[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22346-22352]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            DISASTER RELIEF

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to say a few words about the issue 
that the Senator from Louisiana is going to

[[Page 22347]]

talk about, but I do not want to take any of her time away from her. I 
know it is late in the evening but if I could, I will say a few words 
before leaving the floor. I hope that my Senate colleagues who are 
following this debate and conversation, as well as those who are 
viewing these proceedings, understand what my colleague from Louisiana, 
Senator Mary Landrieu, and her colleague, Senator Vitter have been 
through.
  They have faced a disaster virtually unprecedented in modern American 
history. Having been through a few minor disasters and floods in my 
area, I cannot imagine the stress that they have been under to serve 
the public, which is their responsibility in the Senate. Though I do 
not know Senator Vitter as well, nor have I known him as long, I can 
certainly attest to his concern for the people of Louisiana. I can 
speak personally about the concern of Senator Landrieu.
  From the moment I got her on the telephone--and it was not an easy 
task--while she was still fighting flood waters in her hometown of New 
Orleans, until this moment today, she has been consumed with one 
focused objective, what she can do to spare the suffering of the people 
she represents and to rebuild and recover from this terrible disaster.
  I visited New Orleans a few weeks ago with a bipartisan delegation, 
met with her as well as Commander Allen, who is heading up the FEMA 
effort now, as well as Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, many of them 
local officials. It is clear now that they have faced challenges that 
most public servants do not dream of. The reason we are here tonight is 
because she is reaching the end of her patience. I have talked to her 
during the course of this day, and I know what is boiling up inside of 
her.
  The thought that we would leave Washington, the capital of our 
Nation, for a week or 10 days and be back in our home States is a real 
concern to her because she knows while we are gone, people in Louisiana 
will continue to suffer because of our inaction and our unwillingness 
to respond to the basics. Look at what has happened so far. The 
administration announces initially no-bid contracts to some of the most 
recognizable big hitters in Washington, corporations that always seem 
to win when others are facing misfortune.
  The administration says it is going to cut the wages for construction 
workers who are going back to work to rebuild in Louisiana, 
Mississippi, and Alabama, exactly the opposite of what these families 
need to get back on their feet.
  The administration has refused to come forward with the emergency 
housing that is needed for so many of these people who are literally at 
their wits' end, trying to keep their families together, living in the 
most extreme circumstances.
  This Senator from Louisiana has been on the floor repeatedly, 
appealing to both sides of the aisle, but particularly to the majority, 
for help with health care for the people who have been displaced. 
Someone lucky enough to have health insurance when Hurricane Katrina 
hit may have lost not only their home but also their job and their 
health insurance, and now they are adrift. Senator Landrieu has been 
working with Senator Grassley, a Republican, and Senator Baucus, a 
Democrat, to make certain they have health care coverage. It is not 
enough to say if they show up in an emergency room, somebody will 
probably take care of them. Is that what you would like your medical 
future to be for you and your family? That is not what Senator Landrieu 
wants and that is what she is fighting to change.
  We have also seen the suggestion we cut back on cash payments to 
people who have no job, may not even have access to the unemployment 
checks or whatever they are entitled to at this moment.
  I think one of the worst and crowning blows is this notion that 
somehow every penny we put into rebuilding America, rebuilding the Gulf 
Coast States--New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama--has to 
be paid for by cutting other programs that may help poor people. Today 
the Agriculture Committee is considering cuts in food stamps, $500 
million or $600 million in cuts in food stamps so we can provide help 
to Hurricane Katrina victims. So we will literally take food from the 
mouths of babies and mothers and families across America to give them 
to the babies and mothers and families of Hurricane Katrina? Is that 
what it has come to in America?
  The suggestion we would cut Medicaid, the health insurance for the 
poor and elderly and disabled in America, so we can provide that same 
Medicaid, that same health insurance for the poor and elderly and 
disabled and dislocated in Hurricane Katrina, is that what it has come 
to in America?
  I think what troubles me the most is the situation here where there 
is an insistence by some of my colleagues that every penny we spend 
investing in rebuilding the Gulf Coast States has to be met by a cut in 
spending for the most vulnerable people in America. None of these 
people who are insisting on this match of cut for spending said that 
when we were talking about rebuilding Iraq--$18 billion, without a 
single dollar of it set off against any cut in spending. Not one of 
them brought up this idea of cutting spending to give tax breaks to the 
wealthiest people in America. But when it comes to the most vulnerable, 
those helpless victims of this hurricane in those States, they are 
demanding this setoff that, frankly, will make life more painful and 
difficult for vulnerable people all across America.
  This is a real test of who we are and what we stand for. If we are 
truly in this together, if we are going to be unified as a nation and 
react as a community and as a family, we can do better. America can do 
better. I salute the Senator from Louisiana. I will turn the floor over 
to her, thank her for her leadership, and say this Senator and many 
others will fight with you to the bitter end to make sure the people 
you represent understand that they do not stand alone.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois, who 
has been such a champion for people in need, for people who need their 
Government to step up and to be with them in times of difficulty. That 
is what governments are all about.
  We appreciate the self-sufficiency of people. We appreciate the value 
of upward mobility. We appreciate the values of family that Illinois 
and Louisiana treasure, about moving forward. But we also understand 
when life throws you a curve ball, when you are hit by a monster storm, 
when the home you have worked for all your life and might in fact have 
been paid for is literally washed away before your eyes; when the 
business that your father or your mother handed down to you and you 
built up to be something to be proud of, to turn over to your children, 
is gone in the flickering of an eye; when your child is in an accident 
and it was unexpected and the health insurance doesn't pay for it and 
you have a child now who is in great need--you would think we would 
have a government that would not question whether we should be there to 
help.
  We would say: Of course. This is America. This is what we do. We help 
each other through difficult times. That is the way the country used to 
be. That is the country I grew up in. But I am standing here now on the 
floor at a quarter to 11 on Wednesday night. We are getting ready to 
pass a very important bill. We, the other Senator from Louisiana, 
Senator Vitter, and I, have been patient--persistent but patient over 
the 31 days since this first hurricane hit Louisiana and devastated our 
largest city and rocked the whole southern part of our State back on 
its heels. We have been to countless meetings, countless conferences, 
countless telephone conversations, countless visits back to our State 
and region, visiting from shelters to briefing rooms. We have outlined 
what we need. I have to stand here now at a quarter to 11 on a 
Wednesday night with the idea that Congress is basically prepared to go 
home and do nothing other than what we have done, which is give $62 
billion to an agency that does not work.
  That is where we are. Thirty-one days after the worst natural 
disaster in

