Ensuring Ballot Access for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Victims Act of 2005

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and amendment 3641, division IV, be called up.

We are considering a very large supplemental spending bill that now stands about $10 billion larger than what the President has said he will sign. I thought it would be interesting to spend a minute to think about what $1 billion is because we throw that number around so often. We need to consider that $1 billion is a difficult number to comprehend.

A billion seconds ago, it was 1959. A billion minutes, ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago, some would say our ancestors were living in the stone age. A billion days ago, no one walked on Earth on two feet. A billion dollars was only 8 hours 20 minutes ago at the rate we are spending money in the Federal Government.

A billion is a hard number to get your arms around. It is an interesting number and $10 billion more than what the President thinks we need. More than what we actually need is a tremendous amount of money.

The second point I make in talking about this amendment is that the money we are going to spend on this emergency supplemental bill we will not ever see anywhere when we come to talk about the deficit because it will not get included in the deficit reported by the Federal Government. What it will get included in is the payments your children and grandchildren will have to pay back 30 years from now, amortized at 6 percent, and that $10 billion is going to come to about $50 billion when they pay it back. We are reaching forward and stealing opportunity from our kids.

This particular amendment deals with an item in the supplemental that is meant to help a very significant contractor in our defense industry. They do a lot of great things for this country in terms of supplying jobs, giving us great equipment, great ships, great tools for our men and women to fight with and defend this country. I understand the damage that has occurred in both Pascagoula and all the shipyards along the coast. We are making plans to do what is right. In the supplemental, we put greater than $1.5 billion toward that.

There is a significant amount of loss that was incurred by Northrop Grumman as the hurricane came on shore and damaged both their facilities and their equipment. They had significant operating losses from that. My problem with the amendment is they have insurance with which to cover this loss. No one knows exactly how much it is going to be. Northrop Grumman says by their own public statements that $500 million was their business interruption cost insurance, so it could be upward of $500 million. It is probably somewhere between $100 and $200 million.

If we allow this amendment to go through, we set significant precedence that we will be hard pressed to ever break.

First of all, this is a private contractor with insurance who is now suing their insurance company for the claims they have made that will not be adjudicated until 2007.

One of the messages we will send if we pass this supplemental with this in it is we will tell the rest of the defense contractors: You do not have to have business interruption insurance. Why would you have to if the Federal Government is going to come in and pick up the tab?

There is an answer that whatever is collected will come back and be paid to the Navy if, in fact, we intercede in the midst of this contract dispute for Northrop Grumman. I hear what the contracting office says, and it is a fairly important point because the contracting officers and the contracting office know the right of legal loss doctrine. Most of our insurance, whether it is homeowners, auto insurance, or business interruption insurance, runs on the doctrine of legal loss. Legal loss in insurance contracting says that if you get paid by someone else, we do not have to pay you.

This amendment is not so much about being against helping Northrop Grumman; it is about not helping their insurance firm which actually owes this money, which will be adjudicated in the future, and not limiting their responsibility and not transferring that responsibility from them to our children and our grandchildren.

September 28, 2005--this is the Contract Management Agency for the Defense Department:

This office believes it would be inappropriate to allow

Northrop Grumman to bill for costs potentially recoverable by

insurance because payment by the Government may otherwise

relieve the carrier from their policy obligation.

If the Government pays the costs, or agrees that the costs

are even tentatively or conditionally allowable, there is a

risk that insurers will deny coverage on the basis that there

has been no loss suffered by Northrop Grumman.

In fact, that is exactly right. If we pay the loss, Northrop Grumman does not have a loss, and therefore the legal loss doctrine will apply to this contract, so there will not be a lawsuit. This is in litigation.

I also make the point that Northrop Grumman, by their CEO's own statements this year, said that it continues to expect sales of $31 billion; earnings per share between 4.25 and 4.40; and cash from operations, free cashflow, between $2.3 and $2.6 billion. If this is $100 million or $200 million, they have all the capability in the world to borrow that money, pay the interest, and collect the interest charges against the insurance company. We are setting a terrible precedent by doing this.

The other thing we are going to do is send a message to every other defense contractor: Don't get business interruption insurance because we will come in and pick up the tab.

I want them to be fully remunerated. I want the shipyards to be up and running. I want every aspect we can deploy that will make things happen, that will resecure the jobs, resecure our production of ships. But I don't want to do that when Factory Mutual Insurance Company really should be on the hook for this, not our children and our grandchildren.

The other point I make is should companies that contract as defense suppliers and make billions each year be put ahead of the others waiting in line for help? Is it going to be our policy by this bill to further subsidize the business interruption insurance of all the rest of the contractors?

Their own litigation filed in California says:

There is no reason to allow Factory to avoid accountability

for its wrongful actions.

I agree. And by keeping this in the bill, we will allow Factory Mutual to avoid accountability for its obligations.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Defense Contract Management Agency letter, dated September 28, 2005. There has also been the filing of Northrop Grumman Corporation against Factory Mutual Insurance Company in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

I also note that Northrop Grumman is the fourth largest defense contractor we have in the country. I also note that Northrop is already the recipient of billions of dollars in Government contracts, including some contracts that otherwise could be considered largess. I will not go into that.

I would make a final note that the House Appropriations Committee, when they passed their bill, put this into the Record:

The Committee believes strongly that funds in this Act and

under this heading in prior Acts should not be used to

substitute for private insurance benefits. The Committee is

aware that some shipyards have business interruption

insurance coverage that could potentially overlap with the

Navy's budget for increased delay and disruption costs.

I understand the Navy. We have an obligation for delay and disruption costs. There is no question about that.

On March 1, 2006, the Committee received the Navy's

certification that there is no overlap between shipyard

insurance claims and the Navy's funding plan, and that costs

covered by private insurers were not included in supplemental

request estimates. Once again in this bill, the Committee

directs the Navy not to obligate funds under this heading

until the Secretary of the Navy certifies that no such funds

will be used for activities or costs that are subject to

reimbursement by any third party, including a private

insurer.

The final point I would make is the President's message to Congress on why he would be against us funding this. He made some significant points, and I will summarize them. One is they do not think this is necessary. No. 2, it violates clear contracting guidelines. And, No. 3, it sets a terrible precedent for the future, not just on our coast but for any other defense contractor that might have a loss based on a natural catastrophe, that we would now have a precedent that we would supply that.

The American people want to help solve the problems on the gulf coast. We want to create a vigorous business environment. We want to create a vigorous defense industry. This is a step too far. I believe we need to back up and let the private sector take care of its obligations, as it should, to help us meet our obligations and then move forward.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to raise a few points. First, I have great respect for the Senators from Mississippi and Louisiana. If they will note, my votes have reflected that, when we have sent money for both. The President did request $2.5 billion, $2.7 billion for this. But he also requested that we not do this specific thing, that we not do this. The Senator from Mississippi makes a point they have already collected $125 million--actually they told us $125 million, maybe it is more--from insurance. They did have a big loss.

We had a hurricane down there and everybody will agree, because of the hurricane, the ships are going to cost more, no matter what we do. They are going to cost more because they were delayed. We know that in defense contracting. Is it in Northrop Grumman's interest to recapitalize this shipyard? Yes. There is no question about it. Do they have a positive cashflow of $2.6 billion this year? Yes. The reason we should not do this is because there will be no money coming from the insurance industry. Under the legal loss doctrine, we will obviate all those policies. So by doing this, it is true, any money that comes comes back to the Navy. I agree, that is in here. But the fact is, there will be no money coming back because they will have and utilize in their insurance contracts the legal loss doctrine. That doctrine will obviate any obligation, any liability these insurance companies have to do it. So the question is, should our kids pay for it, our grandkids pay for it, or is it in Northrop Grumman's best interest to put the business interruption insurance, which is in litigation, to borrow that money or take it out of earnings from cashflow from operations right now and then collect the interest on it? Instead, we are going to send it on down the pike 30 years to be paid back, and $125 or $200 million will become $800 million or $1 billion after 30 years.

