[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Pages 29375-29376]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2000

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will 
report the continuing resolution.

       A joint resolution (H. J. Res. 78) making further 
     continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2000, and for 
     other purposes.

  The Senate proceeded to consider the joint resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
North Carolina is recognized for 15 minutes.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, we are about to pass a resolution to keep 
the Government operating for approximately a week. The question I ask 
is, What are we doing for the victims of Hurricane Floyd? Keeping this 
Government open is not important unless it does the things it should 
and needs to do for its citizens.
  We keep telling the people of this country that this is their 
Government, it belongs to them. Every week they get their paycheck, and 
they have a huge deduction for Federal taxes. They wonder every time 
they get their paycheck and their paycheck stub where that money is 
going.
  The truth is, now is the time, in the wake of the devastation of 
Hurricane Floyd, when they are entitled to expect their Government will 
respond and respond in a responsible way to what has been done to them.
  The people of eastern North Carolina--I know because I have been 
there over and over, including this past weekend--are wondering how 
they are going to make it through the winter. They are completely and 
totally innocent. These are people who had a hurricane drop inches and 
inches of water on them. It devastated their homes and, thereby, 
devastated their lives. In many cases, it devastated their workplaces.
  What they are saying to us now is: What is my Government to which I 
have been paying taxes for all these years going to do? The reality is, 
if the Government does not respond to this disaster and this terrible 
situation, the Government serves no purpose.
  We had 50 people die in North Carolina as a result of this hurricane 
and 5 people are still missing. We have 3,000 people who are still in 
temporary housing. More than 30,000 homes have been damaged and 
approximately 20,000 have been completely destroyed. The damage 
estimate for housing alone is approximately $400 million, and that 
number will grow. We have eight counties that still have damaged water 
systems where people are required to boil their water to use it.
  Over 2 months after this hurricane ravaged eastern North Carolina, 
our people are still struggling and suffering and will continue to 
struggle as we go forward.
  I ask my colleagues these questions:
  No. 1, do they take for granted the roof over their heads?
  No. 2, do they assume when they turn the tap on that they will be 
able to drink the water that comes out of that tap?
  And No. 3, do they assume their children will be able to go to 
school?
  Let me tell my friends and colleagues in the Senate that there are 
tens of thousands of North Carolinians who no longer take those things 
for granted and no longer assume they are going to be able to do those 
things because they know they cannot. The question they ask me and, 
more important, the question they ask us as their representatives in 
this Government is, What are we going to do to respond to what has 
happened to them?
  We have kids in eastern North Carolina who are going to school in 
small trailers in a gravel parking lot of the National Guard grounds in 
Tarboro. In order to go to the restroom, they have to leave these small 
trailers and travel to the one small trailer that has a restroom. They 
are already going to school in little trailers on a gravel parking lot, 
and there is not even a restroom in the trailer they are using for a 
classroom. In order to use the restroom, they have to leave their 
trailer and go down the parking lot to another small trailer.
  The water rose in this area, for example, 88 inches in an elementary 
school in Tarboro. The school was completely destroyed.
  Transportation--we have more than 90 sections of State roads and 12 
bridges still washed out.
  Agriculture--our farmers are hurting as they have never hurt before. 
Before this hurricane went through eastern North Carolina, our farmers 
were teetering on the edge from low crop prices and many years of 
having a very difficult time financially.
  What is the effect of a hurricane coming through? This is the time of 
year when many of our farmers in eastern North Carolina would be doing 
the bulk of their work. They would be harvesting their crops. Not this 
year. Many of our farmers have lost all of their crops. The current 
crop loss estimate is $543 million--over $\1/2\ billion. The livestock 
loss is estimated at about $2 million. We have more than $200 million 
in damage to structures on farms, the structures that are necessary for 
these farmers to operate their farms day to day. Many of these 
structures have been destroyed.
  In addition, they have lost the machinery that is necessary to 
operate their farms on a daily basis. In almost all cases, the 
structures are not covered by insurance, and, in many cases, the 
machinery is not covered by insurance.
  The bottom line is we have many farmers in eastern North Carolina who 
have lost their crops. They have lost the buildings from which they 
operate and they have lost the machinery they use to farm. They are out 
of business. What they say to us in Washington is: What is my 
Government going to do to respond? I have paid my taxes. I have been a 
good, law-abiding citizen all these years, and I have always been told 
this is my Government. So my question to Washington now is, What is my 
Government going to do to respond?
  The reality is, nobody in North Carolina is asking for a handout. Our 
people have responded heroically to this situation. Our businesses have 
been extraordinary.
  They have made millions and millions of dollars worth of donations to

