Congress passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2022 (WRDA 2022) as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (PL 117-263) prior to adjournment in December. WRDA 2022 authorizes $30 billion in Army Corps of Engineers projects and programs for navigation, flood control, environmental mitigation, and other civil works activities.
Specifically, the package authorizes construction of 25 new projects, 94 new feasibility studies, and 12 studies to modify existing projects. Eligibility for Army Corps annual and supplemental appropriations requires prior authorization.
The law includes provisions supported by ACEC that call for climate-related risk management of coastal and riverine infrastructure to increase resilience to extreme weather events. The measure directs the Army Corps to rebuild and maintain coastal and riverine projects based on projections relative to sea-level rise and extreme weather events.
WRDA 2022 also includes ACEC-supported provisions that require the Army Corps to track and report to Congress on various aspects of National Environmental Policy Act reviews, with the goal of streamlining information requirements and permitting timelines.
Major project authorization provisions in WRDA 2022 include a $34 billion Coastal Spine project in Texas, which is among the nation’s largest Army Corps coastal storm damage management efforts. Coastal Spine is a large-scale storm risk management and ecosystem restoration project to mitigate risk from future hurricanes. WRDA 2022 also authorizes environmental infrastructure assistance ($6.56 billion) for the design and construction of specified publicly owned and operated wastewater systems.
In addition to supporting project and program authorizations, ACEC continues to engage with Congress and the Army Corps to improve permitting processes and support and align design practices based on climate-related risk management.
The National Defense Authorization Act (PL 117-263) includes ACEC-backed language to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from requesting additional information from ID/IQ contract holders. Specifically, Section 802 states, “when issuing a task or delivery order for architectural and engineering services under a multiple award contract, the head of an agency may not routinely request additional information relating to qualifications from the contractor for such multiple award contract.”
The language seeks to address a problem where the Army Corps has required firms—which have already gone through a Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS) process to be short-listed for task orders—to undergo a second QBS competition to be awarded a specific task order. ACEC has raised concerns previously that this process is costly and time-consuming and is causing unnecessary delays in projects.
The new law also includes report language calling on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review a sample of A/E contracts to determine: 1) how long it takes the Army Corps of Engineers to acquire a task order; 2) the added costs to request and review task order submissions; 3) if the Army Corps routinely informs unsuccessful proposers that they were not selected and, if so, how promptly; 4) if the Corps Districts use the same processes; and 5) other observations on contracting for A/E services identified by the GAO.
Also included was a provision calling for greater use of integrated project delivery (IPD) contracts. A comprehensive study by the University of Minnesota linked project success to IPD, finding that such projects using IPD are delivered on time and on budget. The provision calls on each of the military services to include IPD in project delivery for at least one project.
For legislative news, visit ACEC’s Last Word blog online at www.acec.org.