[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 85 (Thursday, May 22, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4709-S4713]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
[[Page S4710]]
Senate will resume consideration of the House message, which the clerk
will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Resolved, That the House agree to the amendment of the
Senate to the bill (H.R. 2642) entitled ``An Act making
appropriations for military construction, the Department of
Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes,'' with
House amendments to Senate amendment.
Pending:
Reid motion to concur in the House amendment No. 2 to the
Senate amendment to the bill with amendment No. 4803, in the
nature of a substitute.
Reid amendment No. 4804 (to amendment No. 4803), in the
nature of a substitute.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, the Senate is now considering the
supplemental bill, and on our side, the Senator from Maryland, Ms.
Mikulski, will be our first speaker.
I yield her 10 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Good morning, Mr. President.
Today I take the floor as the chairperson of the Subcommittee on
Commerce, Justice, and Science of the Appropriations Committee.
We bring to the Senate for its consideration an element within the
domestic spending that I urge my colleagues to support. It provides
critical funding to protect America from threats abroad and those
threats here at home and to invest in America's future. There are those
that meet compelling human needs right here in the United States of
America. They also deal with the incompetency of the Bush
administration to truly estimate the cost of the war.
Today I am asking for support because in protecting America this
subcommittee adds funds to the FBI. We add $313 million for the
Department of Justice, for both the FBI and DEA and the work they need
to do in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
Once again, we have underestimated greatly the cost of this war. But
we are not going to neglect our duty. This subcommittee provides $23
million to the Drug Enforcement Agency to fight narcoterrorism in
Afghanistan, to fight the poppy trade that funds terrorism. Athough the
cost was underestimated, we are going to make sure we are going to do
our duty to put those DEA agents next to the Afghan leadership to fight
this narcoterrorism.
Then, at the same time, we are going to have FBI agents in the war
zone gathering intelligence on terrorists, dealing with IEDs and some
of the forensic issues there, and we have provided money for them to be
able to do this. Once again, they underestimated what it would take
because there is very important work the FBI needs to do so our
military is freed up in fighting the war. We fight the war against
those who are trying to kill us with IEDs.
But while we are doing that, and we are trying to keep Afghanistan
and Iraq safe, we added to this bill money for people here at home.
What we did was we added $50 million to the U.S. Marshals' funds to
catch fugitive sex offenders who threaten the safety of our children
and our communities--$50 million more, which was authorized under the
Adam Walsh legislation, the bill to be able to fund the Marshals
Service to go after those sexual offenders for we know who they are, we
know what they have done, and we know they are loose in our society. It
is the Marshals Service that has both the authority and the know-how to
do that. If we want to make the streets safe abroad, I certainly want
to protect the children of the United States of America against these
sexual predators.
Then, we also added, at the request of over 55 Senators, on a
bipartisan basis, $490 million for Byrne formula grants for State and
local police. We know there is a spike in violent crime all over the
United States of America. The best way to fight violent crime is to
make sure our local law enforcement has the tools they need to do their
job. Therefore, we want the streets of Boston and Baltimore and
Tuscaloosa to be as safe as we are fighting to make the streets safe in
Afghanistan.
We are also working to deal with disaster recovery. In some States
there are fishery disasters, such as in the gulf region, in New
England, and the Pacific Northwest with its salmon constraints. We have
added money to deal with the fisheries disaster. We also added a
particular item for Byrne grants for the gulf region to address and
deal with violent crime.
We are trying to deal with the fact that our own American citizens
are facing disasters that so adversely affect either public safety or
their very livelihoods.
Then, last but not at all least, we clean up the administration's
mess. The census is on the verge of a boondoggle. There has been a
technical meltdown in their ability to do the census. The so-called
handheld devices that were going to be used to do the census in a new
and data-driven way have not worked out. Who knows? The Secretary of
Commerce is investigating it. But I am telling you now, it is going to
cost $2 billion to fix it--$2 billion as in ``Barb,'' not $2 million as
in ``Mikulski.'' So we are going to clean up the mess of the
administration. In this supplemental, we put a downpayment of $210
million so we meet our constitutional responsibility to do this. I
regret that the incompetency--the failure to stand sentry on taking the
census, when they had 10 years to get ready for it, is indeed
frustrating.
