WASHINGTON – After raising concerns about the historic flooding in Missouri with Secretary of the Army Mark Esper today in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley met with senior officials with the Army Corps of Engineers at his office this afternoon. Following the meeting, Sen. Hawley issued the following statement:
“The Army Corps of Engineers is an agency in search of a plan. After my meeting with the Corps, I am even more alarmed at the agency’s lack of clear priorities: agency leadership detailed eight different priorities, many in tension with one another, none of them integrated into a clear operating plan.
“The Corps is hamstrung on the one hand by radical environmentalist lobbyists that are forcing the agency to prioritize wildlife over farmers. This is made worse by the fact that Congress has failed to give the Corps a clear ranking of priorities or clear orders on how to achieve them.
“What is abundantly apparent is that we can’t go on like this. We need to consider serious reforms. These might include an overhaul of the Corps’ master manual or perhaps placing the Corps in another agency altogether.”