Why Is The Army Corps Ruling Your Neighborhood?

Opponents of New York’s plan to reopen a waste-transfer plant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan were predictably disappointed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave the plant a green light last month.

But the regulatory authority of the Army Corps should be limited to assessing threats to navigation, not neighborhood concerns. The Army Corps’ control over navigable waterways, which dates back to 1899, should remind us just how ill-suited the U.S. transportation and infrastructure system is for the needs of the 21st century. We need a system where the Army Corps is confined to providing engineering expertise and transportation funding, in the same way that federal school spending is tied to performance.

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