WRRDA bill passes House with broad support

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3080, the Water Resources Reform & Development Act of 2013 (WRRDA), by a vote of 417-3 with overwhelming bipartisan support. According to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, the bill cuts federal red tape and bureaucracy, streamlines the infrastructure project delivery process, promotes fiscal responsibility, and strengthens our water transportation networks.

The bill:
• Sets hard deadlines on the time and cost of studies
• Consolidates or eliminates duplicative or unnecessary studies and requires concurrent reviews
• Streamlines environmental reviews
• 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
• Contains no earmarks
• Establishes a new, transparent process for future bills to review and prioritize water resources development activities with strong Congressional oversight
• 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
• 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 to Congress 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