes $12 billion of old, inactive projects that were authorized prior to WRDA 2007
- • Fully offsets new authorizations with deauthorizations
- • Sunsets new authorizations to prevent future project backlogs
- • Reduces the inventory of properties that are not needed for the missions of the Corps
Strengthens Oversight, Transparency and Accountability
- • No earmarks
- • Establishes a new, transparent process for future bills to review and prioritize water resources development activities with strong Congressional oversight
Increases Flexibility for Non-Federal Interests
- • Maximizes the ability of non-federal interests to contribute their own funds to move authorized studies and projects forward
- • Expands the ability of non-federal interests to contribute funds to expedite the evaluation and processing of permits
- • Establishes a Water Infrastructure Public Private Partnership Program
Improves Competitiveness, Creates Jobs and Strengthens Water Resources Infrastructure
- • Authorizes needed investments in America’s ports
- • Supports underserved, emerging ports
- • Reforms and preserves the Inland Waterways Trust Fund
- • Authorizes priority water resources infrastructure improvements recommended by the Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers to improve navigation and commerce and address flood risk management, hurricane and storm damage risk reduction, and environmental restoration needs
Source: U.S. House of Representative Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
