Boustany: Bill reforms Corps of Engineers procedures

A bill in Congress that would speed up the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permitting process for projects and free up funds to dredge waterways is moving forward in Congress and will likely be voted on next week, U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette said.
The House and Senate reached an agreement Friday on the Water Resources and Development Act, which is the first time that Congress has gotten that far with the bill since 2007, Boustany said. “The bill is vitally important to Louisiana because it has all the authorizations for the Army Corps of Engineers,” he said.
The bill includes important Corps of Engineers reforms that will help expedite the permitting process and contains wording from the Realize America’s Maritime Promise Act, which would help free up dredging funds for waterways, he said.
Boustany authored the RAMP Act that ensures dredging will be done in waterways and that money collected for dredging through the harbor and maintenance tax should be used for dredging and not for anything else, he said.
“This will be very beneficial for our state,” Boustany said. “The beauty of this thing is it’s going to be an impartial way to evaluate water-related projects.”
Boustany said he is interested in becoming the chairman of the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee in the House. “There’s a possibility it would open up, and I would take it. It’s very important for Louisiana,” Boustany said. The state exported $63 billion in goods in 2013, and that number continues to grow, he said.
“We’re now seeing a trade-related business with Lake O’ Lakes right here in Morgan City so the port’s beginning to diversify its operation,” Boustany said.
Boustany’s position on the trade subcommittee and as a leader in trade policy will help the state develop trade along the coast, he said.
Boustany worked with other legislators to pass bipartisan legislation to fix some of the flood insurance issues south Louisiana residents were facing, he said.
Under the RESTORE Act, some money will flow down to the local level, he said. The water institute based in Baton Rouge will play an important role in providing consultation to local governments to advise them on the best way to spend that money, Boustany said.
The RAMP Act also imposes penalties on the Corps of Engineers if they miss deadlines, Boustany said. “We’re trying to light a fire under the corps to work with us on all these issues,” Boustany said.
Boustany worked with legislators across the Gulf Coast and those affected by Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey to come up with a fix to the flood insurance rate program to avoid enormous premium increases, he said. “Through a lot of hard work, we got this legislation passed, which fixes the flood insurance program. It puts new requirements on FEMA to take into account local structures and give us a more realistic assessment of flood risk,” Boustany said.
“We think this is a good step forward that will help keep premiums down or at least we won’t see as big a hike in premiums.”
More work still needs to be done with the flood insurance program to fix the problems with the program in the long term, Boustany said. “We need to hold FEMA’s feet to the fire to make sure that they don’t game this system and to make sure that this fix works as it was intended.”
Completing I-49 South is a top priority for Boustany, he said. Boustany has also been working to help finish 1-49 South from Lafayette to New Orleans for long time, he said. “When we did the 2005 highway bill, we got some funding for I-49. And that money has been used over the course of the last several years,” Boustany said.
A lot of the upcoming work to upgrade U.S. 90 to interstate quality is going to be done in the Morgan City area first because the improvements are less expensive than the upgrades near Lafayette or New Orleans, he said.