To modify the project for flood control, Big Sioux River and Skunk Creek, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

FLOOD INSURANCE REFORM AND MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2007

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 2284, which the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 2284) to amend the National Flood Insurance Act
of 1968, to restore the financial solvency of the flood
insurance fund, and for other purposes.

Pending:

Dodd/Shelby amendment No. 4707, in the nature of a
substitute.
McConnell amendment No. 4720 (to the text of the bill
proposed to be stricken by amendment No. 4707), of a
perfecting nature.
Allard amendment No. 4721 (to amendment No. 4720), of a
perfecting nature.
Landrieu/Nelson (FL) modified amendment No. 4706 (to
amendment No. 4707), to improve the Office of the Flood
Insurance Advocate.
Nelson (FL) amendment No. 4709 (to amendment No. 4707), to
establish a National Catastrophe Risks Consortium and a
National Homeowners' Insurance Stabilization Program.
DeMint amendment No. 4711 (to amendment No. 4707), to
require the Director to conduct a study on the impact,
effectiveness, and feasibility of amending section 1361 of
the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 to include widely
used and nationally recognized building codes as part of the
flood plain management criteria developed under such section.
DeMint modified amendment No. 4710 (to amendment No. 4707),
to end the premium subsidy for any property purchased after
the date of enactment of this act.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to inform my colleagues we are open
for business. I know there are amendments that Members have they would
like to be considered. I am more than happy, with my colleague, the
ranking member, Senator Shelby, to try to consider those amendments and
deal with them expeditiously.
Last evening, we entered a unanimous consent agreement which requires
that all amendments be offered,

[[Page S3947]]

debated, and voted on by the close of business today. The close of
business today can occur any time between now and midnight. I suspect
most Members, knowing there may not be any votes tomorrow--I forget
exactly what the leader said about that. I think there is a possibility
of no votes tomorrow depending on the schedule and agenda. If that is
the case, if we deal with these amendments between now and the early
part of the afternoon, we can complete the business of this bill until
next week when we will have votes on energy issues before final passage
of the flood insurance bill.
Again, I am willing and anxious to consider the amendments. I know
several people have amendments. They offered some of them last evening
and debated them to some degree. So we are prepared to enter into a
little more debate and get to some votes. My idea is, to satisfy the
convenience of Members, to try to consider three or four of these
amendments and then hold a period of 45 minutes or so to vote on three
or four items at a time rather than bring Members over every half hour
for a 15-minute vote. We will try to deal with several amendments and
then have a period of voting before considering the second tranche of
issues.
I know Senator Shelby is in the vicinity. We are here to entertain
these proposals.
Mr. President, 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.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. COBURN. What is the pending business of the Senate?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Amendment No. 4710 to S. 2284.

Amendment No. 4716 to Amendment No. 4707

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that amendment be set aside and
amendment 4716 be called up.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an
amendment numbered 4716 to amendment No. 4707.

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be
dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To require persons located in flood prone areas to hold flood
insurance as a condition for receiving federal disaster assistance)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. ___. DISASTER ASSISTANCE.

No person shall be eligible to receive disaster assistance
under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency
Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.) or the Small Business
Act (15 U.S.C. 631 et seq.) relating to damage to a property
located in a 100-year floodplain caused by flooding, unless
prior to such flooding that person purchased and maintained
flood insurance for that property under the national flood
insurance program established under chapter I of the National
Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 4011 et seq.).

Mr. COBURN. First of all, let me compliment the chairman and ranking
member on this bill. They have made some tremendous strides in trying
to fix this program. The one thing we have not done is we have not
asked people in this country, who are in flood-prone areas, to actually
be responsible. We are going to get about $17 billion and charge it to
our grandkids because we have to get rid of some debt because the
insurance program had not done in the past what we intended it to do. I
believe you have fairly well fixed that for the future--my hope is that
you have. I am not convinced of that yet.
What this amendment does is requires FEMA and the Small Business
Administration to withhold any Federal flood disaster payments and
assistance to people who have not purchased flood insurance. These are
people who reside in a 100-year flood plain zone, meaning that
catastrophic flooding is expected to occur once every 100 years. These
are known as special flood hazard areas.
Owners of properties in these flood-prone areas are already required
by law to have flood insurance. Yet what we have seen is, time and time
again, they do not have it. So, in effect, even though there is a
requirement for flood insurance to be there, they do not have it, so
the cost, in terms of disasters, goes up for the Federal Government.
The whole purpose behind this bill in the first place, when it was
first initiated, was to lessen the cost of the American taxpayer in
terms of disasters so owners of properties in these flood-prone areas
are required by law to purchase flood insurance if they have a
federally backed loan. This amendment would simply ensure that the law
is enforced.
I know this is a hard amendment because what we think about is what
about those bad actors, what about those who do not--what we are doing
to them. But actually we ought to think in the positive, that if, in
fact, you are supposed to have flood insurance and you do not, how do
we ever force everybody to do that unless there is a consequence? The
consequence ought to be, if you did not follow the rules of purchasing
flood insurance when you lived in a 100-year flood plain zone, a high-
risk area, then you are asking the rest of the taxpayers not only to
rebuild your home but to also give you the benefit of not paying a
premium on flood insurance. Those people in those areas are actually
taking advantage of the rest of the American taxpayers if, in fact,
they do not follow the law.
So this is simply saying: OK, here is the law. You have a federally
backed mortgage. Your mortgagor is supposed to require that--as a
matter of fact, it was fixed in 1994, I believe, that if you do not,
they would. What we have seen in the last disasters is the owner did
not, and the mortgage backer did not. Consequently, we had a large
number of people who had no flood insurance.
Now, all this amendment says is, OK, we are putting you on notice
right now, if you have a federally backed mortgage and you are in a
flood plain zone and you do not have flood insurance, you do not get
the disaster relief. You do not get the grant. You do not get what
everybody who follows the rules gets.
The problem with not accepting this amendment is we will undermine
the rest of the flood insurance program, the very good work that the
chairman and ranking member did on this bill, because if there is no
consequence to not following the law, not buying insurance, why will
anybody buy the insurance? In other words, if we are still going to
pony up the money, what is the incentive to get them to do that? I know
the chairman and the ranking member are concerned about that.
Some statistics are real important. On the repetitive loss
properties, what we know is that 1 percent of the properties in this
country over the last 15 years account for about 34 percent of all of
the expenditures. In other words, they have been damaged time and time
again. And the chairman and the ranking member have done a good job in
terms of addressing how we fix that in the outyears. But when one-third
of the money goes for 1 percent of the homes, something is very wrong.
All this amendment is designed to do is to bring them forward so we
lessen this amount. More than 50,000 of these repetitive loss
properties have flood coverage right now but 61,000 do not; 61,000 of
the repetitive loss properties have no flood insurance right now.
So how do we make them do it? Where is the teeth to make them do it,
other than to know that next time, unless they have flood insurance,
they are not going to get the benefit the rest of the American
taxpayers get in terms of helping them out of a jam. Ultimately, what
this does is it incentivizes us to have people take risks that would
not otherwise take risks because they know we have their back. All this
amendment says is, be an adult; participate in carrying some of the
risk.
So when over 50 percent of the repetitive loss properties have no
flood insurance, I would like to know how we are going to get them to
get it under this bill if there is no teeth to make them do it.
Now, I have every intention, as I have spoken to the chairman and the
ranking member, of withdrawing this amendment. But my hope would be
that in conference you would address this incentive issue because I
believe right now there is a large incentive not

[[Page S3948]]

to insure their property because we have their back and there is no
hard penalty to do that.
If in fact I have a home and it is one of the repetitive loss
properties and I do not buy flood insurance, we have a hurricane or a
storm and it is damaged and I know I can still get it fixed, why am I
going to buy the flood insurance? Especially, let's say, I do not have
a loan on it. Let's say I am down there. I am in a very high risk area.
I do not have any loan on it and, to me, I know if I get a flood, no
problem; the Government is going to back me up.
So what we are doing is sending a signal to the people basically who
have no mortgage: The rest of the American people are going to insure
you for your flood. And I do not think that is right.
I will ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment. I think the
amendment would markedly strengthen what this bill is trying to
accomplish. My hope would be that in conference, if you do not like my
language, you at least put something into the bill that will have some
teeth that forces good behavior and forces those who own the properties
to actually have some responsibility for the properties. I am not
against us helping to create an insurance market. I am not sure this is
the best way to do it. But we have certainly made big strides to
improve the bill.

Amendment No. 4716 Withdrawn

I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment (No. 4716) was withdrawn.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I want to respond to the Senator from
Oklahoma and commend him for his efforts in this area.
What Senator Dodd and I and other Members, including the Presiding
Officer at the moment, who is involved in banking issues and insurance,
and so forth, know is that this flood insurance program is bankrupt, as
does the Senator from Oklahoma. It is not working. And what we are
trying to do is move it toward an actuarially sound basis.
The Senator's suggestion is something I think we ought to consider as
we move along down the road because we want to make sure nobody beats
the system. In other words, the more people who are involved in the
flood insurance program, proper mapping is going to mean lower premiums
to everybody. And the problem, in the long run, as we have
catastrophes, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes--well, in this case
floods and water--that the insurance would take care of it rather than
thinking, as the Senator from Oklahoma says: Well, I do not have to
insure you; the Government, the taxpayer, the people will take care of
me in the end.
I think that is what we are trying to prevent. I think the Senator
from Oklahoma has a very good point.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, in response to Senator Coburn's earlier
comments, I thank him for his courtesy in withdrawing the amendment. He
is raising a very legitimate issue about how we get greater compliance,
as Senator Shelby pointed out, and achieve greater actuarial soundness
in a program that is in desperate need of that.
The bill does something else. In fact, we voted on it last evening. I
believe Senator Landrieu and Senator Dorgan offered an amendment that
would have stripped out the mandatory requirements of people being
required to pay premiums if they live in these high-risk areas. That
amendment was defeated pretty soundly here. It is less than a dollar a
day, about $316, I think, to a maximum of $350 a year under our bill
for about 350,000 dollars' worth of coverage: $250,000 for the
property, $100,000 for contents.
The House bill actually goes out a bit higher. Senator Vitter wanted
to raise that number. Senator Shelby and I opposed that amendment. I am
not unsympathetic to Senator Vitter's suggestion in certain high-cost
areas that $250,000 ought to be a bit higher.
But the point Senator Coburn is making is that we want to get people
here to contribute. We have 25 percent of the claims that are coming
from these risky areas where only 1 percent of policies are actually
being paid. So one out of every four dollars that is going out for
coverage under the flood insurance program is in these areas, and yet
less than 1 percent of the premiums are being paid out of those areas.

So, clearly, if you are going to be actuarially sound, you get that
many claims out of that area, you have to get more compliance. How do
you do that? Our bill does not go as far as Senator Coburn's does, but
in our bill we require, as we do under a lot of similar areas, that the
banks be required to collect these premiums, in fact, even hold them in
escrow so we have a better assurance that we are going to get a lot
more compliance with that approach.
But I am certainly sympathetic to the goals of ensuring that we get
as much compliance as possible, and how you do that is a legitimate
debate. I appreciate his raising the issue.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Dodd. I think when you
fixed this in 1994 or 1997 is when you required the banks on the
mortgage to have a notice and pay it and then add to it. But it
obviously was not enough teeth to get us up to where we need to be. So
I think we need something stronger than that.
Overall--and this is no reflection on the good work that has been
done on this bill but we have to ask ourselves--we are talking about
$30 billion with this bill. That is going to actually go against the
Treasury. We are going to have $17 billion that we are going to kiss
off. We are going to say the people who are living in these flood-prone
areas, because their insurance did not truly reflect--we did not have
it spread broadly enough, $17 billion of it we cannot pay back, so we
are going to forgive that.
Well, what does forgiving that mean? What that means is we are going
to take the money from the Treasury, we are not going to charge it to
the National Flood Insurance Program, but someone is going to have to
pay that off. And who is going to pay that off? It is going to be our
kids. And there is almost $9 billion in interest that is going to be
not paid off, so we are going to charge that to our kids. Then there is
another $3 billion still, I understand, to come from the Katrina-Rita-
related storms in terms of payments that are also going out.
So what we are going to have is $30 billion, because the program was
not actuarially sound in the past, that now we are saying to our kids
and grandkids we are going to make actuarially sound, and they are
going to pay.
So what we are doing with this bill--and, again, it is not an
indictment. You made a lot of headway, but there has to be another way
to fix this rather than charge it to our kids. So when you take this
$30 billion, on top of the 10 we have now and the $74 trillion that is
coming, we have a significant debt in terms of being fair to the next
generation. This bill underlies and forgives all the debt to the
Treasury, and it translates into roughly $30.2 billion. That is how
poorly the program worked in the past.
Again, I think we have made major improvements to the bill. But I
believe it is important enough for us to vote on whether we want to
send another $30 billion toward our kids rather than make people who
have homes in flood-prone areas who are getting the benefit from it pay
for a portion of the cost.
Mr. President, I make a point of order that the substitute amendment
violates section 201 of S. Con. Res 21 of the 110th Congress and ask
for the yeas and nays associated with that, according to however the
chairman would like to schedule votes.
I know he will make a motion to waive the point of order. That is
expected. But I would like to have a vote on that, if I could.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act
for the consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas
and nays.

