[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14360-14364]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              FEMA FUNDING

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to follow up on the remarks of 
Leader Reid by reminding everyone how unfortunate but in some ways 
necessary this situation is.
  This whole debate, in my view, is worth having. It is unfortunate it 
is so close to the end of the year because the Senate actually offered 
a bill, as the Presiding Officer may remember, earlier in September to 
try to avoid getting to this last minute. But this whole

[[Page 14361]]

controversy started just a few days after Hurricane Irene had raked the 
east coast and wreaked havoc from North Carolina, through Connecticut, 
into Vermont and New Hampshire, and people are still reeling. The way 
this controversy started was Representative Cantor said: Before we can 
provide help, we need to find an offset in the budget. In other words, 
before we can help the victims of Irene--the thousands of homes that 
were flooded, the electrical wires on the ground, the businesses 
flooded out--we have to go to Washington and find a program to cut. I 
strongly objected then, and I have objected every day since then to 
that Cantor doctrine. So this is an argument and a debate worth having.
  This could have been completely avoided if, the day after, 
Representative Cantor, with all the outcry from his own district and 
newspapers around the country, many of which editorialized against that 
position, would have just said: I am sorry, I made a mistake. And I 
have had to say that in my political career: I am sorry, I made a 
mistake. But instead of saying that, he doubled down, and he doubled 
down on the backs of people from Pennsylvania, to New York, and 
actually to Louisiana and Mississippi because it is our projects that 
have been stopped for the last 6 weeks. FEMA, as far as Louisiana is 
concerned, was out of money 6 weeks ago.
  This is what the Cantor doctrine looks like to a very clever 
cartoonist. I am going to put this up in my office and keep it forever. 
It says:

       Welcome to the Republican disaster relief hotline. At the 
     tone, please tell us the emergency and how you plan to offset 
     the cost of your rescue.

  Here is Grandmother sitting on the roof, with her little cat on the 
chimney, with her television and her cane, calling FEMA.
  I am the appropriations chair of this committee, as my colleagues 
know. It is a good thing I am chairing this appropriations committee 
because I happen to know a lot about disaster relief, having to lead 
the effort for the gulf coast in the wake of Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and 
Ike. This is not a little matter, as some of the press reported over 
the weekend. I have read most of the editorials from coast to coast. 
Some have written: Why is Congress arguing? This is such a minor 
matter. I don't think the $40 billion it took to rebuild the gulf coast 
is a minor matter, and I don't think any taxpayer in America would 
think $40 billion is a minor matter.
  This Cantor doctrine must be rejected. I am not the only one who 
believes this. There are wonderful articles and editorials in papers 
all across the country. I am going to read some of them today. I am so 
glad people were working through the weekend and focusing on this 
debate.
  From Colorado, the Denver Post writes:

     . . . and some Members of Congress are so bent on budget 
     cutting--

  They are referring to the Republicans, of course--

     that they happily seize the opportunity to demand 
     concessions, despite the larger impact on our struggling 
     economy. In this case, it is demanding that money for the 
     Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide emergency 
     disaster assistance to communities hit by flood, fire, and 
     other manner of natural disasters, be offset by comparable 
     cuts to the Federal budget. Demanding such offsets is 
     unprecedented in terms of emergency relief, and it has again 
     manufactured the prospects of a shutdown. To be clear, we are 
     not supporting a blank check--

  And neither am I. I have been an appropriator since I was 23 years 
old. I am 56. I understand balanced budgets and debt limits and curbing 
government spending. I have been a part of those efforts. The last time 
we had a balanced budget, a Democrat was in the White House--Bill 
Clinton--as the Presiding Officer knows. We understand there is no such 
thing as a free lunch or a blank check, and we are going to pay for 
these disasters, but we don't have to pay for them while Grandmother is 
on the roof. We can figure out how to pay for it later and send help to 
her now.
  The article goes on to say:

     . . . but we think any near-term spending cuts are best dealt 
     with by the super committee as opposed to a symbolic standoff 
     that sends ripple effects beyond Washington.

