QI, TMA, and Abstinence Programs Extension and Hurricane Katrina Unemployment Relief Act of 2005

Will the Senator yield?

I ask the Senator if he has received the latest numbers from the Department of Labor about the number of Americans who have actually lost their jobs because of Katrina and Rita. We know it was upwards of 450,000 people who have lost their jobs because of the hurricane. Does the Senator know that his remarks are even more compelling based on the numbers of people who must be looking for work, have some skills to offer, and yet under the system the Senator has described they are finding it difficult to work in their own city or parish with their own Federal Government contracts? Did the Senator know that?

I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his great advocacy on behalf of American workers, the fair trade issues, and all of the things we have been debating in this Chamber now for the last couple of years on this subject.

People might ask, Why is the Senator from North Dakota speaking so enthusiastically or fervently on behalf of the citizens of Louisiana? He does not represent the State.

As a Senator, we all represent all of the people of the Nation, and the Senator from North Dakota is this Chamber's leading expert on contracts and contract abuse, not only at home but abroad in Iraq. He has been to this floor more times than I can count and has my great respect and the respect of many in this body for his work in trying to ferret out the great abuse in contracts, whether overseas or at home, so that American tax dollars can be spent well and wisely. He is never ceasing in his advocacy, and I thank him for continuing by calling a hearing not on contractor abuse in Iraq, on which he has conducted many, but contractor abuse and the abuse of Louisiana workers relative to the Katrina/Rita fiasco. So I wish to thank him and add just a few words to what he said and to the information he has laid out and the testimony that has been given because I did attend, along with Senator Harry Reid, Senator Carl Levin, and a few other Senators, a hearing earlier last week on this subject that shed some unbelievable light on this situation and hopefully something we can correct.

I begin by saying that the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, as I have said so many times on the floor, have really been through an unbelievable devastation of a natural disaster that has no parallel, has no peer. It was not just the two hurricanes that hit within 10 days of each other--the east side of the State first, the west side of the State second, parts of Texas in Rita's path as well-- but the subsequent breaking of not 1 levee, not 2, but 17 levee breaks in the metropolitan area, an urban center, a highly dense center, a large American city, a vibrant and vital region of the Nation, as I have said many times, the Nation's only energy coast.

When those levees broke after the hurricane winds died down, it left a region 10 to 12 feet underwater; tens of thousands of homes, large and small, rich and poor, businesses underwater, businesses that have been making profits for 70, 100 years. We are an old city in an old place. We are proud of the longstanding businesses we have.

When the hurricanes left, the levees broke, and finally, when the flood waters went down, we looked up, and we have 400,000 people who have lost their jobs. These are people who are hard-working Americans, taxpaying citizens. Many of them have never asked for any direct help from the Federal Government other than what everyone gets from their Government: good police, good fire protection, hopefully their streets paved, the potholes are kept to a minimum, schools for their children to go to, basic Government services that are required. Most of these people have not asked for any particular Government help, and yet they find themselves out of work, in a position to start building their city only to find that the Federal system of awarding contracts, because of certain rules, certain actions this administration has taken, and a lack of oversight, has allowed companies to come in from out of State and hire workers who are undocumented while literally pushing aside Louisiana citizens who have the skills to rebuild and the desperate need, the obvious need, for the job itself.

In the case Senator Byron Dorgan has brought to our attention, as the hearing went on last week, about 75 electricians from the area that was affected--many of those electricians had

lost their homes. Their homes had been flooded. Some of them had run businesses on the side that they had lost. Their families had been placed into some safe place somewhere in the region. These men, most of the men--some of them could have been female electricians--came back at the request of a former employer who said, Would you all come back and help us build the barracks, the Navy base, the Belle Chasse base, in their own backyards?

These are residents who could look across the highway, who have worked at Belle Chasse before, who put up the electrical work at Belle Chasse, who were hired by a contractor and brought to work. After a few days, another contractor comes into the base, as the story is told, and basically hands these Louisiana workers a pink slip and says, If you do not mind, could you all please leave the base, and then ushers in 10, 20, 30, 40, 100--who knows what the investigation will show--workers not from Louisiana--and some of the workers are not even eligible to work in the United States of America--to work on an American military base.

Last week, I had the distinct honor of sitting in my Senate office and having two or three electricians, men who are obviously used to a hard day's work--their hands looked pretty tough--with shoulders stooping and almost on the verge of tears looking at me as their Senator saying: Senator, explain this to me. My parish has just been ruined by a hurricane. I have lost my house. I have worked my whole life as an electrician, and on a military base in the United States of America I am asked to leave so that an undocumented worker can take my job? I do not have an answer for them, but we need to find one because nobody in America will believe this is happening. It should not be happening.

