[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 73 (Monday, May 7, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2509-S2510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Puerto Rico Recovery

  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I have just returned from Puerto Rico. I 
went there at the invitation of Governor Rossello. I spent time with 
his Secretary of Housing. I spent time with members of his executive 
staff.
  I went up into the mountains to a city named ``Las Piedras,'' a city 
of some 30,000 people. According to the mayor, who took me around and 
showed me a number of the residential neighborhoods, 30 percent of that 
city does not have electricity.
  It has been 8 months since the two hurricanes--first Maria and then 
Irma--hit the island of Puerto Rico, our fellow U.S. citizens. There 
are still major parts of the island that do not have electricity.
  In this town of 30,000 people, you go to different locations, and in 
one particular location farther up in the mountains, there is no 
electricity.
  I asked the residents: How are you coping? What do you do?
  They had a generator, but because of the shortage of fuel and the 
cost of fuel, they can't run the generator all the time. Basically, 
they use it for necessities, such as cooking and other chores during 
the day. Therefore, they have no refrigeration.
  I asked: What do you do?
  They showed me. A fellow had just come from the grocery store down 
the mountain. Every day, they have to go get their groceries that are 
perishable and cook them and consume them that day because they do not 
have refrigeration. This is 8 months after the hurricane. Can you 
imagine that happening in any of our States on the mainland? Can you 
imagine the degree of anger and insistence that there be a full 
recovery? Yet this is happening to fellow U.S. citizens on the island 
of Puerto Rico.
  They are coping. They are a very industrious and inventive people. As 
they recover, they are looking at new ways instead of just relying on 
what in the past has been a dilapidated electrical grid. Tesla has come 
in. I inspected this pilot project up on top of the mountain. It is an 
array of solar cells--the most efficient that have been produced--and 
that array of solar panels is supplying electricity full time to 12 
houses up on the mountain. We need more of that. We need more of that 
as a backup to the electrical grid and in some cases a replacement for 
the electrical grid since it has been so unreliable in the past.
  I wanted to bring this report to the Senate. Puerto Rico will make 
it. Although jobs are scarce, although many thousands have fled to the 
mainland to stay with relatives, although many of those I met--thank 
goodness FEMA extended the temporary housing assistance to get those 
families through the end of the school year, as their children would 
have been uprooted in the middle of final exams and their graduations 
would have been disrupted had that temporary assistance not been 
extended through the end of June. Many of them want to go back, but 
there is no job to go back to, and there is a home that is now 
completely filled with mold and mildew. So what do they have to return 
to? I think we will see some number of them make their new life on the 
mainland. Many of those, of course, have come to my State of Florida.
  My report to the Senate is that we have to do more. The Army Corps of 
Engineers has to keep pressing on with rebuilding the electrical grid. 
We must also go out and try to set up as many alternate electricity 
projects--like Tesla--as we can, and hopefully we will see some return 
to normalcy. You would have thought that 8 months after a hurricane, 
that would have already occurred. It has not, and I am sad to report 
this to the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moran). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in a few minutes we are going to be 
voting on President Trump's nomination of

[[Page S2510]]

Mr. Kurt Engelhardt to be a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
Fifth Circuit, and I can't think of a nominee who is more deserving and 
more qualified for this job.
  Judge Engelhardt is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for 
the Eastern District of Louisiana. He has been on the Federal district 
court bench for 17 years. If you add up all of the cases he has 
actually tried to verdict or to judgment, I think it is somewhere in 
the neighborhood of 75 to 100. That is on top of hundreds--undoubtedly, 
thousands--of motions that he has heard. He is eminently qualified. 
Yet, rather than recite his resume, I wish to share a personal 
experience that I had in Judge Engelhardt's court.
  A number of years ago, the city of New Orleans sued a major Wall 
Street investment bank in a dispute over a $171 million bond issue. The 
bonds are called pension obligation bonds, and it is an extraordinarily 
complex transaction. I was called as a witness because, at that point 
in my life, I was the State treasurer of Louisiana and the chairman of 
the State bond commission, and we had jurisdiction over the bonds when 
they were issued.
  I was not exactly sure whether I was a fact witness or an expert 
witness, and the lawyers fought over that for a while. My point is that 
I was on the stand for, maybe, 5 hours, 6 hours, and I got to observe a 
little bit about the case and about Judge Engelhardt.
  The plaintiffs' counsel, who represented the city of New Orleans and 
the firefighters' pension system, were a handful of the finest lawyers 
in the State of Louisiana--indeed, I would say, in the country. A 
partner and number of associates from a major Wall Street law firm 
represented the Wall Street investment bank. In addition to their 
lawyers, there were dozens of clerks and associates and paralegals, who 
made it look like Bourbon Street on Saturday night because there were 
so many people. I remember thinking how many thousands and thousands 
and thousands of hours these lawyers and paralegals and clerks had 
spent in understanding this case. One could tell very quickly that both 
sides--both sets of lawyers--knew this case backward and forward and 
had almost memorized the depositions.
  As a lawyer, it was fun for me to watch as they were going at it 
hammer and tongs. I mean, they could recite chapter and verse from the 
legal briefs, from the law books, from the depositions. Yet there was 
one person in that courtroom, among all of these accomplished 
professionals, who knew more about the case than anybody else. He was 
the presiding judge--Kurt Engelhardt. He had total command of the 
subject matter. That was not easy, as this was a very complex municipal 
securities offering. He had total command of the courtroom.
  With both sets of lawyers being aggressive, accomplished litigators, 
they tested him quite often. That is what good lawyers do. They will 
push the envelope. He maintained firm control without ever raising his 
voice, and I got to watch him in operation for 5 or 6 hours. I had 
never been in his courtroom before, but after watching Judge Engelhardt 
in operation, I understood why just about every lawyer in Louisiana who 
files a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of 
Louisiana hopes that he or she will get Judge Engelhardt for the judge, 
because he is that good. The only group of lawyers I know who hopes it 
doesn't get Judge Engelhardt for a judge in the U.S. District Court for 
the Eastern District of Louisiana is made up of those who are 
unprepared or who don't know their cases, because he is not going to 
tolerate the court's time being wasted.
  For that reason, I am proud to stand here today, along with my 
colleague, the senior Senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, and 
recommend categorically and unequivocally--unconditionally--to my 
colleagues the nomination of Judge Kurt Engelhardt to be a member of 
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He will serve us 
proudly and well.
  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. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.