  This is the Brattleboro Vermont Reformer:

       Though individuals eligible for Federal disaster aid and 
     State and city governments recouping emergency response costs 
     are still receiving funds, projects dating back as far as 
     Hurricane Katrina are once again waiting for money. How did 
     House majority leader Eric Cantor of Virginia respond? He 
     said: ``Change like this is hard.''

  The paper goes on to say:

       However, not as hard as waiting for power lines to get 
     restrung along the Auger Hole Road, wondering when, if ever, 
     you will be able to move back into your waterlogged home or 
     when your road might become passable again. Though Congress 
     has about a week to get everything ironed out, we can expect 
     this argument to go down to the last minute.

  I wish we weren't here at the last minute. I wish to remind everyone 
that the Senate passed--with a bipartisan response to this, which 
provided the money FEMA needed without the offset--it was passed 
bipartisanly with 10 Republicans and all the Democrats and sent to the 
House. They could have passed that bill, and we would all be gone now, 
with FEMA replenished, set up for the next year, and the jobs program, 
which is really a private sector effort to create jobs in America, 
would be untouched and would be moving forward.
  This argument started when Representative Cantor came up with a new 
tea party agenda, which is for flood victims to let FEMA know what 
offset can be required before they are rescued.
  Other newspapers throughout the country, including Pennsylvania, say:

       Much of northeast Pennsylvania needs Federal assistance to 
     recover from flooding, but two of the region's 
     representatives--

  In this case, both Republican Representatives--

     offered an unacceptable condition.

  They go on to say--they list the Members.
  They say:

       The problem isn't the Senate, which earlier had passed a 
     bill by a positive vote that included 10 Republicans to 
     appropriate more than $7 billion for FEMA that handles 
     disaster relief. That fund could run dry. The House responded 
     with a bill that would provide $3.7 billion, but only if two 
     loan programs for energy development projects were rescinded.

  Senator Harry Reid, they say, ``goes on to offer a compromise with 
the House.'' But I guess we are in the time of no compromise and take 
whatever hostages you can. In this case, the tea party Republicans want 
to take hostage the Grandma who is on her roof asking for help.
  Even the New York newspapers:

       Congress shouldn't allow disaster aid for people devastated 
     by Tropical Storm Irene to be stalled by a fight over how 
     much is enough and how to cover the tab.

  We are willing to negotiate with the House over how much. We believe 
our number of $6.1 billion is not enough for the year, and I think the 
records will show as we move forward that I am accurate. But given the 
situation we are in, we don't need to fight over that amount because if 
$6.1 billion isn't enough, most certainly $3.5 billion that the House 
has offered isn't enough, and we can work that out later on and that is 
what Leader Reid has offered. But requiring an offset, particularly an 
offset from a program that Republicans themselves supported, that was 
signed into law by President Bush, and that is supported by the chamber 
of commerce, the National Manufacturers Association, the League of 
Cities, the National Conference of Mayors, and an offset that has 
created 40,000 jobs, that is a road I don't think we should go down.
  If it is a manufacturing program today that the new Cantor doctrine 
requires, as one of these great articles this weekend said, maybe next 
time we have a disaster, we will have to offer up education programs; 
and the next time we have a disaster, we will have to offer up a fourth 
of our transportation budget; and the next time we have a disaster, we 
will have to offer up aid to Israel; or maybe the next time we have a 
disaster, we will have to offer up something else. When does the 
offering up stop?
  The worst time to negotiate how to find funding after a disaster is 
when

[[Page 14362]]