[[Page S3949]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays are ordered.
Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the motion to
waive the Budget Act with respect to the Coburn budget point of order
occur at 12 noon today, with 2 minutes of debate prior to the vote
equally divided and controlled by myself and Senator Coburn or our
designees.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COBURN. I would like to make one more point. Politics is
politics, but in the realm of politics the long term is what is getting
ready to happen in this country because we are on an unsustainable
course. I believe we have to be guardians for the future. And I believe
in waiving the pay-go rules we are not doing that; that we are not a
guardian for the future.
If you think about $30 billion, you are asking every person in this
country this year to pay an extra $100 because this program was not
funded and arranged properly.
What we also ought to consider is making sure we never do this again.
And I would hope that when and if this budget point of order is waived
the chairman and ranking member will put something in the bill that
prohibits us from going back and ever waiving debt for this program
again.
He wants it actuarially sound, I know that. I know the ranking member
wants it actuarially sound. But it is truly unfair, when we spend
$28,500 per household at the Federal Government level and the median
income in this country is $42,000 and we are already spending 70
percent of that at the Federal Government level and a third of it we
are not paying for, we are borrowing from our children, to add on
another $30 billion. What we are talking about is opportunity. We don't
want to be tough enough now to not take opportunity away from our kids.
So the choice is, can we have what we want now and it not hurt our
children. The fact is, we can't. We are hurting our kids when we
borrow, when we forgive this money. What we should be charging this
money to is to the people who have benefited from the coverage. That is
who ought to be paying for it. That is who got the flood insurance at a
falsely low rate. My hope is that we think long term, not short term. I
know you have done that to a great extent in the bill. But my hope is
that somehow when you are in conference, that you might put some type
of prohibition of ever waiving the debt again, to force the program to
always be actuarially sound. If we could do that, we would not ever get
to this point again. I know the chairman doesn't want us to get to
where we are waiving this debt again, which will force the flood
insurance program to be on the same footing as every other insurance
company.
I thank the chairman and ranking member for taking two of my
amendments, one a study on reinsurance. The reinsurance we have right
now is the American taxpayer. That is who is going to do the
reinsurance this time of $30 billion. I am appreciative that they
considered this and accepted it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. Let me underscore the
point that, some 23 years ago, I was a new Member of this institution
sitting in that last chair over in the corner, and I offered a pay-as-
you-go budget. I think I got 24 votes in 1983 or 1984. I have strong
feelings about whether we will be accountable and whether we pay for
what we want to do. My colleague from Oklahoma certainly raises a point
I have raised for as long as I have been here and tried legislatively
to insist upon some accountability in how we do things. With this
program, obviously the problem we are in is by attaching these
additional costs onto the premium cost today, we make it prohibitive
for a lot of people. So we were faced with a choice which was not one I
would have preferred. But we have ourselves in a position in this
country today where we are spending almost that amount of money every
month on the conflict in Iraq, and we are not paying for it, something
Harry Truman would not have tolerated. In the war in Korea, he said we
would go to Korea provided the American taxpayer was willing to pay for
it.
Every 8 weeks we are accumulating a debt and passing it on to my 3-
year-old. The Senator knows I have young children. Every 8 weeks we are
asking my daughter to assume the financial responsibility of this
conflict. In addition to this program, we are trying to make a
difference in people's lives, where they may lose their homes and their
life's possessions. That is certainly one I would like to see us
account for, but we are facing a situation today where I have to try
and move this along. But I would hope that on a whole host of these
issues, where we are talking about deficit financing or financing
things without paying for them, that we would apply the same standards
so we have this kind of uniformity to our concerns. And certainly, the
$2 billion every week, the $12 billion every month, the $24 to $30
billion every 2 months is another example of what happens when we ask
the American taxpayer in the future to assume a responsibility. It is a
legitimate point the Senator raises. I identify with it. In my tenure,
I have tried to do something about it. Hopefully, we have done that,
Senator Shelby and I.
I appreciate his kind comments about our effort in this bill to put
this program on the kind of footing that never causes us to come back
here again under similar circumstances and make a similar request for
excusing a responsibility that FEMA had to borrow from the Federal
Government to meet that $17 billion worth of obligations after the
storms of 2005, which devastated a good part of the country.
At the appropriate time, we will have a vote on the Senator's motion.
In the meantime, we have some other amendments that I think are coming.
I know Senator Nelson and Senator DeMint and others have some
amendments. I am happy to consider those as soon as they come over.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. I want the record to show I voted against the last
supplemental because it was not paid for. No. 2, it had $27 billion of
extraneous spending that was not paid for either that was offered by
the Appropriations Committee. It has to start somewhere. I am OK with
it starting with me. I don't earmark anything back to Oklahoma. I look
at every appropriations bill and see if it is wise. So consequently, I
vote for few appropriations bills because they are not wise, with the
waste that is in the Federal Government.
One final point. According to GAO, IGs, and the Congressional
Research Service, we have $300 billion of waste a year in the Federal
Government. The Congress didn't do anything about it. We have plenty of
ways to pay for the war, pay for this, and do other things, if we do
the hard work of oversight and make the hard choices about prioritizing
what is important. But we find that very difficult to do as a body. I
am worried that we find that because we are not thinking long term. We
are thinking short term.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I made this point about an hour ago. We all
are familiar with what happens toward the end of the week here. I know
Members are asking me what time we will be adjourning. That is a
leadership decision, obviously. But we are required now, under the
unanimous consent agreement of last evening, that all amendments will
be considered by the close of business today. As I pointed out earlier,
that close of business could occur at any point between now and
midnight. But I suspect most Members are making plans to probably head
back to their respective States for Mother's Day weekend sometime late
this afternoon or early evening. If you have amendments on this bill, I
urge you to come to the floor and offer them. Coming over at 3 o'clock,
there is no guarantee that you are going to have the opportunity to
make the case on behalf of the proposal, to the extent you would like.

[[Page S3950]]

I urge Members on both sides to come to the floor. I appreciate the
fact that last evening several did make their case, and we are
scheduling votes for early this afternoon on those matters. In the
meantime, I would like to line up other votes on these matters so we
could conclude work on this bill at a reasonable hour this afternoon
that would allow Members to meet their travel obligations. In the
absence of that, we may be here until very late this evening, which I
know will throw a monkey wrench into people's plans. We are here. We
have been here. We will be here. But we have been in a quorum call
waiting for Members to come over with their ideas. Coming around 4 or 5
this afternoon and wondering whether we are going to leave 15 minutes
later is not going to happen. I urge Members now to be here and make
their case or let us know that you don't intend to offer the amendment,
in which case we can clear the decks and get to the few votes we have
remaining and move on. One way or the other, we are happy to accept.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 4709 Withdrawn

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to
withdraw amendment No. 4709.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is withdrawn.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Thank you, Mr. President.

Amendment No. 4707

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will now be 2 minutes of debate equally
divided on the motion to waive.
Who seeks time?
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I should begin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me first of all say on this motion by
our colleague from Oklahoma that Senator Shelby and I, and I believe
most of us here, don't have a philosophical disagreement. I think we
all appreciate the fact that we have ourselves in a situation where we
have massive deficits that are growing by the hour. We have seen it in
a number of areas. This is one in which we are actually forgiving a
debt. Obviously, to do so, it is going to require at some point for us
to pay for this debt and obligation. Senator Coburn says we ought to be
doing that under the pay-go rules. As someone who has over the years
authored, in fact, legislation requiring pay-as-you-go proposals, I am
very sympathetic to this idea. I would like to see us apply it more
uniformly in many ways.
Senator Shelby and I are doing our best to take this program, which
is absolutely critical, and to put it on a sound actuarial footing and,
by doing so, move us forward. We can't do that if we don't have an
excuse, if you will, on this debt that is out there today. We have
raised the cost of premiums to a prohibitive level.
So I am moving to waive this point of order the Senator from Oklahoma
is making, with the full understanding that it is a legitimate point he
is making. But if we are going to succeed with this program and get it
done, we can't do otherwise. We will be stuck with a program that will
be far too costly.
With that, I urge my colleagues to support us on the motion to waive.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is a great choice. We can prove to
the American people we either really care about the budget or not. This
violates pay-go rules. We shouldn't send $30 billion to our grandkids.
We ought to take it from some of the excess we have today.
I agree Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby have done a good job on this,
but I don't think our grandchildren ought to pay because we designed a
program in 1977 and modified it in 1994 and it still doesn't work and
then have them pay $40 billion. We ought to enforce the pay-go rules,
and we ought to come up with another way to pay for this money.
I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
waive the point of order under section 201 of S. Con. Res. 21 against
the Dodd substitute amendment.
The yeas and nays are ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton)
and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Arizona (Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yea and nays resulted--yeas 70, nays 26, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 121 Leg.]

YEAS--70

Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Brown
Bunning
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Dodd
Dole
Durbin
Feinstein
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
Martinez
McCaskill
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Salazar
Sanders
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Tester
Vitter
Webb
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden

NAYS--26

Barrasso
Brownback
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Conrad
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
Domenici
Dorgan
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Inhofe
Isakson
Kyl
Lincoln
McConnell
Pryor
Sununu
Thune
Voinovich

NOT VOTING--4

Clinton
McCain
Obama
Warner
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 70 and the nays are
26. Three-fifths of the Senate duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to
lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada is recognized.

Amendment No. 4734

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Ensign], for himself and Mr.
Reid, proposes an amendment numbered 4734 to amendment No.
4707.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To provide compensation to the citizens of Fernley, Nevada
damaged by the failure of the Truckee Canal)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. __. FERNLEY FLOOD COMPENSATION.

(a) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Covered person.--The term ``covered person'' means a
United States citizen, an alien lawfully admitted for
permanent residence, the City of Fernley, Lyon County, a
person that is not an individual, or a school district.
(2) Fernley flood.--The term ``Fernley flood'' means the
breach of the Truckee Irrigation Canal on January 5, 2008,
and subsequent flooding of the City of Fernley, Nevada.
(3) Injured party.--The term ``injured party'' means a
covered person that suffered damages resulting from the
Fernley flood.
(b) Compensation and Source of Funds.--
(1) Compensation.--Each injured party shall be eligible to
receive from the United States compensation for damages
suffered as a result of the Fernley flood.
(2) Source of funds.--The Director shall compensate each
injured party for damages resulting from the Fernley flood
from the permanent judgment appropriation under section 1304
of title 31, United States Code.
(c) Insurance and Other Benefits.--The Director shall
reduce the amount to be paid

[[Page S3951]]

to an injured party relating to the Fernley flood by an
amount that is equal to the total of insurance benefits
(excluding life insurance benefits) or other payments or
settlements of any nature relating to the Fernley flood that
were paid, or will be paid, to that injured party.
(d) Acceptance of Award.--The acceptance by a injured party
of any payment under this section shall (excluding claims
relating to life insurance benefits)--
(1) be final and conclusive as to any claim of that injured
party relating to damages suffered because of the Fernley
flood; and
(2) constitute a complete and full release of all claims of
that injured party relating to the Fernley flood against the
United States, the State of Nevada, Lyon County, Nevada, the
City of Fernley, Nevada, and the Truckee-Carson Irrigation
District.
(e) Regulations.--Not later than 90 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Director shall promulgate and
publish in the Federal Register interim final regulations to
carry out this section.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.

Amendment No. 4715, As Modified

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the
pending amendment and I call up amendment No. 4715, as modified.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] proposes an
amendment numbered 4715, as modified, to amendment 4707.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:

On page 11, line 11 after the first period, insert the
following:
``(h) Use of Maps to Establish Rates for Certain
Counties.--
``(1) In general.--Until such time as the updating of flood
insurance rate maps under section 19 of the Flood
Modernization Act of 2007 is completed (as determined by the
district engineer) for all areas located in the St. Louis
District of the Mississippi Valley Division of the Corps of
Engineers, the Director shall not--
``(A) adjust the chargeable premium rate for flood
insurance under this title for any type or class of property
located in an area in that District; and
``(B) require the purchase of flood insurance for any type
or class of property located in an area in that District not
subject to such purchase requirement prior to the updating of
such national flood insurance program rate map.
``(2) Rule of construction.--For purposes of this
subsection, the term `area' does not include any area (or
subdivision thereof) that has chosen not to participate in
the flood insurance program under this title as of the date
of enactment of this subsection.''.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we have a window here. I see Senator Thune
and he has the possibility of offering his amendment. I think Senator
Boxer wants to express herself on that. She may be on her way over. If
my colleague from South Dakota is prepared to offer his amendment, or
talk about it, that would be helpful. Anybody else who has amendments
who would like to offer them--I see the Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Connecticut, how
many amendments are remaining on this bill, based on what he knows at
this time?
Mr. DODD. I am glad the Senator clarified that. We have about five or
six, based on what I know. There will be five or six votes at the most,
as of now.
Mr. DORGAN. I am still trying to determine whether I can successfully
offer an amendment. I know I have a right to offer it, but whether it
is successful----
Mr. DODD. That is the Senator's problem.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me make a point again to the Senator
from Connecticut and see if there is any mutual understanding on these
issues.
To use one example, we had a city that was completely evacuated in my
State by a flood 10 years ago--actually 11 years ago now. It was the
largest evacuation of any city since the Civil War. A city of 50,000
was completely evacuated because of a flood. In the middle of that
flood, there was a fire in downtown Grand Forks, ND. A city that was
flooded and evacuated was on fire.
In the intervening 10 years, there has been a flood protection plan,
a very expensive one, $416 million, built to protect that city. The
residents of that city, I believe, paid 45 percent of the cost of that
flood protection plan.
As I read title VII--I believe it is on page 9 of the legislation--
what is being said now is this city that has a 250-year flood plan,
that is to protect against a 250-year flood, will be told: By the way,
you residents, yes, you paid a lot of money for flood protection. It is
blue ribbon, first rate, first class protection against a 250-year
flood, but we have now decided you have to ante up $1 a day to buy
flood insurance.
They are going to ask the question: What is this flood protection we
paid for? We were told this was blue-ribbon flood protection. I know
you have a 250-year flood protection levee; now we want you to buy
flood insurance.
Is there anything in the legislation that allows FEMA to look at this
situation, here is a levee that gives 100-year protection, here is a
levee that gives 250-year protection, and here is one that doesn't give
any at all? We have different kinds of insurance. Would FEMA be allowed
to take a look at a new state-of-the-art, blue-ribbon, 250-year flood
protection device and say those folks don't need to buy flood
insurance, they just paid a substantial portion of the cost of a
significant new flood protection device?
I ask the Senator from Connecticut, what is his intention with
respect to that provision of the law?
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague from North
Dakota. I am familiar with the community. As my colleague will recall,
at his invitation, I gave the commencement address at the University of
North Dakota a few years ago and arrived a day or so early. I had an
opportunity to visit the mayor and actually see the city that went
through that remarkable devastation of flood and fire, simultaneously,
in fact, and the rather remarkable recovery and great spirit that
exists in that community.
Here is what we are doing. There are those who believe if you have
any kind of a dike, dam or levee, that you should not have to pay for
flood insurance. We cannot tolerate that in a sense. We have 130 dams,
levees, and dikes that are at great risk of one kind or another in
these residual risk areas. About 25 percent all the claims against the
flood insurance program come out of these residual risk areas, not the
coastline. Clearly, having dikes, levees, and dams help.
The fact is, the reason there is a dike, levee or dam is because it
is in a residual risk area. Anything made by man or nature, there is no
guarantee in perpetuity it is going to survive, even the 250 years
about which we talked. What better example than Louisiana. We spent
millions of dollars on a system down there that didn't work,
ultimately. The idea of having someone pay a maximum of $350,000 worth
of insurance--actually, the average cost is $316 a year. Less than a
dollar a day for this kind of coverage is something we feel is
dispersing that risk, bringing the cost in for the program.
Let me say to my colleague from North Dakota, he makes an interesting
point. We are, in fact, in discussions with the other members of the
committee on this very point, where you might be able to prorate, it
seems to me, some of these costs based on the quality of that dam, dike
or levee. I cannot subscribe to the notion of eliminating it
altogether, but certainly when you have a state-of-the-art facility,
then as a result of that, there is less of a risk. There still is risk.
So you may bring down the cost of that risk.
We are negotiating about doing that as a way to recognize those kinds
of contributions. So there would be some prorating.
Mr. DORGAN. I understand the notion of residual risk, and I think the
Senator from Connecticut will agree those residual risks are different
in different circumstances. I am not suggesting if you are behind a
levee, wherever that levee is, you shouldn't have to buy flood
insurance. But I am suggesting if you exhausted yourself and your
community and your region producing a state-of-the-art flood control
plan and spent a lot of money doing so, including your own money, and
you are now told you have a 250-year protection, that when somebody
from FEMA comes in and says, it doesn't matter a bit, it is irrelevant
you built that, it

[[Page S3952]]

doesn't matter, you are going to be required to purchase what our
friends from the committee have now enacted--if my colleague from
Connecticut is saying this legislation either will or, as we might want
to change it, could allow FEMA to take a look at that brand new 250-
year flood protection plan and say, in this circumstance you have
minimal requirements----
Mr. DODD. I think it is a very good idea and suggestion and one about
which I have not had a chance to get into a long conversation with
Senator Shelby. I like the concept, the idea.
Remember this. The insurance program, putting aside whether you think
the cost is high or low, without the insurance program, and if things
don't work and you lose your home, there is no program of Federal
disaster relief that rebuilds your home.
What the insurance program does for $316 a year is it gives you a
chance to rebuild your home and the contents you lose. There is no
disaster relief program the Senator from North Dakota and I have been a
part of that provides that kind of assistance to homeowners affected by
natural disaster.