Then we come to another issue on prisons. Because of the inadequate
budget request from the President, we are facing a violent undercurrent
in prisons and terrible understaffing. We add the money, though the
administration would not request it through its OMB. But all of the
people who work at Justice who deal with this say this is a dire
emergency, not to protect the prison but to protect the prison workers
from dealing with this.
Then, also, what we did add was money for science, particularly for
the space program, because when Columbia went down, they took the money
for return-to-flight from other agencies. This returns it so we can
keep our NASA on track.
That is what the CJS Subcommittee did, and I think we have done a
good job. We tried to act to meet the needs in fighting the global war
against terrorism. We dealt with the incompetency of underestimating
the cost to these agencies because of the war. We are dealing with the
incompetencies of either poor budget requests or the census boondoggle.
I think we have done a good job. I am asking my colleagues to support
this legislation because if you want to protect our streets--if we need
to help our people with their own disasters, and meet our
constitutional responsibilities--you want to vote for my part from my
subcommittee.
The other part that is in this bill, which will come at a later time,
is that for which in the full Appropriations markup I offered an
amendment to extend current law on something called H-2B. That is a
seasonal guest worker program that has helped coastal States with being
able to hire people, as well as the hospitality industry.
My amendment was a very simple amendment. All it did was extend
current law that expired September 30. There was no new law. We broke
no new ground. We created no new legislative framework. We created no
new rights or privileges. It did three things. It lifted--it
essentially gave a waiver on the cap of 66,000 people who currently
come in.
What does all this mean in plain English? It means we were doing
three things: first, protecting American borders; second, protecting
American jobs; and third, rewarding the people who go by the rules. We
protected American borders because we had a system that worked. People
came, they worked, they went back home. Second, it protected American
jobs because it was seasonal employment in industries that, in my
State, particularly in the seafood industry, keeps businesses going
that have been around for over 100 years. Then it rewarded the good
guys, those people who are American employers who want to go by the
rules--did not want to hire illegal aliens. But now we are going to
poke them in the eye. It also rewarded the Latinos who came from
Mexico--and I met with the madras down in my own State who often come
from the same villages every year and return home.
Well, my amendment extended law. I know that my colleague--there will
be a colleague who will raise the point of order today, and my
amendment will
[[Page S4711]]
go down because it is not germane. I just wish to say this: It might
not be germane, but it is relevant. Maybe it is not technically
germane, but it is relevant because we are doing legislation to deal
with the supplemental on compelling needs that our people face. That is
why I want to get the sexual predators off the street.
I asked for 3 additional minutes. I am about to lose thousands of
jobs because of this point of order.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent for 3 more minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am not going to speak long.
The handwriting is on the wall, but the handwriting essentially says
this: If you go by the rules, you are going to lose out.
The Senator has the right to offer his point of order, but I am just
telling my colleagues this: We are losing this battle on the seasonal
guest worker program, not because of law but because of ideology, both
from the extreme right and because of the left. So when my amendment
falls, it is not about Barbara Mikulski's amendment falling. When that
amendment falls, we will hear thousands of jobs falling where we
actually had an immigration program that worked and rewarded people who
went by the rules. That is it.
So that is the way it is going to be today. I look forward to the
votes. I wish to congratulate the Senator for the way she has organized
this bill and Senator Byrd for the great job he did.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, but I am pretty worked up today.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington is
recognized.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Maryland
for her passion on behalf of all Americans but particularly those whom
she represents in Maryland. She has done an amazing job, and I commend
her for that. I hope all of our colleagues listened to her words about
what is in this bill because it is extremely important.
This first amendment we will be voting on today--we are going to have
some pretty important decisions when we vote shortly because the bill
we are debating does more than provide billions of dollars to fund our
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. What this amendment does is provide
money for emergencies right here at home in America, including funding
to respond to natural disasters and our weakened economy.
Now, as we debate this bill, we are facing a choice: Will we support
the domestic funding to help keep our communities strong at home or are
we going to simply ignore their needs as we send billions of dollars to
Iraq and Afghanistan alone?
President Bush has made his position pretty clear. He said that the
only emergencies worth funding in this bill are the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. He said he is going to veto any legislation that includes
one penny over his request of $183.8 billion for the wars.
But people across this country are hurting. Workers are facing
unemployment. Our veterans are having to fight their own Government for
the services they earned, and communities from Maine to New Hampshire
to my home State of Washington are struggling to recover from
devastating storms.
