Congressional Record, Volume 151 Issue 129 (Thursday, October 6, 2005)

[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 129 (Thursday, October 6, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11202-S11205]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006--Continued

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S11203]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Schumer are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask the Senate focus on a matter of real
urgency and real importance for the people I represent in Louisiana
and, indeed, for all of the victims of Hurricane Katrina along the gulf
coast. We are dealing with so many new and enormously challenging
situations because of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. One of them
is the fact that in Louisiana and in certain counties in Mississippi,
in the truly devastated areas, we have areas that have been knocked off
the map economically. There is truly no viable economic activity going
on in those about six parishes in Louisiana and about three counties in
Mississippi for the time being.
We will come back. Businesses will come back. Things will get back to
normal over time, but it will take some time. So one of the primary
challenges we have is absolutely no economic activity for now.
What does that mean? It means absolutely no local tax revenue for now
to support local governmental entities, including crucial services such
as fire and police and hospitals. This is an enormous and growing
challenge in southeast Louisiana as we speak. Literally, we have
crucial governmental entities that are trying to provide those very
basic services--not a full-blown local government, not their normal
budget as it was 3 months ago but those basic services, fire and police
and hospitals, in order to form the basis of recovery. Because, indeed,
if you do not have those essentials, you have nothing and no one will
return; jobs and businesses cannot grow.
To help southeast Louisiana through this very torturous time, I have
worked with the entire Louisiana congressional delegation to try to
fashion some very focused relief to get funds through a loan program,
which I will describe in a minute, to these local governmental entities
so they can meet their core ongoing needs, their crucial emergency
services, crucial necessary services such as fire and police and
hospitals over the next few months until we can stabilize.
I have been working for over a week on this, getting into the
details, if you will, with the Senate leadership. Let me compliment the
Senate leadership and the majority leader in particular for being so
focused on this issue, and working so hard on it, devoting significant
staff to it.
I have also worked very hard on this issue with the White House and
the administration, including the Office of Management and Budget. We
have worked through the numbers and worked through various calculations
of what that specific need for local government and essential services
may be. I thank them and compliment them for that work.
I have also had significant discussions with the leadership of the
House, and certainly House Members of the Louisiana delegation have
done the same. We have thought through, worked through, talked through
all of these issues.
The product of all of that work is a proposed piece of legislation
which I have circulated to all Members of the Senate. Under that
proposed piece of legislation, we would offer some immediate help,
which we need to do now, before we recess for next week, to allow these
local governmental units to survive and provide the basic police, fire,
hospital, and related services they need to continue to provide if
there will be any platform on which to build a full recovery.
I have circulated this proposed bill. It is a $750 million bill that
would work through an established loan program in the Department of
Homeland Security. It is called the Community Disaster Loan Program. It
has gotten great support through the Senate. In fact, there has been no
objection on the majority side.
There is some objection on the minority side, but as yet, at least in
terms of my knowledge, that objection has not been clearly identified
or described to me or to anyone who can work out the problem and work
out the objection.
Because of this enormously pressing need, because these units of
local government are literally on the brink and can teeter either way
with their mandate to provide essential services--fire protection,
police protection, hospital access--I ask all Members of the Senate to
give me their indulgence and focus on this proposal, and if they have a
question or an objection, simply to see me or other knowledgeable
Members about it as soon as possible. I will be here all night, as long
as it takes. In fact, I will be presiding, starting in 7 minutes, for 2
hours. I will be happy to have conversations on the side with any
Member who wants to pose questions or set forth any objections they may
have to the proposal. But I ask the focus and the indulgence of all
Members of the Senate to do just that, so we can come together in a
bipartisan way and actually get something important and concrete done
for the true victims of Hurricane Katrina and begin to move on.
Again, this is a very time-sensitive matter so I urge Members who
have questions or objections to do this tonight so we can solve these
problems, pass the bill through the Senate, and make sure we pass this
enormously vital and crucial legislation before the Congress leaves
Washington, DC for the October recess.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. VITTER. I am happy to.
Ms. LANDRIEU. If the Senator will yield for a question and comment,
let me thank my colleague from Louisiana for his extraordinary
leadership on this issue. He has been in meetings all week, literally
for weeks, as I have, and on the phone with everybody you can talk to.
Of course, the time he spent in the House in Louisiana has served him
well because he knows how much our needs are. But I want to ask him a
few questions because he and I are committed to stay tonight until we
get some kind of resolution.
Is it the intention of the Senator, the junior Senator from
Louisiana, that these loans be in the same line as the current
legislation, which gives discretion on the part of the administration
to forgive them or not? Or is it the intention of the Senator for us to
leave current law and absolutely make it certain, when no one else has
been required to do so, that these loans would have to be repaid under
all and every circumstance?
Mr. VITTER. Under the proposed legislation I am talking about, there
is new language that would tighten up, if you will, the repayment
possibilities of these specific loans. It would not change all of the
Stafford Act, in terms of this loan program in general. That new
language would simply apply to these specific loans.
That language is included in the proposed legislation for a very
simple reason, and that reason is that, based on literally dozens of
discussions with various folks, including in the House, it is very
clear to me, in fact it is crystal clear to me, this will not pass
tonight or tomorrow through the process without this language in the
legislation.
Having said that, I have also gotten assurances from several people
in the administration that they are very understanding of the
extraordinary situation these local governments are in, in terms of
their financial condition and their ability to pay, and they will be
extremely open to working out that situation as it pertains to these
liens over the period of the loans.
Personally--and I am only speaking for myself--I feel very
comfortable with those assurances. Personally--and again, I am only
speaking for myself--I am completely confident that without the
language you are alluding to, this legislation will not pass the House
either tonight or tomorrow. So that is the sole reason, that focused
language

