mr. chairman , the civil works program of the corps of engineers provides water resources development projects that are important to the nation . 
i believe the restrictions on reprogramming of funds and the constraints on the use of continuing contracts contained in this bill will lead to the inefficient use of appropriated funds and will disadvantage congressionally-added projects . 
congress does not fully fund projects in a given fiscal year and the schedule for constructing these large water resources projects is subject to the weather , environmental conditions , and other dynamic circumstances . 
as a result , reprogramming and continuing contacts are important tools that allow for the efficient use of appropriated funds . 
i share the concerns that the appropriations committee has for some of the reprogramming activities of the corps of engineers and the way they have used continuing contracts for some of their projects . 
however , the constraints in this bill are too restrictive . 
section 101 only allows a reprogramming of $ 2 million or less per project . 
this is not enough to allow the corps to effectively move money around among projects when projects are delayed or when they can be accelerated . 
also , the bill earmarks nearly all available funding , which makes it impossible for the corps to pay back those projects that it took money from in previous reprogramming . 
i must disagree also with the restriction placed on continuing contracts by this bill . 
while there may have been some unwise uses of continuing contracts by the corps , the restrictions in this bill are too severe . 
they will lead to inefficient use of funds and a bias against congressional priority projects . 
as a result of the constraints on reprogramming , a lot of money will be carried over each fiscal year and work will have to be broken up into many smaller units making projects more expensive . 
current law requires the corps to use continuing contracts whenever funds are provided in an appropriations act , but there is not enough money to complete the project . 
only funds for that fiscal year are reserved , but the contractor can proceed with additional work with the understanding that payment is subject to future appropriations . 
section 104 is inconsistent with current law in that it restricts the amount of work a contractor can do to only that which can be accomplished with fy 06 funds . 
under section 104 , the contractor can not proceed at his own risk in anticipation of fy 07 and future year funding . 
the contractor will have to stop work and wait for a new contract the next year . 
section 104 is legislative in nature and i intend to make a point of order that will strike it from the bill . 
section 105 further restricts the use of continuing contracts and has the remarkable effect of restricting the corps ' ability to carry out congressionally-added projects in this appropriation bill . 
section 105 states that none of the funds provided in fy 06 may be used to award a continuing contract that extends into fy 07 unless the administration budgets for the project in fy 07 . 
this means that even if a member has funding for a project in this bill , for fy 06 , not fully funded , there are three options : ( 1 ) hope to award a continuing contract before administration comes out with its budget in february of 2006 , ( 2 ) award a single year contract for only one increment of the project ( resulting in increased costs ) , or ( 3 ) wait until fiscal year 2008 to award a continuing contract for the project ( delaying project construction and project benefits ) . 
these restrictions apply to on-going as well as new projects . 
in alaska , there are currently eight projects under construction using continuing contracts . 
seven of these are not in the president 's budget . 
i expect that before this bill becomes law , it will contain funding for all of these projects . 
nevertheless , under section 105 of the bill , a continuing contract could not be used in fy 06 , and the corps will have to break the projects into smaller pieces or wait until fy 08 to spend the fy 06 appropriated funds . 
i believe the restrictions in this bill will delay these important projects in alaska and make them more expensive . 
this is a problem that will be repeated for other members for projects all over the country . 
finally , i want to applaud the committee 's efforts to get additional information from the administration during the budget process . 
information is needed for all projects , not just the ones in the administration 's budget . 
in addition , i believe that a 5-year schedule of spending for each project will allow the congress to better appropriate funding that can match the corps capabilities for individual projects . 
chairman hobson and ranking member visclosky are to be commended for their efforts to see that program management and budgeting at the corps of engineers are put back on track . 
while i have reservations about the effects of some of the measures required by this bill , i believe i can work with the committee leadership as this bill moves forward to see that my concerns are addressed in conference . 
