Max Baucus: “In all due respect, listening to my colleagues, there were lots of conclusions. I don't hear a lot of facts, support for…”

“In all due respect, listening to my colleagues, there were lots of conclusions. I don't hear a lot of facts, support for the statements made. One of the statements I heard is that flood control benefits will be much worse under the preferred plan, that is the spring rise/split season. But that is not what the facts are, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. If you look at all the various data here on all the various alternatives that the Corps considered, it totaled up the flood control benefits for the river from the Fort Peck Dam down to the mouth, and I must say there is statistically no difference in flood control benefits. So this big scare tactic of floods--I have heard some say, not on this floor, a wall of water--is, according to the facts, inaccurate. It is inaccurate according to the modeling done by the Corps on all the various alternatives. The benefits under the current master manual, flood control benefits, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, are about $414 million. The spring rise/split season flood control benefits are virtually statistically the same; that is, $410 million--virtually no difference. Those are the facts. Not the rhetoric, not the abstraction, not the generalization, but the facts.”