I would also read into the record part (a), section 2303, ``Amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act.'' Going on down, ``under the heading `Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy' may be obligated and expended to pay the costs of any business disruption incurred by a ship construction contractor with respect to facilities or businesses located in the Hurricane Katrina Disaster area by reason of Hurricane Katrina.''

We do get all four of them, all four segments intentionally, because if we don't, then we pay. The insurance industry won't pay. Anything that isn't settled at the time this goes through will not be paid for by the insurance industry. So if you want to go out and make some money today, go buy Factory Mutual insurance. Because if this goes through and is a part of it, they made $150 million today with this thing going through. They are not going to pay, and they are going to be upheld in a court of law.

This is an established doctrine of law. And if it is already paid for by the U.S. taxpayers' grandchildren, then Factory Mutual is not going to have to pay for it.

I understand the intent. I believe the Senators from Mississippi are doing what they think is right. I think this is just a step too far that doesn't have to be done to truly get going. There are 11,062 employees in Mississippi right now working for Northrop Grumman. They have employees in 38 States. They are a great company and a vital contractor. But I would make the case that the cost of ships has gone up because we had the hurricane. And it is noble to try to limit that increase. This won't limit the increase; this will just increase the cost to our grandchildren.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may call up Coburn amendment No. 3641, Division V, and I ask unanimous consent for its withdrawal.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Division VI of amendment No. 3641 be called up.

Mr. President, I have every intention of withdrawing this amendment. But I wish to mention for a moment that this is an amendment that would have removed $20 million from the National Marine Fisheries Service to study catch, bycatch, shrimp and relief and fishery profitability in the Gulf--the study of profitability. We are going to spend $20 million to study profitability.

The Louisiana Seafood and Marketing Board considers this to be unnecessary spending and a low priority.

That is what the people who market the seafood from Louisiana said about this amendment.

I am not going to put us through a vote on it, but I think we ought to pay attention to the people down there who are now saying they don't need $20 million for marketing and studying. They believe it is a waste of money. When the people of Louisiana are telling us it is wasted money, it is certainly wasted money.

I ask unanimous consent it be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3641, Division

Mr. President, I don't intend to ask for a vote on this amendment and may, in fact, withdraw it, but I think it is something that the American people should know. This is about AmericaCorps, the National Civilian Community Corps.

There are three things we ought to know. The idea behind this is fine. They have done a great deal of work on the gulf coast. However, there are some real problems with this program. The House also has significant problems with this program.

Here is the key point: It has never had a comprehensive evaluation in 13 years to see if it accomplishes anything of importance. Compared to all the other AmeriCorps service programs, this one is about 50 percent more costly per person. This one costs $28,000 per volunteer for 10 months. That annualized out to $34,000 per person per year.

No. 3, no one is measuring any performance. There are no set goals. No one is saying what they are intended to accomplish? How do we measure that? Could we do it cheaper? Can we do it a better way? None of that has been evaluated on this program.

People will oppose this. I have no lack of reality in knowing we do not have an opportunity to eliminate this money. However, contrast what actually happened on the gulf coast with this AmeriCorps. We had people from all over this country go down and help. We didn't pay them a penny. We did not pay them a $35,000 annualized salary. We had college students from all across this country spend their spring breaks, their Christmas breaks, their Thanksgiving breaks on the gulf coast volunteering. We had churches, civic organizations, local charities, we did not pay them a penny. They all came because there was a need.

There is something very wrong behind the idea that we have to pay people to be volunteers. As a matter of fact, it is an oxymoron. You cannot have a paid volunteer because they are not volunteering if they are getting paid. The motivation and commitment shown by true volunteers is unmatched by any congressional appropriation. The Nation is answering the call to be Good Samaritans and treat others the way they want to be treated.

This program was started in 1993 with good goals, and the purpose was to create leadership. We may have done that, but the fact that we do not know if we have done that, the fact that we keep throwing this money--which does not go to the individual volunteers; $4,000 does, but it costs too much to operate.

I will ask unanimous consent for withdrawing of this division, but we certainly ought to have some oversight. I intend to have an oversight hearing in the Committee on Federal Financial Oversight.

I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the division.

Mr. President, I wish I would have thought of that amendment. It is a great amendment.

The Senator from South Dakota makes the point, we have to make decisions about priorities. When we have an unproven volunteer program that is more expensive than any other volunteer program, and we are putting an extra $20 million on the basis of emergency versus fulfilling the obligations to those people who have made the ultimate sacrifice and paid the price and served this country and put their lives in danger doing so, it is a no-brainer that we ought to be spending the money on the veterans rather than a program that has not proven to be effective, not proven to match a performance goal, and not proven even to be measuring itself in the 13 years of its existence.

I support the Senator's amendment.

Amendment No. 3641, Division VIII, Withdrawn

With that, I ask the pending amendment be laid aside and amendment No. 3641, division VIII, be called up.

Mr. President, I do not intend on asking for a vote on this amendment, but I highlight this amendment because of the problems implicit in this request.

In this supplemental is a request for $230 million, an earmark, for three additional Osprey V-22 airplanes. The Pentagon, in 2005, formally approved full rate production of the V-22: 360 for the Marine Corps, 48 for the Navy, and 50 for the Air Force. The Pentagon has ordered 90 as of today.

This plane is not yet proven, one, and I will not go into the debate on that. It cannot even have full testing and cannot be used in the battlefield.

The point is, there is no emergency need to order these planes. This plane is manufactured in Texas and Pennsylvania. The Pentagon did not request this. The President did not request it. What we have is people requesting it.

We have a plane that has not met performance tests yet, has not been battle proven, and we are adding three airplanes for which some would raise a good question as to whether it ought to be done in this way. It ought to be done through an authorization and through the regular process.

I know this is in the mark. I am not sure the chairman is supportive of it, and I will not ask for the vote, but I don't think this is the way we ought to buy airplanes, especially when it is not an emergency.

There are numerous problems. Most of them have been corrected, but there still have been numerous problems. This is the problem with earmarks. We are adding something that is not authorized, a plane that has had tremendous developmental difficulties, that the Pentagon does not want, the President does not want, yet we want. Why do we want it? Because, for some reason, we end up either employing more people on something that may not eventually work to the military's satisfaction or we get benefits from it in terms of political expediency.

I believe it is the wrong way to go. I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that we proceed to the consideration of amendment No. 3641, division IX.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this division be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that division X be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up division XI.

Mr. President, I find myself bringing an amendment again against two of my friends who have a significant stake. They are both from Mississippi. They have looked at this issue a great deal.

What I want to do is raise the issues with a debate on the amendment, and then possibly talk about solutions.

During Katrina, the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, MS, was damaged. The first floor was damaged significantly. It required and necessitated us moving those veterans to other retirement homes.

We need to remedy that. There are lots of options on the table. I talked

with the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and there are a lot of good ideas coming out on how to solve that problem.

The problem I have is, we allocated $45 million for this in the last year, and $44 million of it remains in the bank and has not been spent. This bill has $176 million, but it does not tell us what we are going to do with it. It just has $176 million.

