WASHINGTON — The Army Corps of Engineers is directing a disproportionate amount of its construction funding to Republican states under the full-year fiscal 2025 stopgap spending law, according to data compiled by Democratic staff for the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Overall, nearly two-thirds of Army Corps of Engineers construction funding is going to red states, a sizable shift from former President Joe Biden’s final budget request and the initial fiscal 2025 House and Senate Energy-Water appropriations bills, which were all closer to an even split.
GOP-leaning states would still get less overall than they would have under the prior budget request and the House and Senate bills, largely because the continuing resolution has less overall money to go around.
Red states are receiving a little under $1.2 billion, a little shy of both earlier fiscal 2025 bills but nearly 30 percent more than Biden had requested for this fiscal year.
One large casualty on the Republican side: $218 million for the long-running Kentucky Lock addition project on the Tennessee River, which backers say is needed to accommodate more barge traffic.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — the former GOP leader and a Trump antagonist at times — and Rep. James R. Comer, R-Ky. — the House Oversight and Government Reform chairman and a close Trump ally — each secured the earmark in their chambers’ respective Energy-Water bills. Without the $218 million, project managers have said they won’t be able to award the necessary contract for approach walls to guide vessels into the lock.
But the reduction is far more dramatic for Democratic-leaning states, which are getting less than $600 million for Corps construction projects after last year’s appropriations bills would have delivered at least twice that amount.
Purple states, defined as those with split delegations, are getting the remaining $67 million.
California, Washington targeted
Funding for projects in California, which would have received over $125 million in Biden’s budget request and both chambers’ appropriations bills, has been zeroed out under the new Corps work plan.
And Washington, Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray’s home state, got the worst deal from the Corps.
Washington would have gotten about $575 million in Biden’s request and both chambers’ appropriations bills. The total was cut to $95 million in the Army Corps’ spending plan, which was due 60 days after enactment of the continuing resolution in March. The Army Corps did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Murray said in a statement that President Donald Trump is undertaking a “historic and serious, politically motivated abuse of our taxpayer dollars.”
“Trump is ripping away taxpayer dollars from blue states like mine for absolutely critical Army Corps projects that maintain and build foundational water infrastructure — whether it’s dredging for our ports, protecting communities from flood waters, or maintaining major dams,” she said.
The Army Corps is not planning on funding the Howard Hanson Dam fish passage facility on the Green River in Western Washington, which received $500 million in both the Senate and House versions of the Energy-Water spending bill.
While Tacoma Public Utilities already has an upstream fish passage facility, the downstream facility is needed to connect the upper and lower watersheds for salmon migration, according to an Army Corps of Engineers press release announcing a $657 million contract for the project in October 2024.
“It does not pass muster that nearly half a billion dollars is no longer needed for Washington state’s Howard Hanson Dam, nor should anyone believe that the most populous state in America — California — should receive exactly zero dollars for Army Corps construction work,” Murray said.
The full-year continuing resolution enacted in March did not include any earmarks for member-directed projects and kept overall Army Corps of Engineers funding flat from fiscal 2024 levels at $8.7 billion, including the construction account’s $1.85 billion.
The Corps was required to come up with a plan on how it would spend its money for the rest of the fiscal year, but otherwise the only restriction was that the agency was not allowed to launch new projects that hadn’t previously existed.
During the debate over the stopgap bill, Murray and other top Democrats warned that it would give President Donald Trump unchecked power over Army Corps and other project funding.
“This bill will let them pick which Army Corps, transit and military construction projects move ahead — and which grind to a halt,” she said.
House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, echoed Murray’s concerns in a joint statement.
“President Trump has unilaterally chosen to punish the people living in certain states — a historic and clear abuse of taxpayer dollars,” the House appropriators said. “This is the exact scenario we feared when House Republicans introduced their slush fund 2025 funding bill, which failed to reflect both Republican and Democratic priorities.”
Partisan breakdown
Both chambers of Congress proposed providing the Army Corps of Engineers significantly more funding than the full-year continuing resolution eventually did, with the Senate appropriating $10.3 billion and the House appropriating just under $10 billion.
In the construction account, Biden asked for $1.9 billion in his fiscal 2025 budget request, with 53 percent going to blue states and 47 percent headed to red states.
Both the House and Senate put nearly $3 billion into the account.
The House would have sent 52% to states with two Republican senators. The Senate bill would have delivered 56% to states with two Democratic senators and 44% to states with two Republican senators. However, 8% of the funding to blue states went to Pennsylvania, which now has a split Senate delegation.
Under the continuing resolution, the Army Corps construction account has $1.85 billion, not enough to follow either Biden’s or lawmakers’ lead in funding projects. The full-year CR also did not carry over $1.4 billion in funding for the Army Corps construction account included in the final fiscal 2024 appropriations package that was repurposed from the 2021 infrastructure law.
Strategic departures
The data show the Corps making some significant departures from the funding decisions made by Biden and Congress.
While California and Washington faced cuts, Illinois and Maryland both saw boosts in their funding over both Biden’s request and both chambers’ bills.
Maryland saw a large boost to $82 million, compared to $10 million in Biden’s budget request, as the Army Corps is funding a project to resurrect a Chesapeake Bay island that had been swallowed up by the water.
That project, along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, is near the district of House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md.
Maine, home to Republican Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, is now set to get $23 million for a beach project in Sacco, after it received no funding in Biden’s request. Neither chamber provided any Army Corps construction funding for Maine, either.
Among red states, Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma all saw significant increases in their funding. Tennessee, home to House Energy-Water Chairman Chuck Fleischmann, is getting $32.2 million under the spend plan for the project to replace Chickamauga Lock, located on the Tennessee River in Fleischmann’s district.
That’s a major increase over the $3.1 million that went to the Volunteer State in Fleischmann’s own bill. Neither Biden nor the Senate sent any money to Fleischmann’s state.
Texas, which was blanked in Biden’s request and the Senate bill but received $149 million in the House, is set to receive $206 million under the Army Corps’ plan.
The primary Texas project is $172.7 million to deepen parts of the Sabine-Neches Waterway in southeast Texas, one of the busiest cargo passageways in the country.
That’s practically the full request that Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, submitted to House GOP appropriators last year for inclusion in the fiscal 2025 Energy-Water bill. Weber’s Republican colleagues at the time found room for just $113.3 million, however.
Weber celebrated the news in a statement Thursday. “This is a great day for Southeast Texas, and we are glad President Trump is back in office to prioritize critical projects like the Sabine-Neches Waterway, one of the most vital waterway systems in the country,” he said.
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