[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 155 (Saturday, September 27, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10007-S10009]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. LANDRIEU:
  S. 3647. A bill to assist the State of Louisiana in flood protection 
and coastal restoration projects, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I hope I am not wearing out my welcome. 
I know that I have spoken more today than the other Members. I was 
proud this morning to have achieved a small--but I think significant--
victory, as I pressed for a rollcall vote which would have required the 
Senate to come back tomorrow, but in acquiescing on that, I was able to 
introduce a bipartisan piece of legislation with key Members, including 
Senator Cochran, Senator Hutchison, Senator Conrad, Senator Lincoln, 
and Senator Pryor on a piece of very important legislation for farmers 
and for the agricultural community and rural communities throughout the 
Nation.
  Hopefully, by this piece of legislation being filed today and the 
work that can go on over the next few days before the lights go out in 
this Chamber and we all leave to go home for the election, something 
could be done to help rural America because the big bailout package, no 
matter how it is structured, will not really reach to the problem 
quickly enough and the regulations have not been written for the bill 
that is in place to help them. So between the bill that doesn't have 
regulations written and the bailout package, which has nothing at this 
moment for them, we are trying to stand in the gap and provide some 
sort of bridge assistance for the farmland of America and the rural 
areas and to give our farmers some hope until we can come back and 
address their needs. I am pleased to have at least accomplished that 
today. While I am speaking, Members of the House--both Republicans and 
Democrats--are putting a bill together and circulating letters so that, 
hopefully, we can accomplish something before we leave.
  I did have an option to hold up the Defense authorization bill, as 
the Presiding Officer knows. It was a bill that the Presiding Officer 
and Senator Warner spoke about. It passed in record time--in less than 
a minute, as I recall--because I was standing right here when it did. I 
could have exerted my ability as a Senator to object but, not only out 
of respect for the Presiding Officer as well as the Senator from 
Virginia but also out of respect for the men and women who wear a 
uniform, I did not think that it was an appropriate vehicle to use to 
make my point. I am certain the people of my State would agree with 
that, and so I did not. That does not mean I won't continue over the 
course of the next several days to use other vehicles, other 
opportunities to press this case.
  Leaving that subject for a moment, I wish to spend a moment to again 
talk about the need for coastal protection and restoration in 
Louisiana. I have spoken about this topic hundreds of times and will 
for the next 15 minutes do it once again.
  Louisiana's coast is literally washing away. Even if we didn't have 
Katrina or Rita--the major storms that affected us in 2005--and even if 
Gustav

[[Page S10008]]