[[Page 22348]]

the history of the country, the subsequent breaking of a levee system 
that is primarily the fault of the Federal Government--not only but 
primarily the fault of the Federal Government from decades of neglect 
and disinvestment, disengagement, and disinterest--and I have to go 
tell my constituents that people in Congress needed a break and we had 
to go home, and the only thing we could do is give $62 billion to the 
agency about which the only thing we all seem to agree, Republican and 
Democrat, House and Senate, is that it doesn't work.
  I sent a letter--I have sent many, but this is another letter--to the 
leadership, to say:

       Although a month has passed since Hurricane Katrina 
     destroyed the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands 
     of Americans, survivors of this disaster and Hurricane Rita 
     [throughout Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama] still 
     await direct federal assistance.

  They are not getting much direct Federal assistance because the 
assistance has gone to FEMA. FEMA is not resourced, organized or 
prepared to handle it, so people are not getting the money.
  So, instead of doing something before we leave to actually get the 
money to people it could help, we may do nothing.
  In order to provide immediate relief to millions of Americans, I am 
suggesting that part of the FEMA money be reallocated. There is $43 
billion tonight--we checked today--of the $61 billion or so we have 
appropriated. There is about $43 billion sitting there, $43 billion the 
taxpayers have already appropriated, we have already voted for, sitting 
there.
  Some of us are suggesting that we take a few billion of that $43 
billion that is sitting there doing nothing and do something important 
with it, such as send signals to Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama 
that they could be reimbursed for their hospital and health care 
expenses for the 2 million people who have been displaced from their 
homes, from their neighborhoods, from their church communities, so 
there would be no question that they could get that reimbursement and 
States could begin planning how to provide critical health needs.
  The Senator from Tennessee said that everyone will be getting health 
benefits. If you are a middle-income family and had private health 
insurance with your employer, and your employer went out of business, 
you don't continue with that health care unless we pass all or part of 
the Baucus-Grassley bill that provides a way for that health care to be 
continued.
  The Senator says you can get health care. Yes, you could go stand in 
line in an emergency room and wait for a day, 2 or 3 days. The lines 
were long before Katrina, and after Katrina and Rita, I had a mother 
tell me she waited 2 days with her child with cerebral palsy in her 
arms--for 2 days trying to get health care.
  Unfortunately, many people go to the emergency room to get health 
care. But in this case, we have many people who don't usually get their 
health care from emergency rooms that need the Grassley-Baucus bill to 
be able to extend their private coverage at a reasonable and affordable 
rate until we can figure out a better way to keep them with health 
insurance, get them back in their jobs, get them back into homes, and 
decide how to do that.
  That is why I sent a letter today saying I think we should act on the 
Emergency Health Care Relief Act--not 2 weeks from now, not a month 
from now, but right now. Take a few billion dollars and instead of 
letting it sit there doing nothing under the FEMA headline, take this 
money and use it for health care.
  In addition, we have had 71,000 small businesses at a minimum--it 
could be more--71,000 small businesses, from restaurants to small 
manufacturing shops to high-tech businesses to agricultural-related 
businesses to art stores. I could go on and on and on. These are people 
who worked their whole lives to create a business for themselves and 
their children. They may employ three or four people. But it was a 
successful business. They were proud of their business. The business is 
gone.
  Instead of Congress acting to help small business through the Small 
Business Administration, we have decided we want to give all the money 
to FEMA. If FEMA gives it to small businesses, fine; if they do not, OK 
with us. We are going home for 2 weeks.
  So I sent the letter saying, Could we take some of that FEMA money--
they have $43 billion--just $720 million of the FEMA money and give it 
to the Small Business Hurricane Relief and Reconstruction Act, 
sponsored not by Democrats but by the Republicans, by the chairman of 
the committee, the very able Senator from Maine, Senator Snowe, who 2 
weeks ago moved a bill out of her committee at the request of the Small 
Business Administration, and because of the need of small businesses in 
the gulf coast, moved a tight, comprehensive, direct package. But, no, 
we can't do that. We have to go home without helping our small 
businesses.
  When I was on the committee the Small Business Administration 
testified. This was a week ago. They said 25,000 businesses had put in 
applications for aid and they had approved seven. That was last week.
  I think that we should do anything we can do to give some money to 
the Small Business Administration, through already approved law--
nothing new on the books--that they asked for, that the Republican 
chairman of the Senate committee said absolutely this is what we should 
do, with the ranking member, the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator 
Kerry, agreeing. It passed unanimously out of our committee. We have 
very liberal members of our committee, and very conservative members of 
our committee who passed this unanimously, but for some reason we can't 
do this before we leave because the House leadership and the 
administration don't think that this help for small business is an 
emergency.
  I might want them to call some of the 71,000 small businesses that 
don't have their business any longer and ask them if they could wait 
another few weeks for no reason, just because we can't manage to get a 
bill that passed unanimously over here, for the White House or someone 
in the administration to say, you know, that would be a good idea. FEMA 
is not working so well. While we try to work on getting FEMA to work 
better, it would make sense to us to take $720 million of the $43 
billion that FEMA has and get it to the small businesses to help.
  Another part of this letter is $3.3 billion for immediate funding for 
elementary, secondary, and postsecondary relief for children. We go to 
school early in the South. Up here around Washington people do not go 
to school until after September. But down South, we all go back to 
school around the middle of August. In Louisiana and Mississippi and 
Alabama, kids that just finished with their new backpacks, got in their 
little uniforms, parents are excited, kids are excited, they had just 
started school the week before the hurricane.
  Then, on August 29th, Katrina, a category 4 or 5 hurricane, with 165-
mile-an-hour winds, slammed into the gulf coast and destroyed hundreds 
of schools--public, private, parochial.
  The superintendents, in their self-reliant way, started making phone 
calls and saying 250,000 children need to go to school. So they start 
making all kinds of arrangements, principals and teachers, mothers and 
fathers without much money, having lost their home and in some cases 
their business, scrambling to find schools to put their kids in. Why? 
Because a smart, good educator from Louisiana, the superintendent, who 
is universally admired in our State, said to people 12 days after the 
storm, You might have lost everything, but if you still have your 
children, do me a favor. Get them in school because it will bring 
normalcy to them. It will calm them from this tragedy, and it will 
provide some order for your family.
  Wealthy people had many options. Middle-income people had fewer 
options, but they kind of made it work. The poor have struggled with 
this issue.