The domestic funding in this amendment would keep jobs here at home,
repair badly damaged roads, care for our veterans, and help our rural
communities. I think the President's veto threat shows exactly how out
of touch he is with the needs of our American people.
As chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation,
Housing and Urban Development, one of the provisions in this bill that
I am most concerned about is highway and bridge reconstruction. Now, it
is not that President Bush isn't concerned about highway construction.
This administration actually requested millions of dollars in emergency
funding for highway construction in this bill. The problem is, I tell
my colleagues, that President Bush's concern is for highways in Iraq
and Afghanistan. In fact, those are the only requests for roads and
bridge repairs by the President in this supplemental.
Meanwhile, the Federal Highway Administration is currently sitting on
a backlog of applications totaling over half a billion dollars for
roads and bridges that have been destroyed by natural disasters right
here at home in America. They are still struggling in Louisiana to
rebuild roads that were damaged during Hurricane Katrina and the heavy
rains of 2006. Texas needs help to rebuild after Hurricane Rita and
floods over the last 2 years. Large sections of roads in Maine and New
Hampshire were destroyed in floods last spring. In Oregon and in my
home State of Washington, we are still fighting to recover from
devastating floods that were caused by storms of last December.
Let me give my colleagues an idea of what I am talking about. This
photo shows us roadwork that is being done in Afghanistan. Now, in this
supplemental appropriations bill, the President requested more than
$725 million for construction, repair, and restoration of roads and
bridges in Iraq and Afghanistan. The money the President is requesting
includes over $300 million for the Commander's Emergency Response
Program for road projects in Iraq and Afghanistan; $50 million for
Afghanistan's Bamiyan-Dowshi Road, as well as another $275 million for
other roads in Afghanistan. He is also asking for another $100 million
in military construction projects for road projects in Bagram,
Afghanistan, and elsewhere. My concern is that the President wants to
fund these roads overseas, and yet he is ignoring that 21 States right
here are waiting--waiting--for emergency help with roads and bridges
that are eligible for Federal aid--roads in Louisiana, Maine,
Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.
Let's be clear. We are not talking just about fixing potholes.
I ask unanimous consent to have a table which displays all of the
States that are waiting for emergency relief printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
EMERGENCY RELIEF PROGRAM FUND REQUESTS, APRIL 30, 2008
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Formal Pending Subtotal by
State Event requests requests State
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama............................... AL05-3, August 29, 2005 2,300,000 .............. 2,300,000
Hurricane Katrina
(add'l request).
Alaska................................ AK06-1, November 2005 175,769 .............. 175,769
Winter Storms (add'l
request).
California............................ CA05-1, 2004-2005 Winter 117,700,000 .............. ..............
Storms (add'l request).
CA08-1, October 3, 2007 .............. 20,000,000 ..............
La Jolla Slide City of
San Diego.
CA08-2 October 12, 2007 17,600,000 .............. ..............
1-5 Tunnel Fire.
CA08-3, October 2007 28,700,000 .............. ..............
Wildfires.
CA08-4, Martins Ferry .............. 10,000,000 194,000,000
Bridge Disaster.
Kansas................................ KS07-1, May 4, 2007 1,539,553 .............. ..............
Tornado and Flooding.
KS07-2 June 21, 2007 4,430,769 .............. 5,970,322
Storms and Flooding.
Louisiana............................. LA05-1, August 29, 2005 28,998,103 43,469,548 ..............
Hurricane Katrina
Indirect Costs.
LA07-1, October 16- 2,956,978 .............. 75,424,629
November 2, 2006 Heavy
Rains and Flooding.
Maine................................. ME07-1, April 15, 2007 185,000 .............. 185,000
Rains and Flooding
(add'l request).
Minnesota............................. MN07-2, August 2007 7,461,465 .............. 7,461,465
Flooding.
Missouri.............................. M007-1, May 2007 .............. 1,783,500 ..............
Flooding.
M008-1, November 27, 1,249,308 .............. ..............
2007 Jefferson Street
Bridge Fire.
M008-2 March 2008 Storms .............. 5,000,000 8,032,808
and Flooding.
New Hampshire......................... NH07-1, April 2007 3,929,229 .............. 3,929,229
Flooding.