This insurance program has great value to these people who live in
these areas. It is a cost but actually has a value. I think the numbers
ought to be higher than $350,000. I live in a higher cost area. So a
$250,000 home in my State is less than the median cost of a home. I
would like to see those values go up again. I presume in North Dakota
$250,000 may be more a median cost of a home.
The idea that you are going to get for that $316 a year $350,000 back
to rebuild that home of yours has value. I think prorating, based on
the condition of dikes and levees, makes good sense. We will try to
work on it.
Mr. DORGAN. We don't have a problem with the merit and value of flood
insurance. I think the program makes sense. We have an agreement, as it
is currently written, and I hope we can perhaps modify it in a
managers' amendment. On page 9, section 7, it appears to me FEMA would
be required to come in and say: Ah ha, you are behind that levee;
therefore, you must purchase this insurance. I hope what the Senator
from Connecticut intends with this is that it be risk based because
there will clearly be a different risk attached to someone who has a
brand new levee system that they exhausted themselves paying for over
the last 10 years. It is all done. They cut the ribbon, they
celebrated, they had the town band out, in fact, but they are told by
FEMA: That is not a factor.
Mr. DODD. I think we are on the same page.
Mr. DORGAN. Let's see if we can craft something between now and the
end of the day. I would not offer the amendment; the Senator from
Connecticut will offer it, and it represents our combined views about
this issue.
I appreciate my colleague having this colloquy.
Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague. It is a very good suggestion; once
again, a very good suggestion.
The door is open for business. If anyone has amendments, we would
like to have Members come over and offer the amendment. In the
meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator withhold?
Mr. DODD. Yes, I withhold.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask for 5 minutes in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Oil and Gas Prices

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to make a point. I don't know yet
if there is a markup this afternoon of the Appropriations full
committee. If there is, I am intending to offer a couple amendments to
that markup. I wish to describe one amendment that I plan to offer, and
that relates to dealing with oil and gas prices.
The price of oil is way beyond that which is justifiable by simple
supply and demand conditions. It is bouncing around like a yo-yo up
around $120 and as much as $124 a barrel of oil. There is no
justification in the supply and demand of oil for that price. It is
damaging to the economy, and it hurts a series of industries in this
country. The airline industry and trucking industry are just two
examples. It hurts every American as they pull up to the gas pump to
figure out where they are going to get the money to pay for the
gasoline price.
What is happening? At the moment, a couple of things are happening.
One, we have an unbelievable bubble of speculation in the futures
market. I have people say to me: That is not true. It is true. It is
hard to justify the current price of oil given the physical elements of
the market today. What we have is people entering the commodities
futures market that have no interest in buying oil. They buy oil and
sell it. They never take possession of it. They buy what they will
never get from people who never had it. They are making money on both
sides of the transaction because they are waging. To put it plainly,
they are gambling. That is speculation. We have an orgy of speculation
on the futures market.
We had people testify in the Senate and House that it adds $20 to $30
to a barrel of oil. Should we sit back and watch a bubble develop and
say, ``Whatever the consequences, that is fine?'' The answer is no, of
course, we should not. Buy stock on margin and it will cost you a 50-
percent margin requirement. If you want to buy oil on margin in the
futures market for crude oil, then you pay 5 to 7 percent.
We have hedge funds neck deep in the futures market. We have
investment banks neck deep in the futures market. Are they are oil
experts? Do they want to own oil? No, they want to speculate on oil and
make money.
The fact is, it is damaging this country's economy. We ought to wring
that speculation out of those commodity markets. We ought to be
increasing margin requirements. I know it is hard to do, but we ought
to do that. When we see this kind of speculation damaging our country
by driving up oil prices and driving up gasoline prices, we ought to do
something about it.
Second, we are now putting oil underground right now. We are taking
sweet light crude oil off the Gulf of Mexico and sticking it
underground in something called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I
think it is fine to have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve if we run into
trouble. It is nice to have an oil reserve. Yet, that reserve is 97
percent full. Still, this administration is taking up to 70,000 barrels
a day, every single day, and sticking it underground.
They say it doesn't affect the price. Of course, it affects the
price. We had testimony before the Energy Committee that because it is
a much more valuable subset of oil, called sweet light crude, that it
has as much as a 10-percent impact on the price of oil and gasoline.
So, of course, it affects the price.

I think it is nuts for this country to be taking $124 barrel of oil
and saying let's stick that underground and save it for a rainy day. I
tell you what, it is a rainy day these days when you have to pay this
price at the pump. It is a rainy day these days when you see four, five
airlines go belly up because they cannot afford the fuel. It is a rainy
day these days when truckers say that we have to park the truck because
we can't afford the fuel. An entire industry is at risk.
The fact is, we have to do something about it. I mentioned two
things, both of which are tangible and real and both of which are
causing this increase, at least a significant part, in my judgment, in
the increase in the ramp-up of the price of oil and gasoline.
The President believes that there is not much anybody can do in the
near term. This is not a time to wring our hands, mop our brow, gnash
our teeth and say there is not much anybody can do. This is a time for
us to try to figure out what is happening and try to respond to it. It
is doing great damage to our economy.
In the longer term, I believe that there are things we need to do. We
are unbelievably dependent on overseas oil. We are unbelievably
dependent on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Venezuela. Sixty percent of
our oil comes from offshore. As I described before and others have, we
stick straws in this planet and suck oil out of the planet. Every day
we suck out 85 million barrels of oil. One-fourth of that has to be
used in this country.
Let me say that again. The appetite of oil is this: One-fourth of all
the oil we pull out of the planet every day is used in this little
place called the United States of America. Sixty percent we get from
outside our country. Seventy percent of it is used by vehicles. We have
a lot to do.

[[Page S3953]]

After 32 years, we finally mandated an increase of 10 miles per
gallon in 10 years on a range of vehicles. We also need to produce
more. I and three others in this Chamber got the law changed to allow
us to go into lease 181 in the Gulf of Mexico and finally produce more
oil and gas. Frankly, we ought to open up more of the Gulf of Mexico.
That is the greatest potential reserve on the Outer Continental Shelf.
I and three others introduced the legislation and got it passed and
opened up lease 181. If you look at the Gulf of Mexico, California, and
Alaska, and the East Coast, the greatest potential reserves are in the
Gulf of Mexico.
We need to conserve more and produce more. We need greater efficiency
for all we use, and we especially need to move into renewables.
I understand we have to do all of that. At the moment and in the
short run, we have to take specific steps that will put downward
pressure on prices. John Maynard Keynes said, ``In the long we are all
dead.'' That is an economist talking. We can talk about the long run
here, but let's also talk about the short run right now.
What can we do to address something that most Americans understand is
a very serious problem? The issue is price of gasoline? I am just
saying this, and there are those who disagree with me. Look at the
commodities market and look at this orgy of speculation. This is a
bubble. Wouldn't it be nice if someone had looked at that bubble as it
built with respect to home mortgages and home prices? We have seen a
lot of bubbles. We have seen the tech bubble. We have seen the bubble
in home prices. Every bubble bursts. This one will. But in the
meantime, how many additional casualties will we see on the side of the
road? Look at what's happening with American families, American
business, American industries. How many casualties? The big integrated
oil companies go to the bank with a ``permagrin.'' They can't stop
smiling because they are depositing our money in their bank accounts.
But it is not only the big integrated oil companies, it is the OPEC
countries. They are going to the bank everyday with our money because
we recycle this money to provide for a bank account for the Saudis and
others just like we do for the major integrated companies.
I do not think there is any justification for this price. This
Congress is prepared to act. Senator Reid and others have joined
together, and I am a part of it to deal with this issue of putting oil
underground. We are going to stop it in its tracks. I introduced a
bipartisan bill a couple of months ago to suspension the filling of the
SPR. Our entire caucus is also behind the proposition. We believe it's
time to begin to wring this speculation out of the futures markets and
stop this insidious rise in oil prices.
While we need to move beyond oil, right now we still need oil. There
is no question about that. We need to find more, and we need to use
less, to the extent we can. That means more production and more
conservation. In the meantime, when markets do not work and people are
doing things that have no common sense at all, such as putting oil
underground when oil is $120 a barrel, then this Congress has a
responsibility to act. We need to get things straight. Let's set things
right; let's stand up here on the side of the American consumer and on
the side of American businesses who need this energy.
One final point: In yesterday's The Wall Street Journal, they wrote
one of those editorials that must make those folks grin like Cheshire
cats as they sit there with their gray suits on, behind horn-rimmed
glasses, deciding what to write next in the Wall Street Journal about
the Senate. Did you see what those folks did in the Senate--Dorgan,
Schumer, and others? What they did is said we should put pressure on
the Saudis because the Saudis want to buy precision weapons for their
own security from us. We should say that maybe they need to be
producing more oil. Of course, the Wall Street Journal had an
apoplectic seizure over that.
Here are the points. The Saudis are producing 800,000 barrels a day
less than they did 2 years ago. It is not lost on them what this is
doing to price. It is not lost on them, or it should not be, what this
is doing to our country. They are pumping 800,000 barrels a day less
than they did 2 years ago and then they say to this administration we
wish to buy sophisticated weapons from the United States because we
have our strategic military concerns in our region. Maybe we say to the
Saudis: The United States has strategic concerns in our country as
well. Why are you pumping 800,000 barrels a day less when you could be
putting more oil on the world market? Partnerships work both ways.
I am very concerned about arming the Middle East. I am going to speak
about that at some point later. But our point to the Saudis and the
point in the Middle East was simple. If you are pumping 800,000 barrels
a day less per day and then demand weapons from the U.S. without
reciprocating then it's not going to work.
That is a long statement to say it is time for us to act. Senator
Reid, Senator Klobuchar, other Members and I have decided we are not
going to sit here like potted plants. When something is happening in
the futures market and when something is happening to take oil off the
supply to put it in the SPR, then we have a responsibility to act. I
intend to be a significant part of that.
If we have the markup in the Senate Appropriations Committee this
afternoon, I intend to offer a couple amendments at that appropriations
markup. Unfortunately, I understand it may well be canceled this
afternoon.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I thank Senator Dorgan for his leadership in this
area. He was ahead of this. Before the crisis got to the pocketbooks of
Americans, he was predicting what has happened. He has been proactive
about this.
But can the Senator talk about the strategic reserve, the petroleum
reserve? I know there is some bipartisan support for doing this, is
that correct, for stopping putting our oil there?
Mr. DORGAN. It is the case. I have introduced legislation here in the
Senate. Fifty-one Democratic Senators, including Senator Obama and
Senator Clinton, signed a letter to the President saying stop sticking
oil underground for the rest of 2008. Also, a couple of weeks ago our
Republican colleague, Senator Hutchison, led on a letter to the White
House saying, yes, we agree. We ought to stop sticking oil underground
at this time. There were 15 Republicans who sent that letter. Further,
Senator McCain said it was nuts to stick oil in the SPR while on the
campaign trail. When you add that up, that is 67 people in the Senate.
That is a veto-proof majority.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. How much is it expected to save? Is there an immediate
impact we might expect in savings per gallon?
Mr. DORGAN. There are several views on that, but we know it is a lot
more than zero like the Administration assumes. We don't know exactly
what the savings would be. We do know this: If today 70,000 barrels,
especially the sweet light crude--which is the most valuable subset of
oil--were put back into this marketplace, then people have testified in
the Senate that it could impact as much as 10 percent of the price of
oil and gasoline.
We know it would impact the price. Some say 70,000 barrels is not
very much given what is used in a day. It is true, 70,000 barrels is
not all that much, but this is sweet light crude which is very
different. We had an economist named Dr. Verleger testify before the
Energy Committee and make that very point.
This is a more important point. There are plenty of Members of the
Senate who have now joined on this.
I was just informed the markup starting at 2 this afternoon has been
canceled. This is where I was going to offer this amendment, so the
amendment I expect to be able to offer will now wait until next week.
We will get this done. We cannot sit around and allow things to happen.
We have to make things happen, good things happen for this country and
for the economy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am going to speak on another topic

[[Page S3954]]

which is somewhat related to Israel's 60th anniversary. It is about
energy security and climate change and the potential economic value to
our country. The way it is related to Israel is this. As we look at the
fact that we spend $600,000 a minute on foreign oil, much of that money
going to countries that we might not want to be doing business with if
we had a choice, Israel, like our country, is very interested in
developing alternative energy. If we can cut our dependence on foreign
oil, we will enhance our own security as well as Israel's security.
Last winter I visited the new headquarters of Great River Energy, one
of the biggest electric co-ops in Minnesota, to talk about renewable
energy.
Great River is building a new energy-efficient office complex in the
suburb of Maple Grove, MN. But what I remember best about that day is
the huge wind turbine that towers over the building, and the way its
blades were rotating in the January winds. This is literally in the
middle of a suburban shopping mall.
It might seem odd that a company would put up a wind turbine in the
suburbs of Minneapolis--in fact, it has become a landmark for the
commuters who drive past each morning and evening.
It might seem even more odd that an electric utility would erect that
symbol of green energy in front of its new headquarters.
But what Great River understands--and what that wind turbine
symbolizes--is that clean, alternative energy represents a huge
opportunity for our country.
Great River is not alone among utility companies that can see the
green future before us. Xcel Energy, based in the Twin Cities and in
Colorado, already gets more than 10 percent of its power from wind. It
has pledged to generate 30 percent of its electricity from renewable
sources by 2025 and reduce its carbon emissions by more than 20 percent
over the next 12 years. In fact, Xcel was supportive of our state
legislature which put in place one of the most aggressive renewable
standards in the country.
Xcel's CEO, Dick Kelly, recently said that Xcel intends ``to push it
to the max. But it would be nice to have a policy at the federal level,
a national policy, so we all know what the rules are.''
As we prepare to debate the landmark climate-change legislation that
will come before us in a few weeks, I hope we keep these two examples
in mind.
Because here is what they show us: Global climate change represents a
world of challenges. But it also represents a universe of
opportunities--for American business to develop new products and
technologies, for consumers to save money on their energy bills, for
America to achieve greater energy security and independence.
First, there is opportunity for consumers.
The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that American
motorists were able to cut their gasoline consumption by almost 15
percent annually as a result of the last fuel-economy standards that
Congress enacted in 1975--standards that also reduced the emission of
greenhouse gases. The new CAFE standards that we adopted in December
will not only further slow the emission of greenhouse gases--but they
will also save the average consumer as much as $1,000 a year at the gas
pump.