emotions are high, when people are really at their sort of emotional 
limit, particularly the disaster victims themselves. We want to argue 
and debate these things when cool heads prevail and once we get the 
estimates. It is hard, within a week or two or three of an emergency, 
to even know what those estimates are. We have to wait for the 
insurance adjusters to go out, for the FEMA adjusters to go out, for 
people to even get back to their communities to assess the damage.
  Believe me, I have been through this. It was months after the 
aftermath of Katrina before people in my city of New Orleans and in 
parts of my State could even get back into their neighborhoods--months. 
Not days, not weeks, months. I remember people along the gulf coast 
having to come in on foot with chainsaws to try to get back. It took 
them days.
  That is another reason why we do not want to have to find an offset 
to fund disasters. We want to do a couple things. We want to budget as 
carefully as we can in advance. I want to answer this argument that: 
Oh, well, the reason Congress is in this pickle is because they did not 
budget for disasters. I am going to put up a chart in a minute--if 
staff will grab that one for me--to show that we have budgeted for 
disasters. We have not budgeted as adequately as we should. This has 
been a problem for Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents.
  But I have to say, as chair of this committee, I have doubled the 
amount of money--more than doubled the amount of money--in anticipation 
of disasters to try to get in front of it. But no one--unless they had 
a crystal ball--could have predicted that 48 out of 50 States would 
have had disasters this year in America. It is unprecedented. We would 
have had to have a crystal ball that was always right and never, ever 
wrong to be able to predict we would have had that many disasters.
  What can we do in the future? I have offered to my colleagues--
Senator Blunt, Senator Snowe, and others--that I will work with them in 
the future to get a bill that mandates that Democratic and Republican 
Presidents, regardless of party, would have to send to us--budgeted and 
paid for--at least a 10-year average of previous disasters.
  But I have to say, even if we would have had that law in place--which 
is the best we can all collectively think of; and universities or 
businesses would recommend the same--we still would have underestimated 
this last year, and we still would have underestimated Katrina and 
Rita. That is why I am on the floor making this argument.
  I know it is inconvenient for Members to have to come back this week. 
I know people wanted to be away this week to work in their districts. 
But this is an argument and a debate worth having. I hope our side will 
prevail, but if not, at least we put up the fight that I think is 
necessary to make the argument to the American people.
  But even if we had a crystal ball and even if we had budgeted more 
than the $1.8 billion we budget every year, approximately, out of 
Homeland Security, look what happened when Katrina and Rita and Wilma 
hit. This went up to $45 billion--Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Wilma, you 
will remember, was one of the storms that hit Florida. In the year 
before, Florida had four storms. Dennis, Ivan, Frances, and Charley hit 
Florida in 1 year.
  I believe that is why Senator Rubio and Senator Nelson understand the 
hollowness and the danger of the Cantor doctrine. Because had this 
doctrine been in effect when these four hurricanes hit Florida back in 
2004, the people of Florida would have had to come to Congress, and 
before we could spend one dime to help them, we would have had to find 
a $3 billion offset. Mr. President, maybe we would have gone to your 
State and taken the money out of your transportation program or gone to 
my State or gone somewhere to find $3 billion, but we did not. We sent 
Florida their $3 billion, and we will pay for it over time.
  I do not know what we would have done on the gulf coast had the 
people of the United States enforced the Cantor doctrine, which was to 
find $45 billion like that--like that--before we could have sent money 
to Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana or Texas. I could go on and on and 
on.
  One of the more disappointing positions Republicans are holding, 
particularly Representative Cantor, which is very disappointing, is 
that we have to scramble to find offsets for Americans who are in 
trouble, but we can just send free money to Iraq and Afghanistan. We do 
not have to send an offset to rebuild Iraq. We do not have to find an 
offset to rebuild Afghanistan. But we have to scramble around here and 
find an offset to help the people of our country.
  Third point. Some of the House Members have stood and said: Senator 
Landrieu is wrong. We have offset emergency funding in the past. That 
is correct. We have offset emergency funding, but emergency funding is 
different than FEMA funding. We have emergencies such as dams break and 
levees break and the Corps of Engineers needs extra money. Over the 
course of time, we have, occasionally--because we want to be 
responsible with the budget when we can, and when we have time to 
figure it out, we most certainly can find offsets in programs that are 
not working as well. So we can eliminate that and push some of that 
money to emergency funding. We have done it in the military. We have 
done it for the Corps of Engineers. But if we do this, this will be the 
first time we have required an offset for FEMA funding in the history 
of our country.
  I think it is a road we do not want to go down, and it can be 
avoided. We do not have to walk down this road. We can eliminate the 
offset completely. FEMA may--under the last 24 to 48 hours--be able to 
stretch their money through Friday. We can even accept the House 
number, which is the lower number. It is not going to be adequate. We 
are going to be back here literally in 8 weeks having the same debate. 
But they are hardheaded and insistent that they want to continue to 
have this debate week after week after week. But at least the $3 
billion will jump-start all our programs that are stalled and many of 
them are in my State, which is why I am spending a lot of time on this, 
but I am also concerned about everybody else's State. It will give us 
enough money to get through Thanksgiving, maybe the first of the year. 
It is not going to be enough for all next year.
  That is a reasonable compromise. On the side of that compromise is 
the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, 
four Governors of disaster-hit States--two Republicans and two 
Democrats--the National League of Cities, and the National Conference 
of Mayors. That is just to name a few.
  There are editorials across the country from Pennsylvania to New 
York, to Louisiana. The Times-Picayune, my own newspaper, of which I am 
very proud, editorialized for this position that to require an offset 
before one can be rescued is not the American way. We do not require it 
when we declare war or disaster. We go ahead and send the troops, and 
we fund them later. I do not believe we want to go down this road.
  So Leader Reid has brought us back to try to work through it. Again, 
the Senate, earlier in September, passed a bipartisan resolution. The 
House rejected it for their own reason, insisting that we have an 
offset. We are back saying that is a wrong policy to adopt. This is not 
the right time in America to adopt it. If we were going to adopt it, 
this is definitely the wrong program to eliminate. This program has 
created, with the private sector--this is not government jobs. These 
are private sector jobs that have been created. Republican leaders in 
the House--and I am going to read those letters for the Record this 
afternoon again--supported the program, wrote letters to the Secretary 
asking for this funding to be spent in their districts, and then they 
turn around and offer this as an offset when it is unnecessary, 
unprecedented, and absolutely wrongheaded.
  For the legislators, the Congress men and women along the gulf coast, 
it is particularly disturbing. After receiving $45 billion--
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas--after Katrina and Rita and not