So that brings us to a quarter of a billion dollars on this retirement home that houses 600 of our best, who have proven they have been our best through their service to our country.

Now, if you divide this out, you come to almost $400,000 per room, if we created a new style. And the plans, the proposals are all in the $480 million and $490 million range that have been offered up on the different options.

Congressman Gene Taylor from Mississippi, in the debate on this issue, says we can fully restore this facility to what it was beforehand for $80 to $90 million. That is what the estimates are. Private industry estimates for a brand-new naval home facility are that it could be built to the desired standards--that means up to date for Americans with disabilities; up to date on size, doors; up to date on the ability to handle people with advanced aging and disease and long- term consequences--for $125 million to $150 million.

So the question I raise with this amendment is not whether we should do it. It is: We have $221 million, after this bill goes through, that is going to be for that, and we are not through, and there is nothing in the report language that would direct us on how we are going to make a decision on spending this money and what it is going to go for.

I will agree with the goal of the chairman that we ought to replace this facility, and those people involved in that area ought to have a lot to say about it. My concern is the cost. If you really take the $589.54 million, which is option No. 1 that is coming out for this, and the estimate that it will take 13 years to get us back to where we were, that is $1 million a room.

I want to contrast that with what we can do for $1 million. If you look at the average price of a new home in Mississippi for a single person to live in, it is less than $80,000 a year. We could buy every veteran who lives in that home a brand-new home and provide nursing care for 10 years--for 10 years--for what is being proposed in replacing this.

So my real question is, what is the plan? Where is the commonsense oversight? How much are we going to spend? And before we send more money in an emergency appropriations, we ought to know what that is, and that ought to be decided before we spend more money, especially since $44 million that has been appropriated has not been spent.

All I am saying is that we should consider that. I would hope we would wait to send additional supplemental money for this until we know exactly where it is going to go or specify exactly where it is going to go.

We do know that to be considered an emergency we need to meet the requirements. I believe we need to meet the requirements for our veterans, especially in this home because we have some of them in Washington, DC, and we have them living all across the country. But the fact is, we don't know where the money is going to go. We don't know how much money we are going to spend. We don't have a plan. Nothing is agreed to. Why not go through the regular process with this? Why not go through the authorization and appropriation process on this since we have not spent the money already and we don't know how this money is going to be spent?

So it is a simple, straightforward question: Wouldn't it make more sense to do it under the regular order since this is definitely not an emergency now? Under their five different plans they have offered up, this would not be an emergency.

I would ask the consideration of the chairman if we could do it in a better, more efficient way that is better for the taxpayer; if, in fact, we could withdraw this money at this time and bring it back through the regular order to accomplish that?

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to see this facility replaced, too, but I have some serious questions. The Senator was not here for the debate. I want him to hear those questions because what he is proposing is cheaper than several of what the retirement board suggested. I agree. Call me cheap. What he is proposing is $370,000 per resident. That is twice what I can build a brand-new hospital for with the latest everything.

I guess my point is, for $221 million, what are our grandchildren going to get because we are doing this under an emergency, and we know we can build a brand-new facility up to code, nice as can be, with the rooms the size the Senator wants, for $150 million total. We know that is possible. So why should we spend $221 million doing it? If it is not a fixed plan now; if we send $221 million out of here, they are going to spend it.

My problem is, I would love for the Senator and maybe the chairman to work with me to get this to a more realistic idea of what the real costs should be so that we accomplish the goal they want, and we do it in a more timely manner. I agree, having a campus style is probably a little bit more expensive, but it isn't 50 percent more expensive than what it should cost.

I made the point earlier that for a new home, for a single or couple living in 1,200 to 1,500 square feet in the State of Mississippi, you can buy one of the nicest places in the world for $81,000 right now, or $72,000. We got a quote yesterday from Mississippi. So that leaves $300,000. If we bought them all a brand-new home and then hired them a caretaker at $30,000 a year for the next 10 years, we would spend less money.

Again, you bet, I am a tightwad when it comes to our grandchildren's money, and I want value for what we spend. That is the purpose of this amendment. I am willing to withdraw this amendment if I can have the assurance that we can moderate this back into a range that would look like something comparable to what we really need to spend.

I wish to make a final point, if the Senator will bear with me. We don't have this money. We don't have it. Anything we don't get good value for today because our kids are paying for it means they are going to get an exaggerated cost when they come to pay it back. That is my purpose.

I want them to have a great home. I want them to be able to come home. I know they have a tremendous camaraderie living there. I want to see that restored for them. They deserve it. Can we not do it in a much cheaper way and still give them what they want? Remember, they fought hard so we would have the money to be able to do it.

Mr. President, I concur with the Senator's desire to reestablish the site there. That is not what this is about. I am told the Senate Armed Services Committee is not for this because it only gets us halfway there, which bothers me greatly because instead of $221 million, we are going to spend $442 million, which ends up being about $800,000 per bed.

The point I make is this: If you throw money out there, they are going to build where they expend the money. How about us having a plan within a certain amount of money and living with it, rather than saying we are

going over or we are not going over? How about taking the average of the last couple that have been built where there have been any facilities similar to it and using that as a guideline? My problem is it is not $176 million; it is $176 million plus $44 million, and other people are going to authorize another $200 million, so we are going to be talking about a half a billion dollars, and that is my problem with it.

I ask unanimous consent at this time to withdraw this amendment. I appreciate the courtesies extended to me during the debate. I know the desire is right. I think the money that is out there is extraordinarily too much, especially when we have documented estimates to repair the present facilities between $50 million and $60 million and to build new ones between $120 million and $150 million. So anything above that is fluff at this time, which we can't afford. We can meet our obligations, but we can't go much beyond that and meet our other obligations. So I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 3641, division XII, and I ask unanimous consent for its withdrawal.

And I ask unanimous consent to withdraw division XIII.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent division XIV be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent division XV be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw division XVI.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw division XVII.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the withdrawal of division XVIII.

Mr. President, I withdrew amendments for things I still do not agree with that are in this bill. I am not going to spend the time in the Senate now, but I will spend the time before we have the final vote on this bill to discuss what is in this bill that is not emergency, that is not an obligation by the Federal Government, that is not prudent or fiscally wise. I will not spend the time on that at this time.

Amendment No. 3641, Division XIX

I ask unanimous consent division XIX be brought up.

Mr. President, this is an amendment that removes $11.3 million from our Corps of Engineers, Sacramento River Bank Protection Project in California.

I have no lack of understanding of the potential flooding problems occurring in San Francisco and south of there in California and the way the rain patterns have changed. I am not wishing to defeat anything that will make a real difference on that.

This amendment is about a program that is 46 years old that, according to the Corps' own statement, is 95 percent complete, that we have already spent $131 million on, that $10.6 million is being spent this year, as we speak, on this program.

In this supplemental, they are asking for another $11 million for this program. I don't doubt that the $11 million will be needed. But it won't even get there under this emergency supplemental, through the Corps' own admission, until after September when the new year starts.

First of all, it does not meet the definition of ``emergency,'' that it should meet in coming through this bill.

What does this program do? This program solves and prevents levee erosion problems while providing fish and wildlife mitigation. That is what the program does. It has been going since 1960.

We had $6.3 million included in the energy and water appropriations bill last year and an additional $10.96 million. The Corps also stated that $57 million more is needed for the final completion of this project.

This says a lot about the Corps of Engineers and their ability to get things done. Although I might agree we need to eventually spend the money for this project, it certainly ought to be paid for and come out of the energy and water appropriations because the money will not get there to be utilized. They have not even spent the money appropriated on the spend-out this year.

