Facing a $500 million cut, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., accused the Trump administration on Thursday of prioritizing funding for Republican-led states over her own.
Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released plans for spending money provided by Congress under a continuing resolution passed in March. According to House Democrats, the temporary measure cut the Corps of Engineers’ civil works construction budget by $1.4 billion.
Congress typically tells federal agencies exactly how they can spend tax dollars, but the resolution handed authority to the administration. The Senate and House Republicans offered to split the money between red and blue states, but Murray says it’s now “completely lopsided.”
“Every single member needs to pay close attention to what is happening here, and speak out,” Murray said during a Thursday press conference, “because it may not be your state today, but what happens when your governor disagrees with this president? What happens when you vote against him and your state loses out on funding? Take my word; you do not want to find out.”
The Corps of Engineers’ plan gives $258 million in additional funding to Republican-led states while shifting $437 million in projects from blue states. Of the $1.4 billion cut from civil works construction, $500 million would’ve gone to Washington state, with $100 million to California.
Rather than splitting the projects 50-50 between red and blue states, Murray said that only a third of the civil works funding would go to Democrat-led states like hers. In Washington, this means cutting a fish passage project originally planned to start at the Howard Hanson Dam next year.
The Corps of Engineers built the dam to protect the Green River Valley, which has flooded more than 30 times in the last 70 years. According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, fish passage projects can reduce flood risks and reconnect rivers to improve water quality and restore flow.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the Howard Hanson Dam guards the Kent industrial park, a large contributor to the aerospace industry. The dam prevented about $4.6 billion in damage in 2009.
“If you don’t do something to continue to protect and make improvements to the Howard Hanson Dam, you risk that entire economy from the impacts of flooding,” Cantwell said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Robyn Colosimo, acting principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army, denied that her staff was prioritizing Republican-led states. She told a congressional committee that the administration made “hard choices” to “prioritize life, safety, flooding, and American prosperity.
“We always put forth the best projects; in this case, it’s a dicey situation,” Colosimo told U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif. “The House and Senate [requests] were around three billion, and we were at the continuing resolution of about $1.8 [billion], so they made hard choices.”
“You think all the projects in California, Washington, [and] other states don’t do that?” Levin asked.
“That’s not my judgment to make; that was what they prioritized within the funds that they had discretion to allocate,” Colosimo responded. “They had to make trade-offs that I was not privy to … I don’t believe they were partisan, but that’s their decision to make.”
During the press conference, Murray said Colosimo “had absolutely no acceptable or even half convincing justification for these decisions.” Murray, Cantwell and senators from California called on their colleagues to speak out against the Trump administration and what they see as partisan cuts.