and Ike had never happened, the devastation along Louisiana's coast is 
substantial. It affects a little bit of the Mississippi coast as well 
and a small portion of east Texas. I am sorry I do not have Texas on 
this map. Southeast Texas is very much like southwest Louisiana in 
topography. So what I am saying affects them as well. Of course, 
southwest Mississippi, our neighbor to the east, the southwestern part 
of Mississippi is protected by this great wetlands, but it is basically 
the Mississippi delta area.
  One hundred years ago, the Mississippi River delta consisted of 7,000 
square miles of coastal marshes and swamps, making it one of the sixth 
or seventh largest delta complexes in the world. The delta's growth 
depended on periodic flooding of the Mississippi River that drains 41 
percent of the continental United States, with the river sediments 
gradually settling in the surrounding wetlands. So as the sediment came 
down the Mississippi River, this is how this area was built. Of course, 
it took thousands and thousands of years, but that process still exists 
to this day. The Mississippi River and the sediment come down and 
overflow this great delta.
  Portions of the State I represent have grown up on this delta. This 
is New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Lake Charles right here, 
the four major cities in Louisiana. I don't have to explain to people--
even people who have never been to New Orleans or to the cities I 
mentioned--how important and rich this land is, not just for 
agriculture and forestry but also for fisheries, both commercial and 
sports fishermen, as well as the great cities that call this area home.
  We have been trying to stay high and dry and out of the water for 
over 300 years. If we don't act more urgently in this Congress, it will 
be a losing battle.
  Since the early 1900s, this national ecological jewel has lost 2,000 
square miles of coastal wetlands, with the expectation of another 500 
square miles by 2050. Again, these hurricanes seem to be happening more 
frequently and with more ferocity in the way they rush to our shore. 
Their increased velocity and frequency are wreaking havoc on many parts 
of the coast from Florida to the east coast, but particularly the State 
I represent.
  The construction of flood control and navigation levees along the 
Mississippi River, which we had to do for the commercial activities of 
our Nation, had the side effect--the unfortunate side effect--of 
blocking deposits of the Mississippi River sediment into the 
surrounding wetlands. Without these sediments, the coastal system has 
slowly subsided, turning these wetlands into open waters.
  I read a letter an hour ago about a farmer, Wallace Ellender, whose 
father was a Senator. As a young girl, I remember Senator Ellender. He 
testified in committee that his farm that used to sit close to the 
shore, they now had to swim 30 miles in open water to the island on 
which he used to picnic as a child. This is the largest loss of lands. 
If the enemy was taking this much land, we would literally declare war 
and attack them. That is how great is the land loss. The enemy is 
water, rising tides, more frequent storms, and climate change.
  I am not here only to complain. I am here to offer a solution, the 
solution we have passed by this Congress--which I commended Senator 
Domenici for this morning because without him, it never, ever would 
have happened--that we have decided as a State to take President Truman 
up on his offer that he made to us in 1949 to use a portion of our 
offshore oil and gas revenues that come to the Treasury, $10 billion a 
year. The people of Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, from the 
offshore oil and gas off our coasts, contribute to the Federal Treasury 
billions and billions of dollars. Since the year I was born, 50-plus 
years ago, we have sent over $117 billion to the Federal Treasury to 
fund all sorts of programs--domestic and international, including 
supporting the wars that have been waged on behalf of this country. We 
have contributed the second largest portion outside individual income 
tax.
  With Senator Domenici's help and with my leadership, we led an effort 
to take President Truman up on an offer that we were too foolish to 
accept at the time and passed the Domenici-Landrieu Gulf of Mexico 
Energy Security Act. I am proud to add my name on that bill which will 
redirect 37.5 percent of these revenues to the coast to secure these 
wetlands, to build these levees, to protect not just New Orleans but 
Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Lake Charles, to protect the Ellender farm, 
to restore the culture and protect the great Cajun culture of south 
Louisiana--many of the people still speak French, as the original 
settlers to this area--and to preserve the culture of our fishermen and 
oystermen.
  Mr. President, you can appreciate that because being from Michigan, 
you have quite a diversity of constituents you represent. I don't know 
Michigan, of course, as well as I know Louisiana. I am certain you have 
pockets of immigrants who have come to Michigan who have proven 
themselves to be outstanding citizens.
  I met with a very strong, strapping man who came to Louisiana 
probably when he was a child, I imagine as a young teenager. He is now 
pushing 50 to 60. He met with me not too long ago over a small table in 
Plaquemine, LA. He had his sleeves rolled up. His arms were quite 
large. He is an oyster fisherman. He came from Croatia. He had no money 
in his pocket when he arrived, but he and his sons have been oyster 
fishermen down in this area for decades.
  He looked at me and he said: Senator, I could not love a country more 
than I love America. I came here as a penniless child, he said, and I 
have been trying to make a living fishing in the oyster beds in 
Louisiana. His son was sitting right next to him. He said: But Senator, 
if we don't do something, all that we have done for these decades will 
be lost.
  I share that story. I am sure Senator Mikulski could tell a story 
about her fishermen from Maryland, and I am certain Senator Carper 
could relay a similar story from Delaware, and I am certain, Mr. 
President, that you have similar stories from people who came here, not 
born in America, but came here looking for a chance and in their quest 
to find that chance have provided so much wealth, more than you can 
imagine, for themselves and their families and for all of us, as well 
as people who were born in south Louisiana, who were born here, or 
working side by side with those who came, looking for a new life 
decades ago to preserve this great place. If we do not step it up, if 
we do not expedite this effort, their work will have been for nought.
  A couple of years ago, we passed a bill that will give us revenue 
sharing to try to build the levees. We went actually after the storm--I 
was so devastated after Katrina thinking where could we find help, 
where could we find a plan. I traveled to the Netherlands, to Europe, 
to look at the systems they have. I brought 40 elected officials, both 
Republicans and Democrats, with me, laymen and engineers, to say: If 
the Netherlands, which is a small country that can fit inside the State 
of Louisiana--this is our State. The Netherlands is so small it could 
fit inside Louisiana. It is a powerful nation but a small one. It has 
the same problems as we do. If their levees break, they will lose their 
entire country. So they don't fool around with it as we do in America. 
They actually build levees that hold. They have great engineering. We 
have great engineers here, but we are not giving the support or tools 
they need to do this job. So our land continues to wash away while the 
Netherlands has managed to save itself.
  I learned a very interesting thing over in the Netherlands when I 
went, and it was shocking to me. Netherlands has no system of insurance 
such as we do. We have flood insurance here. It is a bill we actually 
could not pass in the last few years, but we technically have flood 
insurance. We have commercial insurance. In the Netherlands, they don't 
have insurance because their levees are built to withstand a storm once 
every 10,000 years.
  I hate to be the one to be the bearer of bad news, but our levees are 
not even built to withstand storms once in 100 years. The levees the 
Netherlands build protect their people once every 10,000 years, so they 
virtually never break. That little picture everybody might remember, at 
least those of my age and older, of that little boy with the finger in 
the dike, that is not how it is. They have the most extraordinary 
investments and infrastructure you can imagine. They have gates that

