John Mica: “This is a simple amendment. It does make an adjustment to the benefit-cost ratio for any navigation project carried out…”

“This is a simple amendment. It does make an adjustment to the benefit-cost ratio for any navigation project carried out by the Army Corps of Engineers with non-Federal funds. This gives the Secretary, after the completion of any portion of the authorized projects, the ability to adjust the authorized project's benefit-cost ratio. Unfortunately, we have some projects with elongated channel configurations, where the terminals are located at the end of the line, and they are significantly disadvantaged when competing for Federal funding because the cost of these projects has escalated, lowering the benefit-cost ratio to below the threshold required by OMB for budgetary purposes. This amendment would provide discretionary authority to the Secretary to revise the benefit-cost ratio after completion of portions of the projects with non-Federal funds. Remaining portions of the project could be eligible to compete for Federal funding based on a revised benefit-cost ratio. This amendment does not guarantee any Federal funding to any project, but is simply a path forward to enable projects to be in a position to fairly compete for Federal funding. The authority could be applicable to any authorized navigation project which is placed at a competitive disadvantage due to the configurations, again, of the shipping channel.…”