Included in this year's consideration of the $12 billion  Water Resources Development Act of 2005 - S.728 were a couple of amendments calling for Independent Review and Prioritization of the Corps of Engineers project backlog. Tough scrutiny of all significant projects could threaten this pork-barrel that Congress has long used to "bring home the bacon." Peer review was added to the bill, ultimately prioritization was not.

External review is a start. It is only a start. There should be more internal reform to address the issues raised in the Independent Levee Investigation Team study. In May the Independent Levee Investigation Team (Berkeley and other researchers under NSF grant) released their final draft report citing numerous problems within the Corps as the key issue. (cultures, communications, lack of knowledge, use of existing technology, structure, organization, management, leadership, monitoring, control, mistakes)

I would like to see the Corps itself engage in study to address the failings surfaced by the ILIT and other critics. If the Corps can focus on process improvement it might be able to figure out a way to do its job more effectively and way more efficiently. I expect there are numerous Corps employees who know exactly what is going on.

The bill contains $1.1 billion for Louisiana coastal restoration projects including diversions and modification of the MRGO. The focus is still on planning. It fails to deauthorize MRGO. The bill was passed out of the Senate by voice vote at 6:21 edt on July 19, 2006. Since the House passed a bill last year, this bill will now go to a conference committee to resolve the differences.

It bogged down in conference and died. How disgusting. The Democrats plan to reintroduce the corps review issue in 2007.