I am not, in substance, against completing this project. It comes back to the same things we have been talking about. Is it an emergency that we do it now? And if, in fact, it is an emergency, will the money get there and make a difference? It won't.

I am asking this go through the regular process, through the energy and water appropriations, that it be authorized to the extent that the Senators from California would like to have it, and that we do it in regular order.

It would be different if we thought this money was really going to make a difference with the problems in California, but it is not. It will not change one thing in terms of how the Corps operates this program this year. By the time the money would get there, it would have to be reprogrammed anyhow.

I have some other problems with this program. Ask yourself: If we have spent $131 million plus $6.3 million, $137 million already, and the Corps says it is 95 percent complete, and then they say they need another $51 million to complete it, how can it be 95 percent complete?

This is not about the need. This is about the inefficiencies within the Corps. This is about whether we can get the money to solve a problem that is deemed an emergency at this time, but I seriously doubt whether that has been the fact.

The Corps has been cited on numerous occasions by the GAO for its inability to predict costs, stay within the forecasted budget. In fact, some of GAO's strong criticisms have come in regard to this very work in the Sacramento area.

I made the point in an earlier amendment with Senator Obama that the Corps made $5 a cubic yard on everything we removed in Katrina. That is over 30 million cubic yards. That is $150 million the Corps took out of the Homeland Security and the emergency appropriations. Why don't we spend that money on this? Why do we borrow more money against our children and grandchildren to accomplish this worthy goal?

When I ask those questions, we do not get any answers. No one answers the question, can we efficiently be good stewards of our children and our grandchildren's money? When is enough enough? If this project is, indeed, an emergency, as we are being told, we need to be asking the tough questions. How long does it take to shore up levees near Sacramento--46 years for the Corps to do this job? I have a real sneaking suspicion 10 years from now the Corps will continue to ask us for money to shore up levees in Sacramento. And if that is the case and they have not completed it, it means they will not have done a good job on the very job we ask them to do, which is something I contend anyway.

These funds may, in fact, be needed. If that is the case, the Corps of Engineers has failed miserably.

I intend, in my oversight committee, to ask for an explanation of every penny the Corps has spent on the river bank protection near Sacramento. Representatives of this city and taxpayers all across the country should be outraged regarding the irresponsibility of the Corps in carrying out this project. Forty years and over $130 million later, we are asked to give the Corps an additional $11 million in emergency appropriations, money we will have to borrow, all because the Corps cannot do its job correctly the first, third, fourth, fifth, up to the 46th time.

Enough is enough. No venture would ever continue to receive such high funding with this track record.

Two other questions I think should be asked. Does the Corps lack the resources to fund the emergency needs? According to the Office of Management and Budget, the Corps of Engineers had $4.5 billion in unobligated balances last year and has an estimate of $5.8 billion in unobligated balances this year. According to the Corps itself, as of March 30, their unobligated scheduled carryover was $1.49 billion. They have the money to do this right now.

The Sacramento Corps office will have unobligated balances by the end of 2006 in excess of $13.5 million.

I ask again: Why are we going to borrow money when we have the money? If, in fact, it is an emergency, the Corps has the money in unobligated balances to accomplish it. All we need is an authorization to do that.

How do we prioritize Federal funds in California? In fiscal year 2006, California has 549 earmarks costing $733 million. In addition, it received $10 million in earmarks for museums alone. That expenditure alone would have been enough to pay for nearly all of this requested work.

Are the following museum earmarks more important than protecting the city of Sacramento: $200,000 for the California State Mining and Mineral Museum; $550,000 for development and construction of Noah's Park at the Skirball Cultural Center; $4.35 million for repairs of Sala Burton Maritime Museum, in San Francisco; $300,000 to the city of San Jacinto for improvements to the museum/Extudillo property; $175,000 for the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum; $500,000 for the construction of a museum also at the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum.

Just the museum earmarks alone would take care of this. So instead, what we are going to do, we are going to borrow money because we do not have the money to pay for this.

Attempting to attach more funds for the project, the project in its 46th year, outside of the regular budget process, is an abuse of taxpayer resources, takes advantage of the emergency appropriations process intended to deal only with the most urgent and immediate needs of the devastated gulf region, and to provide for our soldiers in battle.

Senator Boxer said on May 1, 2005, the war should be paid for in the budget, not in an emergency supplemental. The war is known. The cost of the war was anticipated by some people that this administration fired. The cost of this war is spinning out of control.

The same can be said for this project. This project was authorized in 1960. It has received over $100 million and its future costs are known. This should be addressed in the regular appropriations process, not in an emergency supplemental.

With that, I yield the floor, and I offer time to the opponents of my amendment.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

When you were changing Candlestick Park, you did not borrow money from future generations of Americans to do that? You found it within the budget? I believe that is correct; is it not?

Will the Senator yield for an additional question?

I have said I do not deny this work needs to be done. Can you foresee that the environmental impact assessments for all this will be completed in time for this money to be used this fiscal year?

Will the Senator yield for one additional question?

Does it concern you at all that over the 46 years of this project the engineering by the Corps of Engineers for these levees is requiring them to go back now, in 29 places, and fix what they should have done right the first time? Does that concern you at all?

Would it make sense to you that we could, in a supplemental, change the authorization under the emergency process so that the Sacramento Corps could use their $13.5 million they are going to have in unobligated balances at the end of this year? We could do that just as well as borrow an additional $10.9 million against our children; could we not?

I question how we are paying for it. We are borrowing the money from future generations to do it rather than make the hard decisions of trimming something else. That is important.

Mr. President, the arguments that have been made by the Senators from California, in terms of needing to fix things, are probably accurate. But I am sitting here thinking to myself, if it would take only $11 million to take care of this, and to know that the earliest this money is going to be there is 8 weeks, if I were Governor of California, I would find $11 million. I would get that tomorrow. If it is not going to get done tomorrow, we ought to be asking why not, if the threat is that great and it imperils that much of the economy and that many people.

I still raise the same questions. I am not denying this needs to get done. I am denying how we pay for it. We are not making the hard choices to cut something else out of the bill to pay for this because it is a higher priority. No, what we are doing is taking the money from future generations because we refuse to make those hard choices.

That is what it is all about. We could have reprogrammed money within the Corps to get this done. The Governor could ask the legislature for $11 million to get this done starting tomorrow. If there are 29 sites, what we do know about the Corps is it doesn't do anything fast. In this project, we know what they have done over the last 46 years has not been sufficient because they are having these problems. We will finish the debate tomorrow morning. The point is, I don't deny that this needs to get done. If it is the case that has been made by the Senators from California, then why hasn't it already been done? If there is this impending emergency, why hasn't California ponied up to put up the $11 million that is so desperately needed right now to pay for it, rather than asking the rest of the country's children and grandchildren? If this bill had come to the floor paid for, I would not be out here. But it is not paid for. We are going to go write the bills and bonds to pay for this $11 million. Maybe that is what we should do. Maybe that is the priority we should have. But I would think that the rest of the American people ought to say, where are you getting the money?

We are not making hard choices. We are passing it down the line. I agree if something were to happen, the cost would be much greater. I am a physician and I believe in prevention. That is what this debate is all about, preventing America from becoming a second-rate economy because we refuse to make hard decisions here on how we spend money. That is what this is about. I don't deny the desire to address this issue. That doesn't have anything to do with it. But if it is an emergency as described at the present time, why doesn't California fix it? Why hasn't California ponied up the $11 million, which is a small amount there. It is the fifth largest economy in the world. They can come up with $11 million.

