Senator named leading Republican on Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Louisiana's David Vitter is taking over the top GOP slot on the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works committee, putting him in a position to have strong influence over legislation affecting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
POLITICO says Vitter will play a key role in moving legislation that would authorize the Corps to take on a host of projects.
"We (Louisiana) probably deal with and are at the mercy of the Corps of Engineers more than any other state," Vitter told POLITICO,
He also expects to play a major role in bringing reform to the Corps.
Calling the agency "a broken bureaucracy in a number of ways," Vitter says he has "a number of special Corps reform ideas" he is working on, including its spending process.
Vitter takes over the leading Republican slot on the panel from Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma who is at the end of his 6-year limit as a ranking member of the committee.
