Fiscal Plunge
A vetoed $23 billion water bill is not worth saving.

Monday, November 5, 2007

AH, THE theatrics of Washington. On Friday, President Bush vetoed the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), a bill that would authorize $23 billion in spending on water projects by the Army Corps of Engineers. Lawmakers of both parties were critical. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that the veto shows "President Bush is out of touch with the American people and their priorities." According to Mr. Reid, one of 81 senators to vote for the WRDA (it passed the House 381 to 40), the bill would "strengthen our environment and economy and protect our natural resources" and fund projects "essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region" from hurricanes. The veto is "irresponsible," Mr. Reid declared.

After almost five years in which he did little to check the spending of a Republican-controlled Congress, Mr. Bush is a bit late in trying to recover his party's reputation for fiscal conservatism. But even discounting for the White House's political posturing, this is hardly an example of an "irresponsible" veto. To the contrary, that word might better be applied to the WRDA itself. The bill would indeed authorize about $1.9 billion for coastal ecosystem restoration and protection in Louisiana to help the state rebuild its defenses against hurricanes. The president supports that; he just thinks that Congress could have authorized it without also larding on billions of dollars' worth of economically and environmentally questionable projects. And he's right: After all, the Senate and the House versions of the legislation tipped the scales at $14 billion and $15 billion, respectively. Then, in conference committee, lawmakers added more pet projects to bring the total up to $23 billion.

The silver lining in the bill is that it takes some tentative steps toward reforming the Army Corps, providing for independent review of projects worth more than $45 million. But this modest change is much weaker than what the overhaul reformers in the Senate had advocated. Thus Mr. Bush's valid concern, expressed in his veto message, that the WRDA "does not set priorities" among the $58 billion in projects authorized in past bills. Indeed, though it has a high nominal price tag, the WRDA only promises projects, essential and otherwise, that have to compete for the $2 billion the Army Corps spends each year. So the WRDA is largely a hollow political exercise. Given the overwhelming margins by which both houses passed the bill, though, Mr. Bush's veto is almost certain to be promptly overridden. This time, Congress's empty gesture will trump the president's futile one.