I understand that.

Reclaiming my time, since it is a question, this isn't about whether you pay your share. It is about whether it is an emergency. If it is an emergency, then why wasn't it done last time? Why are we going back--why isn't a Corps that spent 46 years doing this project going back to repair what they didn't do right in the first place?

I am going back to the main point and then I am through. I will talk again in the morning. Where is the money coming from? Had the money been paid for, I would not be out here. But the money isn't paid for. It is borrowed. So when you take $10.9 million, take your calculator out and put it at 30 years and amortize it at 6 percent, you will come up to about $55 million. That is what we are actually going to pay to do this $10.9 million because we are borrowing the money. That is my point. I am not against doing it, not against getting it done, against prevention. What I am against is borrowing the money against the future of this country because we refuse to make the hard choices.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me address a question to the distinguished chairman of the committee because I thought his remarks were very well done and answered a number of questions that have been put out in the discussion of this language in the media. But I think it is important to clarify a few of those points.

The first point you are making is that this is not an additional or added expenditure. This will come out of the $2.7 billion that has already been requested to go into this shipbuilding recovery effort; is that correct?

Well, Mr. President, I thank the chairman for that clarification and for making that point. I might also ask this question: The Senator was a very capable young lawyer in our State years ago, president of the young lawyer's section, and I think he understands this sort of issue. Are you satisfied that this language is such that when and if there is an insurance recovery, those funds will come back to the Federal Government?

One final point that the Senator made that I think is a very important one. If we do not allow this provision to remain in this legislation, the net cost is going to be twice as much or more.

I believe the questions that have been posed have been answered correctly and appropriately by the chairman of the committee. This provision does not require additional funds. Payments will come out of funds that have already been earmarked for shipbuilding recovery. It is not going be a process where the shipbuilder will be relieved of trying to recover from the insurance company and, if they recover, they get to keep it. It is important to emphasize those points.

Let me confess to my colleagues, this is personal with me. I admit it. This is my hometown. I grew up in the shadow of this shipyard where 13,000 men and women make their livelihood, the biggest single employer in the States of Mississippi and Louisiana and at one point of Alabamians, a critical component of our national security. They build some of the most sophisticated ships in the world--destroyers, cruisers, LHAs, LHDs, LHARs. And that shipyard got hammered by hurricane Katrina. My dad was a pipefitter in that shipyard and was in the pipe department when he was killed in an automobile accident. I don't just see statistics and numbers; I see neighbors, classmates, men and women who believe in what they do and build quality product. They have been hit a grievous blow.

I understand the effort of the Senator from Oklahoma. On many similar occasions, if I didn't know all the facts or if I weren't as intimately involved, maybe I would be doing something similar to what he is. I understand. But I don't think he has all the facts. Maybe the clarification that my colleague from Mississippi made will help him.

The magnitude of what we were hit with is the most devastating thing we have ever seen. I won't bring out a lot of charts, but so you will get some idea of the destruction, here is a picture of the shipyard right after the hurricane. This whole shipyard had a direct hit. It is right on the mouth of the river. It got hammered. Five hundred men and women put their lives at risk that night trying to keep ships that were moored there from sinking. This is what we were dealt. Everything in that shipyard was under water. And by the way, just so you will get some idea, there in the background of this picture, those cranes are actually on the water. This photo was actually taken a distance inland, and you see the kind of destruction that was brought on us.

One of the things we did in the aftermath of the hurricane was to say: OK, let's rescue people. Let's get them the basics. Then we sat down and said: What is the order of what we ought to do? No. 1, we need to get our people back to work first. Because if we can get them back in their jobs, even if they don't have a home or a truck, that will begin the return to normalcy. They will have income. Then let's get our schools open. Then let's remove the debris. So we had an order. We have not done this haphazardly.

This provision was not stuck in the bill as an afterthought. It was carefully done. It was done after looking to see what the actual impact was going to be.

Several shipyards in my area--three of them, as a matter of fact-- owned by VT Halter had ``only'' 20 or 30 feet of water. But this shipyard was completely shut down. They made a valiant effort to feed people, get people back to work. Now the shipyard is back up to probably 11,000 people working there.

Talk about getting insurance. Let me put the shipyard in my place. My wife and I lost our home. It is totally gone. I had flood insurance. I also had a household policy. My insurance company said: You had no wind damage. We will pay you nothing. After that house sat there for 4 to 6 hours being hammered by winds of 140 miles an hour with gusts at 160 and 170, they came back and said: No, you didn't have any wind damage. It is not credible. So what am I going to do? I guess I could hock everything and rebuild on that site before I get any insurance, but the ``no payment'' or the ``slow payment'' of insurance companies is retarding the entire gulf coast. They are like me; I can't rebuild until I get some insurance proceeds.

They have the problem of how much can they put into this situation without getting the plant back up to operation. They have spent $550 million to clean up this shipyard, repair the facilities, repair the ships, and cover the cost of business interruption not caused by them. They have done their part. In fact, of that $550 million, less than one-third, about $175 million, has been recouped so far from the shipyard's insurance companies. They are going to continue to pursue these insurance claims. I hope they are going to get a good settlement and they will be able to go forward with business.

But this shipyard had a billion dollars of damage. This matter is about national security. It is about the Navy. It is about the world's best ships. It is about men and women who have busted it to get that shipyard back on line.

The same thing has happened in Louisiana, where a lot of work is done on the LPDs and where they went back to work before they had a bed to sleep in. So this provision is the right thing to do for Gulf Coast recovery and to help the Navy maintain the cost and schedules for its ships.

Let me give you a couple of examples of quotes after the hurricane. After the hurricane, Assistant Secretary of the Navy John Young recognized the significant impact of that storm on Navy shipyard building and national defense. In a letter to Navy and Defense Department leadership, Secretary Young wrote that:

The Navy [should] take an aggressive and proactive approach

in helping restore shipyards and returning workers to

shipbuilding tasks. Importantly, this approach has the short-

term benefit of contributing in a significant way to the

restoration of jobs and the economy in the Gulf Coast.

Yard restoration delays, loss of the skilled workforce, and

ship delivery delays will translate directly into creation in

future years of significant new prior year completion bills

on Navy shipbuilding programs.

That was very thoughtful. He was looking at it realistically in the immediate aftermath of this terrible storm. He recommended an action that was appropriate.

Some people say it wasn't in the President's budget. Presidents' budgets don't come down from heaven. They sometimes don't include everything that should be included or maybe it will include something that should not be included. We are a coequal branch of government. We do have a say in these issues. Sometimes we can help. When it came to getting Medicaid for the States affected, we had to take the lead. When it came to getting tax incentives for businesses and industry to create new jobs, we took the lead. When it came to finding a solution for the people who had a home that was not in a flood plain--after the hurricane all they had left was a slab, no insurance, no way to rebuild, and nobody had a solution--Senator Cochran came up with a solution and the administration signed it. They didn't do it; we did it in the Congress. We are from there. We are of this situation. We understand the problems.

We are trying to be reasonable. We told our colleagues months ago about what we would need to recover. We have not exceeded that estimate. We are way under that estimate. In some categories we are not even going back and saying we need more, even though we were somewhat shortchanged. We are trying hard to help the people who have been dealt a grievous blow. If we don't do this, the people in that shipyard will be hurt, the Navy will be

hurt, and it will cost us more. I want to make sure we get the insurance recovery.

