[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 270-271]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 AUTHORIZATION OF MORGANZA TO THE GULF OF MEXICO HURRICANE PROTECTION 
                                PROJECT

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I come to the floor briefly to speak 
about a bill I introduced today on the first day of this 110th Congress 
to signify its importance to our State and to speak about that for a 
moment.
  But before I do, I want to give my public congratulations to the new 
leadership of this Chamber, to thank the Senator from Nevada and the 
Senator from Kentucky, the majority leader and the minority leader, for 
their gathering together of the Senators today, as the Presiding 
Officer also attended--a quite historic meeting of almost 100 of us in 
the Old Senate Chamber--and their commitment to us and to the Nation, 
although it was a private meeting, to work in a more collegial, 
cooperative way as this Congress begins and to try to forge the 
bipartisan solutions I think our country called for as a reflection of 
the outcome of the last elections.
  I, for one, publicly want to commit myself to that endeavor and to 
work toward that end, as I continue to work across the aisle with many 
in the other party, and even Members such as the Presiding Officer in 
our own party, in the Democratic Party, to get the job done for our 
States.
  In that regard, I introduced this bill today to authorize a project 
and to ask for special consideration for this very important levee and 
hurricane protection project in the State of Louisiana called Morganza 
to the Gulf. As today we look forward into what we are going to do with 
this new hope and new spring and new era of cooperation, that is 
terrific. But we also need to think about looking a little bit backward 
as to what we did not get done in the last Congress or the Congresses 
before so we can pick up that work and move forward.
  This initiative, Morganza to the Gulf, would fall into that category 
of a project that was actually approved not only by the last Congress, 
the 109th Congress, but the 108th and the 107th, and started back 
actually decades ago. And because of just a few technical glitches 
resulting in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' failure to timely 
complete its report, the contingent authorization of the Morganza 
project expired. Eventually, the Corps submitted its report more than a 
year late and recommended authorization of the project.
  Madam President, this project when completed will protect 120,000 
people in south Louisiana, many of whom were devastated by two of the 
worst storms and subsequent flooding in the history of our country only 
2 years ago, in 2005. However, these people are left vulnerable without 
this project being completed. It was part of a major WRDA bill, the 
Water Resources Development Act, of which this Congress worked together 
in quite an extraordinary bipartisan effort, as the Presiding Officer 
knows. You have been a part of that effort.
  It comes out of the EPW Committee, the Environment and Public Works 
Committee. Democrats on that committee and Republicans worked very 
hard, into the late hours of the night, trying to get that bill 
through. But for a number of reasons, this massive bill, with billions 
of dollars of projects, could not pass in the final hours.
  But this one project, of all of the projects in the Nation, I believe 
deserves special attention, not because it is in Louisiana, not because 
Senator Vitter and I represent this, and not only because our State 
received devastation from Katrina and Rita but because this is the one 
hurricane protection project that actually had been approved in the 
last WRDA bill. But because of untimeliness on the part of the Corps of 
Engineers, we could not get it authorized in the last bill, and it 
should be first to be approved now.
  I do not know what is going to happen with our WRDA bill. I am 
certain the Senator from California, who has pledged her support, and 
the ranking member of that committee, Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, who 
is familiar with this, understand the special nature of this issue. 
Whether we can move this independently, I do not know. But I am going 
to ask. Until we are told no, we are going to try. Senator Vitter is 
not here to speak for himself, but I know he feels very strongly about 
this, as indicated by his own actions and strong words he has put in 
the Record. Our House Members, both Republicans and Democrats,

[[Page 271]]

could make the same arguments on the House side.
  I know people may be tired of seeing the Senators from Louisiana and 
Mississippi come down and talk about the gulf coast. But it is 
America's energy coast. It is a working coast. There are working people 
who live in real communities, large and small, whose homes have been 
devastated, whose churches have been destroyed, whose schools have been 
destroyed, and who still look to us to help them, to not waste their 
money or others' money in the relief but to spend it wisely and well 
and to provide at least the Federal partnership for these hurricane 
protection levees. And that is what this is.
  The communities of Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes, located in 
southeast Louisiana, which are the heart of America's energy coast, are 
willing and able to do their engineering, to put up their own money, to 
make sure that the projects are done in an expedited fashion. But they 
cannot begin without this Federal authorization.
  So I have introduced as stand-alone legislation, the Morganza to the 
Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Protection Project, as my first bill, to 
indicate the continued need throughout south Louisiana and the gulf 
coast for more protection from hurricanes and smart engineering, to say 
we are not going to stop asking for the things we think are most 
certainly meritorious of this Congress's attention and to continue to 
say that with all the challenges of housing, health care, education, 
small business recovery, et cetera, that hurricane protection for 
levees and coastal restoration remains a constant need for the gulf 
coast and, I would predict, for other coasts around the country that 
need to wake up to the dangers of rising tides, surges from whatever, 
tsunamis on the west coast, hurricanes on the east coast, as a 
potential, and get serious about the business of stronger 
infrastructure and better planning about where and where not to build 
close to the coast.
  But again, these are working communities that are there--not 
sunbathing, not condos--running ports, laying pipelines, and giving the 
Nation the energy infrastructure it needs. These people, just like in 
the big cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and Lafayette and Lake 
Charles--these small communities of Houma and Lafourche and Cocherie 
and Golden Meadow and places that no one in Washington has ever heard 
of, but we visit all the time, deserve the protection of their Federal 
Government based on what they contribute to the Nation.
  So I thank the Presiding Officer for letting me speak for the Record 
on this issue. I thank the leadership for giving me this time and 
commend it for the Senate to consider. Hopefully, we can pass it within 
the first weeks of this Congress.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Landrieu). The Senator from Oklahoma.

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