U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: FY2025 Appropriations

For FY2025, Congress enacted funding for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) civil works activities as part of a full-year continuing appropriations act (commonly known as a continuing resolution, or CR) for the first time since FY2013. The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (FY2025 full-year CR; P.L. 119-4), provided USACE $8.70 billion, which was the same as the FY2024 appropriated amount.

USACE civil works activities primarily include the planning and construction of authorized water resource projects and the operation and maintenance (O&M) of infrastructure and navigation improvements managed by USACE. USACE uses most of its appropriations for work on specific studies and projects authorized by Congress. Nonfederal entities often share in project costs.

FY2025 Full-Year Continuing Resolution

FY2025 annual appropriations deliberations began with a budget request by the Biden Administration and ended with USACE developing a work plan for the FY2025 full-year CR under the second Trump Administration. This was in contrast to other full-year CRs funding USACE in FY2007, FY2011, and FY2013, when the appropriations cycle began and concluded under a single Administration.

Congress generally considers funding for USACE civil works activities in annual Energy and Water Development appropriations act deliberations. (For more on USACE appropriations, see CRS Report R46320, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Annual Appropriations Process.) President Biden requested $7.22 billion for FY2025. The House Appropriations Committee reported its FY2025 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (H.R. 8997) on July 11, 2024, which would have appropriated $9.96 billion for USACE. On August 1, 2024, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported its FY2025 measure (S. 4927), which would have appropriated $10.34 billion. Following a series of short-term CRs, the FY2025 full-year CR was signed into law on March 15, 2025, to fund USACE at the FY2024 appropriated level. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Division D, Title 1 of P.L. 118-42), had provided USACE with FY2024 annual appropriations of $8.70 billion and rescinded $22 million from prior-year appropriations.

Direction for USACE Appropriations

USACE account levels for FY2025 were the same as P.L. 118-42-appropriated levels for FY2024 (see a subset of the accounts in Table 1). The O&M account, which funds maintenance of existing USACE infrastructure, made up almost 64% of USACE's FY2025 annual appropriations. In addition, most provisions—such as how much funding was to be derived from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund ($2.77 billion)—were retained. Under P.L. 119-4, the Construction account received the same level of appropriations as in FY2024: $1.85 billion. However, the FY2025 full-year CR excluded a P.L. 118-42 provision for FY2024 regarding the use of prior-year unobligated and unallocated Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA; P.L. 117-58) construction funds. Division D of P.L. 118-42 had directed that USACE use $1.43 billion provided by IIJA to fund FY2024 construction activities. Therefore, the FY2025 full-year CR appropriated new funding for USACE construction that was effectively 44% less than the amount made available by Congress (inclusive of the redirected IIJA funds) to fund FY2024 construction activities listed in P.L. 118-42's explanatory statement.

Section 1503(b) of the FY2025 full-year CR directed USACE's Chief of Engineers to develop a work plan allocating the act's USACE funding to active studies and projects, and to deliver the work plan to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees no later than 60 days after enactment. Once submitted, there are to be no deviations from the work plan aside from reprogramming authority, as provided to USACE in P.L. 118-42.

Work Plan Background and Development

Work plans began as a regular part of USACE appropriations processes in FY2012. For annual appropriations acts since then, Congress directed most of the funding for the accounts in Table 1 to specific studies, projects, and activities in the explanatory statements or reports accompanying the acts. The individual studies and projects generally included those requested by the Administration and, since FY2022, some requested by Members. Congress also gave USACE discretion to allocate some funding to specific studies and projects in a work plan developed after enactment—that is, USACE was directed to allocate only discrete amounts of funding, referred to as additional funding for certain categories of work (e.g., shore protection, inland waterways) to qualifying studies and projects.

As in other full-year CRs, P.L. 119-4 did not include detailed direction or tables to fund specific studies, projects, and activities; it also did not have an accompanying report or explanatory statement. In May 2025, USACE published its FY2025 full-year CR work plan allocating funding from the accounts in Table 1 to studies, projects, and activities. The Trump Administration had more discretion in developing the FY2025 work plan compared with work plans developed pursuant to recent USACE annual appropriations acts. For example, in contrast to other work plans, the Trump Administration allocated all of the funding for the accounts in Table 1 to specific studies, projects, and activities in the FY2025 work plan, instead of only a portion of the account funding (i.e., additional funding).

FY2025 Work Plan Allocations

The FY2025 full-year CR work plan allocated funding to only a portion of the studies and projects requested by the Biden Administration for FY2025. For example, out of the 19 projects requested for Construction account funding, 10 projects requested by the Biden Administration were among the 22 funded in the final work plan. For the Investigations account, 25 of the 67 studies requested under the Biden Administration received funding in the work plan.

In the 117^th and 118^th Congresses, annual appropriations acts also included funding for studies and projects requested by Members of Congress. These were identified in explanatory statements accompanying the acts. For FY2025, the House and Senate Appropriations committees included Member-requested funding in committee reports (H.Rept. 118-580 and S.Rept. 118-205) accompanying their FY2025 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bills. USACE allocated funding in the FY2025 work plan to some of the Member-requested studies and projects included in these committee reports. For example, the committee reports recommended eight Member requests that made it into the Construction work plan.

The FY2025 full-year CR work plan did not fund some USACE activities regularly supported by Congress. There was no funding for environmental infrastructure assistance projects, which typically receive some level of congressional appropriations despite being rarely requested by Administrations (see CRS Report R47162, Overview of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Environmental Infrastructure (EI) Assistance). Similarly, most Continuing Authorities Programs did not receive funding (see CRS In Focus IF12635, Continuing Authorities Programs (CAPs) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), with the exception of a single Section 111 CAP project. However, as discussed below, the American Relief Act, 2025 (ARA 2025; P.L. 118-158), provided funding available in FY2025 for some of these activities. The work plan also did not fund some other activities that were funded in FY2024, such as the Aquatic Plant Control Program.

USACE FY2025 Supplemental Funding

In addition to annual appropriations, Congress has provided supplemental funding to USACE in some fiscal years. USACE continued to obligate some prior-year supplemental funds during FY2025, and it received $1.52 billion in FY2025 emergency supplemental funds from ARA 2025. ARA 2025 provided $745 million for the Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies account to cover disaster-related expenses. The MR&T account received $50 million, also for disaster-related expenses, and the Investigations account received $20 million for studies of flood risk reduction projects. The Construction account received $700 million for various purposes, including $100 million to plan and construct flood and storm damage reduction CAP projects and $300 million for EI assistance. Another $300 million was for completing projects already started by previous supplemental appropriations acts. As directed, the Chief of Engineers allocated the Investigations and Construction funding in ARA 2025 work plans.

Considerations for Congress

At issue for Congress is the extent to which the FY2025 full-year CR work plan reflects congressional or Administration priorities for USACE civil works and how this work plan may inform future congressional action. P.L. 119-4 was the first full-year CR for USACE since FY2013 and thus the first fiscal year since FY2013 in which Congress did not specify the majority of USACE activities to be funded. Congress may choose to review what, if any, priorities were not met in FY2025 regular and supplemental appropriations and how these might be addressed in FY2026 appropriations. Congress also may consider the tradeoffs of enacting full year CRs compared to annual appropriations acts that direct the majority of the USACE studies, projects, and activities to receive funding. If Congress considers full-year CRs in the future, a question would be whether to provide more or less USACE funding direction than in the FY2025 full-year CR.