[[Page S11204]]

which applies only to these loans and does not change the Stafford Act
on this issue otherwise, in terms of other situations--that is the only
reason that language was included.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I can appreciate that. If you don't mind me pursuing
that line of questioning. I can most certainly appreciate what the
junior Senator is saying about the reluctance of the House of
Representatives and the administration at this point because I have yet
to receive any letter or assurance, but it is right now the House of
Representatives that basically would be willing to make loans to the
devastated cities in the gulf coast, but would insist that those loans
be paid back, when not insisting on that for other loans that have been
given to Puerto Rico, and to Florida, and to Alaska, and to other
places, which were waived.
I understand the House of Representatives, while allowing others to
borrow this money and then ask for forgiveness, would not allow
Louisiana that same privilege. I understand the position of the Senator
is that we be treated the same, as a first-class State, not a second-
class State. I know that is your position. But it does concern the
senior Senator that we would have to be dictated to by the House of
Representatives, that we would have to be treated in some second-class
fashion.
I am also appreciating that, while the administration has given you
an assurance that they do not intend to treat us as second-class
citizens, I would feel better, before we left tonight, if we had
something in writing from the administration that they think Louisiana
deserves the same treatment. For that reason, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama, and Texas--that we would deserve the same treatment as other
States.
That is why I am in a situation here where I want to commend you for
the compromise we have tried to reach today. It is, indeed, tempting.
But we are going to have to go home, if we do not get something from
this administration, and say we have agreed to a second-class status,
and our people have been hurt and offended and left by a FEMA that is
not operating very well. That is my concern.
I know you and I agree about that, but do you want to go ahead and
answer?
Mr. VITTER. I will offer two further points of explanation. First, I
have been working to address these issues specifically with Members of
this body, including Senator Jeffords of Vermont, who had this specific
concern about any permanent and global change to the Stafford Act. We
have worked through that issue very constructively. I thank him for
bringing that concern to me so we could work it out. I am asking all
Members who have a concern to do just that, to identify themselves, to
bring their concern to me.
Second, I am very comfortable with all the assurances I have received
from the administration.
If there is any different language that would apply to these loans,
perhaps it is partly explained by the fact that the size of these loans
is well beyond anything that has ever occurred in this loan program
before. So we are truly breaking new ground in terms of the size and
the capacity that we are asking to be allowed to have access to because
of the enormous need for this on the ground in the six devastated
parishes in southeast Louisiana.
My final point is, it is very clear to me we either do this or we do
nothing. One thing I am not in favor of is doing nothing. One thing I
am not in favor of is giving speeches but going home with absolutely no
concrete help for these desperate units of local government which have
done heroes' work in terms of providing police and fire protection,
health services, and hospital access. They need the help now. They
cannot wait until 10 days or 2 weeks from now.
So given this is our situation, I believe this compromise is not only
fair and just but absolutely essential that we strike today and
tomorrow.
Ms. LANDRIEU. If the Senator will yield, I can most certainly
appreciate that perspective. I definitely agree it is extremely
important to not just give speeches but to get something that is real
for our people. But because we have no written commitment from the
administration, and no resolution, and no letter, and no written
commitment from the House, no assurance, no resolution, no promise to
pass the legislation that you have presented and outlined, I am not
sure even if you and I could manage--because there is not very much
disagreement between the two of us; but our colleagues have some
disagreements--if we could pass this legislation in the Senate that it
is actually really going to do anything for people at home other than
say the Senate has come together.
It would not be the first time the Senate has come together, as the
Senator knows, because this Senate is ready to pass emergency health
care legislation, and this Senate is ready to pass emergency education
legislation, and this Senate is ready to pass--and already has passed--
help for small businesses. So it is not the Senate, as the junior
Senator----
Mr. VITTER. Senator, I----
Ms. LANDRIEU. Just 1 minute. Let me finish.
The Senate is not necessarily the problem. We have been amazingly
bipartisan. Our committee chairs and ranking members, as the Senator
knows, have done yeoman's work. And in the Small Business Committee
that you and I serve on, we have already passed that legislation. But
the senior Senator remains concerned that we still do not have any
written assurance or a resolution or something we could take home to
our mayors, et cetera.
Let me say one other point. I have read carefully the proposed
language about lending Louisiana and Mississippi and Texas this money,
and then making us pay it back when no one else in the country has been
forced to do that. I have read that language. I have also read the
language about who is eligible.
I ask the junior Senator, are you confident in the language--and I do
not have it in front of me, but I can call it up, not that it is
filed--that the sheriffs of Louisiana would be included in this
proposed compromise? Is the Senator from Louisiana indicating that the
sheriffs of our State are absolutely, positively included?
Mr. VITTER. Yes, I am completely confident of that.
Ms. LANDRIEU. OK.
Mr. VITTER. If the Senator will yield?
Ms. LANDRIEU. Go right ahead.
Mr. VITTER. A couple points: I think this is a very useful exchange
because I take it from the Senator's comments that the senior Senator
is, in fact, one of the folks who has expressed an objection to this
moving forward tonight.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I have not yet expressed an objection, but I am
considering it on the grounds--I am not yet expressing objection, but I
am considering it, respectfully, having complimented the junior Senator
for the great work he has done, because I am hesitant to accept terms
of aid that are applied only to us and to no one else, and not because
the junior Senator objects or other Senators, but because the House of
Representatives, which is in control of the Republican leadership, has
decided that the only way that they will amend the law is to force us
alone, uniquely, to have to agree to pay it back, when no one else in
America, in the past or the future, will be required to do so. That is
a hard thing for the senior Senator to agree to, but I am considering
it, if maybe that is our only option.
But you can understand why I might be a little bit exercised about
the House of Representatives saying to people who are desperate--like
on the front page of the National Geographic--we know you are
suffering, we know you need help, there is no question you have no
money to pay your bills, there is no question that we have lent other
people money and forgiven their loans, there is no question that this
is the worst natural disaster in the history of the country--but the
only way we will compromise with you, Senator Landrieu and Senator
Vitter and Senator Frist and Senator Reid, is if your desperate people
promise to pay the loan back. And, by the way, we are only making the
law for you.