I am a plaintiff for the first time in my life. I didn't want to do that. When I met with shipyard officials immediately after the hurricane, I went out there, and they were feeding the people on a ship that was moored. There was no electricity. I said: What about insurance? They said: We are fortunate. We had insurance. We even had a clause in there so we feel we are going to get a good recovery.

Well, it hasn't happened. So we can deal with this realistically and in a sensible and thoughtful way, the way Senator Cochran has outlined, and I think we will get through it. We will keep the jobs, build the ships, help the Navy, help the workers. And we won't lose money in the end. The disruption cost, if we don't do this, will be much greater than by going ahead and doing this right now.

I beg my colleagues, bear with us. I know you are beginning to say: How much is enough? I don't know in every instance, because we are still dealing with the magnitude of this disaster. But we are going to try to be honest with you. We are going to try to be thoughtful. I believe this language is crafted well. I am proud to be a part of the effort to defend the language that is in this legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3727.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I understand that this amendment has been cleared on both sides. I am pleased to join Senator Dodd, who is a cosponsor of this amendment.

Speaking of elections in Iraq, we also hope to have effective and fair and open elections in America.

In the Katrina area, we had significant damage to polling places and to voting machines. We lost all of them in many areas--in New Orleans, South Louisiana, and Mississippi.

This amendment would provide $30 million, through the Federal Elections Commission, for replacement of those losses.

I have checked on both sides of the aisle. I find no objection. I know that our managers have cleared it.

I, therefore, urge my colleagues to accept it. The amendment is certainly very worthwhile. It is needed, and it is needed right away in order to prepare for elections this fall.

I yield the floor so my colleague, Senator Dodd, can further elucidate.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Mr. President, is the amendment pending now and open for debate by Senator Coburn with regard to the Armed Forces Retirement Home?

If I may speak on this subject, I would plead with my colleague from Oklahoma to bear with me and work with us on this. I have a feeling this is something he would like to see done. I think he wants to make sure it is done in the right way. That is my goal, too. I would ask him to hear me out a minute. Let's see if we can work this out and perhaps not force this to a vote, take up the Senate's time, see if we can accommodate everybody's concerns.

Again, this is a place that I have direct personal familiarity with. I was there when it was a high ground on the Mississippi gulf coast beach area with 200-year-old oaks, a beautiful site. In the 1970s, through the good offices and efforts, probably of Senator Stennis, an 11-story retirement home for old sailors was built on that magnificent site in 1976. I was there when the ribbon was cut, and I was so proud of that facility. It was such an exciting thing to see the look in the eyes of those at that time sailors, but it has since become, of course, the Armed Forces Retirement Home. So it is a place of last resort for retirees from all the military branches. That is how far back my history goes with this facility.

In preparation for the storm, to the credit of the leaders there, 300 of the residents were temporarily evacuated to the Armed Forces home in Washington. The rest moved in with friends and family. The facility is capable of holding as many as 500, and there was always a waiting list. When Katrina came in, the entire first floor was flooded. The exterior of the building was blasted with 150-mile-an-hour winds. The entire electrical room located below ground level was flooded from floor to ceiling.

But from that time to this, I continue to hear from the residents saying: We want to come back; we want to come home. Nothing against the Washington, DC, area, but their family, quite often, what little family they have, lives in that area and they feel so comfortable there, they want to go back.

By the way, the Gulfport facility, unlike the one in Washington, didn't lose money. It was always a moneymaker. But the rooms they had were 90-square-foot rooms, and sometimes it was a retiree and his or her spouse in this very small room. I realized several years ago that whoever designed the building had made some mistakes in terms of the size and the options of those retirees.

I don't know if my colleagues are familiar with black mold, but it is bad stuff, and it comes quickly after a hurricane. You begin to see it on the walls, and it will make you sick. If you don't get it out of there, your building will be sick. You have to go in and basically take everything out but the two by fours. You have to take out the walls in the building--just everything--and replace it with new material, or you are going to have this black mold.

I have really been embarrassed by the way the Defense Department has handled the Gulfport facility in the aftermath of the hurricane. I understand we have had a lot of things on our minds, but basically they haven't done anything to mitigate further decay. They haven't gone in there and repaired that first floor. They have not gotten the ventilation system going to dehumidify the rest of the building. They have not done anything to repair the exterior facing. They have not removed the black mold. And to make matters worse, other then some volunteer work initially done by the Navy Seabees, they basically will not let anybody else come in to try to mitigate the decay that is occurring.

Remember, this hurricane was August of last year and that 11-story building stands there today basically like it was the day after the hurricane. They are letting it just sit there. They even initially refused to let the electric company come through the gate to help restore power. This has not been one of our better moments.

Then we started asking: What can we do? I want to do the right thing for our retired veterans at this site. There have been proposals: Let's just go in and put a Band-Aid on it, clean it minimally, move things off the basement and the first floor up to the second floor. There are questions about how feasible that is. Let's just patch it up. But the projection of the costs for even that is not good.

The second alternative is to go in and do a major overhaul and make these 90-square-foot rooms bigger--knock a hole in the wall and have two-room suites, really a major overhaul. The amount of money they are talking about, again, is very high.

Then, of course, the last one is to raze the building and build something more modern, safer in hurricanes, more pleasing to the retirees and everybody involved.

My attitude has been, OK, somebody who is an expert tell me what is the right solution. I can go with any of these alternatives, but let's make sure we do it responsibly and let's not have to do it again in 3 or 4 years. And, by the way, is there some way we can control the costs? A novel idea. So that is where we are.

I met with the Pentagon officials, and I think they are trying to come up with an alternative solution. $64.7 million in appropriated funds was previously provided to study options to rehouse evacuated veterans. Mr. President, $64 million to study options? Do we need that?

What I am saying and what Senator Cochran is saying is let's take the balance of that prior money that can be reprogrammed, and let's couple that with another, I believe, $176 million and go forward.

My colleague from Oklahoma has said he wants a facility put back in Gulfport. He wants to know what it is, and he wants to know what it is going to cost. Some of the numbers I have been hearing--I don't know if I can put my finger on it right here--are proposals of $589 million for renovating it or $389 million to rebuild it. Good gravy. That is real money. I don't like either one of those.

I believe we can repair it or we can come up with this modified proposal Senator Cochran has, about which we had some input, that would be a better, more aesthetically pleasing, more livable, cheaper facility to build.

Look at the report. The report makes it clear what the committee is talking about doing: combined with prior unobligated balances, taking the $176 million the committee has recommended, which shall be used to construct a new, multi-building, campus-style facility on the site occupied by the former Armed Forces Retirement Home.

I think Senator Cochran envisions more of a three-story, military- style retirement facility, perhaps with some surrounding dormitories.

I don't want to say how this is going to be done, but the hurricane was 8\1/2\ months ago, and we are still waiting. The costs are going up, by the way. Try to get a contractor down there now and see what it costs.

So we are trying to get this done. We are making recommendations because

we haven't gotten one from anybody else. But keep in mind, this modified plan makes more sense. I think it would please everybody, and it is a heck of a lot cheaper.

If my colleague from Oklahoma has something he would like to suggest we include--I am not chairman of the committee, I am not on the committee, but I am saying, this was not designed in perfection, but I think it is a positive move that deals with the realities of a pitiful situation.

I talked with the mayor of Gulfport, MS, recently, Mayor Brent Warr, and he told me a story that breaks your heart. He picked up on the streets of Gulfport, MS, one of the former residents who was walking along the side of the road after he had made his way from Washington, DC, to Gulfport. He got tired of waiting. He went home--this is his home--to a mold-infested, mildewed, improperly air-conditioned facility.

