House Appropriations Committee releases details of FY2012 budget

Today, the House Appropriations Committee released a spending bill that would fund the government for the remainder of FY2012.  The bill incorporates nine unfinished appropriations bills for FY2012 including the Energy & Water Appropriations bill that funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  PNWA members may remember that the Corps and many other agencies are currently operating under a continuing resolution (CR) that expires tomorrow, December 16.  It is expected that the House will pass this compromise bill, but it is not yet clear if the Senate will follow suit. 

In the details released, the Corps is funded at $5 billion.  This is $145 million above their FY2011 funding level and $429 million more than the President's FY2012 proposal released last February.   It should also be noted that the bill provides $1.7 billion in disaster relief funds, which the Corps typically pays for through normal appropriations.  This additional funding brings the overall Corps account to $6.7 billion.

In the outline of the bill, the Corps budget is broken down into general pots of money.  The Operations & Maintenance (O&M) account received $2.412 billion, over $1 billion more than the President's proposal and higher than both the House and Senate proposals released earlier this year.  The Construction account received $1.694 billion which is only slightly less than the $1.79 billion it received in FY2011.  General Investigations (GI) received $125 million, a slight decrease from FY2011 levels. Overall, the Corps fared very well in the budget process.  

Funding levels for individual projects have not been identified.  It is probable that we will see another work plan scenario, similar to what occurred this past year.  These work plans reflect how the federal agency intends to spend the monies that were provided in the large programmatic bundles referenced above.   

PNWA will continue to keep you updated as the appropriations process continues and as details of the bill are released.  For a complete list of PNWA's FY2012 supported Corps projects and our funding requests, please click here.