New Jersey............................ NJ07-1, April 14, 2007 .............. 11,000,000 11,000,000
Northeaster.
New York.............................. NY06-1, June 2006 1 ,437,989 .............. ..............
Flooding (add'l
request).
NY06-2, October 12, 2006 530,040 .............. ..............
Snowstorm.
NY06-3, November 16 2006 323,773 .............. ..............
Heavy Rains and
Flooding (add'l
request).
NY07-1, April 14, 2007 4,890,577 .............. ..............
Northeaster.
[[Page S4712]]
NY07-2 June 19, 2007 9,108,477 .............. 16,290,856
Flash Flooding.
North Carolina........................ NC06-2, November 22, 2,379,372 .............. 2,379,372
2006 Storm.
Oklahoma.............................. OK07-2 May 4-11, 2007 2,352,482 .............. ..............
Flooding.
OK07-3, May 24-June 10, 4,446,404 .............. ..............
2007 Flooding.
OK07-4, July 10, 2007 SH 5,690,000 .............. ..............
82 Landslide.
OK07-5 August 18, 2007 6,188,889 .............. ..............
Tropical Storm Erin.
OK08-1, December 8, 2007 10,425,000 .............. ..............
Ice Storm.
OK08-2 April 9, 2008 4,400,000 .............. 33,502,775
Storms.
Oregon................................ OR08-1, December 2007 .............. 10,000,000 10,000,000
Rainfall and Flooding.
Rhode Island.......................... RI07-1, April 2007 431,600 .............. 431,600
Rainfall and Flooding
(add'l request).
South Dakota.......................... SD07-1, May 5, 2007 592,638 .............. 592,638
Flooding.
Texas................................. TX05-1, September 23, 3,460,240 .............. ..............
2005 Hurricane Rita
(add'l request).
TX06-1, July 31, 2006 EI 15,831,845 16,864,081 ..............
Paso Flooding.
TX07-1, May-June 2007 .............. 16,830,983 52,987,149
Flooding.
Vermont............................... VT07-1, July 9-11 2007 1,774,533 .............. 1,774,533
Severe Storms.
Washington............................ WA07-1, November 2006 11,080,000 .............. ..............
Flooding (add'l
request).
WA08-1, December 2007 44,800,000 .............. 55,880,000
Rainfall and Flooding.
West Virginia......................... WV07-1, April 2007 Heavy 1,494,611 .............. 1,494,611
Rains and Flooding.
Wisconsin............................. W107-1, August 18, 2007 4,802,452 .............. 4,802,452
Rainfall.
FLH Manag. Agencies................... various events.......... 11,494,066 2,800,000 14,294,066
-----------------------------------------------
Total............................. ........................ 365,161,162 137,748,112 502,909,274
-----------------------------------------------
Excess funds from Northridge ........................ .............. .............. 51,782,891
Earthquake (PL 103-211).
-----------------------------------------------
Net Unfunded Backlog.............. ........................ .............. .............. 451,126,383
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, in several of those 21 States that are
waiting for funds, officially declared natural disasters wiped-out
roads and bridges, completely creating obvious safety hazards but also
cutting off some of our rural communities and disrupting families and
commerce. Here is a picture that gives us an idea of the scope of the
problem we face in my home State alone. Sections of roads such as this
one in Gifford-Pinchot National Forest were completely destroyed in
recent floods.
If the Federal Government doesn't provide help, these States are
going to have to either wait to fix these roads or pay for these
emergency repairs by diverting money from their annual highway funds
and delaying or cancelling critically needed projects. At a time when
we know our economy is slipping and gas prices are at an alltime high,
our States can't afford to do this. A State such as Oklahoma would have
to spend almost 7 percent of its entire annual highway program to help
repair roads that were destroyed during recently declared disasters.
Mr. President, 2007 was an unusually hard year for Oklahoma. The
problems that were caused by storms last year were compounded by more
storms this past April. As a result, the backlog of highway repairs now
waiting for the Federal aid emergency relief program totals $33.5
million. That money is contained in the amendment we will be voting on
this morning.
So, as I said, my home State of Washington was hit by devastating
floods last December. Communities from southwest Washington in Whatcom
County on the Canadian border are struggling to recover, and they
desperately need and deserve help from our Federal Government.