I will tell you why it happens--because when nobody is watching the store and there is money being thrown out of this Chamber, $62 billion, people grab for it. The people of Louisiana have been accused of looting. I think maybe the camera needs to focus somewhere else. All we have done as a delegation is asked for help for our ports, our hospitals. This is a city that has lost 75 percent of its revenue. The parish of Plaquemine and the parish of St. Bernard are virtually nonexistent. Every structure--and 100,000 people--has basically been destroyed, and it is uninhabitable. We still have our refineries shut down, our pipelines exposed, and all we get is excuse after excuse.

Our own workers show up and ask for a decent wage. Their wage was $22 an hour. If any Senator on this floor thinks that paying a man or a woman $22 an hour, with some minimum benefits, to work 12 hours a day because the contract said if they want to work, they have to show up and work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week until further notice--so do not tell me these people did not want to work. They had to work without a day off, week after week, for $22 an hour. We are told that it is too much, we cannot afford to hire them, they can go on back and twiddle their thumbs while we have the undocumented workers rebuild this military base. It should not be happening now. It should not be happening in the future.

Today, I sent a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the head of INS and asked them to please enforce the laws that are on the books, please enforce the laws so that the 478,000 people who are unemployed throughout the gulf coast, from Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, can have the first chance at a good job.

I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

I know people are going to debate about Davis-Bacon, but I just want to tell the American people this point: When the President issued the order and basically said, right after Katrina, waive all the labor laws that allow people to be paid a fair wage, he said he was doing that to save money. How does one save money on a no- bid contract? If a contract is not being put out for bid, how does one save any money? All that happens is wages of the people who need them the most at a time when they have lost everything are driven down. They are not asking for charity. They are not asking for a handout. They stood up to get a job to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and still were basically under the administrative rules of waiving Davis-Bacon, lack of oversight and lack of focus, and have basically been asked to leave the military base.

So I hope that in the few weeks ahead, we can get these electricians back on the job, back to their homes, back to their neighborhoods to rebuild, and build some support in this Chamber and around America for paying people a decent wage. I do not think $22 is too much. I do not expect people to rebuild Louisiana at a minimum wage or $8 or $9 an hour without benefits.

People have to make a living. That amounts to about $45,000 a year. Is that too much to pay someone working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, doing hard and sometimes dangerous work? I don't think so. But evidently somebody in Washington thinks that is too much because, instead of holding wages steady--not asking for union wages, but asking for an average wage, between union and nonunion, which seems fair to me--we are undercutting our workers. The Government should not mandate a union wage to be paid, but neither should we undercut our workers. So the prevailing wage is what we have come up with, to say don't pay union, don't pay nonunion, pay something in the middle, the average wage: $18, $20, $22 an hour for skilled labor. That is not too much to ask. But evidently it is.

Even if people can get these jobs back, under the policies of this administration, they will be told: You can work, so be happy and smile that we are going to pay you $9 an hour, on which you cannot even feed your family, invest in your pension, or send your children to school. You should smile and be happy you have a job.

People in Louisiana want more respect than that. They deserve more respect than that. The people along the gulf coast are, as I have said many times, honest, hardworking, and self-reliant. We do not come here asking for charity, but we do come here asking for help out of our National Treasury to which we have contributed so much over 300 years of hard work and toil to build the Nation's only energy coast. We are proud to do it, proud to take the risks associated with that hard work--building a port system, the greatest in the North American Continent, and building commerce that allows every State and every parish and every county in America to flourish. Without this port system, without this energy coast, our Nation would not be what it is today.

Despite all the ridicule we received, despite all of the snide remarks we have heard about public corruption and that we can't do anything for ourselves and we are disorganized, we are going to still hold our heads up, proud, tell our story, and demand to be treated with respect and dignity as every American would want to be treated--Black and White, Asian and Hispanic, young and old, rich and poor.

In conclusion, I thank Senator Dorgan for his focus on this. I will continue to come to the floor and to be at hearings with him, to help him, to hopefully build the kind of system and oversight that will allow us to give out contracts more efficiently, to make sure the work is going to gulf coast contractors, reputable contractors. There are many good contractors who treat their workers beautifully. There are many businesses, despite the fact they have no money coming in the door, that have kept their workers on the payroll, trying to hold heart and soul together and hold our community together while the Federal Government twiddles its thumbs and comes up with excuses about why it cannot help.

Let me be quick to compliment the many good contractors and many good businesses, small and large. But when we see this kind of irresponsible contracting, it makes a tough situation even so much worse. So I hope this letter will be responded to, that actions can be taken by other committees that have oversight so we can make sure we are spending the American taxpayer dollar well, that we are giving the preference, as required in the current law, to those affected by the storms and the unfortunate disaster itself, and then paying people a decent wage when we ask them to do work for their community and for our country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

As I told the chairman, if any Members come and want to proceed with amendments, I will be glad to yield the floor.

Mr. President, there is a subjject that is extremely important. It is important to all. Frankly, having been at home this weekend, as most Members have, I heard more about it probably than any other issue. That is spending, of course; the amount of spending we are taking on, and the Federal Government challenges to do something about the increase in the deficit we are bringing upon ourselves. The challenges make it very difficult.