[[Page 22349]]

  Our States have said it has been a month. We know there are 250,000 
children, just elementary and school-age kids, that are enrolled in 
other schools, strange schools. Children have been doing beautifully 
though, showing up to a brand new school, sometimes without any of 
their friends with them.
  I have been through the shelters. I have seen the children leave, I 
have seen them come back. They are doing a great job.
  The only people not doing very well are the Members of Congress on 
the House side and the administration that can't seem to find $3 
billion to let the States know that those children's tuition will be 
paid for. Maybe public schools can survive this. Maybe public schools 
just know: I am a public school and I know I am going to get our money. 
But what about the parochial schools?
  Let me also remind you that these schools are employers. They employ 
teachers and support staff. Maybe they can wait until January, but 
since the administration has said we want to give help--$4,000 a child 
or up to $7,500 per child to make sure the States of Mississippi, 
Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas are whole--we should allow the schools 
that have taken in these children to be compensated at some great 
expense to the schools that were already full.
  Let's take the State of Arkansas. They took 75,000 people; maybe they 
have 25,000 children or maybe only 20,000 children. Those children have 
gone to schools in Arkansas. They have taken them in. Those schools 
have not received one penny for those children and are not quite sure 
if they will. They have taken them in anyway, though. The parents do 
not know if their children are going to be paid for or if they will 
have to pick up a second tuition. Some of them have already paid 
tuition for the school they were in before the hurricane hit.
  I am wondering, why is this complicated? The administration has said 
they are for it. Lamar Alexander, Senator Kennedy, two Republicans, and 
a Democrat have pretty much agreed on how to do this. It only costs $3 
billion. Again, we would just as soon take it from FEMA since they are 
not doing very well with the money we have given them. It wouldn't cost 
us anything and we would get that done for our States, something 
positive and concrete. But, no, we have to go home.
  The fourth thing in the letter we sent today was to see if we could 
get some direct funding, $1.5 billion we say here, for just 3 months, 
it would just cover about 3 months of basic payroll for sheriff 
departments, for police, for fire fighters in the cities and counties 
and parishes that were the hardest hit.
  Today, in the city of New Orleans--and this is a picture of one 
neighborhood--the headline in our hometown newspaper is that the city 
is to lay off 3,000 city employees. When a city has been destroyed, as 
this picture indicates, and people in your city look like this picture, 
which can be seen all over south Louisiana--this is what most homes in 
the southern part of Mississippi and throughout south Louisiana look 
like. Whatever town, county, or city she lives in, you can obviously 
tell she will not be paying any sales tax. If you could see a broader 
picture, there are no stores standing where, if she could get up and 
walk, she could buy something and pay sales tax. Obviously, she will 
not be paying any ad valorem tax on this house.
  Counties and parishes all over south Louisiana made their payrolls in 
August. They made their first payroll in September. They made their 
second payroll the end of September. They have no revenues coming in. 
They come here and ask for $1.5 billion and are told: Why don't you go 
back and tighten your numbers a little bit. Why don't you go back and 
just see if there is any way this lady could pay a little tax. I have 
never seen or heard anything like this in my life.
  FEMA has $43 billion unallocated. Throughout the entire region, they 
have no sales tax to operate, no property tax to operate, and are 
getting ready to declare bankruptcy. And Congress says, they have to 
tighten their numbers. If we give them the money in New Orleans, if we 
give the money to them under current law, we have to pay it back.
  How is New Orleans or Waveland or anyplace that looks like this, how 
are they going to pay any money back? If we do not get this law changed 
before we leave, the only money New Orleans could get under the current 
law, which is why we keep saying FEMA is not working--under the current 
law a city or county can get a maximum of $5 million by loan, which 
they have to pay back.
  Do you know how much the annual operating monthly payroll is for the 
city of New Orleans? It is $40 million. How would the $5 million help 
the city of New Orleans to stay in business when in 1 month they spend 
$40 million just on operating expenses for the city that looks like 
this? I come and ask for $40 million for 1 month and get told it is too 
much to ask for? Don't ask for too much, Senator.
  OK, well, we will ask for just 3 months of operating expenses for 
some of these communities. I suggest if you are giving tax credits to 
get people to come back, you might need a city they can come back to, 
or a county they can come back to that is actually operating. I don't 
know too many businesses that want to operate in a place with no police 
protection, no fire protection, no sewer, no water, and limited utility 
maintenance for electricity because the city is shut down. Maybe there 
is a community like that somewhere in the world or in America, but I 
don't know of one. Even people who live in rural areas--and I have been 
out to Montana, Idaho, and beautiful places in the West where you never 
see anyone--have a beautiful ranch in the middle of nowhere, and there 
is a fire department that would come if their ranch caught on fire.
  We have cities and communities on the gulf coast that are letting 
their police and their firemen go, and we are sitting around passing 
tax credits.
  I am sure this woman could use some of the tax credits we have 
passed. I have not figured out exactly which one, but I will work on 
that tomorrow, something she might particularly benefit from.
  I have sheriff's departments, cities, counties, and parishes that do 
not know how they will make payroll. FEMA has $43 billion, and I cannot 
get $1.5 billion to help them stay in business. Anything we might do in 
December could actually work.
  I don't know how to express any more the tragedy and the magnitude of 
this disaster. I hope perhaps some people listening would pick up the 
special edition of National Geographic, ``Why It Became a Man-made 
Disaster, Where It Could Happen Next.'' The pictures are hard to look 
at. The text is even more difficult to read--not because the words are 
large but because it makes you so sick when you read it because it was 
avoidable.
  This was all avoidable, but there were many failures along the way at 
the national level, at the State level, at the local level. I hope we 
can learn from what we did so people do not think: Well, the Senator 
from Louisiana is just talking about the people from Louisiana.
  Let me read you the last page, which is why I am spending time on the 
floor, why I am going to stay on this floor, why I am going to push 
this issue, so we get something for the people of Louisiana and the 
gulf coast before we leave, something for their health care or 
something for their education or something for their small business or 
something for their police and fire departments, something for their 
operating budgets, so we can have something to work with when we get 
back.
  But the reason I am also pressing it is because I know, as sure as I 
am standing here, there is going to be another disaster. If we do not 
fix FEMA, if we do not fix some of these systems and set a precedent--
not a precedent because it is already in the law; but actually act on 
what the law already says, which is all we are asking, not anything 
new; but we are setting a precedent by acting on what the Federal 
Government already has--it is going to happen to someone else. And I am 
likely to tell you now who that someone else is going to be.