[[Page S10009]]

open and close. They have diversion systems. I literally have people in 
their living rooms with buckets trying to keep the water out.
  I had elected officials come to my office this week with pictures of 
everything that their town owned dumped out on the street because the 
water comes in. And somehow in America we have lost either the 
interest, the will, or the ability to use the resources we have and the 
brains that God gave us to figure this out.
  Although countries have done it--and I am sure the Netherlands is not 
the only country that has done it--I am here to tell you America is a 
long way from getting this right.
  I came to the floor to introduce a bill--it is not going to 
completely solve this problem, but I will send it to the desk because 
it is going to take more than one bill to do it. In the supplemental 
bill we passed, the emergency disaster bill, there is a portion in that 
bill--it is a $1.5 billion portion--that is directed to only one 
project in south Louisiana. This bill I am going to lay down will 
suggest that the $1.5 billion that is directed to one project be given 
to the State in a way that our Governor, who is not a Democrat but a 
Republican--so I am not doing this with party. He is Republican and I 
am working with him--to give him and his team an opportunity to use 
those funds to cover the billions of dollars of projects we have 
underway.
  We have billions of dollars of projects underway. We have $1.5 
billion in the bill. So instead of directing it to one particular 
project, I thought it might be worth discussing the wisdom and the 
benefit of trying to give it to our State, allowing them to use it in a 
way that will most quickly benefit the most people.
  I want to show the levee structure. We have passed since 1986 eight 
WRDA bills, water resources development bills. This is the way Congress 
builds levees all over the country. The red represents Federal levees 
in Louisiana, the green represents local levees, and then the yellow is 
boundaries separating our parishes. We don't have counties, we have 
parishes. Here is St. Bernard Parish. This parish, by the way, with 
67,000 people, was completely obliterated in Katrina--completely. Out 
of 67,000 people, there were 5--5--homes that were not completely 
inundated up to the roof with water. That is St. Bernard Parish.
  Then we have Orleans, and we saw what happened when the levees broke: 
70 percent of the city went underwater. What you didn't see was 
Plaquemine Parish went underwater. This levee helped. This is the only 
levee in our entire State, Golden Meadow, even though it held in 
Katrina--you are going to have a hard time believing this, but this 
little levee held down here in Golden Meadow. But since Katrina, I 
can't seem to get a dollar to lift it a little higher because the Corps 
of Engineers, for some reason, doesn't think this is a big priority. It 
held again in Ike, and it held again in Gustav. They keep telling me 
there is something wrong, we can't build a levee this way. I said: 
Since this levee held and yours broke, maybe Golden Meadow knows 
something about building levees. Nevertheless, we don't have money to 
help them strengthen that levee, although it has been through four 
hurricanes now.
  In the last WRDA bill, we authorized $6.9 billion of projects, which 
is the good news, and some of that money will be spent here. By the 
way, there will be billions of dollars spent around the country on 
levees such as this. We are only one of 50 States. I most certainly 
don't think we should get all the money in Louisiana, although we have 
a lot of the water. The Mississippi River probably deserves a little 
extra because of that, and we do because it is a water bill, it is not 
a desert bill. If it were a desert bill, New Mexico would get a good 
portion of that money. It is a water bill. We have a lot of water, so 
we get a lot of money.