As Fred Thompson said once: It is like going to heaven; everyone wants to go, but nobody wants to make the changes necessary to get there. That is the way it is with the budget. It is an obligation to do more to control spending and to control the size of the Federal Government. We have that obligation.

We have had some difficult times in the last couple of years which have brought about some necessary spending. We had September 11, the war on terrorism, the gulf now, and other emergencies, all of which require spending. I understand that.

However, we have to treat this as a family or business would when an extraordinary thing happens: We take care of it, but, nevertheless, the costs for the family and business continue. Then we must find a way at some point to offset the costs. That is where we are now.

Things have not all been bad over the past year. We have decreased the deficit by $100 billion. We never hear much discussion in the media about that. The fact is, we have made some progress. We have done some other good things. We passed an energy bill. We passed a highway bill. Through the tax reductions over the years, we have increased the activity in the economy, increased jobs and pay. There are good things.

The fact is, we still have special costs and funding we have to take care of. As I mentioned, as in business, we have costs here, as well. We are going to have a reconciliation bill, hopefully, next week. We will look at the budget we are in now to ensure--and this is our last appropriations bill today in the Senate--we live within the budget in those appropriations. I support the idea that we will seek to reduce it an additional amount, whether it is the $35 billion in the bill the Senate has talked about or whether it is the $50 billion talked about in the House. That is what we necessarily need to be doing and should be doing.

Now, those are short-term issues, short-term changes for this year or the next 3 or 4 years. We should give more attention to the long-term situation. In most things we do here, particularly in spending, particularly regarding the deficit, we ought to think of the long term. We ought to have 20/20 vision and ask, Where do we want to be in 15 or 20 years? What do we want to hand off to the next generation as a vision of where we want to be and where we would like to be, where we think we should be with our families, with our communities, with our Nation, and make the decisions daily, as we have to make them, predicated on accomplishing those visions we have decided we want.

The Washington Times said since the 1950s, around 18 to 20 percent of the gross national product has been the deficit. Deficits are not unusual. It is debt for most everything--businesses and families and so on. If we continue to go this route over the next 50 years, we will be talking more about 30 or 40 percent deficit as a percentage of gross

national product. Deficits and spending go up because gross national product goes up, so as a percentage they go up as well.

However, I don't think we want to find ourselves moving toward larger and larger government with more and more activities without paying for them and have this deficit continue. In order to do that, we will have to look at some reforms. We will have to look at changes that need to occur, looking broader than just the reconciliation bill, which is very important. We need to look beyond that. We need to look at where we are going in the future and make some real changes.

One change will be in the size and scope of the Federal Government and the activities we are involved with in the Federal Government. We have created a culture where if there is anything needed anywhere, from the community on to the Federal Government, we get the Federal Government to pay for it, and we will start a new program. That has become a culture and a custom. Once that program is built in, it becomes political. As programs are started, they get a constituency and they continue. Those are areas we need to look at.

We will have to look at Social Security, for example. That is where most of the money is spent. When we spend $2.5 trillion in a year, only about $800 million is discretionary spending. The rest is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We need to look at this. Everyone is committed to a well-funded, secure Social Security Program over the years. There are differences of views as to how to get there. We need to look out to the future so the young people here can look forward to Social Security in another 50 or 60 years.

Clearly, we want health care available, but we have to do it in different ways. We need changes. I come from a rural State. The way health care is delivered in rural Wyoming is different from in Washington, DC. We need to get in a position where people have access to care. Maybe we ought to be doing some things where we do not need health care as much. We need long-term changes to get that taken care of. We need to restrain growth in the Federal Government.

I have always advocated policies for reducing the size of government. It is apparent that the government is too big and too broad in its scope. Our phones practically ring off the hook with people wanting more money for this, more money for that. I understand that. However, we have to decide what is appropriate for the Federal Government to pay. Many of the programs should be invested in but at the local or State level.

It seems over time we have created programs for most everyone. There are approximately 1,200 funded Federal programs. We need to look at these for the long term. We have to look at each program and see, in fact, if it is still as needed as when it was put into place, to see if it is as efficient, evaluate it on its merit to decide if the taxpayers are getting their money's worth, then take a broad look, a long-term future look at eliminating programs, reducing the size of government, maintaining programs that are essential, and making them more efficient long term.

I have a bill called Government Reorganization and Program Performance Improvement Act that creates mechanisms to do that. We have an opportunity most any time to create a new program and to fund it. We have a process for that. We do not have a process for evaluating a program that started 10 years ago. Is that reason still there? Have we accomplished the goal? Should it be changed?

We talk about that, I suppose, from time to time, but we do not have a process for doing that. That is partly what we would do.

The bill would create a sunset commission and an individual results commission. The sunset commission would hold the Federal Government accountable for performance with Presidential proposals. The commission could propose to the President whether to retain the program--after it has been there for 10 years; taking a look at it--or to restructure the program, or to end the program.