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  The next Katrina? According to NOAA--which is the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration--meteorologist Joe Golden, the five 
places in the United States at greatest risk for a calamitous hurricane 
are Tampa Bay, FL--heads up, Senators from Florida--Mobile, AL--heads 
up, delegation from Alabama--Houston, TX--heads up to the Texas 
delegation--New York City and Long Island, NY, and Miami, FL.
  This is a picture of the likely areas of threat in the dark color on 
this map in the National Geographic article. So not only do we have to 
get this right for the gulf coast, which has been hit hard and knocked 
down--but not knocked out--we have to fix this so it does not happen 
again, and if it does, the people of Florida do not have to suffer the 
way the people of Louisiana and Mississippi have had to suffer; so the 
people of New York would not have to go through what we went through.
  But I do not know if I have hope about that because also in National 
Geographic they remind us of something that I knew of as a kid. 
Everybody in Louisiana knows about it. It was Hurricane Betsy--the 
largest natural disaster in the history of the country. There is a 
hurricane that all the old-timers know about that hit in 1965, 
Hurricane Betsy. It flooded a great area of the metropolitan area, 
Plaquemines Parish, Saint Bernard Parish, and the Lower Nine, which was 
also terribly affected by Katrina.
  As a result of Betsy, the Federal Government did the same thing. 
President Lyndon Johnson came down at the request actually of Senator 
Russell Long from Louisiana who said: Please come, see what has 
happened, and help us.
  President Johnson, I am proud to say, came down and seemed to do more 
than we are doing now. I have a memo I am going to submit for the 
Record that he himself wrote--that I got from the Lyndon Baines Johnson 
Library today--upon his return, as he indicated to Congress what needed 
to be done. Maybe this would inspire us to do more.
  Anyway, that hurricane occurred. We set out to build a levee system, 
a bold, aggressive plan for a levee system. But somewhere along the way 
that plan fell by the wayside. Congress got distracted. Other 
priorities came up. Even though our delegation, decade after decade, 
Republican and Democrat, pleaded, begged, and used our own political 
chits to add money to the executive budget every year for levees and 
flood protection and important dredging projects, it was never a 
promise that was fulfilled.
  So we find ourselves, 40 years after Betsy, having basically a 
collapse of a levee system. I would like to be optimistic, but I am not 
sure I can be, because in 1927 the great flood before Betsy did the 
same thing. The picture I have in the Chamber is eerily the same, 
except there is no overpass. This first picture was taken in 1927. This 
other one was taken in 2005. You would think that a sophisticated 
country such as ours--sophisticated governments such as ours--would 
understand that every now and then you have to make smart investments 
and smart decisions about levee protection and about growth.
  So I am hoping, since we had this once in 1927, we flooded again in 
the 1960s, and now in 2005, we could learn some lessons about how to 
prevent this because it is preventable. We are not the only people in 
the world who live below sea level. There are examples all over the 
Earth of people who have to live close to the water for trade and 
commerce purposes who have managed to discipline themselves, restrain 
themselves, wisely spend their money, and invest it in the protections 
that their homeowners and their businesses and their people need to 
have a long and prosperous and safe existence.
  But we did not learn it in 1927 sufficiently. We did not learn it in 
1965. And I am hoping today we can learn it in 2005.
  Before we build the levee system, though, we have to face the 
immediate issues, which is why we sent this letter to the leadership, 
why I have said: Let's not go home until we take some money from FEMA, 
