At Hearing, Murray Slams Trump Admin for Seeking to Gut Funding for Ports, Drought Mitigation, and Critical Infrastructure Projects

Murray on Trump's budget request: "We cannot let Trump open the floodgates for defense contractors while our families and farmers barely get anything."

Murray says Committee must address fast approaching infrastructure cliff when Bipartisan Infrastructure Law expires in September

***WATCH: Senator Murray's opening remarks***

***WATCH: Senator Murray's full questioning***

Washington, D.C. - Today-during a Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee hearing on President Trump's fiscal year 2027 budget request for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation-U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, called out President Trump's proposal to cut essential funding and do nothing to head off the fast-approaching infrastructure cliff. She also called out the administration's politicization of key water resources.

Witnesses included Adam Telle, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works), United States Army; Lieutenant General William H. "Butch" Graham, Jr., Chief of Engineers and Commanding General, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and Andrea Travnicek, Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, Department of Interior.

In opening remarks, Senator Murray said:

"Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today because your agencies really do critical work to support our economies and our families back home, and if we neglect those investments, it puts our communities, and our nation, in serious danger from threats like droughts and floods and power outages, and a lot more.

"Just looking at the Howard Hanson Dam in my state. Last year, during historic flooding-it stored record amounts of water-stopping about five feet of flooding in Auburn, and protected communities in Kent, Renton, Tukwila, and elsewhere.

"When the Green River Levee breached on December 15^th, the Corps was there to reduce the dam flows within hours and deployed personnel and resources alongside our King County crews, and managed the careful return to normal operations.

"That is exactly the kind of rapid, coordinated, technical response that only the Corps can provide. But Trump wants to slash funding for the Corp in this budget, and zero out funding for work on Howard Hanson.

"Now fortunately, in our last funding bill, Chair Kennedy and I worked together to reject those cuts and others and made strong investments in the Army Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation. Howard Hanson got the funding it needed to keep moving forward.

"As did the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan-which is really crucial to securing reliable water access for a lot of our farmers and our communities in my state. But we've got a lot more work to do-on those projects, and others.

"And unfortunately, we now have more cuts to reject. Because this budget shows Trump didn't learn his lesson. He has proposed reckless cuts all so he can blow an extra half a trillion dollars on war.

"His budget would slash the Bureau of [Reclamation] by a fifth-a fifth-and that's without considering the fact that the infrastructure cliff we are barreling towards this fall. Over the past five years, funding from that bipartisan infrastructure law provided nearly half of all Reclamation funding, and that well is drying up. And if we don't act-crucial water resources will dry up next-along with funding for a lot more-so much else.

"Meanwhile Trump's budget would also slash funding for the Army Corps by more than a third. The Construction account would get chopped almost in half!

"We're talking about an enormous backlog of Army Corps projects-deferred construction, critical repairs-that these cuts would abandon. Work we cannot delay without rolling the dice and leaving communities facing unacceptable risks-deadly floods, harsh droughts-and that is not hypothetical.

"This is the fourth year in a row we've had a drought in Washington state. And we are not alone. The Colorado River Basin is 26 years into a megadrought-and just may be having its worst year on record right now. In Texas-Corpus Christi is staring down a full-on water crisis, and this is not the time to slash water projects.

"And in addition to the threat of Trump's proposed cuts, the Army Corps has been rocked by Trump's staffing cuts. He has decimated the Corps workforce-a 12 percent loss since 2024. And meanwhile, hiring has been frozen. You just can't keep up, let alone accelerate, projects-while sending engineers and project managers packing.

"And if funding cuts, and staffing shortages weren't bad enough, there's also the rampant, blatant political sabotage. After zeroing out funding for blue states like mine last May, the Trump Administration 'paused' over $11 billion for Army Corps projects in blue states and cities in October.

"Communities got frozen out-simply because of who they voted for. And incredibly, we have yet to receive any communication on whether those projects are going to now be moving forward. We need transparency-and we need basic fairness. But all we are getting right now is a runaround from all of you and the Pentagon.

"And I have to mention the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund; Trump wants to shortchange that fund by over $1.8 billion and shortchange donor and energy transfer ports like we have in Washington state. So, I want y'all to know, I am going to make sure we do fully fund the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and make sure that states like mine get their fair share.

"And that goes for the rest of the budget too. We cannot let Trump open the floodgates for defense contractors while our families and our farmers barely get anything. I will not let him zero out projects like the Howard Hanson Dam that is so critical to keeping people safe.

"Instead, I hope we toss Trump's budget in the trash can-where it belongs. And then work in this Committee in a bipartisan way to write a bill that addresses these critical challenges and helps our families back home. And by the way that does need to include addressing the infrastructure cliff that's fast approaching when the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law expires very fast, coming up this fall. So, with that, I'd like to turn it back over to you."

[HMTF AND DONOR PORTS]

Senator Murray began by questioning Assistant Secretary Telle on how the budget drastically underfunds the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and violates the law by shortchanging donor ports.

MURRAY: Assistant Secretary Telle-we talked about this recently, but I hear constantly from ports and harbors back home in Washington about how much they rely on the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. And despite the importance of this funding, your budget request is just as insufficient as last year. Your proposal would mean a cut of nearly $2 billion from what we just enacted, and it would provide zero funding for donor and energy transfer ports. That is just not acceptable.

Will you commit to us today that Donor Ports, like Seattle and Tacoma, will receive their full, fair share of HMTF dollars, as Congress intended for FY26?

TELLE: Yes ma'am, in fiscal year [FY]26 the Energy and Water Appropriations Act provided what amounted to 13% for those donor and energy transfer ports, and we are on track with that FY26 funding.

MURRAY: And you will commit to us that you will get that out as we intended?