This would be acted on by assessments, a seven-member, bipartisan commission, appointed by the President, so we would have a process--a process, which we do not have now--to evaluate programs to see if they are, as I said, accomplishing the things they were set up to accomplish or to see if they should be done differently.

The other half of it is an opportunity to evaluate performance, again, having a commission set up to take a look at programs to see if they are operating as efficiently as they might be operating. I think it is fair to say sometimes in the bureaucracy we get things built into programs where they are resistant to change. It is a little different generally than the private sector where the private sector has to change from time to time because of profits or because of a lack of profits, or whatever; where Government programs tend to go on forever pretty much as they are. And I understand that.

So it seems to me there needs to be a way to do some of those kinds of evaluations and make sure that, No. 1, the size of Government can be controlled, and No. 2, we would maintain it as efficiently as can be done, trying to do away with wastefulness and unnecessary and duplicative activities that take place--whether it is within the Federal Government or within State governments or local governments.

We are looking at a way to ensure good government. Everybody wants government. Everybody wants services. But we also want good government; we want efficient government; we want effective government. And we want it to be done as economically and in the least costly way it can be done and still get that accomplished.

That is not an easy project. I understand that. But it seems to me-- as we look at excessive spending; as we look at trying to do something about the budget that is pretty short term, looking at these next couple of years--we ought to be looking at where we are going to be in making some decisions that will help us keep within the budget we would like to have over a longer period of time. Doing that, we would have to make more difficult decisions, perhaps, but they would be more long- term decisions. Now is a good time to do that. What better time would there be to take a look at that than now, when we are as concerned as we are about spending--which we ought to be?

I think this is a good government initiative which we ought to look at. It certainly urges us to bring these bills up and to take a look at them so that, in addition to next year's reductions in spending, we take a look at the overall problem we face by increasing spending because we have found, I think, that is an easy thing to do. I think under these current circumstances, it is a thing that happens pretty much constantly, unless we are doing something about that.

I hope, No. 1, we recognize the importance of controlling spending, we recognize the importance of controlling the size and the role of the Federal Government. I think there should be--there should be--some definitions. We ought to have in our own minds some criteria as to what is the role of the Federal Government, what is the role of the other governments, what is the role of the private sector, so we do not continue to be in this sort of circumstance where everything that needs to be done becomes a role of the Federal Government. And then we wonder why taxes go up; we wonder why spending goes up. It is pretty easy to explain that if you take a look at the size of the Government.

I guess what I am saying is, I hope we can take on the responsibility, as we go about our daily chores, to have some vision for the future, to evaluate with respect to where we are, but also trying to get a notion of where we want to be--how we see it for our families; how we see it for jobs; how we see it for education; how we see it for freedom of choice. That is part of the criteria for this country.

We get in a political situation, which we are kind of in now. All we do is criticize this and that. The real reason for elections is to talk about the issues and to decide where we need to be, to talk about the kinds of issues and decisions that need to be made to get us where we want to be. I think we have gotten so involved with the media picking up on every little controversial issue, and talking about that, that people have forgotten what elections are about. Elections are about direction. Decisions here are about direction. Decisions here are about where we are

going to be, and where we need to be, and where we want to be over time--for our families, for our communities, for our Nation.

We have a great opportunity to do that. I urge we give some consideration to it in every chance we have. And particularly now, as concerned as we are about spending--and properly so--we should be sure we take a look at where we want to be, how we can get there, and what changes have to be made that are more than just for next year, so we can move forward in that direction.

Mr. President, I thank you for the opportunity to speak. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Landrieu from Louisiana, will be on the floor shortly. We want to talk about something that has occurred in the last week. A week ago today, I chaired a hearing of the Policy Committee. The hearing was on the subject of the reconstruction in the Gulf States in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We have held many previous hearings on reconstruction in Iraq. As you know, this Congress has literally spent tens of billions of dollars on reconstruction projects in Iraq, and the waste, fraud, and abuse there is mind-boggling. There is massive money going out the door to contractors, in many cases with large no-bid contracts, and the taxpayers are getting bilked. I will not go into the lengthy stories about it now.

We decided to hold a hearing with respect to contracting in the gulf because this Congress has already approved $60 billion for reconstruction, and we have heard tales and stories that are similar to those we hear with respect to reconstruction in Iraq.

At last Monday's hearing, we heard from a local New Orleans company. The owner of the company and his job foreman originally were hired to provide 75 qualified electricians to work on a project they had begun at the Belle Chase Naval Air Station in Louisiana. The project they were hired for was with Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. This company was hired to provide 75 qualified electricians.

Very soon after they started, these qualified Louisiana electricians, many of whom were victimized by the hurricanes and who very much appreciated these jobs, were replaced by others. They were replaced by workers who were not of the same training in electrical skills. In many cases, Bob Knight, the general manager of the New Orleans company that suffered this fate, described the replacement workers as follows:

Almost all of their workers were from out of State, and

most didn't speak English. Few seemed to me to be qualified

electricians. According to the Halliburton subcontractor,

they were being paid [a fraction of the] prevailing hourly

wage, with no benefits. At that time they were living in

small tents on the base.