which has $43 billion and is not spending it very well. And everyone 
agrees with that. There is not a person in Congress now who is 
defending the way FEMA is distributing this money. It is not because 
they do not have some good people at FEMA. I have met many of them. 
They are caring and compassionate individuals.
  But FEMA is not organized to manage this crisis, and they are the 
agency that should be coordinating it. They are not resourced. They are 
not staffed. They are not organized because they were put in the 
Department of Homeland Security, stripped of much of their 
independence. Their budget was slashed. Most of the people who knew how 
to run disasters either left or were asked to leave. So they have a 
group of people who are not as experienced, not as well organized, and 
not prepared.
  As a result, our people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are 
suffering. So instead of complaining more about it, which we have done 
ad nauseam almost for 31 days, we said: OK, let's move on here. Let's 
take some of the money that is not being used and direct it immediately 
to things that would really make a difference in people's lives and, 
most importantly, would send a positive signal that help is on the way.
  So I do not know why we are not able to do this, which is why I have 
called up this bill, the Grassley-Baucus bill, why I am going to push 
and insist and use all the power I have as a Senator from this State of 
Louisiana, with anyone else, Republican or Democrat, who will help to 
try to get this message to the White House, to the House leadership: 
Please do not abandon the people of Louisiana again, and the people of 
Mississippi again, and the people of Alabama again by leaving before we 
do something to help them in a direct and concrete manner.
  Now, there have been a lot of press releases issued. I will submit 
those for the Record. There are lots of messages that people give out, 
that people are asked to say--things like: The President has called on 
all Americans to help those in need; the President has asked for this; 
So and so has asked for this; please tell people they are not alone.
  We have programs such as the opportunity zones, urban homesteading. I 
think there is some merit in some of this that has been proposed. I am 
not opposed to exploring options for anything to encourage home 
ownership. But right now our State, the city of New Orleans, cannot 
keep people on the payroll. If we do not do something immediately to 
give money to our local governments, to sheriffs, to first responders, 
for firefighters, I do not know how anything else we do is going to 
matter because there will not be a city to do it in, or there will not 
be a county that is functioning when the schools manage to get rebuilt, 
when any businesses decide to take advantage of the tax credits we have 
given them to open, there will not be a city to move into.
  We are trying to get some of our neighborhoods back in New Orleans, 
and the mayor and Federal officials and the Governor and the council 
have been working through a complicated plan that is not universally 
supported. But I can understand why we have to go neighborhood by 
neighborhood, because some neighborhoods are totally uninhabitable. You 
want to bring some life to the city, but what is the use of moving 
people back into Algiers, which is where we want to move them on the 
west bank, or back into the CBD, if the mayor has to let 3,000 people 
off this week and 3,000 people off next week? Who would the people in 
the central business district call when they need a permit?
  I don't think this is too complicated. It is time for us to act. We 
have passed some tax credits in a bipartisan fashion, $6 billion in tax 
credits to help people with casualty loss, to let people take some 
money out of their IRA tax free, to tell the IRS, don't collect any 
taxes for people. If anybody owes you money or if people are late or 
don't expect any quarterly reports, that has all been helpful. We have 
given a $2,400 credit to employers. One thing we can do in this 
Congress is pass tax cuts. We have become very good at passing tax