We are developing the technology to take these efficiencies even
further and they make savings at the pump even greater. The
opportunities lie not only in producing cheaper and renewable sources
of fuel, including cellulosic ethanol, the next generation of ethanol
but in making our vehicles more efficient. Increased efficiency is
perhaps our greatest opportunity to stretch a family's energy dollar--
$4-a-gallon stretches a lot further when it will take your car 50 miles
instead of 25. The next generation of hybrid cars, as well as the
development of cars powered by other renewable sources such as
electricity or hydrogen, open a new world of opportunity for the
American consumer; an opportunity for innovative American companies to
be at the forefront; an opportunity to reduce our environmental impact
while reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
Then there is electricity. If every American household replaced just
one light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, the country would save
$600 million in annual energy costs, the nation would save enough
energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year--and we would
prevent greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to the emissions of more
than 800,000 cars,
There is also opportunity for business.
The Safeway grocery chain decided recently to install solar panels on
23 of its supermarkets to provide energy for heating, cooling and
electricity.
They estimate that they will cut their electricity costs by 20
percent and that they will remove 12.6 million pounds of carbon
emissions every year.
General Electric, one of the biggest corporations in the world, has
moved aggressively into what it calls ``green products'' such as
energy-efficient appliances and components for wind turbines. Its sales
of green products have doubled since 2005 to $12 billion, and the
company aims for $20 billion of green products sales by 2010. This is
our ``building a fridge to the next century.''
In my home State, the State of Minnesota, in the town of Starbuck,
there is a small company called Solar Skies. There are just 10
employees at Solar Skies, but those 10 people decided to take a risk,
to leave their jobs, and to go to work for a place that makes solar
panels. Those employees are devoted to the idea that we can create a
new energy future for all of us. They believe in their work and are now
reaping the benefits of the opportunity created by this new energy
economy. When I visited them, they actually had me jump up and down on
the solar panels to show that they could withstand hail damage; I am
sure they would welcome the Presiding Officer from the great State of
Montana to do that as well.
Clearly, the people at Solar Skies are not the only ones to
understand the opportunity. If you look at the leading indicator of
American investment, venture capital, you will find that it reached
$2.9 billion of investments in green technologies last year, up 78
percent from a year earlier.
Clean technology is not only the fastest growing portion of the
venture capital market, it is now the third largest category, behind
only biotech and computer software.
So today we have to ask ourselves, Does the United States want to be
a leader in creating the new green technologies and the new green
industries of the future or are we going to sit back and watch the
opportunities pass us by? I am determined that we will be a leader.
As you know, this is my third speech on climate change every week up
through the debate. The first was an overview, and the second one was
about leadership and the need to push this country forward, to be a
world leader on this climate change issue and on technology. Today, we
are talking about the possibilities of new jobs for this country, for
our country as a whole.
This is also an opportunity to create an energy-secure future, to
free our country from its dependence on foreign oil. We spend literally
$41 million every hour on imported oil, and much of the money simply
goes back to countries that are not our friends.
The Council on Foreign Relations recently studied this question, and
they said:

America's dependence on imported energy increases its
strategic vulnerability and constrains its ability to pursue
foreign policy and national security objectives. The lack of
sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S.
foreign policy and U.S. national security.

But the report also concluded that a determined conservation effort
could:

Unleash remarkable forces for innovation in this country.
Entrepreneurs are seeking new ideas for products and services
such as batteries, advanced oil and gas exploration and
production techniques and biofuels.

By reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases through conservation
and new technology, we can reduce our use of imported oil and leave our
country in a stronger international position. This is not only wishful
thinking. It has worked before. Conservation initiatives enacted after
the first OPEC oil embargo reduced the oil intensity of our economy,
saving our country the equivalent of 15 million barrels of oil

[[Page S3955]]

per day. Today, a comprehensive policy to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, including higher fuel standards for cars and trucks,
development of clean alternative sources of energy, and better energy
efficiency standards for buildings, can do this.
Look at the Chevy Volt. Two years from now, the Chevy Volt will be
available for purchase. You can plug your car in, you go 30 miles, and
then it transitions over to fuel. In other words, if you are driving
through Montana or Minnesota and it is 10 below zero, you are done with
your 30 miles, and it is not going to stop, it transitions over to
fuel, and hopefully that will be alternative fuel.
We can cut our oil consumption by as much as 35 percent by 2030--more
than offsetting the oil we import from OPEC today--just by putting in
place these higher fuel economy standards for cars and developing clean
alternative sources of energy and better energy efficiency standards
for our buildings.
A study last year by the McKinsey Global Institute concluded that
projected electricity consumption in American homes in 2020 can be
reduced by more than one-third if high-efficiency measures were adopted
nationwide, including lightbulbs, water heaters, kitchen appliances,
room-insulation materials, and standby power. But here is what is
interesting. The report warned that market forces alone, even with
higher energy prices, would not be sufficient to make the most of these
energy-efficient technologies. What is required is leadership from
Washington, leadership from this Chamber, leadership from the White
House, a new national strategy to wean the country from fossil fuels,
to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, and to set the stage for
this new energy economy.
This is the heart of the climate change legislation that will come
before us in the next few weeks: a strategy to cap and reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, then use a cap-and-trade system so that the
private sector achieves these reductions in the most efficient way
possible. The market is ready, but it needs leadership from us.
Last year, Minnesota's own Tom Friedman had a cover story in the New
York Times Magazine, ``The Power of Green.'' It should be required
reading for anyone who cares not only about the future of our
environment but also our economic future and our future national
security.
In the article, Tom Friedman asks: How do our kids compete in a
flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they
survive in a more dangerous world?
The answer is, in making the most of the economic and technological
opportunities to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and the
greenhouse gas pollution that comes from it, we do better.
Friedman said that clean energy technology is going to be the next
great global industry. He went on to propose the Green New Deal, one in
which the Government's role is not funding projects, as in the original
New Deal, but seeding basic research, providing loan guarantees where
needed, and setting standards and incentives and taxes that will spawn
all kinds of new technologies.
We are trying to do that right now with the wind tax credit, the
renewable tax credit, for geothermal and for solar and other kinds of
renewable energy. I believe this is not all about cutting back or
hunkering down, it is about seizing opportunity.
In his words:

It's about creating a new cornucopia of abundance for the
next generation by inventing a whole new industry. It's about
getting our best brains out of hedge funds and into
innovations that will not only give us the clean-power
industrial assets to preserve our American dream, but also
give us the technologies that billions of others need to
realize their own dreams without destroying the planet.
It is about making America safer by breaking our addiction
to a fuel that is powering regimes deeply hostile to our
values. And, finally, it is about making America the global
environmental leader, instead of a laggard.

Oponents of the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill say we cannot do
this because it will somehow cripple our economy. I say we cannot
afford not to enact climate change legislation because global warming
will cripple our economy.
A recent economic study commissioned by the Pew Center on Global
Climate Change concludes that, under at least one scenario, higher
temperatures could cut more than $100 billion off American economic
output over the next century, largely because of damage to agriculture,
forestry, and commercial fishing.
Now, look at this. The temperature in the last 100 years is up 1
degree. That does not sound like much until you realize it has gone up
only 5 degrees since the height of the ice age. Our EPA, using data,
well-founded scientific data, projects that temperatures in the next
century will go up 3 to 8 degrees.
So this idea that we can lose $100 billion off American economic
output over the next century is not some farflung idea, it is based on
scientific research. Unless we can confront this problem and confront
it now, those costs will simply go higher and higher. We will also miss
the opportunity for new jobs, for new products and technologies, new
consumer savings, and a more responsible climate change policy. It is a
big challenge. But meeting challenges is what our country does best.
Just look at history.
When the space race began with the launch of sputnik in October 1957,
American citizens listened with indignation and fear as the first
manmade satellite, a Soviet satellite, beeped its way around the Earth.
Yet it inspired our Nation and its universities to make a historic
investment in math and science education. Within a decade, our country
tripled the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s--tripled them.
In 1961, President Kennedy issued a challenge to our Nation: Put a
man on the Moon by the end of the decade. We answered the call. On July
20, 1969, what seemed impossible became reality when Neil Armstrong
took that giant leap for mankind.
But the space program was not only a success because we put a man on
the Moon before the Soviets, it also spurred countless other
innovations in industry. I love saying this in front of our pages
because I think they were not born when this happened. To them, this is
commonplace, but back then we did not have these things. This is what
it has spurred. It spurred industries and innovations such as weather
satellites, solar technology, digital wristwatches, ultrasound
machines, laser surgery, infrared medical thermometers, programmable
pacemakers, satellite TV broadcasts, high-density batteries, high-speed
long distance telephone service, automatic insulin pumps, CAT scans,
radiation-blocking sunglasses, GPS devices, and the little chocolate
space sticks my family would take when we went on camping trips in the
1970s. That all came out because we had a President who said we have a
national goal, we are all part of the same Nation, and we are going to
reach the goal. We can do the same thing with climate change and energy
independence.
Today, it is not a Russian satellite streaming across our skies that
should galvanize our Nation into action. It is the multiplying
smokestacks in China, it is the receding glaciers in Greenland and
Antarctica, and it is the rapidly rising global temperatures, and it is
being leapfrogged by countries like Brazil that are now fuel
independent because their Government put in place a policy for
alternative biofuels.
But just as sputnik sparked a new age of prosperity and opportunity,
these trends can lead to opportunities for the strengthening of our
economy and renewing our leadership in the world. In doing so, we will
create a better economy for the next generation by developing whole new
industries, which will not only help us preserve our American
leadership in the world but will also help to deploy technologies
billions of others need to realize their own dreams without destroying
the planet.
I believe we have the responsibility to confront a grave threat to
our environment and our health. I believe we have the opportunity to do
a great service to the people of this country. I believe that before us
now we have the opportunity to make our economy stronger and more
efficient. But it is rare that we have the opportunity to accomplish
all three at once, to accomplish so many good things in one bold
stroke. This rare opportunity will come before us in a few weeks when
we take up the landmark Lieberman-Warner bill to address the challenge
of

[[Page S3956]]

global climate change. We must seize that opportunity.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2 p.m. today, the
Senate resume the DeMint amendment No. 4710, as modified, and that
there be 20 minutes of debate prior to a vote with respect to the
amendment, with 15 minutes under the control of Senator DeMint and 5
minutes under the control of Senator Dodd or his designee; that no
amendment be in order to the amendment prior to the vote, and that upon
the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote in
relation to the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. I thank the Presiding Officer and the Parliamentarian.

Trade

Mr. President, for the last year, 15 months, 16 months, or so, as I
have traveled throughout my home State of Ohio, I have held 95 or so
roundtables with small business owners, entrepreneurs, workers,
community leaders, family farmers, educators, and everywhere I go I
hear variations of the same story--about plants that have closed and
left for Mexico or China, and workers, often in their fifties and
sixties, who have few alternatives.
Manufacturing has been devastated over the past 5 years. Ohio has
lost upwards of 200,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001, and this
administration has been largely indifferent.
One of these roundtables was held in Tiffin, OH, a small
manufacturing city of about 20,000 people, an hour or so from Toledo. A
company well known, American Standard, a company that makes plumbing
equipment, was bought out by an investment banking firm from Boston in
November. In December, they notified the workers they were going to
shut down the plant and move its production elsewhere.
A couple hundred workers lost their jobs, many of them lost big
chunks of their pension, and some of them lost their health care. Yet
the investors who came in and bought American Standard did, of course,
very well.
Today, Ohio and its neighbors feel this problem of plant shutdowns,
what it means not just to the workers and their families, but what it
means to the communities as it relates to police protection and fire
protection and teachers, as these communities are badly hurt,
particularly smaller cities, and they simply cannot afford to hire as
many police and firemen and teachers.
Ohio and its neighbors feel this problem most acutely, but it is the
Nation's problem. Our economy cannot prosper unless we make and sell
goods as well as services. Yet for the past several years, much of our
Nation's greatest engineering prowess has not gone to Toledo or Dayton
or Youngstown but, instead, to Wall Street.
Unfortunately, traditional manufacturing has declined as a share of
our economy, while the manufacture of financial products has become
increasingly important.
When I was elected to Congress in 1992, our trade deficit was $38
billion--$38 billion a decade and a half ago. Today, it exceeds $800
billion. With oil reaching $121 per barrel, and perhaps higher soon,
the trade deficit will likely only increase in the years ahead.
Leading up to the Ohio Presidential primary in March, the media
focused on NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. In Ohio,
when we talk about NAFTA, we mean our overall trade policy, be it with
Mexico and Canada, or China, or Central America. But the media, of
course, hears only the word ``protectionism.'' When you think about it,
that is a pretty interesting choice of words. On the one side you have
proponents of free trade, while on the other side you have what many
papers label as ``protectionists.''
Those of us in favor of fair trade are, indeed, trying to protect
what we believe is important. We would like to protect the labor
standards our country has fought so hard to establish over many
decades. We would like to help our trading partners, the developing
world, to improve their labor standards. We would like to protect
consumers in this country from defective and even dangerous products.
We would like to protect our children from toys covered with lead paint
and our hospital patients from tainted blood products. We would like to
protect the ability of our manufacturers to compete against foreign
companies without having to overcome trade barriers such as currency
manipulation.
So, yes, there are things I would like to protect. But so-called free
traders are interested in protecting their interests, as well. They
would like to protect their beef from imports. They would like to
protect pharmaceutical companies, as they do. They would like to
protect financial services. In fact, trade agreements of recent years
basically are chock full of protections--protections for the financial
service industries, protections for the pharmaceutical industry,
protections for big oil.
In fact, NAFTA--what I hold in my hand is not the actual NAFTA trade
agreement but NAFTA was about this size. NAFTA contained hundreds of
pages of protections--protections in areas that go way beyond tariffs
on goods. It is similar with the Colombia trade agreement; it is also
about this size. If they were free-trade agreements, you could have
written them on about this many pages: five, six pages. All you would
need is a tariff schedule--a schedule of tariffs we were going to
reduce or eliminate. But, instead, NAFTA and the Colombia Free Trade
Agreement and these others are this big. Do you know why?
It is not just the tariff schedules. They also have protections for
the drug industries, protections for the banks, protections for the oil
industry, protections for all kinds of corporate interests in every one
of these trade agreements. That is why when we talk about protections,
let's be fair. Yes, to be sure, I want to protect workers. I want to
protect communities such as Tiffin, OH. I want to protect Sandusky and
protect Lorain and protect Springfield and protect Zanesville. I want
to make sure those communities are not devastated by these trade
agreements that have all kinds of protections for the largest corporate
interests but very little for the environment, even less for workers,
and even less still to protect our food supply and our toy supply for
our children.
We need to recast this debate. Those of us who want to change the
rules are not protectionists, in spite of what every elitist newspaper
from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times and everything in
between likes to say. Those of us who want to enforce trade laws and
defend against bumping Chinese steel products are not protectionists.
Those who want safe ingredients in pharmaceuticals we import are not
protectionists. Those who want to make sure our children's toys coming
from China--after our toy companies outsource jobs, push the Chinese
subcontractors to cut costs. They cut costs by putting lead-based paint
on toys because it is cheaper, it is easier to apply, it is shinier, it
dries faster. Yet then these products, these toys come into the United
States, and the Bush administration has weakened consumer protection
laws and cut the number of inspectors so, because of this trade policy,
this protectionist, protect-industry-at-all-costs trade policy, we have
these tainted toys entering the bedrooms of too many of our children.
Trade is not just about exchanging goods between countries. Trade,
when done right, is about lifting workers in the United States and
lifting workers abroad out of poverty. It is about creating new
industry. It is about creating new business. It is about creating new
jobs. It is about ensuring strong and thriving economies for all
parties involved.
Fair trade products--for example, coffee, tea, bananas, flowers--
products once relegated to specialty shelves in health food stores have
now found their way into mainstream America.
Costco and McDonalds have begun to promote fair trade. That is fair
trade

