When federal bureaucrats use your tax dollars to fix an issue they created, you deserve to know how your money was used and whether the project was a success.

Last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the $1.5 billion project to repair the Herbert Hoover Dike.  Fast forward to this year and the Corps yet again made the decision to pull the lever to dump harmful discharges into our estuaries.  At the Rivers Coalition meeting last week, I asked a very simple question: how much more water can Lake Okeechobee hold now that the dike is repaired in order to avoid discharges?

The Army Corps could not answer me.

Here’s the bottom line: taxpayers funded this project and are entitled to this information.  If your plumber spent $100 to fix your broken water pipe, it would be essential to make sure the water is not leaking anymore.  Likewise, $1.5 BILLION of your tax money was spent fixing the dike, so it is essential to know how this project is helping us.

As your representative in Congress, I will continue to fight to stop these discharges and send the water south to the Everglades, as God intended.

To watch the what I heard from the Army Corps and why I voted NO on the government funding bill that kicks the can further down the road, watch the latest week in review video.