[[Page 14363]]

one penny offset while it was going on--we are all going to be paying 
for it for many years to come in our regular budgeting process--to then 
turn around and say, when the east coast needs help: Oh, no, we need to 
find an offset today.
  That is how this argument started. I do not like to fight. I like to 
cooperate. I am one of nine siblings. I have two children myself. I 
have been happily married to my husband for 23 years. We resolve things 
by talking and negotiating in our home. We do not like to fight in our 
family.
  But I have learned one thing: Some things are worth fighting for, win 
or lose. I have led this effort. I have been proud to lead it. I am so 
grateful to my colleagues on the Democratic side, both in the House and 
the Senate, who have spoken on this point, who have changed their 
schedules to support this. Win or lose, it is right to stand against 
the Cantor doctrine and the tea party agenda.
  I guess this is where this comes from. We have never seen this 
before. Never have we offset a dime of FEMA funding. We have offset 
emergency funding, we have offset defense emergencies, Corps of 
Engineers emergencies, HUD community development block grant money we 
have offset but not FEMA.
  But the Republican caucus in the House has run us right down to the 
wire, not willing to negotiate, not willing to even recognize the 
bipartisan bill we sent over there. Sometimes we say ``bipartisan'' 
around here if we have one Republican and all the Democrats. We kind of 
brag because we have bipartisanship. This was 10--10--Republican 
Senators. That is a big number today. We broke a Republican filibuster 
on this with 10 Republican Senators who said Eric Cantor was wrong. Now 
is not the time. We do not have to find an offset. Let's negotiate. 
Let's work through this. They were right. I hope they will stand 
strong. I hope the leadership can work this out. But, again, if we 
cannot, it was worth, in my view, the fight over this to say: The 
Cantor doctrine is dangerous for the country.
  Let me just remind everyone--because I have spoken about the gulf 
coast--these are 48 States represented that have been hit by disasters. 
The only States that have been spared a natural disaster are Michigan 
and West Virginia. But as the Senators from Michigan will tell us, they 
have been experiencing their own economic disaster now for almost 6 
years, an economic meltdown in Michigan. Because of the crash of the 
auto industry and the foreclosure disaster and the crash of some of the 
Wall Street banks and other banks, Michigan has been very hard hit. 
West Virginia is always one of our poorer States, with great assets, 
but they struggle all the time. So we can honestly say all 50 States 
are in need of help.
  Why don't we help them? We have a supercommittee set up. Many of us 
are working hard on closing the deficit gap. We have already cut 
trillions, literally trillions, of dollars from this budget over the 
last 2 years. We have trillions more to cut and we have revenues to 
raise. But this time we have to find money in this budget--in this case 
for something that is wholly unprecedented and unnecessary--they 
recommend a program that is actually helping to turn around a very weak 
job outlook. It is creating jobs. It has created 40,000. It could 
create more public-private partnerships, promoting loans to auto 
companies that are creating new and different kinds of automobiles so 
we can minimize our dependence on foreign oil, we can start building 
again in America, we can start manufacturing again in America.
  Again, it is a program--some of the newspapers reported it--Democrats 
support. This is a program George Bush signed into law. This is a 
program that Republicans and Democrats have supported. This is a 
program that actually works to put Americans back to work. Why would 
they pick this one? Why would they pick any one? But why would they 
pick this one? Because they wanted to pick a fight, and they knew we 
were not just going to say: OK, fine. So we did not pick this fight. I 
did not pick this fight. Representative Cantor started it when he 
decided on a Cantor doctrine that would make disaster victims have to 
find an offset before they could be helped.
  I am going to close with where I started, with this cartoon that says 
it all:

       Welcome to the Republican disaster relief hotline. At the 
     tone, please tell us the emergency and how you plan to offset 
     the cost of your rescue. . . .

  This is not America. We have gone too far. If this kind of government 
is on the tea party agenda, I suggest they remove that item for 
consideration. This is not the way we operate our government in the 
United States. We are there for people in their time of need.
  We do not ask them to find an offset. We will pay for this. We are 
working to have our budget balanced. But we do not put this kind of 
pressure on tax-paying Americans, who hardly ask us for anything. But 
when their home is washed away, when their business is destroyed, they 
expect FEMA to be there and they do not have to scramble around with 
their congressional delegation or their mayors or their counsel members 
or their local representatives to wring their hands and say: What 
program can we suggest Congress cut so we can get our meals today or 
our shelter for next week?
  It is not the way we do business. I hope as Members come back tonight 
to talk about this, we can find a way forward, keep our government 
operating, and do what is right for Americans and our country.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. There are other Members who are coming down to speak. 
But while I have this time, I wanted to just add a few other comments 
to the Record.
  First of all, over the weekend, there were some reports and some 
statements made that this was a manufactured crisis by one of our 
colleagues on one of the big talk shows on Sunday morning.
  First of all, that infers this is not a real crisis, that it was just 
made up because we enjoy fighting here in Washington. Nothing could be 
further from the truth.
  This is not fun to do, but sometimes this is necessary. Sometimes it 
is necessary to draw sharp lines between policies because the outcome 
affects people's lives. Where would we have been along the gulf coast 
had that Cantor doctrine been in effect and used when Katrina hit the 
gulf coast? Instead of New Orleans and Biloxi and large portions of the 
gulf coast being rebuilt today, we would still probably be debating 
where we were going to find the money to do the work. Now, that is No. 
1.
  No. 2, the crisis may not be real for the whole country right now, 
today, as we speak on Monday, but I promise, for people in many 
States--and I will find this document which I have used several times 
in debate on the Senate floor--it is pages and pages, too numerous to 
mention--they are already having a crisis because these line items and 
numbers represent projects that have already been pink-slipped, shut 
down.
  Government is still operating through this week, and we are going to 
work this out. We are not going to let the government shut down over 
this. I promise you--if I have anything to say about it. I might not, 
and my caucus may overrule me, but it is worth arguing about to try to 
see if we can come to some reasonable compromise, which Leader Reid has 
offered.
  But there is already a crisis. For those who think this is 
manufactured, why don't they spend time this afternoon calling some of 
these small businesspeople who have shut down their operations?
  They were building a road in Alaska, and they stopped because FEMA 
stopped their funding weeks and weeks ago. This isn't made up by Mary 
Landrieu. We can call Craig Fugate or