I don't think we should do this to these retirees and these veterans. I think we need to move ahead and do the right thing to get our veterans home to Gulfport. I will be glad to yield to my colleague from Oklahoma if he has some additional suggestions. I know this is an area about which he cares.

If the Senator will yield, Mr. President, taking my time back, look, I on occasion have thought of myself as a cheap hawk, too. When you see what I have seen--and the President of the United States and Senator after Senator and Congressman after Congressman looked these people in the eye and said: We are going to make you whole; we are not going to give you everything you want, but we are going to help you get back on your feet. And we said that to these old veterans, too.

I don't want to build a Taj Mahal. Unfortunately, quite often that is what we get when the Government does it. I would like to do it for less. I would like to have more for less. I would prefer the Pentagon had developed a plan 4 months ago and said let's do this. But here we sit on the sideline.

I can't speak for the chairman of the committee, but the Senator can see this is something I have paid attention to. It is something I care about. But I would be open to suggestions and working with the Senator to see if we can come up with a plan that the Pentagon, hopefully, would help us with that would do more and maybe do less. I am amenable to that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to say to Senator Feinstein how much I appreciate her leadership on this in the Appropriations Committee. I wish to say to the chairman of the committee how much I appreciate his understanding of what we are going through in our State with historic rains, historic flooding. I thank the Appropriations Committee for listening to Senator Feinstein when she transmitted a request from the two of us and also from our Governor. This is a bipartisan request.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter written to Senator Coburn from Governor Schwarzenegger. I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record information regarding the Sacramento region.

I am going to read part of this letter. He says:

Our work to restore structural integrity to our levee

system began over a year ago. We cannot wait for a disaster

to strike and must use the lessons of Katrina and act now.

Prior to Katrina, New Orleans had a 250-year level of flood

protection.

And then the Governor says:

Sacramento has 100-year level of flood protection.

That is optimistic. Most experts tell us that it is an 85-year level. And whether it is 85 years or 100 years, it is the lowest of any major city in the U.S.

The Governor writes:

It is only a matter of time before there is a significant

levee breach or system failure.

This is important for the Senator from Oklahoma to hear. I know he has been very gracious in filling me in on this and saying: I didn't go after your other items but just this one. But the fact is, this one is as important as all the rest. The Corps has told us they need these funds to move forward.

Here is what the Governor says:

Such [a flooding] event would flood valuable farmland that

produces food for [our] entire nation.

I say to my friend from Oklahoma, please, listen to us, because the food supply for the entire Nation is at stake, according to Governor Schwarzenegger, Senator Feinstein, myself, and a bipartisan delegation in the Congress.

The Governor says:

All of Sacramento and other Sacramento Valley towns would

be flooded. According to modeling [that has been done], a

single levee breach would cause flooding in many areas of the

City with depths over 15 feet. A flood event of this

magnitude would cut off Southern California's water supply.

I say to my friend from Oklahoma, in this body we are all equal, two Senators from every State. We have 37 million people in my State. Sacramento is a huge growth area. I will get into the

numbers in a minute. We are not talking about a few people being hurt. We are talking about a catastrophe. We are talking about farmland. We are talking about the State's water supply. About two-thirds of the water supply in the State comes from that northern area.

When my friend started, he was very nice and said he doesn't doubt the fact that the Sacramento levees are a problem, and that San Francisco has been having problems. I wrote down what he said. He said: San Francisco and the area south of there. This is the area north of San Francisco. This is Sacramento. I don't think my friend really, with all due respect, gets the intricacies of what we are dealing with here. There is a difference between north of San Francisco and south because north of San Francisco is where we have delta--again, two-thirds of the water supply of our State--the farmland and all the rest. South of San Francisco, we have Silicon Valley. That has other issues. But right now, we are talking about the Sacramento area, which is north.

The Governor goes on to talk about the economic disruption. Because we are such a large State, people say when California sneezes, the country gets a cold. It is an expression that speaks to the power of our State in terms of economic productivity. And in terms of the goods coming across into the ports of California and going all across into your State and everybody else's--this region is the bread basket. So we ask you to back off this amendment.

This is so not a partisan issue. The Governor writes:

As you know, Senators Feinstein and Boxer have worked

closely with Chairmen Cochran and Domenici to include funds

in the pending supplemental . . . for certain levee and flood

control improvements . . .

I support these funds and want to assure you that this is a

necessary and urgent time for Congress to act.

The Governor came here. He met with Senator Domenici and many Senators. He said:

. . . any investment at this time decreases the chances that

Congress will have to respond in the future with another far

more expensive emergency funding bill to address a widespread

flood disaster in California.

I ask that you recognize this as a necessary emergency funding bill. Support this.

I want to show a picture. Senator Feinstein showed us a version of this. They all tell a story better than I could. Here you have the Sacramento River. Here you have thousands and thousands of people. Here you have the levees, and here you have the riverbed. And what has happened, if my friend would like to take a look at this--I know he doesn't question that we need a project; he questions whether it belongs in this bill. I understand.

Yes.

That is what I just said. I said the Senator doesn't oppose us doing this. He doesn't want it in this bill. That is my understanding of his position. I couldn't disagree with you more. When my friend quoted me and I said Iraq should have been in the budget, that is exactly how I feel, because we knew about it. Frankly, we didn't know about this, that we were going to have the kind of events we have had, the rain and the rain and the rain. I will go into the details of how much rain we have had compared to other years and the fact that anything can happen now.

The weather patterns are changing. When I lived in the bay area in California so many years ago, it is too long to remember, when I first came here in the 1960s, you never had rain in March, let alone April. It was dry. It was dry really from mid-February on. It has been moving forward, and we have March as one of the rainiest months and then April. We had a month this year--April--where we had rain almost every day. It is unheard of. You can see how muddy this is. You can see the breaks here in the riverbank.

I will show you another picture on the other side where there is not as much development but the same thing has occurred. These trees were on the other side of the riverbank. Look at these trees. They are now buried in the water. So if we don't go ahead with the Corps now, when the Corps tells us we need to do this now, we are going to lose this riverbank. We are going to lose the levees. And then it is too late.

My friend says he wants to save money. It reminds me of the old adage of penny wise and pound foolish. It is a colloquialism, but the fact is, you have to prevent things. This is an emergency circumstance, as the Governor said. These levees could break. Now we have a snowmelt. That snowmelt occurs, that water gets deeper, the pressure in that river increases, and the riverbank begins to disappear, leaving those levees exposed.

I wish to refer to a document put together by the Chamber of Commerce in Sacramento. It reads, ``Sacramento: A Region at Risk.'' Cities and counties don't like to say, especially chambers of commerce, we are at risk. They don't like to say that because they want to have investment. They want people to come in. They don't go about saying: We are in danger. And when a chamber of commerce goes out and says: We are in danger--and these are Republicans mostly, and these are as conservative as my friend from Oklahoma; they know that an investment is not wasteful spending if, in fact, we are going to save money at the end of the day. How much would we have saved if we had built stronger, better levees in Louisiana? Untold, probably billions. I don't think my friend is at all a fiscal conservative by taking away $11 million. It is reckless. I hope and pray that my colleagues are listening to this debate and are looking at these pictures and understanding what we are talking about.