Here is a photograph of the circumstances of how they were living. This is, of course, a little rough shed with 2 by 4s to frame up some beds. I am guessing most of these are undocumented workers brought in to take the jobs that had belonged to the folks in Louisiana who desperately need these jobs. But because the President said there is no requirement to pay what Davis-Bacon wages, no requirement to pay the prevailing wage in this region, the result is unscrupulous contractors who bring in workers who will work for dirt cheap wages with no benefits and many hours and put them up in circumstances such as this.

And, oh, by the way, some of them were told they could go to work on a crew such as this and get a fraction of what they would have to pay others who are skilled, and they can get free meals at the Red Cross. Unbelievable, isn't it? Here is what is happening to jobs that are supposed to belong to the folks in Louisiana and presumably also Mississippi. People who got hit hard by the hurricane, who lost everything, in many cases, expected perhaps to get an opportunity to get back on their feet with a good job that pays all right as skilled electricians. They put together 75 of them and are told by the contractor: This job is going to last; it is going to be an opportunity for you. And just like that, somebody else is brought in because the President said they do not have to pay prevailing wages.

Guess what. Here is the circumstance, here are the people with the jobs. Most do not speak English. Most were brought, many of them undocumented.

Last Thursday or Friday, following the hearing that I held, there was a raid at this military installation by what is normally called the INS. It is now I guess the ICE, as it has been subsumed into this behemoth organization called Homeland Security.

At any rate, the immigration folks raided, and we are told by people on the ground that they found somewhere around 150 undocumented workers. The immigration folks now say they found 10 that they know of, but they play a little game with us because the more questions we ask, the less information we get from them.

It is pretty clear to me, based on eyewitness accounts on the ground, that they went in after the hearing we did and found undocumented workers on that military installation who had taken the jobs, we believe, from the folks in Louisiana who had been victimized by these hurricanes, the jobs they were working at.

Here is the Washington Post. This was last week after the hearing:

Among the electricians who lost their jobs was Sam Smith,

whose house in the Ninth Ward was destroyed after Katrina

slammed into the Louisiana coast. Smith, 55, returned to the

city because of the promise of $22-an-hour wages, and

guaranteed work for at least a year at the naval base.

By the way, he was a skilled electrician with all the certifications.

He was quickly disappointed, however, and lost his job

within three weeks. ``You would think that the federal

government should be making sure that people who are trying

to restart their lives and are trying to put their city back

together again are out there working,'' Smith said. ``But

that's not the case.''

The New York Times:

The acrid smell inside trailer No. 2 is tough to take for

any length of time. The linoleum floor is filthy and bare,

aside from a few soiled blankets hammed in the corners.

Dishes caked with leftover food are piled high in the sink,

attracting flies. Two portable fans are the only things

stirring the air. But six men are living here. They sleep on

that floor. They swat away those flies and dodge the roaches

at night. They traveled all the way from Guatemala.

They are promised good pay, three meals a day and place to

stay, and some contractors make good on this. But the

Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, an advocacy group,

says many do not.

So it is, without the prospect of paying prevailing wages, the jobs are going to these kinds of folks.

They get $8 an hour and labor 11 hours a day, six days a

week. Subcontractors pulled them together for Belfor USA, an

American subsidiary of a multibillion-dollar international

company specializing in restoration after disasters. Before

New Orleans, they had separately held construction, farm or

factory jobs from Texas to North Carolina, they said.

The point is, there are other stories about workers, workers from elsewhere willing to take substandard wages to help the reconstruction of Louisiana and Mississippi.

We passed $60 billion out of this Chamber in reconstruction money and, guess what. What we now understand is reconstruction is going to others, not the folks from Louisiana, not the people who have a skilled certification as an electrician who lost their homes and who need the job. No, this is about companies that decide to bring in these folks and put them in these conditions--squalid conditions--and pay them a fraction of what should be paid for those jobs.

By the way, the foreman on the job who testified Monday--and my colleague from Louisiana was at that hearing--the foreman said these folks were not qualified. They were just not qualified. By the way, they were putting up 900 tents in metal frames in which our troops will live. And we have electricians not qualified wiring those tents for electricity? What on earth is going on?

It is the same old thing. They are paying a fraction of what they should pay and getting rid of the Louisiana

workers so they can bring in these workers from Guatemala and elsewhere. You saw the stories: Undocumented workers, INS or ICE, they call it, the immigration folks, make a raid on the base.

My colleague from Louisiana will expand on that further, I am sure. They make a raid on the base, and we are told by people who were there that they found many--we heard 150 people. Now they will say there are only 10. At this point, they do not know, they cannot know, they will not tell us. It is the same old tap dance by a big Federal bureaucracy that does not want to get caught.

