Cotton speaks at ORVA meeting
MOUNTAIN PINE — U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Friday the president’s infrastructure agenda is a priority for the 115th Congress despite its preoccupation with other legislation prior to the August recess.
Speaking to the 52nd annual Ouachita River Valley Association Conference at the Lake Ouachita U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Project Office, Cotton said infrastructure may not have been at the top of the current Congress’ to-do list, but action taken administratively and at the agency level has positioned the country to improve its roads, bridges
and waterways.
The latter is of particular concern to ORVA, which lobbies Congress for funds to improve navigation on the Ouachita and Black rivers. Cotton told the gathering not to be alarmed by the reduced funding for the Corps in the president’s budget proposal.
The America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again proposes a 16-percent cut, or a $1 billion reduction, in the Corps’ budget. It could mean less money for dredging rivers, stabilizing river banks and operating locks and dams, but Cotton said lawmakers are unlikely to act on it.
“Some of you may have gotten a slightly different impression earlier this year from the administration’s budget,” Cotton said, referring to his earlier remarks that infrastructure was a priority for the president. “It cut the Corps of Engineers’ funding by $1 billion.
“But there’s another number you should probably keep in mind. That would be zero. That’s the likelihood that Congress will pass that budget. That budget has some important principles in it and behind it, but budgets are largely aspirational documents.”
He said the administration “has already done a lot to improve the prospects for infrastructure in our country,” noting the appointment of former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency will ease the regulatory burden on infrastructure projects.
“I don’t have to tell some of you just how overzealous that agency has become over the years. Very often it’s the one behind the long delays for Section 404 permitting processes under the Clean Water Act.
“The Corps of Engineers has to stay abreast of that agency’s constantly multiplying regulations. So with Scott Pruitt at the helm of the EPA, it will once again be a friend of rural America and be a friend of infrastructure development in our country.”
Cotton said 30 percent of the money appropriated for infrastructure goes toward keeping projects in compliance with the federal code of regulations, noting projects in European countries run by “socialist” governments face fewer regulatory hurdles than those in America.
Cotton said delegating more authority to the states would expedite project development and reduce the influence “politicians in Washington” have on which projects get funded.
“Sometimes the money doesn’t go where it needs to go,” he said. “Instead of unglamorous and tried-and-true projects like dredging and maintaining levees, it goes to whatever is en vogue, like green-energy boondoggles and mass-transit pipe dreams.”
Executive orders the president initiated in January and earlier this month also bode well for infrastructure development, Cotton said. The executive action signed earlier this month allows regulators to issue federal permits for projects in flood plains without having to consider rising sea levels.
The January order directs federal agencies to grant quicker approvals for high-priority projects.
“When you put those two together and you add it to the legislative reforms I expect to be part of an infrastructure package, you’ll significantly reduce the time needed to get approvals,” Cotton said.