[[Page S3957]]

where workers share in some of the profits they produce for their
employers. They know it means quality products and good business sense
at home. In the coffee fields of Nicaragua, fair trade products mean a
bright future for tens of thousands of young girls--girls who often
would not have been able to go to school, but they are able to because
their parents--coffee farmers in the case of Nicaragua--are making an
income that gives them enough, sometimes more than $1 a pound, as
opposed to coffee that is not fair trade where maybe they get only half
that. The kids of those workers do not get to go to school.
Fair trade products mean that farmers in developing nations earn two
to three times more for their products, and those children, as I said,
can get an education.
Fair trade products mean workers on flower farms across Latin America
will be free from poisonous pesticides that cause death and birth
defects.
Fair trade products mean that workers in developing nations will earn
more and be able to buy more from us--the whole point of trade. That
means, obviously, increased exports for U.S. businesses.
Fair trade means trade--and more of it--but with a very different set
of rules, not this kind of protectionism to protect the drug companies
and the oil industry and the insurance industry and the financial
services, but trade agreements with a different set of rules that help
lift up people, both in the developing world and in this country.
Proponents of the same failed trade policies of the last 15 years
need to stop selling the trade deal with Colombia, for example, as a
path to a stronger economy.
NAFTA sent 19 million more Mexicans below the poverty line. Today,
there are 19 million more Mexicans living below the poverty line than
in 1993, since NAFTA. CAFTA has failed--the Central American Free Trade
Agreement--to create the thriving middle class in Central America that
proponents promised.
The Colombia Free Trade Agreement, as written, will produce the same
results: more poverty abroad, more lost U.S. jobs, more small
businesses in this country closing up shop.
The first President Bush said each billion dollars--listen to this--
each billion dollars of our trade surplus or deficit translates into
13,000 jobs. A billion-dollar trade surplus creates 13,000 jobs. A
billion-dollar trade deficit costs 13,000 jobs. That is what the first
President Bush said. That was back when the trade deficit was $20
billion, $30 billion, $40 billion. Again, think about that: 13,000 jobs
for a billion-dollar trade deficit or surplus.
Today, the trade deficit exceeds $800 billion. Just do the math. The
cost in jobs of this enormous increase in our trade deficit is
staggering.
It is not surprising that voters in my State see bad trade deals as a
major factor in the destruction of our manufacturing base. They know
our economy and they know their interests are undermined by that
exploding trade deficit. They know Ohio's problems are Colorado's
problems and Montana's problems and Massachusetts' problems. They know
for the past three decades the historical link between rising
productivity and rising wages has been severed.
For most of my life--well, half of my life; the first 25 or 30 years
of my life--in this country, when workers were more productive, their
wages went up. If I had a chart, you could see that. We could map
productivity, and we could map wages. In this country, for decades and
decades and decades, this created the middle class. This is what made
us a successful economy and a successful democratic capitalist
country--that productivity and wages would almost be parallel.
Today, particularly in the last decade, that connection has
absolutely been severed. That has been the problem in many ways with
our economy. Wages have been flat, profits have been up, executive
salaries have exploded, and the middle class has struggled mightily.
Our country has entered a period where income inequality is at the
highest level in 70 years. Now is the time to be asking the right
questions. It is time to end the name calling and have a real debate
about trade. We are at a critical juncture in our Nation's history. It
serves both sides of the trade debate to remember that U.S. trade
policy is a tool. It is not a fairy godmother. It should not be used to
temporarily pump up well-connected industries--as trade policy often
is; hence, all the protections--nor should it be used to tamp down
competitive forces.
Our trade policy must promote competition, build on the progress our
Nation has made, and promote our Nation's economic and strategic
objectives rather than flouting them.
Ultimately, it will be ingenuity and sweat equity--we know that--that
enables our country to thrive in the global marketplace. Like every
country, we will have to work harder and smarter to win every contract
and every sale. But it is the role of governments to ensure the rules
for that contest are fair and that the interests of everyone--not just
those we protect in our trade agreements--to ensure that everyone has a
stake and everyone is served by our trade policy.
Our Government has not done that. Our trade deficit has ballooned,
our manufacturing sector is faltering, and real wages are falling. The
last thing we need is more business as usual. No more NAFTAs, no more
CAFTAs, no more Colombia trade agreements. Business as usual has not
worked. The status quo is not working. Again, 15\1/2\ years ago, the
trade deficit was $38 billion; today, it is $800 billion.
We need to decide what our economic goals will be and how we achieve
them. If we do not, we will wake up to find we have left a sorry legacy
to our Nation, to our communities, and to our children.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Supplemental Appropriations

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly--not about the bill
that is pending but about a bill that is somewhere in one of the
hallways around here, which is the supplemental that is necessary in
order to fund our troops in the field. That bill was supposed to be
marked up today in the Appropriations Committee, but, regrettably, for
reasons which are not totally clear to me but which are reasonably
apparent--which is that the House has not yet gotten its procedures in
order--the bill was not marked up, the markup was canceled. It was
supposed to start at 2 o'clock.
I certainly hope we will mark up this bill. It is very important this
bill be subject to regular order. It is a very significant bill,
obviously, because it involves funding for our troops in the field. It
is significant also because a lot of other matters which are extraneous
to the issue of fighting the war and giving our troops the resources
they need have been added to it on the House side, and even more, as it
appears, maybe even being added on the Senate side. Thus, the Senate
ought to have the right to work its will on the bill in the regular
order, which includes a committee hearing where the various issues are
aired and amendments can be made. Then when it gets to the floor, it
should also be subject to amendments so the minority, especially, can
have some input on the bill. Otherwise, the minority gets written out
of the process, which is not constructive to the institution, and it
certainly means we would have to defend our rights and probably oppose
the bill on those procedural grounds that we have an obligation--that
we as a minority basically have the sacred right of making a decision
as to when amendments are to be offered or at least what amendments
should be voted on.
Relative to a major piece of legislation such as this, we as the
minority should have the right to amend it. If we decide not to amend
it, that is our choice, obviously. But parts of this bill clearly need
to be subject to amendment, and the minority has a right to be heard on
that in the Senate, especially because that is the essence of the
institution. The minority has the ability to participate in the process
through the amendment process and through the filibuster process.

[[Page S3958]]

So I wish to speak to some of the amendments I would have offered had
we met today which I happen to think are very appropriate to this bill
and which are in the area of jurisdiction for which I have primary
responsibility. I am the ranking member on the Foreign Operations
Subcommittee which is the committee that deals with foreign relations,
with the State Department, and with funding foreign activities. There
are some very important issues which need to be addressed in this bill
that are not addressed. This bill has a significant amount of money in
it that will flow through the State Department which deals specifically
with Iraq, with Afghanistan, and to some extent with other issues such
as Mexico.
The first amendment I would have offered would have been language to
correct what is an inconceivable bureaucratic snafu, in my opinion.
That is the fact that Nelson Mandela--certainly one of the greatest
leaders of the 20th century, who epitomized the movement for freedom
and for equality in Africa but really for the world generally--is not
allowed in the United States unless he gets a special waiver from the
Secretary of State which allows him to come into the United States
because of the fact that he was a member of the African National
Congress and is a member of the African National Congress, having been
the head of South Africa as that party rules there; and that party, due
to the history of that party, has been caught in the bureaucratic
framework of our laws and is designated as a potential terrorist
organization, which is really ridiculous on its face.
The fact that Nelson Mandela cannot come into the United States
because the organization he led, which delivered freedom and equality
in South Africa, has gotten this designation due to its prior activity,
it would be like saying the head of the Likud Party, which a number of
Prime Ministers of Israel come from, because it at one time was an
activist organization confronting British rule in Palestine at the
time, the head of the Likud Party would not be allowed in the United
States but would have to receive special exemption. It makes no sense.
So this language, which the Secretary of State totally supports and
the Secretary of State is equally outraged by, would have to be
changed. So working with the State Department, we have this language
together, and we will go over it.
I understand at 2 o'clock we go into debate on the DeMint amendment,
and I will be happy to yield the floor as soon as somebody arrives and
wishes to debate. But I ask unanimous consent to be able to continue
until such individual arrives.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. The second amendment I would have offered would address
the issue of the war on terror and our involvement with Iraq relative
to the State of Jordan, which unfortunately has found itself incurring
dramatic costs as a result of the overflow of the events in Iraq.
Massive amounts of refugees are coming into Jordan. It has put an
extraordinary burden on that country, a tremendous ally and friend of
the United States.
So I believe we have an obligation as a nation--since we created this
problem for Jordan in many ways by the activity in Iraq--to support
Jordan as it tries to address the issues of the refugees. We cannot
help them with the physical activity of the refugees there, but we can
give them resources. I was going to increase funding to Jordan to
accomplish that. I know Senator Inouye is also very interested in this
issue.
In addition, money being spent by the State Department in Iraq on
behalf of reconstruction should be significantly limited; but more
important than that, any new money we spend for reconstruction through
State Department accounts should be matched one-to-one by the
Government of Iraq. I find it inconceivable for a government that runs
a $30 billion or $40 billion surplus, on the issue of oil revenues, not
be asked to pony up or at least match what the American taxpayers are
spending there relative to resources to promote reconstruction in Iraq.
So I was going to offer that amendment.
I see the Senator from South Carolina is here. I understand this time
is correctly his. At this point, I will yield the floor. First, I also
intended to offer an amendment in markup today which would have put a
consular office in Tibet. I think it is critical to have a consular
office there as the Tibetan people deal with the situation occurring
there relative to the Chinese Government crackdown.
At this point, I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 4710

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 20
minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to amendment No. 4170,
offered by the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint.
The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I wish to talk about my amendment that
will be voted on in about 15 or 20 minutes. It is amendment No. 4710.
It is an amendment to the National Flood Insurance Program bill we are
considering today.
The whole purpose of the flood insurance bill is to improve the
program, make it more actuarially sound, make it more financially
sustainable over many years. Obviously, we have had huge problems with
the program. Yet it is very important to people all around the country,
particularly those in coastal areas.
One of the goals of this reform bill is to make the rates fairer and
to phase out a number of the subsidies that we have allowed under the
current program.
The current program allows up to a 65-percent subsidy on properties
that were purchased before we developed these flood maps. In other
words, there were many properties purchased years ago when people did
not know they were purchasing a home in a flood area. For that reason,
we basically grandfathered these homes in and allowed them lower rates
in the flood insurance program than those who bought homes after we had
designated those flood areas.
The bill addresses some of those properties by phasing out the
subsidies of nonprimary residences--those that are rental properties,
second homes, and even those with severe repetitive losses. We take
about 475,000 properties that were pre-FIRM, as we call it, or preflood
map, and phase those out. There are 700,000 permanent residences we do
not address in the bill.
The purpose of my amendment is to bring all the properties,
basically, into the same plan, and not to force some to pay higher
premiums so we can give subsidies to these 700,000 homes. My bill
doesn't affect the rates or the subsidies of any current property
owner. My amendment does address new owners, if those properties are
sold after this bill passes. In other words, we continue the subsidies
of current property owners, except for those already addressed in the
bill. But if those properties are sold, clearly, the new owner would
know they are buying in a flood zone, so the rationale to continue
subsidies up to 65 percent does not exist.
I remind my colleagues that if we allow inequities to continue, where
some are getting subsidies and some are not, then some residents--and
one might be sitting next to another--are going to have a higher
property value because it will get lower flood insurance rates
indefinitely, no matter how many times it is sold.
My amendment, again, I think would improve the sustainability of the
program. I encourage the ranking member to consider this. I know there
have been agreements not to add or support any amendments. But I think
this captures a lot of the intent of the whole bill to make the program
sustainable and fairer, and actually my amendment would return about
$550 million in additional premium revenues to the plan over the next
10 years. So this is, again, designed to make the program fairer.
I encourage my colleagues to look at this amendment. It is not a
partisan amendment in any way. It will make the program better and
fairer and it will bring everybody into the same status once properties
are sold.
With that, I will reserve the remainder of my time and yield the
floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S3959]]

The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, in a moment I will ask unanimous consent
to withdraw my amendment, but I wish to have a little discussion on the
floor with the chairman and ranking member because for the most part,
we agree on a lot of the principles in the bill, and they would like
the latitude to work some of this out in conference.
My goal is to have a more sustainable, fairer program. The idea is
not to raise the price of current premium payers or to raise the price
of real estate. I want to ask my colleagues if they would consider some
of the principles of bringing all policies eventually into some
actuarial equity.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if my colleague will yield, he raises a very
good point. In fact, I had a discussion with Senator Dorgan on a
similar issue, but the same point of an equity interest involving the
cost of premiums where you have a very well-built levee and should the
premium be the same as one with a 50-year-old levee--that is a
legitimate point, it seems to me.
We talked earlier with Senator Vitter about costs and values. We
disagree with him on that issue, but he makes a case, as the Senator
from South Carolina does, that we need to strike this balance well so
we are not locking in permanent costs, and not also falsely
contributing to a rise in the cost of real estate in a time when we are
dealing with oversupply and trying to move properties.
I am sympathetic with what my colleague is trying to achieve. There
is an equity interest he has identified that I think has legitimacy.
The question is, How do we satisfy that in a actuarially sound program?
I commend him for the idea. I am grateful to him for withdrawing the
amendment. It gives us a chance to work on it and examine it in a way
that will hopefully satisfy him. I cannot promise him this, obviously,
because the Senator from Alabama and I have to deal with the House. I
come with an open mind to the equity issue he raises with his
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from South Carolina
for bringing up his amendment. I think it is something we should
consider in conference. Senator Dodd had a colloquy about it on the
side on the floor a few minutes ago.
At the end of the day, what we are interested in is a more
actuarially sound flood insurance program, one that will make more
sense after a lot of mapping goes on around the country that will
broaden the program and not perpetuate subsidy over and over for four
or five sales or four or five generations where property is sold.
The Senator from South Carolina is on the right track. I assure him I
want to pursue this in conference.

