Section 214 of the Water Resources Development Act of 2000

Completed actions under Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) 214/Transportation Agreements

The Corps regulatory program is funded as a congressionally appropriated line item in the annual Federal budget.  Additional funds received by the partners would be used to augment the budget of the Corps in accordance with the provisions of Section 214 of WRDA 2000, as amended.  The Corps would establish a separate account to track the receipt and expenditure of the funds. 

 Activities for which funds will be expended:  Funds would be expended primarily on the labor and overhead of regulatory personnel processing permit applications by partners.  Such permit processing activities could include, but not be limited to, the following:  development of regional general permits and letters of permission associated with actions covered by a habitat conservation plan, application completeness review, jurisdictional determinations, site visits, preparation of public notices, preparation of correspondence, meetings, consultation with other agencies, public interest review, distribution of public notices, analysis of alternatives, compensatory mitigation proposal reviews, preparation of environmental assessments, and preparation of permit decision documents.  Funds may also be expended to pay for support services or to hire independent contractors.

To ensure the funds will not impact impartial decision-making, the following procedures would apply:

(a)  All final permit decisions for cases where these funds are used must be reviewed at least one level above the decision maker, unless the decision maker is the District Commander.  For example, if the decision maker is the Chief of the Regulatory Division, then the reviewer would be the District Commander.

(b)  All final permit decisions for applications where these funds are expended will be made available on the Regulatory HQ ORM2 Public Portal page.

(c)  The Corps will not eliminate any procedures or decisions that would otherwise be required for that type of project and permit application under consideration.

(d)  The Corps will comply with all applicable laws and regulations. 

(e)  Funds will only be expended to provide priority review of the participating non-Federal entity's permit applications.

USACE-Regulatory-HQ Page for WRDA 214.
A list of completed actions can by found, by opening the WRDA tab at Regulatory HQ ORM2 Public Portal