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House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., asked the Government Accountability Office in a letter Tuesday to examine the rental rates that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers charges to marina operators.
Comer emphasized that the USACE rental calculations are imposing excessive costs on marina operators and asked acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown to investigate USACE's rental rate methodology.
"USACE manages hundreds of water resource development projects throughout the country and is one of the nation's leading providers of outdoor recreation, with more than 400 lake and river projects in 43 states," Comer wrote in the letter. "These recreational sites host millions of visitors every year and provide substantial economic benefits to the surrounding local communities.
"Recreation and economic benefits would not be possible without the small businesses that privately operate the marinas and other concessions on USACE managed real estate," he continued. "However, these small businesses are operating on extraordinarily tight margins that are often further diminished by their rental payments owed to USACE."
Comer has pushed USACE to provide greater transparency and fairness on the fees charged to marina operators since 2021, and in 2023 the GAO reported that USACE did not consistently follow critical guidelines for setting, reviewing and updating its user fees, including the lease rental rates charged to concession operators, which had not been updated since 1994.
"Although USACE generally agreed with GAO's recommendations, local marina operators continue to struggle with rental rates that are exorbitant relative to the low profit margins on goods such as food, beverages, and fuel," Comer wrote.
"Given GAO's past work on this issue, I request that GAO undertake an examination of USACE rental rates for marina concession operators," he concluded.
Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.
