The House Transportation & Infrastructure Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee held a hearing on proposals for a Water Resources Development Act of 2020.
The session featured testimony from RD James, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works and Lieutenant General Todd Semonite of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. While lawmakers focused most of their attention on specific projects important to their congressional districts, the issue of climate change also emerged frequently. That was likely generated by the Trump administration’s release of a proposal to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which many Democrats blasted as indicating that climate change was no longer going to be a factor in decision-making on projects.
But the administration officials offered the same response to the repeated question of whether climate change was still going to be factored into the decisions made on projects undertaken via WRDA by the Corps.
“We will continue use science” or some similar refrain was the answer from James, prompting most lawmakers to express some relief.