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 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.
