Bud Shuster: “I appreciate the gentleman from Michigan wanting to be fiscally responsible. That is what we tried to do in this bill.…”

“I appreciate the gentleman from Michigan wanting to be fiscally responsible. That is what we tried to do in this bill. All of the new authorizations in WRRDA were more than fully offset by deauthorizations, and WRRDA seeks to deauthorize its old, inactive projects which have not begun construction or have not received any funds, Federal or non-Federal, in the last 5 years. This approach cuts waste and reduces the backlog of projects that are unlikely to move forward. Such a significant increase in the deauthorization target could have unforeseen consequences, and I believe it would effectively deauthorize viable projects--projects that are almost ready to go, projects that have non-Federal money committed to them--and impact the ability to move these forward, these important water resources and infrastructure improvements that are ready to move that have non-Federal dollars in place. We also put in this bill a sunset law, that if any new authorizations do not move in 7 years, they will automatically be deauthorized. It will continue to push down on that backlog. I certainly would be open in the next WRRDA bill for additional deauthorizations to make sure we continue to reduce that backlog. I reluctantly urge all Members to oppose this amendment.”