Posted on June 4, 2025
The Corps Work Plan for the current fiscal year (FY25) provides absolutely no funding to place sand on any existing or new projects, a fact that hasn’t occurred in the 29 years we’ve been tracking appropriations. The Work Plan is produced by the Corps with the approval of the Trump White House staff. While the final FY25 budget had cut the Corps total allocation to $8.7 billion, it cut the construction account by 44 percent compared to the previous year.
However, for beach nourishment, the construction cut was 100 percent. Normal funding to place sand on beaches averages between $50 million and $100 million annually. Had we had an equitable 44 percent cut from even the low end of that range, it would have meant about $28 million in sand money. Instead, the cut was to $0. Using funds that had been recommended by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, there should have been almost $19 million appropriated if those recommendations had been followed as would normally have been the case.
Bottom line: The Administration put no money into sand on the Nation’s beaches. The only good news in the Work Plan is the nearly $7 million in funding for completing ongoing studies. Three national programs, beneficial use of sediment (Sec. 204), mitigation of shoreline damages (Sec. 111), and Small Shore Protection Programs (Sec. 103) were all zeroed out.
Will Next Year Be Any Better?
The FY26 Corps appropriation cannot be any worse than the FY25 Work Plan, but it’s not starting off any better. Let’s look at the situation, at least as of today. The President’s budget was due in February but didn’t come out until the end of May. It includes presidential earmarks for each Corps study, construction, and navigation project supported by the Administration.There was absolutely nothing in the President’s FY26 proposal for the coast.
Meanwhile, the President has been cutting out funding for agencies that Congress already approved for FY25 and before. Fortunately for the Corps, that does not mean project or study cuts. Instead, the Corps has felt primarily personnel losses due to a hiring freeze and the Administration’s early retirement offers, which have had their most obvious impact on the Corps’ 2,600 recreation facilities. Some districts are having trouble planning and managing water resources projects due to personnel losses, plus the Corps budget will have to include paying the cost of those early retirement benefits.
Despite these pressures, we expect the House Appropriations Committee to develop a Corps funding bill as well as funding bills for NOAA, EPA, Interior and all other agencies in July. If that schedule holds, it may be September before the House can pass all 12 appropriations bills, leaving the Senate with no chance of passing its version of those bills before the September 30th end of the federal fiscal year. The question is: Will the final FY26 Corps budget include adequate coastal funding? Congress must maintain its power of the purse.
