[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 7, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9696-S9697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HURRICANE KATRINA AND SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Hurricane Katrina was a tremendous hit to 
us. When I say ``us,'' I mean the American people. We recognize this 
administration needs to have a review of what took place. Certainly 
they have to acknowledge that, but I think it is the wrong thing for 
the President to be investigating himself. That is basically what he 
said he was going to do yesterday. Baseball games do not work out very 
well when you have the man throwing the pitches calling the balls and 
strikes.
  I heard the House is going to start meeting today on actually passing 
legislative matters that are so important to being able to give relief 
to these people, but outside the $10.5 billion we did on an emergency 
basis last Thursday, we have not done anything here legislatively to 
help the people who are so devastated. It is time we get to work for 
the gulf coast families.
  What does it mean to have lost everything? That is what has happened 
to tens of thousands of people. They have lost everything. They are at 
the National Guard Armory sleeping on cots. There are hundreds of them 
coming from Nevada. The Senator from Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln, 
indicated yesterday there are about 60,000 evacuees who have come to 
Arkansas with no jobs, no money, no change of clothes--nothing. They 
are counting on us, and we in the Senate are not doing anything.

  We all care about these victims. This is not a question of who cares 
the most. But I have to say, and I raise a flag of concern, tomorrow 
morning we are going to the Commerce, Science, and Justice 
appropriations bill. Under the rules of the Senate, you are really 
restricted as to what you can do on an appropriations bill. This 
appropriations bill is no different. We can do a few little things to 
help the victims but almost nothing: SBA loans and maybe a few things 
for law enforcement, but there is nothing that gets the victims the 
health care, the housing, the education, or the financial relief they 
need now. We need to adjust our priorities on the floor of the Senate.
  If we go to another appropriations bill, the same problems are here. 
We cannot get to the things that we need to get to, to help these 
people who are so desperately in need of help. I personally think we 
should finish the Defense authorization bill. That is what should be 
called up. Call up the Defense authorization bill. I spoke to the 
majority leader last week about this and indicated I would talk to 
Senator Levin about how much time he thought it would take. I reported 
my findings to Senator Frist. We have to get to the Defense 
authorization bill. We spent some time on it; a few days, as you will 
remember. Nothing happened, to speak of. The bill was pulled.
  We have hundreds of thousands of people who will be affected by the 
Defense authorization bill, not only those on the ground as soldiers 
and marines and airmen and some naval personnel who will be helped, who 
are on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have to do it for that 
reason, but we also have to do it for the hundreds of thousands of 
veterans who are affected by what we do with the Defense authorization 
bill, or do not do, and right now we are doing nothing. If we brought 
up the Defense authorization bill, we could do the things that need to 
be done to help the victims of Katrina.
  What, obviously, is the game plan around here is we will wait on the 
Defense authorization bill until we are way down the road. Then people 
will say you are spending too much time on this and you are bringing up 
matters that are not in keeping with the defense of this country. I 
think the defense of this country is right now. What we have seen 
happening in the gulf indicates that we need our soldiers and marines, 
our military personnel. There are about 60,000 of them down there right 
now, in those three Gulf States--60,000. The Defense bill is important. 
Let's bring it up.
  If we brought up that bill, there are some things we could do. We 
could, for example, introduce legislation to reestablish FEMA at the 
Cabinet level so it is no longer the toothless tiger it has become. We 
could introduce legislation to establish an independent commission to 
study what went wrong with Katrina. It is going to happen. There will 
be an independent commission to study Katrina just like there was an 
independent commission to study 9/11. The administration fought that 
and fought that, but it came to be and it was good. Congressman 
Hamilton and Governor Kean did a wonderful job for the people of 
America and the world with the work they did. We need a similar 
bipartisan commission to find out what took place after the storm hit.
  There is legislation in which some are interested--including, it is 
my understanding, Congressional Representatives from Louisiana, and I 
know I have spoken to Senator Kennedy about this--to have an 
independent authority for how we are going to spend maybe as much as 
$200 billion, $150 billion, to do what needs to be done as a result of 
that catastrophe, an independent commission like the Tennessee Valley 
Authority, as an example, so that money is spent in the right way.
  What about gas prices? Do we need to take a look at that? Do we need 
legislation to take a look at that? Of course we do. Of course we do. 
In one quarter, the last quarter, ExxonMobil's profits were up to $8 
billion, one quarter net profit; British Petroleum, $6 billion; Shell, 
$5.4 billion; ChevronTexaco, $3.7 billion; Conoco, $3.10 billion--their 
profits up 55 percent; Chevron profits up 13 percent; Shell up 35 
percent; British Petroleum, their profits up 37 percent; ExxonMobil up 
32 percent.
  People are going to fill their vehicles today, and they will wind up 
spending $100 for a tank of gas--one tank. So having the Defense bill 
brought up would give us an opportunity to do that. I can't imagine why 
we can't go to the Defense authorization bill--other than the reasons I 
just indicated.
  There are things we could be doing. The Energy and Water conference, 
we have been waiting for months to have a conference on that. We can't 
do that. Why? Because the Senate number is higher than the House 
number, so the House fixes that. They just won't let us go to 
conference. Chairman Hobson is not allowing us to do anything because 
our number is bigger than theirs.
  The American people should understand that part of the Energy and 
Water subcommittee money that we need to spend is for the Corps of 
Engineers. It is here and it is in the doldrums, to say the least. 
Nothing is happening. Why can't we go to conference?
  Also, in that the Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the 
White House, I think we need to revisit this budget and reconciliation. 
Is it really the time in the history of our country to have, as called 
for in the documents I have just talked about, $70 billion more in tax 
cuts? That is what we are being asked to go along with.
  On the night we voted on the budget resolution I read a letter from 
the head of the Lutheran Church, the Methodist Church, mainline 
Protestant Churches. They said to me: I want you to tell everyone here 
voting on this--and I read it into the Record; they gave it to me in 
the form of a letter--that the budget document that you are being asked 
to vote on is ``immoral.'' That is their word, not mine: ``immoral.''

  If it was immoral when we passed it, think about it now. We are going 
to ask for $70 billion more in tax cuts, most of them for the rich, of 
course; $35 billion in spending cuts, $10 billion alone for Medicaid. 
In all the pictures on television and the newspapers you see those 
people who could not get out of the storm because they had no 
automobiles, there was no public transportation--they were stuck there. 
The poorest of the poor have been hit the hardest by Katrina. Shouldn't 
we consider not cutting Medicaid $10 billion?

[[Page S9697]]

That is where that money goes, to the poorest of the poor. We cut 
student loans, food stamps--these are cuts to the very programs the 
survivors of Katrina need. America can do better.
  FEMA and other agencies failed these people, in my opinion. The 
Senate must not fail the American people. It is time we get to work. I 
have given some outlines. We as a minority are happy to work with the 
majority, but I have given an outline of some of the things I think we 
need to do. The burden is on the majority to do something about this 
budget and reconciliation because it is on the conscience of the 
majority. I have to say: $10 billion cuts in Medicaid? More tax cuts? 
Cutting food stamps? Student loans?
  I also say that we have a burden, an obligation to do something about 
the military that is sacrificing so much. The little, sparsely 
populated State of Nevada had 24 soldiers killed.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The Senator from Kentucky.

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