Jones Asks Corps to Allocate More Money to Oregon Inlet | Eastern North Carolina Now

News Release:

        Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) is calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allocate additional funding to dredge Eastern North Carolina’s Oregon Inlet. In a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) Jo-Ellen Darcy and Lt. General Thomas P. Bostick at the Army Corps of Engineers, Congressman Jones explained that the inlet’s main channel has shoaled from its authorized depth of 14 feet to under 3 feet in some places. Furthermore, the $800,000 provided for the project in President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request has already been spent. As a result, the jobs and economic impact related to the inlet are in serious peril.

    While Congress no longer has the ability to legislatively increase funding for specific projects because of an earmark ban imposed in 2011, Congress did attempt to address some of the waterway maintenance issues across the nation in the recently-passed omnibus Fiscal Year 2015 appropriations bill. In that bill, Congress created several unallocated pots of money for different project categories, and gave the Corps a list of criteria to use in determining which projects to fund from these pots. In his letter to the Corps’ top two leaders, Congressman Jones made the case that Oregon Inlet is exactly type of project that Congress had in mind when it provided the Corps with these additional pots of money. He also laid out exactly how Oregon Inlet meets the criteria for project selection established by Congress.

    “The maintenance of the Oregon Inlet is vital to the economic success of Eastern North Carolina,” said Congressman Jones. “Fishermen, recreational boaters and the Coast Guard must have reliable access through the inlet, and I will continue to do everything I can to fight for that cause.”

    Maria Jeffrey
      Communications Director

    Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3)

     2333 Rayburn House Office Building
     Washington, DC 20515

     Maria.Jeffrey@mail.house.gov  •  (202) 225-3415is absolutely senility.