mr. chairman , i will support the bipartisan substitute amendment by my colleagues , the gentleman from california ( mr. george miller ) xz4002780 and the gentleman from new york ( mr. boehlert ) xz4000350 because it is an honest effort to make it a better alternative that does not include the most egregious parts of the underlying bill . 
i would , however , just make one point . 
i take modest exception to the implication that was made from the other side of the aisle that somehow the endangered species act and environmental legislation had something to do with the tragedy we witnessed unfurl in the katrina-affected region . 
the gao presented a report yesterday saying that the delays in the project , that none of the changes are believed to have had any role in the levee breaches . 
and , in fact , corps officials believe that the flooding would have been worse if the original proposed design had been built . 
that was presented to congress yesterday by the gao . 
this is contentious enough , mr. chairman , so it would be nice if we could stick to the facts and not make implications that somehow the environmental legislation had anything to do with that tragedy . 
knowledgeable people understand that in the long run environmental legislation , had it been enforced and applied uniformly , would have made things better . 
mr. chairman , i submit for the record the gao report i just referred to . 
lake pontchartrain and vicinity hurricane protection project congress first authorized the lake pontchartrain and vicinity , louisiana hurricane protection project in the flood control act of 1965 . 
the project was to construct a series of control structures , concrete floodwalls , and levees to provide hurricane protection to areas around lake pontchartrain . 
the project , when designed , was expected to take about 13 years to complete and cost about $ 85 million . 
although federally authorized , it was a joint federal , state , and local effort . 
the original project designs were developed based on the equivalent of what is now called a fast-moving category 3 hurricane that might strike the coastal louisiana region once in 200-300 years . 
as gao reported in 1976 and 1982 , since the beginning of the project , the corps has encountered project delays and cost increases due to design changes caused by technical issues , environmental concerns , legal challenges , and local opposition to portions of the project . 
as a result , in 1982 , project costs had grown to $ 757 million and the expected completion date had slipped to 2008 . 
none of the changes made to the project , however , are believed to have had any role in the levee breaches recently experienced as the alternative design selected was expected to provide the same level of protection . 
in fact , corps officials believe that flooding would have been worse if the original the current estimated cost of construction for the completed project is $ 738 million with the federal share being $ 528 million and the local share $ 210 million . 
federal allocations for the project were $ 458 million as of the enactment of the fiscal year 2005 federal appropriation . 
this represents 87 percent of the federal government 's responsibility of $ 528 million with about $ 70 million remaining to complete the project . 
over the last 10 fiscal years ( 1996-2005 ) , federal appropriations have totaled about $ 128.6 million and corps reprogramming actions resulted in another $ 13 million being made available to the project . 
during that time , appropriations have generally declined from about $ 15-20 million annually in the earlier years to about $ 5-7 million in the last three fiscal years . 
while this may not be unusual given the state of completion of the project , the corps ' project fact sheet from may 2005 noted 