THE LAST TIME we heard such howls from Capitol Hill it was because then-Army Secretary Louis Caldera had dared to suggest that civilian policymakers at the Pentagon were in fact in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers. Outrage thundered from the Senate, and Mr. Caldera was forced to beat a hasty retreat. This week fury was whipped up by the Bush administration's ouster of its assistant Army secretary, Mike Parker, after he let it be known in testimony to Congress that he opposed the administration's proposed cuts in the Corps' budget. "I'm sure the thugs at OMB are happily gnawing on Mike Parker's bones," Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) charmingly told The Post's Mike Grunwald. "I think Congress may end up gnawing on their bones." Lawmakers on both sides of the Hill praised Mr. Parker for his ostensibly honorable truth-telling. But lest you be fooled into thinking this is a matter of principle, some quickly got down to the real point: vowing to put back the pork -- sorry, we meant to say funding -- for Corps projects in their districts.

Truth is, the administration got exactly what it should have known it would get from Mr. Parker. As a congressman from Mississippi, he was a staunch backer of the agency and a sharp critic of Clinton administration efforts to redirect some of its efforts from navigation and flood control to more environmentally friendly projects. "These people are nuts," he said of the Clinton OMB at one budget hearing. He fit right into the long congressional tradition of cozy relations with the Army Corps, in which members have benefited from popular pork-barrel projects in their districts and the Corps has benefited from the protection of powerful allies on the Hill. More than one president has attempted to challenge that mighty coalition only to wind up retreating in defeat.

Now the administration is in the market for a new assistant secretary for civil works. No doubt this time it will look for someone more willing to toe its line, but that's not sufficient qualification; it should also pay more attention to any potential nominee's views on the environment. The Army Corps is the primary federal regulator of wetlands: Its decisions on permits for developers have a significant impact on water quality across the country, and its own projects affect these wetlands and wildlife as well. In the past it has clashed with other agencies and has faced court challenge over its failure to address the environmental consequences of its decisions. During Mr. Parker's brief tenure, the Corps moved to relax some wetlands regulations and to diminish the Environmental Protection Agency's role in deciding how developers may compensate for wetlands lost to their projects. It needs a civilian boss who embraces environmental goals and will work with other agencies to achieve them. With his next pick, that's the kind of team player Mr. Bush should seek. The administration's commendable effort to rein in Corps spending, particularly for environmentally destructive projects, was in for a tough ride to begin with. The road ahead looks a lot bumpier now.