The bottom line is that while I understand the problems that
inadequate roads pose to our military and the people in Iraq and
Afghanistan, we also have urgent needs right here at home for the same
kinds of repairs, and we have a responsibility to address those
emergencies. The longer we wait, the longer the list of roads waiting
for repairs becomes. And those damaged roads hold up our commerce, they
keep people from getting to work, and they keep goods from getting to
market. That is going to continue to hurt our already strained economy.
Just yesterday, Governor Gregoire in my home State declared an
emergency when a highway in Spokane was completely washed out in heavy
rains and snowmelts. Our Transportation Department says those repairs
will cost $1 million, and it is going to take several days to reopen a
single lane of that traffic.
When our citizens pay their taxes, they except their money will go to
keep the roads and bridges in their own communities safe and reliable.
I think President Bush is profoundly out of touch if he believes our
taxpayers would rather spend their money on new roads overseas than on
damaged roads in their own communities.
So I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle pay close
attention to what is in this emergency relief amendment and that they
vote to take care of their own constituents at home while we continue
to fund these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Mississippi is
recognized.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, earlier this week I spoke about the need
to act expeditiously to consider the supplemental appropriations bill
to fund ongoing operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the global war on
terrorism. I don't know that I could add any more persuasive reasons
why we must approve the President's request for supplemental
appropriations.
In a hearing earlier this week before our Appropriations
subcommittee, Secretary of Defense Gates testified that the military
personnel account that pays our soldiers and the operations and
maintenance accounts which fund readiness, training, and the salaries
of civilian employees across the Defense Department will run dry over
the next few weeks. Secretary Gates can forestall this depletion of
funds for a short period of time, but if he does so, it will disrupt
ongoing programs that are critical to our operations in theater and to
our national defense generally.
Delay in providing funds for our troops has already disrupted
operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Admiral Mullin, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Appropriations Defense
Subcommittee also about a recent visit he had with soldiers on the
front lines. Those soldiers told Admiral Mullin that they were unable
to allocate additional funds from the Commander's Emergency Response
Program because essentially all the money had been allocated for the
quarter. We are two-thirds of the way through the fiscal year, and yet
Congress has provided less than one-third of the funds requested for
this emergency response program.
Secretary Gates characterizes this initiative as:
The single most effective program to enable commanders to
address local populations' needs and get potential insurgents
in Iraq and Afghanistan off the streets and into jobs.
I will not repeat my statement from earlier this week on the urgent
need to move this process forward, but it is clear that when Congress
finally began to act, it did so using convoluted procedures designed to
shut out individual Members in the Senate and in the other body. Yet,
this morning, it remains highly uncertain whether an adequate and
signable supplemental funding bill will be sent to the President before
Memorial Day. There are rumors--conversations--about a short-term, 1-
month supplemental being drafted by the majority.
Mr. President, that is really not what we need. It is one thing to
extend the aviation bill or the farm bill or other programs for short
periods of time while Congress completes its work on long-term
legislation, but to begin stringing out our military and our diplomatic
corps on a month-by-month
[[Page S4713]]
basis during a period of military conflict is a dereliction of our
duties.
I worry that the Congress is becoming an impediment to the efficiency
and the capability of our Government, and to our Department of Defense
in particular. We are not acting to protect the security of our troops
who are putting themselves in harm's way and embarking on dangerous
missions or providing for others whom we are trying to train to prepare
to take over the responsibilities for national security. We need to get
together now.
The time for dragging our feet is long past. We need to find a common
ground so that we can provide our men and women in the field with the
necessary resources and the support that is necessary to conduct
successfully the mission assigned to them by our United States
Government. We need to do this without any further delay. I urge my
colleagues to do it now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). The Senator from Washington is
recognized.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from
Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the
supplemental bill that was put together by many Members, actually, on
both sides of the aisle, who believe that, yes, we should expedite
funding for our troops in the field, but also there are emergencies
right here at home, as eloquently described earlier this morning in the
remarks of the Senator from Maryland and the Senator from Washington
State.
I would like to add some words to their arguments. First of all, I
realize there is an emergency and a war and conflict going on in Iraq
and international incidents around the world that deserve the attention
and support of this body. But there are also emergencies right here at
home and imminent and ongoing threats.
This chart basically says it all. It is a frightening chart to me, a
depressing chart, but it is reality. The reality is, since 1955 through
2005, this is the track of hurricanes that have hit the United States.
