Already facing steep budget cuts, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers brass will go before two Republican-led House panels this week to answer questions anticipated to center on the agency's spending and regulatory priorities.

Army Corps, Tennessee Valley Authority and Natural Resources Conservation Service officials will go before the House Transportation and Infrastructure's water and environment subpanel for a budget oversight hearing tomorrow afternoon whose name says it all: "Finding Ways To Do More With Less." House appropriators will then get their turn asking similar questions at a Wednesday morning hearing.

Questions for Army Corps leaders are also expected to center on the agency's role in wetlands regulation. Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Jo Ellen Darcy and Chief of Engineers Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp are tentatively scheduled to testify at both hearings.

Agribusiness, homebuilders and other industry groups have been lobbying aggressively to derail EPA and Army Corps efforts to reinterpret the Clean Water Act with a soon-to-be-released policy that would broaden the scope of the 1972 law regulating pollution discharges and filling of wetlands from the more narrow stance taken under the George W. Bush administration.

House Appropriations Chairman and Idaho Republican Mike Simpson announced he inserted language into a House-passed spending bill that would prevent the agencies from spending any money on those controversial efforts, which environmentalists have championed (E&E Daily, March 2).

Simpson said last week that EPA "ought to get the message, that there is concern about what they're doing and the impact it will have on jobs in this country."

On the budget front, President Obama has already proposed slashing funding for the Army Corps by 17 percent, or $913 million, from 2010 levels, the last year that a budget was completed. Under that proposal, the Army Corps construction budget would take a 27 percent hit, dropping from $2.02 billion to $1.48 billion. Money for Mississippi River programs -- primarily flood control and dredging -- would be cut 39 percent, from $342 million in fiscal 2010 to $210 million in fiscal 2012.

Altogether the president's proposal would reverse a trend of increasing outlays in recent years (Greenwire, Feb. 14).

Republican proposals in the debate over how to fund the government through the end of 2011 would make even deeper cuts than the president's budget proposal for next year anticipated. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last week agreed to pass a temporary spending measure to see the government through another two weeks beyond March 4 that would sap $300 million from the Army Corps budget.

House Republican leaders are expected to press Army Corps officials on areas where additional cuts can be made.

"The subcommittee will be interested in hearing how these agencies can operate more efficiently and with increased cost savings," said Justin Harclerode, spokesman for the Transportation Committee Republicans.

Schedule: The Transportation subcommittee will meet at 2 p.m. tomorrow in 2167 Rayburn.

Witnesses (tentative): Jo Ellen Darcy, secretary of the Army (civil works); Assistant Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, chief of engineers, Army Corps; John Thomas III, chief financial officer, Tennessee Valley Authority; and Thomas Christensen, regional conservationist, central region, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, March 9, at 10 a.m. in 2362-B Rayburn.

Witnesses: Darcy, secretary of the Army (civil works); and Van Antwerp, chief of engineers, Army Corps.