[[Page 22351]]

cuts. We are appreciative of these tax cuts, $6 billion. But I can tell 
you that our State needs $9 billion. Maybe we could live with $6 
billion if we eliminate some things that we need. Perhaps we could wait 
for a couple of months to get this emergency health care relief act.
  We need the $720 million for small business relief already passed in 
a bipartisan way. We need money for our elementary and secondary 
schools. And most importantly, we need money for our community disaster 
loans and for several hospitals in the region. When the whole community 
was collapsing, when certain hospitals had to evacuate, these three 
hospitals in the metropolitan area--West Jefferson, East Jefferson, and 
Oschner, two public hospitals and one private hospital--stayed open the 
whole time, never closed their doors, even with water rising and 
windows out and all sorts of disaster and difficulty. Because of their 
sheer determination to do so, they stayed open. As a result, Oschner 
can't qualify for insurance because they never closed their doors. But 
if we don't give them some immediate help, this well-respected 
institution may not be able to keep their doors open. They are one of 
the largest employers, most respected institutions. What are we going 
to do, say, sorry, come back in a month? They may not be here in a 
month.
  We don't even have on this list our universities. The University of 
New Orleans, Southern University, Dillard University, Xavier 
University, Tulane University, Loyola University, and our largest 
community college, Delgado, which had five feet of water around it. 
These are not only the brainpower that is going to help us rebuild a 
city greater and better, higher and stronger and smarter, these are 
employers who employ thousands of the professionals who make up the 
heart of our region. We don't even have them on the list. They were on 
the front page of the New York Times, on CNN last night, saying: Does 
anybody know we are out here? We are not able to make payroll.
  Why wouldn't they be able to make payroll? They have no students in 
their university. So what does the president of the university tell his 
faculty: Go to Atlanta and come back in 2 years? And if Xavier is not 
functioning, and Dillard is not functioning, and the University of New 
Orleans is not up and operating, and Tulane can't get completely back 
up, and Loyola, who do the small businesses we are trying to give tax 
credits to, who do they sell their products to if there are no large 
businesses that have survived?
  Let me talk about one other employer, the Catholic Church. There are 
people in this Congress who have this idea that in a storm such as this 
or in a hurricane or disaster, let's have faith-based initiatives. 
Churches do beautiful work. The synagogues do beautiful work. People of 
faith have done so many things that I want to say thank you to everyone 
who has helped in every way. But in my city, as a Catholic city 
predominantly, the Catholic Church not only runs schools and senior 
centers and feeding centers and homeless shelters, they don't think of 
themselves as a business. They think of themselves as a ministry. They, 
in fact, are one of the largest employers in our region and have been 
since before the Government actually existed in the way we know it 
today. In other words, the Ursuline nuns, the nuns of the Holy Sisters, 
the Sisters of the Poor, the Jesuits came to the city before we even 
had an American Government and helped to stand the city up. That is how 
long they have been there. They have helped decade after decade, 
through the Revolutionary War, the Battle of New Orleans, the Civil 
War, through every tragedy, the nuns, the priests, the teachers have 
been there.
  Now their schools are ruined. Their hospitals are ruined. They come 
to ask the Government for some help. We act like, go ask a faith-based 
institution. They are a faith-based institution. Whom should they go 
ask? They have to let off maybe 1,500 people. Why would we want our 
largest employer to let go people so these people who are trained in 
the ministry, who deliver services, who are the social workers of the 