TELLE: Senator, we will absolutely follow the law.

MURRAY: Okay, well these ports are a gateway to the world-they are major economic engines for our state and for our country. And I will not sit by and watch my state get shortchanged; know we're watching.

[WESTERN DROUGHT & INFRASTRUCTURE CLIFF]

Senator Murray then pressed Assistant Secretary Travnicek on the record drought across the western United States, while the Bureau of Reclamation has been underfunded and the Trump administration proposes doing nothing to address the fast-approaching expiration of billions of dollars in funding provided for this work by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

MURRAY: Assistant Secretary Travnicek, thank you for being here. You know that the west is in the midst of a really historic drought. More than 70% of the west is currently experiencing drought conditions.

And because of those serious challenges we are facing, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act both provided billions in critical funding to the Bureau of [Reclamation] to help with projects like: fixing aging canals and dams, and building new water storage and improving water efficiency-so important-recycling, desalination, helping our farmers and helping our rural communities.

That funding has made a huge difference. But this administration has slowed down money getting out the door, and that needs to change. We are now staring down a cliff of $1.66 billion in funding each year for water projects when the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding comes to an end this October-and tens of billions more across key programs elsewhere. But your budget proposes nothing to address that massive shortfall.

So, I wanted to ask you today, is it this administration's view that we should make massive cuts to drought funding so we can have more money for defense contractors-which is how the budget appears to me?

TRAVNICEK: Thank you senator for the question. As you mentioned, yes, we are seeing drought across the western states and we are working really hard to continue to get those previous dollars out the door so as it relates to those aging infrastructure dollars, they're moving. We were even able to get some more moving this week.

You mentioned too where we have the One Big Beautiful Bill, so for water storage, for water conveyance, so that is where we are focused on making sure we are focused on making sure that we are trying to get infrastructure dollars taking care of some of the projects that have been out there. And then of course, looking ahead with the budget that we do have-trying to make sure that we're operating, maintaining, and making sure that we're modernizing the infrastructure that we do have.

And then at the same time working with our various partners, so in order to make those dollars go farther, right-its working with the different partners, the different states, the different districts-so it's going to take all of us working together to make sure we can work towards solving the drought the best we can.

MURRAY: Well just so this committee and everybody understand: this funding has a huge cliff in October, and that means drastic cuts to all of these programs that all of our states rely on, and we need to work within this committee to make sure we don't face a huge disaster with all of that.

[ARMY CORPS IGNORING CONGRESSIONAL APPROPRIATIONS]

Senator Murray pressed Assistant Secretary Telle on why the Army Corps said it paused $11 billion in essential Corps projects in Democratic led states-and has started terminating projects entirely-including those funded by Congressional Directed Spending.

MURRAY: Assistant Secretary Telle, let me go back to you-this Committee relies on timely, factual information from the Army Corps districts to do our job. Last October, the Department of Defense issued a gag order requiring all congressional communication to be routed through the Legislative Affairs at the Pentagon. We are now seeing major project decisions, like the release of the updated spend plans or the transfer of projects, announced before us, before Congress-and sometimes even our local partners-are notified. I can't stress enough that our local partners are not mere spectators to this: they are our partners and they're major financial stakeholders in Corps projects.

And we are all aware of the blatantly political announcement made by OMB Director Russ Vought during last fall's shutdown that the administration would 'pause' or 'cancel' $11 billion in essential Corps projects. That's why our FY26 bill was very clear: the Corps has to execute funding as Congress intended. It can't terminate, or pause, or alter the scope of a project without prior, written justification from this Committee. And as we talked about, I have heard about multiple instances where you have terminated studies-including those funded with Congressional Directed Spending-without any prior notification.

I wanted to ask you today, why did you ignore the law and fail to notify Congress?

TELLE: Vice Chair Murray, thank you for the question. As we discussed in your office, no projects, as you described them, have been terminated. There have been instances where district commanders have made recommendations up the chain to terminate projects that they believe are at a dead end. Those projects have not reached General Grahams's desk to my knowledge, they haven't reached my desk as we discussed. It is important for our districts to communicate with nonfederal sponsors, there have been no terminations that I-in fact, I would say that the letter you referenced in our previous meeting, is an example of why it is important for the left hand and the right hand to know what's going on in an organization, this is why it's important to coordinate.

MURRAY: Well, I don't know who's left hand and right hand is, but I will submit for the record a list of terminated projects. And we wrote into our bill very specifically that we would be notified and were not, and so I will submit that for the record.

CHAIR KENNEDY: Without objection.

[WASHINGTON STATE PROJECTS]

Senator Murray then questioned Assistant Secretary Telle on the Army Corps funding critical projects in Washington state, such as Howard Hanson Dam.

MURRAY: And again, Assistant Secretary Telle-as we discussed last week, Washington State has a lot of ongoing projects with the Army Corps, we have Howard Hanson that we just talked about, Duckabush, and Deepening Seattle and Tacoma Harbors, those are just a few. So, I can't underscore in strong enough terms how important these projects are not just to my state but to our entire nation.

And we talked about Howard Hanson Dam and thank you for being out there. This is addressing dam safety issues, its providing water supply; we need it for flooding before we have a complete disaster out there, and it is important for our critical salmon habitat. So many important reasons, and I had to fight tooth and nail, as the Chairman will remember and I appreciate your help, sir, to get secure funding for that project about $500 million because that project was ripped out of the [FY]25 budget.

So, I'm going to ask you today, do you commit to execute every dollar of Congressionally appropriated funding exactly as been directed for those projects?

TELLE: Yes ma'am, we executed the contract on the Howard Hanson Dam within the timeframe that this committee provided in the Energy and Water Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 26.

MURRAY: Well, thank you, we will be watching very carefully to make sure that's followed.

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