House Republicans yesterday grilled Obama administration leaders in a confrontational budget hearing on plans to prioritize investment in environmental restoration projects over maintenance of the nation's ports and waterways.

Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Jo Ellen Darcy and Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, chief of engineers for the Army Corps, faced a barrage of incendiary questions from Republicans on the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, signaling the protracted fight still to come over Army Corps spending and regulatory priorities for fiscal 2012, which starts in October.

GOP lawmakers assailed President Obama's 2012 budget for the Army Corps -- which cuts spending 17 percent, or about $913 million, from 2010 spending -- as a plan that places environmental goals above economic recovery by neglecting to invest more money in backlogged dredging and maintenance needs of the nation's waterway shipping lanes, locks and dams (E&E Daily, Feb. 15).

Administration officials countered that environmental restoration projects such as the multibillion-dollar efforts under way in the Mississippi River Delta and the Florida Everglades both create jobs and carry economic benefits in the form of healthy fisheries and robust water supplies.

The gaping partisan divide on these issues, exhibited in numerous hearings and debates across Capitol Hill in recent weeks, came into sharpest relief during a heated exchange between Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) and Darcy, when he asked her whether her priority was saving ecosystems, creating jobs or boosting the economy.

Darcy replied, "All of those things."

"Well, Madame Secretary, you can't have all of those things. Priority means one is number one and two is number two. Is it revitalizing the economy or restoring the environment?" he asked.

"I think by restoring the environment you can revitalize the economy," she said.

"Well, Madame Secretary, I disagree, but we're going to talk about that today," Harris replied.

Controversial regulations

The two-hour hearing continued with GOP lawmakers pressing Darcy and Antwerp over a soon-to-be-released policy expected to more broadly apply the Clean Water Act so that more of the nation's wetlands are regulated by the federal government (Greenwire, Feb. 17).

Both officials remained tight-lipped about the forthcoming, U.S. EPA-driven wetlands policy, which administration officials have declined to discuss prior to its release, even as several GOP freshmen baited them with questions.

The anti-EPA mood became most evident when freshmen Republicans called out urging the witnesses to respond to freshman Rep. James Lankford's (R-Okla.) question about which federal agency "slows down projects and drives up costs."

"You're welcome, for this question, by the way," Lankford said.

Darcy answered, "We work great with the agencies right here at this table," she said, referring to the panel of fellow witnesses from the Army Corps, Tennessee Valley Authority and U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service. "Quite frankly, at a year and a half in this job, I found the collaboration between the federal agencies better than I had hoped."

Republicans promised further hearings on matters such as EPA's controversial decision earlier this year to halt the largest-ever proposed mountaintop-removal mine in Appalachia by revoking the project's Army Corps-issued dredge-and-fill permit (Greenwire, Jan. 13).

"That sets a dangerous precedent, and we're going to have hearings on that, I guarantee it," said subcommittee Chairman Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio).

Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund

Other questions centered on the $6.2 billion balance in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, which Republicans and waterways industry officials have increasingly called on spending to dredge waterways.

"Since only two of the nation's 10 largest ports are at their authorized depths and widths, the president's budget does nothing to ensure our competitiveness in world markets," Gibbs said.

Officials danced around the question at first, with Antwerp explaining that the Army Corps bases decisions on which waterways to dredge on usage statistics, hinting that the lack of maintenance dredging stemmed in part from a lack of barge traffic. Later, Darcy answered the question by saying there are "other federal needs at ports, things like security."

Ranking member Timothy Bishop (D-N.Y.) later rescued the officials from repeated questions about the unused money in the trust fund, noting that all recent administrations had opted not to spend more than the fund took in each year, so as not to increase the federal deficit.

After Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) pressed Darcy to admit to the fund's "dirty little secret" -- that much of the $6.2 billion balance had been raided by Congress over the years for other purposes -- Bishop again intervened, saying he would be happy to co-sponsor bipartisan legislation to build a firewall around the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, so it could no longer be dipped into for other purposes.

"In all sincerity, many of us on this committee have long felt that the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund should be spent on harbor maintenance," Bishop said.