Amendment No. 4710 Withdrawn

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and the ranking
member. I trust their judgment to work this issue out in conference. I
think the bill has made a lot of progress.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
amendment is withdrawn.
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Darfur

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to mark the anniversary of
one global tragedy and to call attention to another, a tragedy that is
occurring even at this moment.
Fourteen years ago this week, the world stood by as 800,000 Rwandans
were brutally murdered, largely along ethnic lines, in only 100 days.
Despite early warning signs and pleas for greater international
attention, we did little more as a nation than watch as this act of
genocide was allowed to continue.
Canadian GEN Romeo Dallaire at the time was commander of a small U.N.
peacekeeping force in Rwanda when the genocide began. He desperately
tried to get the United Nations to approve a more robust force to end
the killings. Despite his efforts, the Security Council voted instead
to cut back the United Nations' force. Nearly 2,500 troops were
replaced with 450 poorly trained and poorly equipped soldiers. We all
know the tragic result. Today the world looks back in shame at the
inaction in Rwanda. We all failed.
In 1998, President Clinton visited Rwanda and spoke to those who lost
loved ones in those horrible times. President Clinton said:

We in the United States and the world community did not do
as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit
what occurred in Rwanda in 1994.

President Clinton's decision to visit Rwanda was an honorable one. It
was the right choice. His words were inspiring in their honesty and
accuracy, but his words were also an important reminder that the world
cannot allow such a tragedy to occur again.
President Bush visited Rwanda in January and toured the Kigali
Memorial Center, which I have also visited, where 250,000 Rwandans are
buried in mass graves. President Bush said he hoped the world would
``once and for all'' work to halt the genocide in Darfur.
President Bush will soon be leaving office--less than a year from
now. I fear that unless his administration acts, and acts quickly, we
will once again fail to stop a genocide in its tragic march. If we want
to send a message to the world that the United States will not turn a
blind eye to genocide, now is the time to act in Darfur.
Violence began in Darfur 5 years ago. Since that time, I have come to
the floor many times to talk about it.
In 2004, the House of Representatives unanimously adopted a
resolution calling on President Bush to call the atrocities in Darfur
by their rightful name: a genocide. The resolution also urged the
President to consider multilateral--even unilateral--intervention. That
resolution passed nearly 4 years ago, in July 2004--4 years ago.
A few months later, Secretary of State Colin Powell said:

[G]enocide has been committed in Darfur and that the
government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility and
the genocide may still be occurring.

In June 2005, President Bush said he agreed with Secretary of State
Powell's determination that what was happening in Darfur was in fact a
genocide.
Two years later, President Bush spoke at the Holocaust Museum here in
Washington and said that ``genocide is the only word for what is
happening in Darfur.'' He went on to say `` . . . we have a moral
obligation to stop it.''
Many things have been said by many influential people over the years,
but little action has taken place. Five years after this declaration of
genocide, where do we stand? What have we done? As many as 400,000
residents of Darfur have been killed, others brutally raped and
tortured, entire villages torched, creating a refugee crisis that has
forced more than 2 million Darfuris to flee their homes.
This photo is almost surreal. As often described, people who have
flown over the Darfur region say it looks as if people have put
cigarettes out--the types of burns that you see. The burns, of course,
represent huts in villages that have been destroyed. This is a part of
Sudan after the Sudanese Government and allied militia forces recently
burned a village.
Hundreds of thousands of women and children live in refugee camps in
Darfur and Chad. I don't think this photo does justice to the camp, but
what appear to be tiny white dots are, in fact, small tents, a sea of
small tents. There are 90,000 people who live in the Kalma refugee camp
in Darfur--no grass, no trees, 10 reported rapes every single day. The
people in camps like this one in Kalma are dependent on us, the entire
international community, for the basics--food, water, and shelter. It
is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The U.N. Security Council voted last summer in favor of a historic
26,000-member U.N.-African Union joint peacekeeping force. Last summer,
they voted for it. That brought a glimmer of hope across the world that
finally

[[Page S3960]]

there was going to be a global response to this terrible situation.
Today, almost a year later, only a third of those peacekeepers have
been deployed--a third. Only a third of this peacekeeping force is on
the ground while the Sudanese Government continues to thumb its nose at
the international community and its forces continue to attack villages
in Darfur. Humanitarian and U.N. relief workers face ongoing violence
and harassment.
This photo is of a grieving mother whose children were killed in
Darfur. Hers is one of the thousands--hundreds of thousands of tragic
stories. She said her three children had been burned alive in this
region's violence. Just the other day, Sudanese forces were reported to
have bombed a primary school in the north Darfur village of Shegeg
Karo, killing at least seven little children.
After so many years, after so much violence and human suffering,
after so many calls for action, what is holding up the deployment of
peacekeepers?
It may be hard to believe, but one significant problem is a shortage
of helicopters--hard to imagine, a shortage of helicopters, as the
killing, looting, pillaging, raping, and displacement continues. This
tragic genocide has been raging for 5 years while we have just stood by
and watched. Yet the world's most powerful nations cannot manage to dig
up a handful of helicopters. How can that be? Are all our helicopters
tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan? Are they all in the shop? Is there
truly not one NATO ally that will spare a few helicopters? How about
asking the Russians? They are already helping in south Sudan and Chad.
The Russian Ambassador visited my office recently and told me he is
open to exploring helping Darfur. It is hard to imagine that the United
States would be asking other countries to be supplying helicopters, but
at the risk of allowing this genocide to continue, we ought to do that.
This tragedy is of historic proportion, and it is our chance to step
in and show the world we really care. But what it takes is Presidential
leadership--not in 6 months, not in a year, but now.
I know some of my colleagues in the Senate, ones on the floor here--
Senator Biden has raised this issue personally with President Bush.
Quite simply, I want to put this in the most simple terms because I
said it directly to the President himself and to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice: If you are not going to do anything before you leave
office to stop the genocide in Darfur, then spend a few minutes writing
your speech so that a year or two from now, when you visit that
terrible place, you can say: We could have done more; I wish we would
have.
That is what it has come down to. This administration and Congress
will either act soon or, sadly, this genocide will have occurred on our
watch.
A few years ago, President Clinton faced the reality of his failure
to act in Rwanda. He called it ``my great, great regret in
international affairs.'' President Bush, this is your chance. Either do
something or face a similar script and a similar speech in years to
come, expressing your regret that you, on your watch, did not stop the
genocide in Darfur.
We cannot allow ourselves to have to look back years from now to say
that happened. We have a moral responsibility as a leader in the world
to speak out and act to save these people.
I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The clerk will call
the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Amendment No. 4734 Withdrawn

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ensign
amendment be withdrawn.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Madam President, before my friend leaves the floor, I
express my appreciation to my colleague Senator Ensign. This is an
issue that needs more work. We have spoken to the two managers of the
bill. They are going to try to help us. This is an issue important to
Nevada and we think other places. But I wanted to express my
appreciation to Senator Ensign, who did most of the work on this issue.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, let me also ask unanimous consent that I
be allowed to speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I thank the chairman because of the
activity we are involved in on the floor with the legislation that he
is shepherding at this moment.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, the reason I am speaking at this moment
on the floor is that an event happened this week in Bonneville County,
ID, in southeastern Idaho, that I think is significant not only to this
Nation but ultimately to the world. A global nuclear service company
selected that area of our country in my State to site a $2 billion
uranium enrichment facility on a 400-acre farm west of Idaho Falls on
Highway 20, a location that is very near the birthplace of global
nuclear power and the nuclear industry. In 1951, the first light bulb
was lit by nuclear power in Arco, ID. Of course, while that is a little
known historical fact, the actual reactor itself is now a national
historic location, so designated by the late President Lyndon Johnson a
good number of years ago. Since that time forward, over 50 prototypes
of nuclear reactors have been designed at the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory
and our first nuclear plant for a submarine. In fact, I often
laughingly say that out in a big bathtub in the middle of the high
deserts of Idaho is a nuclear sub and that many who train to operate
our nuclear Navy trained in Idaho. It was because of that significance
and the relationship that Areva, this global company, could have with
our national laboratory facilities that they sited this nuclear service
company there and their enrichment plant.
Areva, the company, will employ, at a peak during construction,
nearly 1,000 workers over an 8-year period. When operational, the plant
will employ some 250 full-time workers, with a total annual salary of
approximately $15 million. The plant will provide over $5 billion to
the local economy of southeastern Idaho over the next 30 years.
The enrichment plant could be the first of many nuclear partnerships
that Areva will have in the United States and with Idaho. The next
generation nuclear plant being designed at the Idaho lab right now
allows and puts Areva into an alliance relationship. UniStar, which
some who track the nuclear industry know about, is looking at an
opportunity in Idaho, and Areva and Constellation and other major
energy companies of the world are involved in that. My colleagues have
heard us talk about NGNP which, of course, is a nuclear global energy
partnership. Once again, Areva is a part of that.
Over the last year, I, my staff, and the Idaho congressional
delegation have worked with Areva. Because they showed interest in
siting in Idaho or Washington or Ohio or New Mexico or Texas, we began
to work with them to show them what Idaho had to offer, not only in a
relationship with our national lab but a phenomenally talented
workforce that is capable of doing the kind of work they need done. We
worked very closely with the office of Gov. Butch Otter. As a result of
those relationships, we began to work with the Idaho legislature to
provide an economic incentives package for this kind of development. We
also worked with

[[Page S3961]]

the Idaho Department of Commerce and Industry, with the city of Idaho
Falls, ID, which has always had a very positive working relationship
with the National Nuclear Laboratory that is located just miles from
that city. Those are the kinds of partnerships the State of Idaho, the
City of Idaho Falls, the Governor, the Idaho legislature, and the Idaho
congressional delegation were able to put together that finally brought
Areva to recognize the tremendous opportunity that rests in siting a
world-class facility such as this in our State.
I mentioned a moment ago and got unanimous consent that Colin Jones
be allowed on the floor if he chose. Colin is a fellow from the Idaho
National Lab and he worked in a very close relationship with this
company to make sure they had all the answers when they needed them to
make this happen.
Now, why is all this significant? Right now, we are talking about
climate change. We are talking about trying to rebuild an industry in
our country and for the world that we nearly lost, and that is the
nuclear industry. For 20 years, this country, for some reason, grew
very fearful of the idea that we might advance generation of
electricity by new nuclear plants, and we literally stopped. In so
stopping it, we nearly lost the industry itself and the ability of the
industry to build new nuclear reactors, tied with generating facilities
for electrical purposes. Along came the growing concern of climate
change and the emission of greenhouse gases and other environmental
concerns that caused us, in many instances, to stop producing energy in
the traditional ways we had produced it.
Nearly 60 percent of the energy in this country is produced by coal-
fired generation facilities. Many of those today are emitters of
CO<inf>2</inf>, and there are some who believe it is the concentration
of CO<inf>2</inf> in the Earth's atmosphere that may be causing an
increased or an accelerated rate of warming of our globe.
While we are trying to make those changes, the rest of the world
rushes headlong. In fact, China is a perfect example of bringing at
least one new coal-fired plant on line per week to supply its growing
energy and economic needs. We had always been criticized for being the
larger emitter of greenhouse gas because we were 25 percent of the
world economy. Now, China, a country that we didn't think would become
the larger emitter for several years, this last June measured as the
largest greenhouse gas-polluting Nation in the world.
My point is quite simple. The need for new environmental and clean
energy technology today is absolutely critical, and building the
infrastructure that can supply us with abundant energy is even more
important.
If our country is going to continue to grow, it has to have an
abundant supply of all sources of energy. We have seen what happened
just in the last several months as we have watched prices of gas at the
pump go up to the level they are today, the shudder that has gone out
from the consuming public, and the political reaction in Washington as
we chase ourselves in circles trying to find an excuse to blame
somebody for the inaction of the Congress over the last 20 years in the
area of production and refinement and the overall development of energy
itself.
The reason Areva's decision to site a facility not just in Idaho but
in this country--a uranium enrichment plant--is a process that is key
toward building the fuel to supply a nuclear reactor because that one
technology that is available today beyond wind, beyond solar, to supply
clean energy to the market is nuclear. While Sun is intermittent and
solar is intermittent, nuclear reactors supply a strong base load of
electricity to the American grid.
While we struggle with the technologies for clean coal, while we look
to build other technologies, the one we can build today in a very
demanding energy market is nuclear. Yet in a nuclear conference in
Chicago just this week Excelon and other companies that are major
utilities said because of this whole new demand the price of building a
nuclear reactor has doubled from maybe $4 billion per single plant to
now $8 billion or $9 billion.
This is the bottom line: The cost of energy is going to continue to
go up until we bring online the technologies and the infrastructure to
supply those technologies to continue to build an abundant energy
supply for our country. So that is why I came to the floor today to
talk about what got announced in Idaho this Tuesday, and that was a
world-class, $2 billion uranium enrichment plant by the Areva company
and International Utilities.
I am proud of my State and all of the people in my State for the work
they have done to accomplish this. I compliment them all and wanted
them to be a part of the Congressional Record.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DODD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 4
minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to Durbin amendment No.
4715, as modified; that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the
Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Durbin amendment, with no
amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendments (Nos. 4724; 4725; 4727; 4728, as modified; 4730; 4733, as
modified; 4735; 4736; 4711; and 4706, as modified further, to amendment
No. 4707)

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the managers'
amendment at the desk be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be
laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendments were agreed to, as follows:

amendment no. 4724

(Purpose: To study alternative approaches to ensure the future of the
National Flood Insurance Program by requiring greater efficiency and
financial accountability)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. ___. FEASIBILITY STUDY ON PRIVATE REINSURANCE.

Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this
Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall
conduct and submit a report to Congress on--
(1) the feasibility of requiring the Director, as part of
carrying out the responsibilities of the Director under the
National Flood Insurance Program, to purchase private
reinsurance or retrocessional coverage, in addition to any
such reinsurance coverage required under section 1335 of the
National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 4055), to
underlying primary private insurers for losses arising due to
flood insurance coverage provided by such insurers;
(2) the feasibility of repealing the reinsurance
requirement under such section 1335, and requiring the
Director, as part of carrying out the responsibilities of the
Director under the National Flood Insurance Program, to
purchase private reinsurance or retrocessional coverage to
underlying primary private insurers for losses arising due to
flood insurance coverage provided by such insurer; and
(3) the estimated total savings to the taxpayer of taking
each such action described in paragraph (1) or (2).

amendment no. 4725

(Purpose: To deny premium subsidies to homeowners who refuse to accept
an offer of Federal assistance to alter or relocate their property in
an effort to minimize future flood damages and costs)

On page 8, line 13, strike ``and''.
On page 8, line 16, strike ``policy.''.'' and insert the
following: ``policy; and
``(3) any prospective insured who refuses to accept any
offer for mitigation assistance by the Administrator
(including an offer to relocate), including an offer of
mitigation assistance--
``(A) following a major disaster, as defined in section 102
of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency
Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122); or
``(B) in connection with--
``(i) a repetitive loss property; or
``(ii) a severe repetitive loss property, as that term is
defined under section 1361A.''.

amendment no. 4727

(Purpose: To impose a civil penalty for noncompliance with certain
reporting requirements)

On page 50, between lines 3 and 4, insert the following:
(4) Failure to comply.--A property and casualty insurance
company that is authorized by the Director to participate in
the Write Your Own program which fails to comply with the
reporting requirement under this subsection or the
requirement under section 62.23(j)(1) of title 44, Code of
Federal Regulations (relating to biennial audit of the flood
insurance financial statements) shall be subject to a civil
penalty in an amount equal to $1,000 per day for each day
that the company remains in noncompliance with either such
requirement.