city, the psychologists of the city, the counsellors of the city, the 
teachers of the city could go to Atlanta or Houston or Michigan or 
Dallas and come back in a couple years? We need them to stay there and 
help us build the city and community.
  I am sure that is true in Waveland. I am sure it is true in Pass 
Christian. I am sure it is true throughout the gulf coast of 
Mississippi. Instead we get: Go ask a faith-based institution for help. 
Go ask a church. They are the church. They can't even save their own 
employees so how are they going to help everyone else? I don't know 
what has happened to us as a country. It makes me frightened to think 
about how far we have come as a nation that we don't understand the 
role of the Federal Government at a time such as this, that we are so 
focused on tax cuts, on other priorities, that when hard-working 
Americans, hard-working American citizens, who have done nothing but 
work hard all their lives to build some equity, to get to a place not 
of luxury but of peace and comfort, lose everything in the blink of an 
eye, we have to come up here to the Federal Government and beg on their 
behalf, instead of the Federal Government saying: This is why we are 
here. That is what being part of a nation is all about. If one State is 
hurting, the other 49 can lift them up. Or if two States are hurting, 
the other 48 can lift them up.
  Instead, we have to listen to editorial after editorial saying: Why 
can't Louisiana be more self-reliant? The State needs to demonstrate 
self-reliance.
  The Budget Director of Louisiana reported to our legislature that 
their revenues will be short $1 billion out of a budget of 
approximately $14 billion. But the State needs to be self-reliant; the 
people in Louisiana are not self-reliant.
  I want to show a picture of a woman who I think is self-reliant. She 
is not on a wagon train out West, but this is what I think about self-
reliance. She has her baby in her arms. She is doing the best she can 
in a very tough situation. I want to show some other pictures of self-
reliance.
  This is a woman for whom no one came. She probably has no car, but 
she has the two babies that she can carry, and I am sure if she had a 
third, she would have managed to put a third one in her arms and wade 
through 5 feet of water to try to get these children to safety. This is 
what Senator Landrieu thinks is being self-reliant.
  There is another picture in this magazine of some people in a boat. 
There is a picture in this magazine of about 10 people in a boat. The 
boat does not have the Coast Guard emblem--and let me thank the Coast 
Guard. They saved 32,000 people in the course of 3 and 4 days; 32,000 
the Coast Guard alone saved out of houses, off porches, off roofs. That 
is not counting the thousands of people who were saved by Wildlife and 
Fisheries.
  But there is a picture in this magazine of a boat that looks like it 
is sort of a blown-up boat with about 12 people in it. There are no 
paddles. So the people in the boat found some wood floating in the 
water and picked up the wood and started paddling.
  This is the picture. I hope the cameras can see it. They are going to 
have to really blow it up, but here it is. It is not very large. But 
this is what the Senator from Louisiana thinks is being self-reliant. 
People found something that floated, put themselves and their children 
in it, found some old wood, and started paddling to safety. And I have 
to listen to news people saying that our people are not self-reliant?
  I will not apologize for asking for help on behalf of the 4.5 million 
people who live in my State--Black and White, Hispanic and Asian--who 
have been devastated by this storm, 2 million of whom have lost their 
homes and their neighborhoods. Most of them have never asked the 
Government for one thing, have never been on one program, and they come 
here to ask for a little bit of help and they are told: You need to be 
more self-reliant. How much more self-reliant can people be other than 
to raise their children, send them to school, balance their budget, pay 
for their house, pay their bills on time, and serve in the military? 
How much more self-reliant can they be?

