[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

[[Page S11736]]

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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