  We have $6 billion. However, in the actual appropriations bill, we 
only have $1.5 billion. So the best way I can think to take that $1.5 
billion, instead of dedicating it to one project, is give it to the 
Governor and let him, with his team and the legislature, Democrats and 
Republicans, figure out how to lay that money down on south Louisiana 
to save as much as we can while we wait and work for the revenue-
sharing piece I talked about earlier, the portion of the offshore oil 
and gas revenues. We are now going to get 37 percent of those revenues, 
which are moneys that come to the Federal Treasury that if Louisiana 
weren't willing to produce oil and gas, the country would not have. 
They might own the resources off our coast, off our 9-mile boundary, 
but they couldn't access those revenues without the people of Louisiana 
agreeing.
  Remember, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama are the only 
States that allow drilling off their coasts, and Alaska, which is not 
in the lower 48, of course. So because we allow drilling, because we 
generate $10 billion, we thought instead of coming here hat in hand 
every year, let us direct some of that money to help us build these 
levees and then in the meantime, we can get occasionally some money in 
the water resources bill or in an appropriations bill to add to that so 
we can start protecting our people. We may not get to 1 in every 10,000 
years' storm, but we most certainly need to get past 1 out of every 100 
years. We have to move not from a category 3 protection but to a 
category 5 protection, and we have to do it quickly. So I send this 
bill to the desk and hope we can consider it at the earliest 
convenience.

  I wish to also send to the desk some more detailed information about 
what I have spoken about, and I will conclude this portion by saying 
that this is an urgent matter. I don't know how many storms we have to 
endure on the gulf coast, America's energy coast, before this Congress 
realizes this is an economic disaster, it is an emotional drain on 
people who continue to watch everything they own flood time and time 
again.
  If I thought I could relocate 2 million people to another part--even 
if I could get them to go, which I couldn't because this is their 
home--it would be too expensive. Who would stay and run the river? Who 
would keep these channels open? Who would drill for the oil and gas? We 
haven't figured out how to do this from unmanned aerial platforms yet. 
People actually have to go out into this coastline and work hard every 
day in agriculture, in oil and gas and in fisheries. This operation 
cannot be run from Kansas City or from Little Rock, AR. It has to be 
run on the coast. And everybody who lives on a coast, whether you live 
in Florida or Texas or South Carolina or North Carolina or Georgia 
understands what I am talking about. We can't relocate everyone to 
Denver. We have to protect our coasts, and we are doing a terrible job 
of it in this country. I am one of the Senators who represents the most 
challenged area in the Nation. Louisiana is not the only . . . .

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