Why Is the Army Corps Ruling Your Neighborhood?
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Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Opponents of New York’s plan toreopen a waste-transfer plant on the Upper East Side ofManhattan were predictably disappointed that the U.S. Army Corpsof Engineers gave the plant a green light last month.
But the regulatory authority of the Army Corps should belimited to assessing threats to navigation, not neighborhoodconcerns. The Army Corps’ control over navigable waterways,which dates back to 1899, should remind us just how ill-suitedthe U.S. transportation and infrastructure system is for theneeds of the 21st century. We need a system where the Army Corpsis confined to providing engineering expertise andtransportation funding, in the same way that federal schoolspending is tied to performance.