House appropriators yesterday grilled Obama administration officials who oversee the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Civil Works program over a perceived lack of transparency in spending decisions.

The power to decide which water projects the Army Corps should fund has shifted from congressional appropriators to administration officials since Congress banned earmarks. As a result, lawmakers now lobby the Army Corps and administration officials over the projects (Greenwire, Feb. 8).

Republican House appropriators are not happy with how the Army Corps has managed the change. Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) chided Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Army who leads the Army Corps' Civil Wsorks program, for being late in submitting budget requests, responding to requests for information and providing the justification documents required for all project funding decisions.

"We left all project allocations up to you because we wanted to make sure this was done in a professional manner and, should we say, hands off," Frelinghuysen said. "So we simply left it up to you to inform us of those decisions, and theoretically, at least, you needed these evaluations to determine which projects should receive funding."

He added: "The lack of explanatory information makes it seem to some that the funding decisions were political."

Darcy pledged to provide the justifications "two weeks from today."

"It will have projects that were funded and the justification," she said.

Yesterday's hearing was a review of President Obama's 2013 budget request for the Army Corps: $4.731 billion in discretionary spending. That is a reduction of $271 million, or about 5 percent, from the 2012 enacted level but is $100 million above the what the administration requested for 2012 (Greenwire, Feb. 13).

Darcy said the request "reflects a considered, practical, effective and sound use of the nation's financial resources."

The 2013 proposal's distribution of funding among the Army Corps' Civil Works program's three key mission areas -- flood control, commercial navigation and environmental restoration -- is similar to last year's, except for an 11 percent increase in funding for waterway transportation, Darcy noted (Greenwire, Feb. 15).

Appropriators raised questions about everything from the Everglades restoration project -- the largest ecosystem restoration project on the Army Corps' books, which last year represented 10 percent of the Civil Works budget -- to preparations for the widening of the Panama Canal to litigation against an Ohio coal company.

Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.) asked about the progress on Everglades restoration, noting his past concern that it could become the next "Big Dig," a reference to the Boston highway project that ran a decade past deadline and became the most expensive highway project in U.S. history.

"We've made a great deal of progress in Everglades restoration," Darcy replied. She noted that seven major sub-projects have broken ground in the last three years and that an "accelerated planning" effort is now under way to draw up plans in the next 18 months on how to restore central Everglades water flows.

Asked when the project would be finished, Darcy deferred to an official who estimated "seven to 10" years, contingent on continued funding from Congress.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) took Darcy to task over delays in a drinking water project for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and for a lawsuit the Army Corps filed against Ohio-based Buckingham Coal over a tunnel the company uses to access coal deposits, which was decided against the agency in court.

"The Army Corps chose to appeal that decision even though the federal court said it's very unlikely, on the merits of the case, that the federal government will prevail," Simpson said. "Who the hell's paying for all the money that we're spending in court?"

Darcy said it was likely the Department of Justice but declined to elaborate due to the ongoing litigation. "I'm not allowed to discuss it," she said.

"Boy, it's easy to file suit when somebody else is paying," Simpson replied. "We've got a problem there -- one that needs to be solved."

Questions also turned to preparations for the scheduled completion in 2014 of a major widening of the Panama Canal, expected to bring an uptick in mega-freighter traffic to the East Coast, where only a handful of ports are slated to be deep enough to welcome the larger ships.

Frelinghuysen asked about an uptick in requests from local ports seeking to dredge in preparation for the widening and about options for local sponsors to contribute funding to try to jump-start dredging.

"We're looking at each request on a project-by-project basis," Darcy said.