Army Corps of Engineers: Budgetary History and Projections
Report
CBO examines trends in funding and spending for the Army Corps of Engineers and explains how CBO treats that agency’s activities in its baseline and cost estimates.
The Army Corps of Engineers participates in the development and management of the nation’s water resources. The Corps has three main objectives:
Supporting commercial navigation by maintaining and regulating commercial ports and waterways,
Protecting the environment by preserving and restoring aquatic ecosystems, and
Building and maintaining flood control projects.
Every two years since 2014, lawmakers have enacted the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), which authorizes new construction and rehabilitation projects and directs the Corps to study the feasibility of future projects. (The most recent, the Water Resources Development Act of 2020, was enacted on December 27, 2020, as division AA of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, Public Law 116-260.) That authorization legislation, which establishes priorities for the Corps, is one of two types of legislation that specifically address the Corps’ activities; the other is appropriation bills, which provide most of the funds to carry out those activities.