[[Page S3962]]

amendment no. 4728, as modified

(Purpose: To require clear and comprehensible disclosure of conditions,
exclusions, and other limitations pertaining to flood insurance
coverage)

At the end of title I, add the following:

SEC. 133. POLICY DISCLOSURES.

(a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, in addition to any other disclosures that may be
required, each policy under the National Flood Insurance
Program shall state all conditions, exclusions, and other
limitations pertaining to coverage under the subject policy,
regardless of the underlying insurance product, in plain
English, in boldface type, and in a font size that is twice
the size of the text of the body of the policy.
(b) Violations.--Any person that violates the requirements
of this section shall be subject to a fine of not more than
$50K at the discretion of Director.

AMENDMENT NO. 4730

(Purpose: To provide 2 additional members to the Technical Mapping
Advisory Council)

On page 25, line 11, strike ``; and'' and insert a
semicolon.
On page 25, line 14, strike the period and insert a
semicolon.
On page 25, between lines 14 and 15, insert the following:
(M) a representative of a State agency that has entered
into a cooperating technical partnership with the Director
and has demonstrated the capability to produce flood
insurance rate maps; and
(N) a representative of a local government agency that has
entered into a cooperating technical partnership with the
Director and has demonstrated the capability to produce flood
insurance rate maps.

amendment no. 4733, as modified

On page 34, between lines 14 and 15, insert the following:
(d) Communication and Outreach.--
(1) In general.--The Director shall--
(A) work to enhance communication and outreach to States,
local communities, and property owners about the effects of--
(i) any potential changes to National Flood Insurance
Program rate maps that may result from the mapping program
required under this section; and
(ii) that any such changes may have on flood insurance
purchase requirements; and
(B) engage with local communities to enhance communication
and outreach to the residents of such communities on the
matters described under subparagraph (A).
(2) Required activities.--The communication and outreach
activities required under paragraph (1) shall include--
(A) notifying property owners when their properties become
included in, or when they are excluded from, an area having
special flood hazards and the effect of such inclusion or
exclusion on the applicability of the mandatory flood
insurance purchase requirement under section 102 of the Flood
Disaster Protection Act of 1973 (42 U.S.C. 4012a) to such
properties;
(B) educating property owners regarding the flood risk and
reduction of this risk in their community, including the
continued flood risks to areas that are no longer subject to
the flood insurance mandatory purchase requirement;
(C) educating property owners regarding the benefits and
costs of maintaining or acquiring flood insurance, including,
where applicable, lower-cost preferred risk policies under
the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 4011 et
seq.) for such properties and the contents of such
properties;
(D) educating property owners about flood map revisions and
the process available such owners to appeal proposed changes
in flood elevations through their community; and
(E) encouraging property owners to maintain or acquire
flood insurance coverage.

amendment no. 4735

(Purpose: To modify the project for flood control, Big Sioux River and
Skunk Creek, Sioux Falls, South Dakota)

At the end, add the following:

TITLE III--MISCELLANEOUS

SEC. 301. BIG SIOUX RIVER AND SKUNK CREEK, SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH
DAKOTA.

The project for flood control, Big Sioux River and Skunk
Creek, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, authorized by section
101(a)(28) of the Water Resources Development Act of 1996
(110 Stat. 3666), is modified to authorize the Secretary to
reimburse the non-Federal interest for funds advanced by the
non-Federal interest for the Federal share of the project,
only if additional Federal funds are appropriated for that
purpose.

amendment no. 4736

(Purpose: To ensure that the purchase price of flood insurance polices
required to be purchased in areas of residual risk accurately reflects
the level of flood protection provided by any levee, dam, or other man-
made structure in such area)

On page 10, between lines 16 and 17, insert the following:
(3) Accurate pricing.--In carrying out the mandatory
purchase requirement under paragraph (1), the Director shall
ensure that the price of flood insurance policies in areas of
residual risk accurately reflects the level of flood
protection provided by any levee, dam, or other the man-made
structure in such area.
On page 31, after line 14 add:
``(v) The level of protection provided by man-made
structures.''
On page 10, after line 16 insert:
(d)--upon decertification of any levee, dam, or man-made
structure under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of
Engineers, the Corps shall immediately provide notice to the
Director of the National Flood Insurance program.

(Amendment 4711 is printed in the Record of Wednesday, May 7, 2008.)

AMENDMENT NO. 4706, AS FURTHER MODIFIED

Strike section 131 and insert the following:

SEC. 131. FLOOD INSURANCE ADVOCATE.

Chapter II of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 is
amended by inserting after section 1330 (42 U.S.C. 4041) the
following new section:

``SEC. 1330A. OFFICE OF THE FLOOD INSURANCE ADVOCATE.

``(a) Establishment of Position.--
``(1) In general.--There shall be in the Federal Emergency
Management Agency an Office of the Flood Insurance Advocate
which shall be headed by the National Flood Insurance
Advocate. The National Flood Insurance Advocate shall--
``(A) to the extent amounts are provided pursuant to
subsection (n), be compensated at the same rate as the
highest rate of basic pay established for the Senior
Executive Service under section 5382 of title 5, United
States Code, or, if the Director so determines, at a rate
fixed under section 9503 of such title;
``(B) be appointed by the Director without regard to
political affiliation;
``(C) report to and be under the general supervision of the
Director, but shall not report to, or be subject to
supervision by, any other officer of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency; and
``(D) consult with the Assistant Administrator for
Mitigation or any successor thereto, but shall not report to,
or be subject to the general supervision by, the Assistant
Administrator for Mitigation or any successor thereto.
``(2) Qualifications.--An individual appointed under
paragraph (1)(B) shall have a background in customer service,
or experience representing insureds, as well as experience in
investigations or audits.
``(3) Restriction on employment.--An individual may be
appointed as the National Flood Insurance Advocate only if
such individual was not an officer or employee of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency with duties relating to the
national flood insurance program during the 2-year period
ending with such appointment and such individual agrees not
to accept any employment with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency for at least 2 years after ceasing to be
the National Flood Insurance Advocate. Service as an employee
of the National Flood Insurance Advocate shall not be taken
into account in applying this paragraph.
``(4) Staff.--To the extent amounts are provided pursuant
to subsection (n), the National Flood Insurance Advocate may
employ such personnel as may be necessary to carry out the
duties of the Office.
``(5) Independence.--The Director shall not prevent or
prohibit the National Flood Insurance Advocate from
initiating, carrying out, or completing any audit or
investigation, or from issuing any subpoena or summons during
the course of any audit or investigation.
``(6) Removal.--The President and the Director shall have
the power to remove, discharge, or dismiss the National Flood
Insurance Advocate. Not later than 15 days after the removal,
discharge, or dismissal of the Advocate, the President or the
Director shall report to the Committee on Banking of the
Senate and the Committee on Financial Services of the House
of Representatives on the basis for such removal, discharge,
or dismissal.
``(b) Functions of Office.--It shall be the function of the
Office of the Flood Insurance Advocate to--
``(1) assist insureds under the national flood insurance
program in resolving problems with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency relating to such program;
``(2) identify areas in which such insureds have problems
in dealings with the Federal Emergency Management Agency
relating to such program;
``(3) propose changes in the administrative practices of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mitigate problems
identified under paragraph (2);
``(4) identify potential legislative, administrative, or
regulatory changes which may be appropriate to mitigate such
problems;
``(5) conduct, supervise, and coordinate--
``(A) systematic and random audits and investigations of
insurance companies and associated entities that sell or
offer policies under the National Flood Insurance Program, to
determine whether such insurance companies or associated
entities are allocating only flood losses under such
insurance policies to the National Flood Insurance Program;
``(B) audits and investigations to determine if an
insurance company or associated entity described under
subparagraph (A) is negotiating on behalf of the National
Flood Insurance Program with third parties in good faith;
``(6) conduct, supervise, and coordinate investigations
into the operations of the national flood insurance program
for the purpose of--
``(A) promoting economy and efficiency in the
administration of such program;
``(B) preventing and detecting fraud and abuse in the
program; and

[[Page S3963]]

``(C) identifying, and referring to the Attorney General
for prosecution, any participant in such fraud or abuse;
``(7) identify and investigate conflicts of interest that
undermine the economy and efficiency of the national flood
insurance program; and
``(c) Authority of the National Flood Insurance Advocate.--
The National Flood Insurance Advocate may--
``(1) have access to all records, reports, audits, reviews,
documents, papers, recommendations, or other material
available to the Director which relate to administration or
operation of the national flood insurance program with
respect to which the National Flood Insurance Advocate has
responsibilities under this section; including information
submitted pursuant to Section 128 of this Act;
``(2) undertake such investigations and reports relating to
the administration or operation of the national flood
insurance program as are, in the judgment of the National
Flood Insurance Advocate, necessary or desirable;
``(3) request such information or assistance as may be
necessary for carrying out the duties and responsibilities
provided by this section from any Federal, State, or local
governmental agency or unit thereof;
``(4) request the production of information, documents,
reports, answers, records (including phone records),
accounts, papers, emails, hard drives, backup tapes,
software, audio or visual aides, and any other data and
documentary evidence necessary in the performance of the
functions assigned to the National Flood Insurance Advocate
by this section;
``(5) request the testimony of any person in the employ of
any insurance company or associated entity participating in
the National Flood Insurance Program, described under
subsection (b)(5)(A), or any successor to such company or
entity, including any member of the board of such company or
entity, any trustee of such company or entity, any partner in
such company or entity, or any agent or representative of
such company or entity;
``(6) select, appoint, and employ such officers and
employees as may be necessary for carrying out the functions,
powers, and duties of the Office subject to the provisions of
title 5, United States Code, governing appointments in the
competitive service, and the provisions of chapter 51 and
subchapter III of chapter 53 of such title relating to
classification and General Schedule pay rates;
``(7) obtain services as authorized by section 3109 of
title 5, United States Code, at daily rates not to exceed the
equivalent rate prescribed for the rate of basic pay for a
position at level IV of the Executive Schedule; and
``(8) to the extent and in such amounts as may be provided
in advance by appropriations Acts, enter into contracts and
other arrangements for audits, studies, analyses, and other
services with public agencies and with private persons, and
to make such payments as may be necessary to carry out the
provisions of this section.
``(d) Additional Duties of the NFIA.--The National Flood
Insurance Advocate shall--
``(1) monitor the coverage and geographic allocation of
regional offices of flood insurance advocates;
``(2) develop guidance to be distributed to all Federal
Emergency Management Agency officers and employees having
duties with respect to the national flood insurance program,
outlining the criteria for referral of inquiries by insureds
under such program to regional offices of flood insurance
advocates;
``(3) ensure that the local telephone number for each
regional office of the flood insurance advocate is published
and available to such insureds served by the office; and
``(4) establish temporary State or local offices where
necessary to meet the needs of qualified insureds following a
flood event.
``(e) Other Responsibilities.--
``(1) Additional requirements relating to certain audits.--
Prior to conducting any audit or investigation relating to
the allocation of flood losses under subsection (b)(5)(A),
the National Flood Insurance Advocate may--
``(A) consult with appropriate subject-matter experts to
identify the data necessary to determine whether flood claims
paid by insurance companies or associated entities on behalf
the national flood insurance program reflect damages caused
by flooding;
``(B) collect or compile the data identified in
subparagraph (A), utilizing existing data sources to the
maximum extent practicable; and
``(C) establish policies, procedures, and guidelines for
application of such data in all audits and investigations
authorized under this section.
``(2) Annual reports.--
``(A) Activities.--Not later than December 31 of each
calendar year, the National Flood Insurance Advocate shall
report to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Financial Services
of the House of Representatives on the activities of the
Office of the Flood Insurance Advocate during the fiscal year
ending during such calendar year. Any such report shall
contain a full and substantive analysis of such activities,
in addition to statistical information, and shall--
``(i) identify the initiatives the Office of the Flood
Insurance Advocate has taken on improving services for
insureds under the national flood insurance program and
responsiveness of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
with respect to such initiatives;
``(ii) describe the nature of recommendations made to the
Director under subsection (i);
``(iii) contain a summary of the most serious problems
encountered by such insureds, including a description of the
nature of such problems;
``(iv) contain an inventory of any items described in
clauses (i), (ii), and (iii) for which action has been taken
and the result of such action;
``(v) contain an inventory of any items described in
clauses (i), (ii), and (iii) for which action remains to be
completed and the period during which each item has remained
on such inventory;
``(vi) contain an inventory of any items described in
clauses (i), (ii), and (iii) for which no action has been
taken, the period during which each item has remained on such
inventory and the reasons for the inaction;
``(vii) identify any Flood Insurance Assistance
Recommendation which was not responded to by the Director in
a timely manner or was not followed, as specified under
subsection (i);
``(viii) contain recommendations for such administrative
and legislative action as may be appropriate to resolve
problems encountered by such insureds;
``(ix) identify areas of the law or regulations relating to
the national flood insurance program that impose significant
compliance burdens on such insureds or the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, including specific recommendations for
remedying these problems;
``(x) identify the most litigated issues for each category
of such insureds, including recommendations for mitigating
such disputes;
``(xi) identify ways to promote the economy, efficiency,
and effectiveness in the administration of the national flood
insurance program;
``(xii) identify fraud and abuse in the national flood
insurance program; and
``(xiii) include such other information as the National
Flood Insurance Advocate may deem advisable.
``(B) Direct submission of report.--Each report required
under this paragraph shall be provided directly to the
committees identified in subparagraph (A) without any prior
review or comment from the Director, the Secretary of
Homeland Security, or any other officer or employee of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Department of
Homeland Security, or the Office of Management and Budget.
``(3) Information and assistance from other agencies.--
``(A) In general.--Upon request of the National Flood
Insurance Advocate for information or assistance under this
section, the head of any Federal agency shall, insofar as is
practicable and not in contravention of any statutory
restriction or regulation of the Federal agency from which
the information is requested, furnish to the National Flood
Insurance Advocate, or to an authorized designee of the
National Flood Insurance Advocate, such information or
assistance.
``(B) Refusal to comply.--Whenever information or
assistance requested under this subsection is, in the
judgment of the National Flood Insurance Advocate,
unreasonably refused or not provided, the National Flood
Insurance Advocate shall report the circumstances to the
Director without delay.
``(f) Compliance With GAO Standards.--In carrying out the
responsibilities established under this section, the National
Flood Insurance Advocate shall--
``(1) comply with standards established by the Comptroller
General of the United States for audits of Federal
establishments, organizations, programs, activities, and
functions;
``(2) establish guidelines for determining when it shall be
appropriate to use non-Federal auditors;
``(3) take appropriate steps to assure that any work
performed by non-Federal auditors complies with the standards
established by the Comptroller General as described in
paragraph (1); and
``(4) take the necessary steps to minimize the publication
of proprietary and trade secrets information.
``(g) Personnel Actions.--
``(1) In general.--The National Flood Insurance Advocate
shall have the responsibility and authority to--
``(A) appoint regional flood insurance advocates in a
manner that will provide appropriate coverage based upon
regional flood insurance program participation; and
``(B) hire, evaluate, and take personnel actions (including
dismissal) with respect to any employee of any regional
office of a flood insurance advocate described in
subparagraph (A).
``(2) Consultation.--The National Flood Insurance Advocate
may consult with the appropriate supervisory personnel of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency in carrying out the
National Flood Insurance Advocate's responsibilities under
this subsection.
``(h) Operation of Regional Offices.--
``(1) In general.--Each regional flood insurance advocate
appointed pursuant to subsection (d)--
``(A) shall report to the National Flood Insurance Advocate
or delegate thereof;
``(B) may consult with the appropriate supervisory
personnel of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
regarding the