[[Page 29376]]

help the people who have been devastated by Hurricane Floyd. Our 
individual citizens have made contributions. They have not only made 
contributions with funds to help the victims of Hurricane Floyd, they 
have taken time off from work, with their employers' permission; they 
are taking their weekends and their time off to go to eastern North 
Carolina to work to try to help the folks who have been devastated. 
They have done everything they can. Every person in North Carolina is 
doing what they can to help our people who have been damaged by this 
storm.
  That is not enough. We need this Government to respond in a way that 
addresses the needs.
  No. 1, we need housing relief. We have thousands of families who have 
lost their homes as a result of this storm. They have no way to rebuild 
their homes and rebuild their lives without our assistance. It is 
assistance to which they are entitled. They have paid their taxes all 
these years, never knowing this disaster, this devastation was coming. 
Now that it has hit them, it is time for this Government to respond and 
to get them back into houses.
  They do not need help 6 months from now or a year from now; they need 
help right now. Right now is the time they are living in small 
trailers, on gravel parking lots. They want to get back into a home, a 
real home, the kind of home they had before Hurricane Floyd came. We 
have a responsibility to do everything we can to put them in those 
homes.
  Agriculture: We have over 25,000 farmers who desperately need help 
just to make it through the winter. I am talking about an intense and 
immediate financial crisis that our farmers are confronted with.
  So we have two things we must do before we go home. We have to 
address the housing needs in North Carolina, people who are not going 
to be able to get through the winter unless we do something for them; 
and, secondly, we have to help our farmers who are already in trouble 
and have been completely devastated.
  I want us to compare the needs and the devastation in eastern North 
Carolina to some of the things on which we spend money. While I am 
strongly in support of spending funds for the defense of this country, 
we have spent billions of dollars on projects the Pentagon did not ever 
suggest they wanted. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on 
relocating bureaucrats and renovating or restoring Federal buildings, 
millions on debt forgiveness for foreign governments, tens of millions 
on foreign cultural exchange programs, and on top of all that, a 
congressional pay raise.
  Surely these folks in North Carolina, whose lives have been 
devastated--totally innocent victims of Hurricane Floyd--are entitled 
to at least that level of priority. Those are things we have already 
done. And we ought to do things for these Third World countries. We 
ought to do things to help other countries that are in need. But the 
reality is, we have North Carolinians and Americans who are in 
desperate straits. They do not have anyplace to live. We have farmers 
who are literally out of business. Their families have, for 
generations, farmed the land of eastern North Carolina, and they are 
now out of business.
  It is time for their Government to step to the plate and do the 
responsible thing, to give them the help they need to put our folks in 
eastern North Carolina back into houses, to put our farmers back on 
their feet and back in business.
  If we cannot do that, what function do we serve as a Government? For 
all those people who, for all these years, we have been saying, this is 
your Government; this is not some foreign thing up in Washington that 
has nothing to do with your lives, now they are asking us to make good 
on that promise and to make good on our responsibility to them for all 
their years--year in and year out--of doing the responsible thing: 
Paying their taxes and being good Americans.
  So I close by saying, I understand that we are nearing the end of 
this session. I understand the needs and priorities on which we are all 
focused: Education, health care, responsible fixes for the BBA, and 
hospitals and health care providers around this country. We have many 
needs that need to be addressed.
  But I want to make clear that when it comes to Hurricane Floyd and my 
people in North Carolina who do not have a place to live and are 
worried about getting through this winter, and our farmers who are 
literally out of business, that I intend to use absolutely everything 
at my disposal and to take whatever action is necessary to assure that 
our people in North Carolina are taken care of.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will read 
the joint resolution for the third time.
  The joint resolution was read the third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the joint resolution 
is passed, and the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.
  The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 78) was passed.

                          ____________________