They ought to do their job, come clean, and tell us what they found on that base. I think I know what they found. I think what they found were contractors bringing in undocumented workers, paying them pennies on the dollar, taking jobs away from the folks in Louisiana. That is what I think they found.

I wonder if there is any Member of the Senate, just one, who wants to stand up and say: Yes, that is what we meant, we meant to shove $60 billion out the door of this Chamber and hope that some contractor would bring in some undocumented workers--and fire some Louisiana folks--to do the work in Louisiana. If there is one Senator willing to stand up and say that, they are not thinking very much. There is not one person in this Chamber who will agree that is what they meant, not in their worst moment.

I take no pleasure in pointing this out. In my judgment, this is a corruption of the process. We know what needs to be done. We know how to do it. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and what is happening is we are seeing the wrong way implemented in the reconstruction down in the gulf coast.

My colleague from the State of Louisiana participated in those hearings. I know she has been in touch with the contractors and knows what is happening with respect to that Naval air station as well, but I thank her for the work she has done. I can only imagine if it were my State or some other State of a Senator in this Chamber facing this, we would demand that those for whom those jobs were intended would have those jobs, not that they be fired so we could bring in undocumented workers and pay them pennies on the dollar. That is unbelievable incompetence, and we need to see it stopped right now.

So let me thank my colleague from Louisiana.

Of course. I would be happy to yield.

I was not aware of the number. I know this is devastating, the most significant natural disaster with the greatest consequence in terms of human misery, loss of jobs, loss of homes. It is unbelievable.

I realize that a lot of undocumented workers are just decent people who are trying to make a living. I don't mean to disparage them. My intention is to say, however, there are rules, and there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. We did not spend $60 billion out of this Chamber to give jobs to undocumented workers. We spent that amount of money to help the folks from Louisiana get back on their feet with good jobs for reconstruction, and the same for the folks from Mississippi.

I intend to work with the Senator from Louisiana and others to put a stop to what is going on, to redirect that money. We want reconstruction to move and move quickly, but we want those jobs to go to the victims, those folks who have suffered through all of this as well. We want those workers to be paid good wages. Davis-Bacon ought to be restored. The President ought to stand up today and say: I made a mistake by repealing Davis-Bacon. This Government has a responsibility to pay prevailing wages so we have good wages that pay well and decent jobs for those folks.

I again thank the Senator from Louisiana. I know she wants to make some comments about this as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by giving a weather report. In the Caribbean there is another hurricane developing called Wilma. It is a stage 5 and it is headed toward the Florida keys. So I think Members ought to be listening if they live in the State of Florida because 13 days ago we stood right here and called for an appropriate Federal response for the people in the gulf coast.

One that would rise to the same level of responsibility as the waters that rose and flooded the homes, hopes, and communities along the gulf coast. Our response was inadequate then, and it is only worse today. I certainly want to exempt the gentleman from Louisiana from what I say here because I know that this is not a bill that he produced. He is being sent out here by his leadership to put this bill on the floor, and it is not what he would do for the people of Louisiana.

Tens of thousands of Americans are without housing, health coverage, protection of children, and without unemployment benefits or their employment. Tens of thousands are filing for unemployment benefits; benefits are running out for thousands more. The magnitude of the disaster is unmistakable, and the Republican response has been unconscionable. This is a continuing disaster. The storm was weeks ago, but this continues.

In this time of domestic crisis, the Republican survival kit has been to give people in the gulf a teaspoon to empty the ocean out of their lives, and here we are 13 days later doing what we did 2 weeks ago. It is unlucky 13, because the Republicans have redefined the Federal response to a natural disaster to include a legislative disaster, this bill. Republicans wring their hands and they exude political concern for people affected by the hurricane, but they do not walk the talk.

Mr. Speaker, I think you can tell the President he can go to the gulf coast as many times as he wants. He has been there six already. It will not do any good, because all those people down there read the Bible and go to church on Sunday, and they know that Bible verse that says: By your deeds you shall know them. It is not the fact that you go down there and stand around for photo ops; it is what you do when you come back to Washington, D.C.

Now, there is not enough of anything, most especially the strong shoulders of the Federal Government, in this bill. This legislation offers no real relief to jobless disaster victims. It did not 13 days ago, and it does not today. We continue to ignore three major problems:

First of all, 6,000 people have already exhausted unemployment benefits in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. There is no extension for them. Another 20,000 jobless workers in these States are projected to run out of benefits by Christmas. Nothing is done for them. These workers need a federally funded extension of their benefits while they put their lives back together and search for employment.

Secondly, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana had the three lowest levels of average weekly unemployment benefits in the entire Nation. In all three States, the average benefit is less than $200 a week. That is about half the poverty level for a family of four. Now, ask yourself, is that the best we can do? I mean, after we spent all that money in Iraq, is that the best we can do for the gulf coast, offer people half of poverty? The Federal Government should step in and help people get up on their feet, not down on their knees.