[[Page S3964]]

daily operation of the regional office of the flood insurance
advocate;
``(C) shall, at the initial meeting with any insured under
the national flood insurance program seeking the assistance
of a regional office of the flood insurance advocate, notify
such insured that the flood insurance advocate offices
operate independently of any other Federal Emergency
Management Agency office and report directly to Congress
through the National Flood Insurance Advocate; and
``(D) may, at the flood insurance advocate's discretion,
not disclose to the Director contact with, or information
provided by, such insured.
``(2) Maintenance of independent communications.--Each
regional office of the flood insurance advocate shall
maintain a separate phone, facsimile, and other electronic
communication access.
``(i) Flood Insurance Assistance Recommendations.--
``(1) Authority to issue.--Upon application filed by a
qualified insured with the Office of the Flood Insurance
Advocate (in such form, manner, and at such time as the
Director shall by regulation prescribe), the National Flood
Insurance Advocate may issue a Flood Insurance Assistance
Recommendation, if the Advocate finds that the qualified
insured is suffering a significant hardship, such as a
significant delay in resolving claims where the insured is
incurring significant costs as a result of such delay, or
where the insured is at risk of adverse action, including the
loss of property, as a result of the manner in which the
flood insurance laws are being administered by the Director.
``(2) Terms of a flood insurance assistance
recommendation.--The terms of a Flood Insurance Assistance
Recommendation may recommend to the Director that the
Director, within a specified time period, cease any action,
take any action as permitted by law, or refrain from taking
any action, including the payment of claims, with respect to
the qualified insured under any other provision of law which
is specifically described by the National Flood Insurance
Advocate in such recommendation.
``(3) Director response.--Not later than 15 days after the
receipt of any Flood Insurance Assistance Recommendation
under this subsection, the Director shall respond in writing
as to--
``(A) whether such recommendation was followed;
``(B) why such recommendation was or was not followed; and
``(C) what, if any, additional actions were taken by the
Director to prevent the hardship indicated in such
recommendation.
``(4) Responsibilities of director.--The Director shall
establish procedures requiring a formal response consistent
with the requirements of paragraph (3) to all recommendations
submitted to the Director by the National Flood Insurance
Advocate under this subsection.
``(j) Reporting of Potential Criminal Violations.--In
carrying out the duties and responsibilities established
under this section, the National Flood Insurance Advocate
shall report expeditiously to the Attorney General whenever
the National Flood Insurance Advocate has reasonable grounds
to believe there has been a violation of Federal criminal
law.
``(k) Coordination.--
``(1) With other federal agencies.--In carrying out the
duties and responsibilities established under this section,
the National Flood Insurance Advocate--
``(A) shall give particular regard to the activities of the
Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security with
a view toward avoiding duplication and insuring effective
coordination and cooperation; and
``(B) may participate, upon request of the Inspector
General of the Department of Homeland Security, in any audit
or investigation conducted by the Inspector General.
``(2) With state regulators.--In carrying out any
investigation or audit under this section, the National Flood
Insurance Advocate shall coordinate its activities and
efforts with any State insurance authority that is
concurrently undertaking a similar or related investigation
or audit.
``(3) Avoidance of redundancies in the resolution of
problems.--In providing any assistance to a policyholder
pursuant to paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (b), the
National Flood Insurance Advocate shall consult with the
Director to eliminate, avoid, or reduce any redundancies in
actions that may arise as a result of the actions of the
National Flood Insurance Advocate and the claims appeals
process described under section 62.20 of title 44, Code of
Federal Regulations.
``(l) Authority of the Director to Levy Penalties.--The
Director and the Advocate shall establish procedures to take
appropriate action against an insurance company, including
monetary penalties and removal or suspension from the
program, when a company refuses to cooperate with an
investigation or audit under this section or where a finding
has been made of improper conduct.
``(m) Definitions.--For purposes of this subsection:
``(1) Associated entity.--The term `associated entity'
means any person, corporation, or other legal entity that
contracts with the Director or an insurance company to
provide adjustment services, benefits calculation services,
claims services, processing services, or record keeping
services in connection with standard flood insurance policies
made available under the national flood insurance program.
``(2) Insurance company.--The term `insurance company'
refers to any property and casualty insurance company that is
authorized by the Director to participate in the Write Your
Own program under the national flood insurance program.
``(3) National flood insurance advocate.--The term
`National Flood Insurance Advocate' includes any designee of
the National Flood Insurance Advocate.
``(4) Qualified insured.--The term `qualified insured'
means an insured under coverage provided under the national
flood insurance program under this title.
``(n) Funding.--Pursuant to section 1310(a)(8), the
Director may use amounts from the National Flood Insurance
Fund to fund the activities of the Office of the Flood
Advocate in each of fiscal years 2009 through 2014, except
that the amount so used in each such fiscal year may not
exceed $5,000,000 and shall remain available until expended.
Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, amounts
made available pursuant to this subsection shall not be
subject to offsetting collections through premium rates for
flood insurance coverage under this title.''.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that no further
amendments be in order except as provided in the previous agreement
with respect to the McConnell and Reid amendments; that the previous
order with respect to rollcall votes on Monday, May 12, be modified to
reflect that the previously ordered votes occur on Tuesday, May 13,
after the Senate convenes and following the opening sequence of events,
there be 60 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled between
the leaders, or their designees, prior to the commencement of the votes
ordered under a previous order; that prior to each vote there be 2
minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form;
that after the first vote in the sequence, each succeeding vote be
limited to 10 minutes in duration; that other provisions of the
previous order remain in effect; provided further that if cloture is
invoked on the motion to proceed to H.R. 980, then all postcloture time
be yielded back, the motion to proceed be agreed to, and the motion to
reconsider be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DODD. Madam President, after the vote on the Durbin amendment,
there will be no further votes today, no session on Friday, and no
votes on Monday. Let me turn to the Senator from Illinois.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.

Amendment No. 4715

Mr. DURBIN. It is my understanding that amendment No. 4715 is now
pending.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DURBIN. And I have 2 minutes to speak?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, if I could say briefly, if you are in
the process of remapping, for flooding purposes, a watershed area, this
amendment says that until you have completed both sides of the river--
and in my case both Illinois and Missouri--you don't increase flood
insurance rates for one side of the river. So the entire watershed has
to be mapped and completed before any new rates apply. This will not
disadvantage either side of the river. It says they will all be
announced at the same time.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. DODD. Madam President, I think we are prepared to vote on the
Durbin amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a
sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the amendment, as modified, of the
Senator from Illinois.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer),
the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton), the Senator from Illinois
(Mr. Obama), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator
from Nevada (Mr. Reid) are necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from

[[Page S3965]]

Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 68, nays 24, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 122 Leg.]

YEAS--68

Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Brown
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Casey
Chambliss
Coleman
Conrad
Corker
Cornyn
Craig
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Feinstein
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Harkin
Hatch
Inouye
Isakson
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Martinez
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Rockefeller
Salazar
Sanders
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Tester
Voinovich
Webb
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden

NAYS--24

Allard
Barrasso
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Carper
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Crapo
DeMint
Dole
Enzi
Feingold
Hagel
Hutchison
Inhofe
Kyl
Lugar
Reed
Roberts
Sununu
Thune
Vitter

NOT VOTING--8

Boxer
Clinton
Ensign
McCain
Murray
Obama
Reid
Warner
The amendment (No. 4715), as modified, was agreed to.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I rise to speak today in favor of S.
2284, legislation that would reform and modernize the National Flood
Insurance Program, NFIP. Congress created NFIP in 1968 in the wake of a
series of terrible hurricanes, the worst of which was Hurricane Betsy,
a storm that devastated New Orleans in 1965. After observing the ad hoc
nature of disaster relief efforts, all of which came at taxpayer
expense, Congress saw an urgent need for a better way to handle the
risks and losses associated with flood damage.
NFIP, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, FEMA, provided insurance to individuals living in flood-prone
areas who weren't able to get private insurance. But it did much more.
It required mapping to identify areas at risk for flooding and
community floodplain mitigation and management measures to help prevent
flood damage in the future.
The program has been important in my State of Maryland. According to
the 2005 report of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, Maryland
is the third most vulnerable State in the Nation to flooding. More than
12 percent of land is designated under NFIP as a special flood hazard
area. An estimated 68,000 Maryland homes and buildings are located
within the flood plain, representing nearly $8 billion in assessed
value. Nearly 64,000 Marylanders held NFIP policies as of February
2007, and in the hurricane seasons from 2002 to 2006, a span that
included Hurricane Isabel, insured flood losses in Maryland totaled
approximately $177 million.
The program appeared to work well for many years. The revenues
brought in through insurance premiums covered payments made to
individuals in the wake of flooding disasters. Today, the NFIP has been
reported to save taxpayers over $1 billion annually in flood losses
that, without the program, would be paid by the taxpayers in the form
of emergency disaster relief. But the 2005 hurricane season, which
brought Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, created a need on an
entirely new scale, a scale that not only overwhelmed the program but
exposed serious flaws in its design.
To pay out the estimated $19 billion in NFIP claims, the program had
to borrow almost $18 billion from the U.S. Treasury. Government-
subsidized premiums for certain policyholders, outdated flood insurance
rate maps, and other program weaknesses undermined NFIP's ability to
meet the demands created in the 2005 season. Those flaws have also
created false incentives over the years, encouraging developers and
homeowners to build and then rebuild in flood-prone and environmentally
sensitive areas.
With the 2008 hurricane season less than a month away, we have to fix
the program's flaws and put it back on sound financial footing. S. 2284
does just that, and I want to applaud Senators Dodd and Shelby and my
other colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee for their excellent
work.
First and foremost, S. 2284 restores the program's solvency by
forgiving FEMA's debt to the Treasury. FEMA isn't able to repay it; the
interest alone is approximately $900 million annually, equal to almost
40 percent of annual premium income. In order to keep rates affordable,
we have to accept that loss and turn our attention to improving the
program so it is better able to pay claims in the future.
S. 2284 takes several steps to make sure that the program's revenues
will be sufficient to meet those future needs. The legislation moves
several types of homeowners, who previously received subsidized rates,
toward premiums that match their actual risk of flooding. It expands
the categories of people who need to buy flood insurance to better
reflect the categories of people actually at high risk. It includes
provisions to encourage more homeowners, even those outside the highest
risk areas, to buy insurance.
S. 2284 takes steps to ensure we know who is at high risk. It
authorizes more money for FEMA to update and digitize the Nation's
flood hazard maps. Most FEMA maps contain 30-year old data. Think of
that. How many of us live in houses or even neighborhoods that were
built in the last 30 years? Homeowners and officials can't make good
decisions about risk and development based on such woefully outdated
information.
At present, FEMA's map modernization program updates old maps by
putting them in digital form without changing any of the information.
So if you live in a house or on a street that only came into existence
in the past 30 years or so, you wouldn't be on the old map or the new
``updated'' map. Maryland officials, to their credit, were among a
handful of State and local officials nationwide who realized that mere
digitization alone isn't enough, and they contributed their own time
and data to update the content, as well. Those maps will all be
completed over the next 5 years. I am proud of my State's emergency
management officials for showing that initiative, and I am glad that
this bill makes substantive improvement to flood plain maps the norm
rather than the exception.
One of the biggest lessons we Marylanders learned in the wake of
Hurricane Isabel in 2003 was that people didn't have good information
about flood insurance. Some people who should have had insurance
didn't. Some who had it didn't understand it, had too little coverage,
or too much coverage.
S. 2284 will improve consumer education. It takes steps to ensure
that all homeowners at high risk of flood damage participate in the
program and that more homeowners know about the flood risks to their
property and about the insurance options available to them. It requires
every person who buys a home in an area of elevated flood risk to learn
about that risk at their settlement and be given an opportunity to
purchase insurance. It places the burden on lenders to make sure all
people who need to have insurance actually get it. It would provide
grant money to communities to conduct educational and outreach
activities to encourage people to purchase flood insurance and learn
what steps they can take to mitigate against flood damage. Last but not
least, S. 2284 creates an Office of the Flood Insurance Advocate to
assist policyholders with any problems they have with their NFIP
claims.
Rates that reflect risk, better flood plain maps, more expansive
participation, and better information: these changes will make the
program self-sufficient once again. But even more important, by
providing homeowners, communities, developers, and emergency management
and planning officials with accurate information about flood risk and
its associated costs, S. 2284 reverses some of the program's false
incentives to build and live in disaster-prone areas.

[[Page S3966]]

When hurricane season starts this year, it will bring greater risk to
many States, Maryland included. An April 2007 Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change report found that global warming will result in more
flooding through more intense hurricanes, reduced snow pack, and sea
level rise. We are experiencing those changes today in Maryland.
We have over 4,000 miles of coastline, more than the State of
California, and historic tide-gauge records show sea levels have risen
one foot within Maryland's coastal waters over the last century. Due in
part to naturally occurring regional land subsidence, Maryland is
currently experiencing sea level rise at a rate nearly double the
worldwide average. Thirteen charted islands and large expanses of those
critical tidal wetlands in the Chesapeake Bay have already disappeared.
These changes make us more vulnerable to storm surges. Allstate
Insurance, one of our largest insurers, announced this past year that
it would stop writing new homeowners' policies in coastal areas of my
State. The reason they won't give insurance to homeowners in coastal
areas is because they say a warmer Atlantic Ocean will lead to more and
stronger hurricanes hitting the Northeast.
It is critical that we shore up the National Insurance Flood Program
so that it is ready to support Marylanders and all Americans in times
of need. S. 2284 does that without increasing incentives to build in
disaster-prone areas or destroy environmentally sensitive areas. That
is a tough line to navigate, but this bill does it well. I am proud to
offer my support.

____________________