Mr. VITTER. If I could ask----
Ms. LANDRIEU. Hold on. I will not yield at this moment. If someone--
--
Mr. STEVENS. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana controls the time.
Mr. VITTER. Reclaiming my time, I would wonder if the Senator objects
to the fact that under this proposal we

[[Page S11205]]

would also expand in terms of amount and number and capability the
ability to get these loans? We are getting more of these loans than
anyone in any other situation would have gotten before. I wonder if the
Senator would object to that change?
Ms. LANDRIEU. Can I answer that?
Mr. VITTER. No.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Can I answer that?
Mr. VITTER. Again, reclaiming my time, I would simply ask directly if
the Senator could either object or not object--let me know--and also
help us identify any specific objections that may exist on the minority
side.
But in closing, Mr. President, I would just say, again, it is very
clear to me, having spent a week working on this, that we either do
this today and tomorrow or we do nothing and go home for 10 days and
give no relief to these communities and these parishes which so
desperately need the help. I vote for doing something. I vote for
leading. I vote for helping in a meaningful and concrete way the people
of southeast Louisiana and urge all my colleagues to please join me in
that effort.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, there are discussions going on concerning
the future of this bill and what time we may be able to vote and
dispose of the bill. I did try to go to third reading to make sure we
would not have amendments coming in here at the last minute that would
require Members to come back into the Senate to vote at this time.
I want to state that I do not have any problem with the exchange
between the Senators from Louisiana. They do have a very difficult
proposition. I am not going to get into that at this time. But I will
say this: The arrangement that the junior Senator has made is much
better than we got after the great earthquake in Alaska in 1964. I
think people ought to realize that while the numbers of people involved
in this great disaster from Katrina and the disaster of Rita--we have
had massive disasters such as our earthquake and our great flood and
the typhoons in Hawaii. This is not something that is new. The number
of people may be greater, but the type of disaster is not any greater.
I would hope we would have a chance to finish the conversations that
the leadership is having and we can find some way to deal with this
situation and let people know what time, and if, we are going to be
allowed to vote on this very important bill that should go to
conference before we go home.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Vitter). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to dispense with
the calling of the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. STEVENS. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is objection.
The legislative clerk continued with the call of the roll.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

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