[[Page 14364]]

anybody on this list if anyone thinks this is manufactured. They have 
stopped their projects because FEMA technically ran out of money months 
ago. They are operating on fumes. They stopped paying for all of their 
regular work that was going on rebuilding lots of places in America so 
they could give out their emergency aid to the east coast. They had no 
choice because we didn't give them enough money to make it through the 
year.
  I sent a letter to the leadership on this issue months ago because I 
know this; I am the chair of the committee. They keep saying to me: 
Senator, we are running out of money. I have been saying this--and I 
will present letters for the Record. Anyone who follows this knows this 
is true. This is not a manufactured crisis.
  This whole issue started when Representative Cantor decided that the 
way to fix this problem was to cut something in the budget and have to 
offset something in order for us to move forward, and then the gears 
stopped. It was like he just threw a wrench in the gears. Everything 
was going along quite smoothly.
  I know the American people are tired of the fighting and the name 
calling. I am, proudly, a centrist Democrat. I am still proud to say 
that. I have negotiated on probably every major deal that has been 
done--or compromised. I have been a part of almost every one for the 15 
years I have been here. Some people don't like that about me, but I 
think that is good, and I am proud of it.
  I most certainly am not one of the ones who like to start a partisan 
brawl just for the heck of it. This is an important principle. The 
principle is this: Should Americans have to scramble to find offsets 
while the water is rising and the wind is blowing, when we don't 
require the same for emergencies overseas? We don't scramble to find 
offsets when a famine happens or a drought hits in Africa. We send 
money because that is what Americans do. Yet our people are calling for 
help at home and somehow--this is on the tea party agenda--before we 
can send them help we have to find an offset in Washington, an offset 
that everybody agrees to. Good luck.
  There are very few things here that two people agree to, let alone 
535. If I had to do that, Mr. President, for Katrina and Rita, I don't 
know what I would have done.
  We are in a crisis. It may not be for everybody in the country right 
now, like it could be next week if the government shuts down, which it 
will not. We are going to find a way forward. But for these people it 
has been a crisis for several months. Bridge projects are shut down, 
libraries are shut down, and all the workers have been sent home or 
told not to expect a paycheck on this project. I don't know how many 
people will continue to work without receiving a paycheck. Maybe some 
people are still doing that.
  No. 2, we sent $1.3 trillion to Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 7 
years--$1.3 trillion, not requiring one offset. Yet people in Florida 
are looking for help as are people in Vermont, and the Cantor doctrine 
says we have to find cuts in the budget.
  The Senator from Florida wants to speak. I want to be accurate in 
this debate, so I want to correct one thing I said. I said that never 
before have we offset FEMA money. My staff corrected me and said that 
one time in history, in recent memory, we did that for a small amount 
of FEMA money when President Clinton was the President because the 
Republicans had just come into power and argued about it back then. 
President Clinton, to his credit, found an offset they could agree to, 
and they did it.
  I don't think we should make this a routine exercise. It is not right 
for the flood victims or the taxpayers in the long run. Eventually, we 
will find a way to pay for these things, so let's reason together.
  Harry Reid sent us a reasonable compromise. The House should focus on 
this and try to take this compromise--if we can. It has been worth 
discussing because this is going to go into law one way or the other, 
and we are going to be living with the consequences. Those of us on the 
gulf coast who are in hurricane alley--I will show this chart, and it 
is quite disturbing. I will put it up again.
  This chart shows from 1851 to 2008. These lines represent every 
hurricane that has hit the lower 48. These large colored lines are 
Katrina, Gustav, Rita, and Ike. Most certainly, along the east coast 
people should know that this is just what happened. There was also a 
tornado chart that showed where the tornadoes hit, and there was one 
for the earthquakes. Every part of the country at some time experiences 
a disaster. We don't have to run up to Washington and gut the education 
programs overnight or gut our transportation programs overnight or try 
to call a special committee meeting to find out where we can come up 
with $1 billion by Friday to send to FEMA. We send it, and then we make 
those decisions over time. It is the way any corporation would operate, 
it is the way any family would operate, and it is the way our 
government should operate.
  Again, if we take this Cantor doctrine to its ridiculous extreme, we 
would have firetrucks screaming down the street while a house is on 
fire, and before they turn the hose on, they would ask the family to 
come out and they would ask them what they should cut in the city 
budget before they turned on the water. We can only make reasonable 
assumptions about what disasters there will be--their frequency and 
their rate. If we go under a little bit, then we have to provide the 
money until we can fix it in the long run.
  I am going to yield the floor. I thank the Members for engaging in 
this debate.

                          ____________________