[[Page 22352]]

  I thought and I think they thought they lived in a nation that when 
something such as this happened that was unexpected and not their 
fault, somebody would be there to help them. All we have is photo ops, 
message boards, and press releases. But when it comes down to actually 
passing some legislation with some money attached to it that could 
actually help someone, we cannot seem to find the will to do it, 
despite the fact that what we are asking for we can take from the FEMA 
money and not add anything. Republicans and Democrats have come 
together almost unanimously in support of these, but yet we are going 
to go home without doing anything.
  Mr. President, I hope I have made my point. I will be back in the 
morning to talk about some other aspects of this recovery. Again, to be 
perfectly clear, FEMA has been given $51 billion. There is $43 billion, 
as of yesterday, that is unallocated. Everyone agrees that FEMA is not 
what it used to be, that it is not working very well. For whatever 
reason and for whose ever fault that might be, we cannot fix that 
overnight. So I am asking to take a few billion of that money that is 
just sitting there and allocate it to programs already established, 
that are already working, that are desperately needed, that have been 
agreed to by Republicans and Democrats alike before we leave so we can 
give hope to people.
  I am going to stand here on this floor all day tomorrow and use every 
pressure point I can to see that some agreement can be reached to do 
something before we leave and when we come back, to agree to up-or-down 
votes on some critical bills on which we need action now. We don't get 
action on them, anything we do in January or February or March or 
April, in large measure, will be for nought because the counties, 
cities, parishes, police departments, and fire departments that we are 
trying to help may not make it that long. Without them, it is very 
hard, if not impossible, to build our communities and build our cities.
  In conclusion, people want to come home. Some people may not be able 
to. But as a Senator from Louisiana, I want people to know from our 
State that everyone is welcome home. All people are welcome, and we 
want everyone back. We are doing the very best we can to try to provide 
and prioritize what we need to do first, second, and third in order to 
get people back and get our communities started again.
  Not only is New Orleans a great city, but the region is pretty 
spectacular and special. The whole gulf coast is a place that when you 
grow up in New Orleans, you know about Waveland, Pass Christian, places 
that are very special to people along that gulf coast. Generation after 
generation of families have vacationed together and lived together and 
worshipped together and gone to school together, and it is gone.
  We would like the help of this Nation to build it back higher, 
stronger, and better. We don't want to waste a penny, but we need this 
help now.
  Let us act when we come back early in the morning to get some of this 
done and to work with our colleagues to see that we can get help to the 
people who are desperately in need of help.
  I yield the floor.

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