Some of these are category 1, some are category 2, but dozens of them
are categories 4 and 5. This track is Hurricane Katrina in yellow and
Hurricane Rita in blue, which devastated large parts of Louisiana and
Mississippi, even going into Alabama and Texas--flooding thousands of
homes and killing 2,000 people plus along the gulf coast. The
predictions are that these kinds of storms are going to get more
frequent and worse.
There is nothing we can do to prevent hurricanes. This is Mother
Nature. We have just seen it explode in China and in Burma. It is
frightening to a civilized society. We get in strong buildings like
this and think that nothing can hurt us; surely no water could reach us
or wind destroy us. Then Mother Nature appears in a very violent way
sometimes and reminds us how vulnerable we all are.
In the United States, we just don't cry about these things and wring
our hands. We do something. We, the States, local and Federal
Governments appropriate funding to build the right kind of levees and
dams, and we provide the right paradigm or framework for insurance
because that is the way we protect ourselves. Hopefully, we have
infrastructure that will not fail when the pressure comes; and then
insurance, if it does come, to help people who have lost so much get
back on their feet. That is all we can do. It would be good if we would
do that.
But if we vote against this bill today, we are not taking the
necessary steps to get that done. Again, this is a depressing chart to
me. I don't like to see it, but I put this up in my office to remind
myself that this is not just about Katrina and Rita, which we will be
marking the anniversary of on August 29--3 years--and then September
24, 3 years for Rita, two of the most destructive storms to hit the
United States. I remind myself that New York is in danger, New Jersey
is in danger, and South Carolina and North Carolina are in danger. And
Florida, in 2005, had the worst storm season of the century, according
to the Senator from Florida.
Briefly, referring to this chart, this is the area that went
underwater in New Orleans, this region--New Orleans and Jefferson and
St. Bernard. Some say: Why don't you all just relocate? That would be a
very expensive proposition, and impossible, for any number of reasons.
One, about 1 million people live in the metropolitan area; two, the
mouth of the Mississippi River is something that the people of
Mississippi and Louisiana most certainly think is an important asset to
the country--so important that Thomas Jefferson, when he was President,
leveraged the entire Federal Treasury to purchase it. We put all of our
defenses along the river to defend it. You cannot close this river. The
people who work on the river and contribute to the assets of the
country cannot go live in Arkansas or north Texas or north Mississippi.
They need to live close to the coast for all of the important energy
that comes.
The city is no longer underwater. The water is long gone, but the
tears are still there and the pain is still there and the frightening
part is still there because the start of the hurricane season is just
right around the corner, June 1. We have reports in the paper today
that there is some leakage in the same canal that breached and
destroyed over 10,000 homes--or more, actually--in the Lakeview area,
which is a solid middle-class area.
This is a picture from the Times-Picayune today. In this bill, there
is about $7 billion for levees, to finish the construction of levees
that broke--Federal levees that should have held and didn't. We are in
a mad dash to get these levees and this infrastructure rebuilt
strongly, correctly, and safely so people can begin to rebuild this
city higher, yes, and stronger, yes. But no one living in the middle of
a city or urban area should have to go to bed at night and wonder when
they wake up if they will be in 8 feet of water or 12 feet.
This is the 17th Street Canal, and you have seen this many times in
pictures. That is what is in this bill. I urge my colleagues to vote
yes on the supplemental.
I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I can only yield 30 more seconds. Other
Senators wish to speak.
Ms. LANDRIEU. We have hurricane levees in this bill. We also have
housing vouchers. The risks have increased substantially in the region.
After the storm, we lost 250,000 dwellings in Louisiana and thousands
in Mississippi. We have a homeless population that has doubled. There
are housing vouchers in the bill for the homeless, for the very low
income, and for the disabled. After storms like these, that population
is gravely threatened.
I will come back later and finish my remarks. This is important to
the people of the gulf coast. I thank the Senator for the time allowed
this morning. I urge my colleagues, in supporting the war funding in
Iraq, please let's remember the emergency still going on at home.
Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
remaining Republican time be allocated as follows: Senator Graham for
up to 20 minutes to engage in a colloquy with Senators Burr, Kyl, and
Cornyn; Senator Vitter for 5 minutes; Senator Brownback for 5 minutes;
and that the remainder of the time, if anything, be allocated by
Senator McConnell, or his designee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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