The third problem with this bill is the disaster-affected States are seeing an enormous surge in unemployment claims. In Louisiana alone, new claims for unemployment benefits have surged 10 times the normal level, 10 times the normal level; and State officials expect Katrina- related unemployment benefits to exceed $800 million. That money is supposed to come from a State economy that has been devastated by the loss and dislocation of 70,000 businesses. It just does not work. If you do not have people working paying unemployment insurance, you are not going to have the money to pay benefits.

Under Louisiana law, once their unemployment trust fund slips below a certain level, automatic benefit cuts for jobless workers and tax increases for employers are triggered into effect. This bill does nothing about that. That means people receiving unemployment benefits in Louisiana of less than $200 a week will see their benefits slashed by as much as $37 a week starting in January, the way things are right now.

From the beginning, the Federal response to this national disaster has been bungled, inept, and very suspect. We owe the people of the gulf coast something more than our sympathies. We know the problems, and the Federal Government can solve these problems; but we are not going to do that again today. Instead, again, the Republicans want to pass a bill that sends a lump sum of money to these hard-hit States to bear yet another burden.

The lump sum is not enough, because it covers less than half the cost of regular unemployment claims caused by the disaster. If you are going to do a lump sum, at least do a lump sum that meets what you know is happening. Do not give them half. Where are they supposed to get the other half, give them a tin cup and stand on the corner? There is no money at all to extend expiring benefits or to supplement the meager benefits currently available. With an effort like this, the Republican House is using Michael Brown's FEMA as a model, that is, Way to go, Brownie.

Ask people in the shelters, ask people with no place to call home, ask Americans on any street corner, and they would be embarrassed all over again. We are giving $500 million. It sounds like a lot of money, right? We have $25 billion in the fund that we could use for this purpose. We are out of touch, and the people in Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi are running out of time.

As things stand, it is really getting worse every day for disadvantaged Americans, and we are making them pay for the folly. The majority will locate the storm directly over the heads of every disadvantaged and disenfranchised American. Fiscal offsets did not concern Republicans when they gave every millionaire a $100,000 tax break or charged the people of the United States $215 billion for an illegal war in Iraq. We could put that on future generations, but not this bill. This one we have to put on the backs of the people. We had to find offsets; we had to cut something to meet the needs of Americans affected by one natural disaster.

Republicans demanded that the disadvantaged pay the price. Their response is to put food on the table of one American family by making it harder on the folks next door. Share the pain? No, no, no. Republicans shift the blame and the pain to the least able to fight back.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush went down and promised that we would do whatever it took to help these people get back on their feet. Well, it takes more than going down and standing in front of a mike and giving a photo op and then coming home and doing nothing. You have to come up here and insist that the Congress respond. The President has not done that. The people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are waiting for the President to make good on his promise. My advice to those folks is do not hold your breath.

People across America are watching and hoping for the President to say something other than, Brownie, you have done a heck of a job.

Denial is not an appropriate response to this natural disaster, and that is what this House is doing. Responsibility and relief are what is needed and required by the Federal Government. The Republicans are in charge from top to bottom. It is time they lead with their heart and their head and not their chin. Meager is the only word that I could use here to describe what their response to Hurricane Katrina is, but that is where the Republicans are heading, another meager response.

There is still time to change the course. There is still time for the Federal Government to be an agent of good that it is supposed to be. Mr. Speaker, domestic security includes a roof over your head, a hot meal, and a helping hand to rebuild the life lost through no fault of your own. What the Republicans continue to provide is a tarp and a can and a good luck sign. We do not need thumbs up. We need wheels down, and bring the help.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think the gentleman from Louisiana should hear our comments as being supportive of the problems. It is not that we do not think they have done something. It just needs to be more, and I say it for two reasons.

One is that I think that the people of the gulf coast really are going to need more. I can predict almost without any fear at all that we will be back out here in 3 months or 2 months or 1 month or whatever asking for more money to fill up the problems. I think this paying a little at a time is just not the best way to do it, but if my colleagues have to do it that way, they have to do it that way.

The second reason I stand up here and respond in this way is that I know I come from a place where we have earthquakes, and there are Members on this floor from California who come from earthquake areas. There are places all over this country where tornadoes are a real problem, and I think we have to think of ourselves as a Federal Government that deals with the problems of any part of the United States that needs it. It may be the gulf coast right now, and we can find all kinds of problems with whatever the gulf coast did or did not do, but the people deserve our best effort here in this House.

For that reason, I intend to support this bill, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) will, I am sure, and I think the gentleman has a unanimous vote here, but we took this time because we wanted to say that we thought it was necessary to think much more broadly and comprehensively about this than I think the leadership on the Republican side was willing to look at at this time. They are going to have to face it soon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 501) providing for the concurrence by the House with amendments in the amendment of the Senate to H.R. 3971.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today is a compromise between a bill that the House has previously passed dealing with unemployment insurance benefits for the affected States on the gulf coast that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina and the Senate bill which addressed the same issue.

