Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the House amendment to S. 4367.

What my compadre over on EPW did not mention is the name of the bill. The name of the bill is the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024. And I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this important legislation.

Just last week, the House approved this bill by an overwhelming margin of 399 to 18. This bipartisan legislation is supported by a diverse group of more than 200 stakeholders, which illustrates the positive impact that the legislation will have on communities across this country.

I just want to spend a few minutes kind of discussing the great work of my colleagues in Congress and the benefits that the American people will have by the provisions in this bill.

At the heart of the legislation is the Water Resources Development Act of 2024. The enactment of biennial water resources legislation over the last 10 years has been critical to addressing the Nation's water resources needs.

In August, the Senate passed its version of this legislation by unanimous consent. That bill was developed based on more than 1,000 requests submitted by our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Following Senate passage, Chairman Carper and I worked with Chairman Sam Graves and Ranking Member Rick Larsen of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate-passed WRDA bill.

I am proud of the agreement that we were able to reach, and I want to thank my House colleagues for being such great partners. I would like to highlight some of the benefits of the WRDA 2024 bill.

It authorizes critical water resource studies and projects across the country. These studies and projects will support navigation along our waterways and at our ports. It will protect communities from flooding and improve our environment.

This bill avoids one-size-fits-all solutions and maintains important flexibilities so that the Corps of Engineers and non-Federal partners can continue to address the unique water resources challenges across our Nation.

It also contains directives to the Corps to develop comprehensive implementation plans for this bill and for our prior WRDAs. This will enable the Corps to focus its energy and resources on fully implementing WRDA and prior WRDA provisions in order to better reflect the intent of this body and this Congress and previous Congresses.

I also want to highlight some of the ways this bill will help directly benefit my State of West Virginia. Just over 8 years ago, in June 2016, West Virginia experienced flooding in historic rates, which led to tragic deaths and devastation. This bill provides support for future projects identified by the Corps' feasibility study for flood risk management in the Kanawha River basin.

The legislation also increases the ability of the Corps to carry out smaller projects for emergency streambank and shoreline protection, ecosystem restoration, and debris and obstruction removal, which are critical to many areas of my State.

The bill also directs the Corps to expedite feasibility studies for the Upper Guyandotte and Kanawha River basins as well as to expedite projects in Milton as well as the Bluestone Dam in Hinton.

This bill supports many drinking water and wastewater projects throughout our State.

WRDA contains similar wins for States all across this Nation.

I am also glad to see, as part of this package, the Economic Development Reauthorization Act of 2024. The Economic Development Administration is tasked with facilitating economic development and creating jobs in distressed communities across the country. While EDA programs receive annual appropriations from Congress, the authorization for these projects expired in 2008. The legislation reauthorizes EDA programs at fiscally responsible levels for fiscal years 2025 through 2029.

This legislation reasserts congressional direction over EDA's funding decision; it enhances our oversight at the Agency; it preserves locally driven economic development decisions; and it ensures that funding from EDA is accessible to distressed communities.

It also codifies and authorizes dedicated funding for EDA's Assistance to Coal Communities Program, which was one of my top priorities for this legislation. This program ensures that communities in my home State of West Virginia which were decimated by the downturn of the coal industry have the resources that we need to recover and grow.

The bill also includes consideration of coal communities when EDA assigns EDA representatives. The legislation also reauthorizes the regional Commissions that were expiring or have expired, and it expands the types of activities that those Commissions can carry out in their communities and modernizes their administrative procedures.

The bill also includes a provision to increase transparency and reduce waste across our Federal real estate portfolio.

And finally, the bill contains a provision that unlocks a significant backlog of funding in the TIFIA Program and provides the funding States need to use for transportation projects. It also includes provisions to prevent the backlog from occurring in the future.

In closing, I would really like to take a minute to thank the staff and my chairman, Chairman Carper. But I also want to thank the staff at the various Federal Agencies that have helped with this legislation-- helped us formulate it--and also the House and Senate legislative counsel. And I would like to thank as well the staff at the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as well.

I want to extend my appreciation to the EPW Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure led by Chairman Mark Kelly and Ranking Member Kevin Cramer for their and their staff's dedication to this.

I also want to thank, again, my friend Chairman Carper. We have worked together--this is our, I think, second WRDA bill that we did together, and it is a fitting tribute to your decades of public service to have this piece of legislation named after you.

From Chairman Carper's staff, I would like to thank Courtney Taylor, John Kane, Linnea Saby, Nicole Comisky, Ryan Smith, Claire Shanklin, Jordan Smallwood, and Tara Kroft. I would like to thank my staff seated behind me, many of them: Adam Tomlinson, Murphie Barrett, Libby Callaway, Dan Linkowski, Katherine Scarlett, Rebecca Hattar, Dom Rupp, and Jack Cline.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to support the House amendment to S. 4367, the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act. Tribute to Mitch McConnell

Mr. President, with the permission of the chairman--I told him that I wanted to mention one last thing before his remarks--I want to talk on a separate topic. I would like to pay tribute to my friend, the senior Senator from Kentucky, and our stalwart Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.

Leader McConnell leaves the leadership table at the end of this Congress as the longest serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.

Resilience, patience, and determination--these are the qualities we will remember the McConnell era by, an era that continues due to his foresight in ensuring conservative principles rule the day in the highest Court of the land.

If I had to distill the senior Senator from Kentucky's leadership style down to twin pillars, I would say they were focus and more focus. He says it is the most important word in the dictionary for a reason.

As a member of his broader leadership team from my early days in the Senate and now as a member of the core leadership team as the Senate Republican conference vice chairman, Leader McConnell has taught me many valuable lessons and values in his leadership.

One of the first lessons was that Kentuckians and West Virginians share more than a border; we also share a distinct sense of humor. Leader McConnell leads with a sharp wit. His regular jokes at the leadership table will be missed. For example, he used to call former Senator Richard Shelby ``Too Big to Fail.''

Leader McConnell leads with humility. He will be the first to remind you of his initial flop on the national stage when his idol, Ronald Reagan, called him Mitch O'Donnell.

Leader McConnell leads with consistency. He has never missed a blue shirt Thursday.

And he leads with a tough eye, for sure. He has taken countless slings and arrows for his party and this institution, and all the while, I think he thoroughly enjoyed it.

He reminds me of my dad in a way. They both have framed cartoons of some of their biggest critics in their office.

He leads with moral and philosophical clarity. During more than a few of his 18 years, I am sure he will agree being majority leader was perhaps the hardest job in the country. He often referred to his job as that of a gravekeeper: Everyone may be under him, but nobody is listening.

I thank him for the unity he maintained and the clarity of his leadership.

So after 18 years atop Senate Republican politics, he leaves an indelible mark. I believe that the senior Senator calls that the long game. And as we know, he is not leaving the Senate; he will just be leading in different ways. He will return to the Henry Clay desk, a fitting place for him to finish his life's work here in the Senate. There, he will be continuing to face our national challenges with the same steely, conservative resolve that we have so grown accustomed to.

Between the demanding roles of the Rules Committee and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I am confident he will stay busy, and he has assured us that he will continue to thoroughly disappoint his critics.

So thank you, Leader McConnell, for your leadership and your service as the Nation's longest serving Senate party leader.

I thank the chairman of our committee, Chairman Carper, for letting me give this tribute to our departing Republican leader.

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