[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 135 (Friday, October 21, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11735-S11737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEFICIT SPENDING AND COST OF KATRINA
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, for the last few minutes, I have listened
with great interest to the Senator from Iowa reading a diary of the
experience of a dedicated volunteer, obviously, to help out with
Katrina victims in Louisiana and Mississippi. I found it most
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fascinating and also most frustrating, as I think the Senator did and
certainly the person involved.
I want to also say ``happy birthday'' to Barbara Grassley. I hope the
Senator will communicate that to her. My wife Suzanne and I know
Barbara and Chuck well, and I extend a ``happy birthday'' from the
Craig family to Barbara.
While I was home in Idaho this past week, like many of us who were in
our home States, I held a series of town meetings across the State. The
most often asked question at those open town meeting forums was about
deficit spending and the cost of Katrina and the overall concern
Idahoans have about Katrina and Katrina victims.
As the Senator from Iowa spoke, it is so true of Idaho and other
States across the Nation where tremendous voluntary efforts have poured
out in behalf of the citizens of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Texas. They have gone through these literally catastrophic experiences
of a magnitude that none of us certainly in Idaho have every
experienced.
While that concern is real and the voluntary and contributive effort
is of a record like none we have ever seen in our country, I truly
believe there is a growing concern about the wise and responsible and
careful use of the tax dollars. As Idahoans and Americans send their
time and their generosity to the South, we are also sending our tax
dollars. Clearly we want them spent carefully and wisely.
Prior to the recess, Congress held hearings to examine the fallacies
of the response to Hurricane Katrina. There was much criticism--most of
it, in part, from the press and some of it not as well-founded as we
find out as expressed at the time--about what was done, what could be
done, and what should be done appropriately to handle the literally
billions of dollars headed south to help the citizens of those States.
In 5 or 10 years I hope we will not be conducting the same backward-
looking hearings on how Federal dollars were spent, how waste, fraud,
and abuse occurred in the Gulf States, and how it might have been
prevented as we are looking backward today to see why the response to
Katrina was so mishandled. Instead of looking back, we are now in a
position to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse by acting responsibly now
to control and offset Government spending. There are numerous ways for
Congress to do this, but perhaps it is noteworthy to first talk about
the congressional measures that will not, in my opinion, do it
appropriately. Senate bill 1766, the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief
and Economic Recovery Act, known as the Pelican Project, whatever you
call the bill, $250 billion of what I have examined and referred to as
a pork-stuffed package, costing more than the Louisiana Purchase
adjusted for inflation, is not the way to go.
Some of the more noteworthy ``relief provisions'' in the bill include
$8 million for an alligator farm, $25 million for sugarcane research
and, of course, the $35 million to restore the seafood industry. At
this time, it is questionable whether Federal tax dollars ought to be
spent in those categories. However, overshadowing all of that, and what
is worse, is the bill's whopping $40 billion requested not by but for
the Army Corps of Engineers projects, many of which were unrelated to
the flood projects or the flood protection.
To put this in perspective, the overall national Army Corps of
Engineers budget for fiscal year 2005 was $4 billion, one-tenth of what
was proposed for Louisiana. The Louisiana tradition of overreaching
Corps projects makes this request, I guess, a little less surprising.
Take, for example, the Industrial Canal lock navigation project in
New Orleans. In 2000, the Corps launched a $750 million lock navigation
project on the Industrial Canal in New Orleans, the most expensive
single lock project in history. The Corps justified its massive project
by predicting barge traffic on the canal would increase when traffic,
in fact, was decreasing, and had decreased 50 percent since 1988.
Despite the economic and social concerns the project posed, Louisiana
consistently welcomed it. The Industrial Canal has received more than
$70 million over the last few years. In the 2006 budget, the President
provided no funding for the Industrial Canal. However, the House--that
is right--and this Senate pumped nearly $15 million into the project.
If we are wondering where the money came from, one of the programs
the Senate cut in the same year was the one of the national priority
projects. That is, the west bank and vicinity hurricane protection
project of New Orleans. We cut that to do something else. Indeed, one
of the levees that lined the Industrial Canal failed after Hurricane
Katrina hit, inundating the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans with
floodwater. Yet that is where the money was cut to fund the canal
itself.
Louisiana has never suffered from a lack of Army Corps funding. Over
the last 5 years the State reportedly has received $1.9 billion in
Corps funds, far more than any other State. If Hurricane Katrina stood
for anything other than Mother Nature's catastrophic power, it is
Louisiana, in my opinion, and the catastrophic failure to prioritize
public interest projects over what now appears to be pork.
S. 1776 is no different. The bill's working group on Corps response
projects was dominated by special interest lobbyists, with one insider
reportedly expressing concern that the focus was not on protecting
Louisiana. In addition, the bill would exempt any Corps projects from
provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water
Act and it would also waive the usual Corps cost-sharing requirements,
thus making taxpayers foot the entire bill. At a time of catastrophic
emergency, I would be willing to look at something such as that. At the
same time, these are material dollars that are going. Clearly, they
deserve our oversight.
The taxpayer has already paid, dutifully and dearly, for Katrina
relief. Thus far, $62.3 billion in emergency supplemental funding has
been authorized for immediate relief and response needs for victims of
Katrina. However, the Federal Government's role in disaster relief, as
provided by existing law, is only one of support to State and local
governments and agencies. The Stafford Act, which provides the
statutory framework for Presidential declaration of an emergency or
major disaster, explicitly states that Federal resources should
supplement, not replace, State and local resources for disaster relief.
We understand the magnitude and we understand, in the case of
Mississippi and Louisiana, major wipeouts of a kind we have never seen
before. But still, let's not change the laws and the relationships.
Let's keep the balance in mind as this Congress decides, and I hope
tracks and, most importantly, monitors where those dollars go and how
they will be spent.
With an act of supplementary spending also comes the duty of
offsetting. Before Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Budget Office
projected the 2005 deficit would total $331 billion. The picture, of
course, is only bleaker now. Numerous groups have offered comprehensive
savings proposals that would offset the massive costs of Katrina
relief.
The Republican Study Committee, the Congressional Budget Office, the
General Accounting Office, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Cato
Institute, American Enterprise, the Heritage Foundation, all have come
up with a variety of proposals not to deficit spend all of it but to
see some reasonable belt tightening at the Federal level and some--not
all--of the disaster relief being able to come out of current budgets.
In addition to these savings proposals, the Senate majority leader
recently proposed a rescission package that would rescind unnecessary
spending. A few weeks ago, President Bush became directly involved when
he called on Congress to enact his proposed cuts in both mandatory and
discretionary spending. There is little we can change about Katrina.
Yet the focus still seems to be on finding who is responsible for the
response or the lack of response. We are always responsible for the
health of our Government, for the wise use of hard-earned taxpayer
dollars, and for ensuring that America's future generations do not foot
the bill for all of the current fiscal recklessness. The spending will
be the subject of both public and Government scrutiny for future years,
but we can prevent any of the waste or the fraud or abuse of those
moneys that will occur or could occur.
[[Page S11737]]
That job is now. That is our responsibility as a Congress. I urge my
colleagues to work with the Senators from Louisiana and Mississippi.
Clearly, the need is real, and no one in any way denies that. But there
is a responsibility here, a fundamental responsibility, as we literally
send billions upon billions of dollars south to rebuild and reshape and
refurbish the economies of those States, that those dollars be spent
wisely, that those dollars be spent cautiously, and that no one
individual benefit in an extraordinary, abusive, or fraudulent way.
That is the responsibility of this Congress that I take most sincerely
and I know most of my colleagues do.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in
morning business for such time as I may consume.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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