There were other matters included in one or other of the bills, including the extension of the Transitional Medical Assistance Program, which continues Medicaid for families leaving welfare for work, the Abstinence Education Program, and the QI-1 program through which State Medicaid programs help low-income seniors pay Medicare part B premiums.

Also, this bill is completely paid for, and the pay-for in this bill is the same as it was in the House bill when it passed the House floor a couple of weeks ago, and that is to prohibit Medicare and Medicaid coverage of drugs for treatment of erectile dysfunction.

Mr. Speaker, the compromise bill today includes the very same unemployment insurance benefits that were included in the previously passed House bill. We make a few changes in the effective days of some of the programs I referred to earlier. For example, the QI-1 program in the bill before us today is extended through September 30, 2007, instead of the date of December 2006 which was included in the previously passed House bill.

In addition, the bill before us includes the Senate-passed extension of the Abstinence Education Program which was not included in our earlier-passed version of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge all Members today to do the same thing they did 2 weeks ago and support this bill and pass it to give badly needed assistance to those States along the gulf coast who are experiencing very much increased unemployment due to Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), chairman and ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee. I also want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), my distinguished colleagues on the committee. A lot of people have worked hard on this issue of unemployment insurance. I also want to thank the staff of the Ways and Means Committee on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, for jumping in very early after Katrina hit to start dealing with all of these issues within our jurisdiction that affect the victims of this disaster. Thanks to the hard work of members of the committee and staff, we have been able to pass already a number of bills that the President has signed to help mitigate the disaster.

This bill before us today is one that I can assure the Members of this House and the gentleman from Washington that my State very badly wants right now; it is very badly needed. They are in fact spending money from their unemployment trust fund at a very fast clip, and their part of this $500 million will give them a badly needed infusion of cash to stop the bleeding in their own unemployment trust fund.

So although the gentleman from Washington may be right in saying that this is not enough to cover everything that the State will lose as a result of this disaster, nonetheless, it is a very, very important infusion of cash right now to my State and to Mississippi and to Alabama to help them in this very bad time shortly after the storm when unemployment is reaching its peak.

So, again, just as I did 2 weeks ago, I would urge the gentleman from Washington and others in this House not to stop this bill from passing. Work with us later to perfect other bills which may be needed when we get more evidence in as to the financial effects on these States because of the effects of the disaster, and we will certainly work with them to provide additional assistance.

Mr. Speaker, I must add that this House and indeed this Congress has passed and the President has signed over $62 billion of relief for the disaster stricken States along the gulf coast. I do not know of anyone who would call that a meager response. That is indeed a very robust response. Yes, we are experiencing some difficulties in getting that money out the door, on the ground, to the purposes for which it was intended; but those are bureaucratic problems that we have with any large government program. But the money has been appropriated, Congress has taken action, the President has signed those bills, and the money is there waiting to be spent. So I do not call that a meager response. I call that a robust response, a very quick response; and today's bill is just another step in providing an immediate response to the problems.

Again, I can assure this House that my State very badly needs the provisions of this bill today and very badly wants this bill to be passed and signed by the President. Then, if there is more needed down the road, we can come back and address that at the appropriate time; but today I believe this is an appropriate response of this House and this Congress to help these States with their immediate unemployment insurance needs to keep the taxes on their employers in those States from going up at the very time when we need to encourage businesses to restart, to reinvest, and to retire employees.

Mr. Speaker, again, I would urge passage of this very badly needed legislation today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, again, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio for his contributions to perfecting the part of this legislation that concerns the QI program and the extension of that program. His input, as well as many others in this House, were very valuable in allowing us to reach a compromise and get this bill to the floor. So I thank him for that.

With respect to Medicare premiums, we are all concerned about that. The gentleman makes a valid point. He, of course, knows very well that the Medicare premiums are simply a function of the cost of the Medicare part B program and have nothing to do with taxes of any sort in this country. We are all concerned about trying to hold down the increases in medical costs, not only for Medicare beneficiaries but for everybody in our society.

I would urge the gentleman from Ohio and others to join us in trying to attack the root causes of those cost increases, such as medical malpractice reform, which we passed through this House but we cannot quite get through the Senate. Maybe with the gentleman's help, we can get those things passed and get those costs under control so we can control the increases of the Medicare part B premium.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, just in closing, again I would like to thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), my colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means, for being so constructive throughout this process. He has tried to offer constructive suggestions for inclusion in this legislation. Unfortunately, we have not been able to accommodate all of his requests, but we have included, for example, the flexibility with the use of this money for the States to increase benefits if they so choose on a temporary basis, to do some of things that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) was so rightly concerned about.

So, again, I appreciate his input, as I do the input of other members of the committee on this issue, and urge all of us to continue to work together to try to appropriately respond to this disaster, as well as any others that we unfortunately experience in this country.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would urge passage of H. Res. 501.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.