The Sacramento area faces a triple flood threat, and it faces it now. We have a confluence of two major rivers, the threat of a deteriorating flood control system, and the threat of near record precipitation this year. We are talking about 165,000 homes, nearly 500,000 residents, the State capital, and many businesses providing 200,000 jobs. It is also the hub of the six-county regional economy, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs. A major flood along the lower Sacramento or American Rivers would cripple the region's economy. I will go into that tomorrow because Senator Feinstein and I each have 15 minutes in the morning. I will save some of my talk for then.

California has the world's fifth largest economy, and we are quibbling over $11 million that the Corps says it needs to fix up these riverbanks. How outrageous, how shortsighted, how foolish. I don't understand why my friend is doing this. We talked. He feels deeply about it. I respect that. I voted with him a couple of times. I have been very careful, picking and choosing, sticking with the committee when I felt the committee was right, joining my friend. But I don't understand this one. This one is inexplicable.

The average family understands that if they have a problem with their roof, they fix it. They don't put it off. They fix it so that their home is not destroyed. It is straightforward.

Let's look at the pocket again. They call this the pocket of Sacramento; 112,000 people are at risk, and you can see clearly where this riverbank has deteriorated. On New Year's Day, Californians in the northern and central parts of our State awoke to flooding that cost the State $200 million. We are talking about $11 million so we can mitigate what comes next. But precipitation after January 1 has kept river levels very high, further stressing and eroding our critical flood control infrastructure.

Precipitation, including snow pack, as the snows melt, is nearly twice the normal amount, 174 percent of normal, and that is just as of last week. And the snows are just now starting to melt.

We have another threat to this area. My colleague, Senator Feinstein, said it beautifully: How would we feel if we did something on this Senate floor today that turned our backs on this issue and then we had a tragedy?

We would not feel very good about it. So I am going to save the rest of my talk until tomorrow. But I am going to say to you, Mr. President, again thank you. It is very rare that we have such bipartisan cooperation in our State. This is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. We will have Republicans suffer if we have a problem and

we will have Democrats suffer. We are Californians united. Our Governor has recognized the crisis. He declared a state of emergency earlier this year to expedite improvement of this system.

Everything we did in this bill we cleared with the Army Corps and they say they can use this money. They need this money. They are going to move forward with these repairs. So my friend from Oklahoma can make the case every which way he wants. He can use rhetoric and say anything he wants. The bottom line is this, and I will quote Representative Dan Lungren, a Republican, who is very well respected among our Republican friends in this body. He said:

Today the Sacramento region has half the flood protection

and twice the risk as did the city of New Orleans prior to

Katrina. The cost of recovering from a flood-related disaster

far exceeds the price of guarding against it.

Unlike other issues where we have come to the floor and it has been Republican versus Democrat, I can honestly say to you that I stand here representing a bipartisan, strong majority in my State and, hopefully, in the Senate, that says this: The 2005 hurricane season taught us some hard lessons--that we neglect shoring up eroded and damaged flood control infrastructure for major metropolitan areas at our peril.

We always say we must learn from history. We must surely learn from recent history. Sometimes we forget history that occurred way back, but we certainly should remember history from a year ago.

I urge my colleagues to vote a resounding no on this Coburn amendment and to take a stand for innocent people in this valley, in this area, these farmlands, these farmers, and the economy, and don't take out $11 million that could do so much good to restore these banks.

I thank the Chair.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Does the Senator not know that this is a federally authorized project? Is the Senator unaware of that?

Cost sharing goes along with this project just as with every other project. So for the Senator to stand up and suggest that we don't pay into this project is simply false.

Mr. President, I cannot allow certain things that were said to go unchallenged. My friend says this is not about paying your share, after he said it was about that. He made a big point, why doesn't California do something? Of course, we are doing something. We abide by the law. I have to say to my friend, if something happens in California, a bread basket of this country in many ways, there is going to be suffering throughout this country. If something happens to this economy, let alone the 112,000 people who live in this pocket, this particular amendment will put them at greater risk.

My friend says he believes in prevention. He is a doctor. I am sure he does and I am sure he does a wonderful job at that. But he doesn't believe in prevention right now, I will tell you that. Because that is what Senator Feinstein, Governor Schwarzenegger, and both Democratic candidates for Governor--everybody agrees this has to be done. This is a Federal project. This is not a State project. This is a Federal project with a State share. The Army Corps has a responsibility which they have stepped up to the plate to do, and they told us they need these funds. As far as not paying for this, we know that emergencies get special treatment around here because they are emergencies. My friend says, why is this an emergency? Take a look at this. This isn't the way a river is supposed to look, the way a riverbank is supposed to look. This isn't the way a tree that was on the land is supposed to look, when it was on the other side of the riverbank. When you get the second highest predicted snow pack melt known to the history since they started taking down the record, in the history of California, yes, you have an emergency.

I know my friend from Oklahoma left the floor. I hope he joins me in a pay-as-you-go budget because I have voted for that every year. Frankly, right before the Bush administration, we had surpluses. Now we have deficits. I will admit that. I support pay-as-you-go budgeting. I have voted for it. We can talk about that another day. But this is a true emergency, just as I believe funding the veterans home in Mississippi was, which I was sorry I didn't get a chance to vote on. I listened to the debate. I could hardly believe my ears that the Senator from Oklahoma

was objecting to making sure that our veterans, elderly veterans, could go home. What is wrong? Something is wrong here with these debates. I don't know where the heart is, where the soul is. I don't know where the common sense is.

I pray and hope that tomorrow, come morning, we are able to get the votes to keep this funding in the supplemental. Again, I thank Senator Cochran. I thank the Chair for his patience.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, and I thank the chairman and ranking member for their acceptance of this amendment.

I point out to my colleagues that I was looking over some of the data involving the need for this appropriation.

In Louisiana, four of the most heavily impacted parishes, not counting New Orleans, a total of 60 polling places the hurricane simply swept away. These parishes lack basic services, such as electricity, generators, rest rooms, lights, and the like, creating some serious problems. We were told that FEMA would not allow for an allocation of funds in this kind of a situation--even Federal elections. It does not meet the test of assistance under the Stafford Act.

We point out to our colleagues that New York City officials were in the process of holding a primary election on September 11 when they were interrupted by the terrorist attack. FEMA in that case allowed $8 million for the city of New York to allow for the election process to go forward.

There are other precedents, indeed, which fall under the emergency category.

Elections are a number of weeks away, and certainly providing assistance for the most basic of all of our functioning as citizens, to make sure that every person in these Gulf State areas is able to cast a vote and have their vote count is something we all embrace.

We appreciate the managers of this amendment allowing this kind of additional appropriation on this bill.

Over 8 months ago, the lives of many Americans living in the Gulf Coast region of the United States were subject to the devastating natural disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Today, those impacted by the hurricanes face many of the same problems faced immediately after the storms--no homes, no jobs, no community infrastructure, and no guarantee that their lives will return to normal any time soon.

And in this election year, many of these same individuals now also face the potential that their communities will be unable to guarantee that they will be able to cast a vote and have that vote counted in the mid-term federal elections. This is simply unacceptable in America.

There are still areas of the Gulf Coast that are without basic services, such as electricity, and many areas that are still mucking out homes and demolishing buildings.

The hope and desire to rebuild their communities and restore some sense of normalcy is alive and well in the Gulf Coast. But these communities need help. And that is clearly the case when it comes to federal elections.

In Louisiana, four of the most heavily impacted parishes--not counting New Orleans--must recreate a total of 60 polling places. The hurricanes simply swept them away or destroyed them beyond use.

These parishes lack basic services such as electricity, generators, restrooms, or lights which are necessary to hold an election.

But FEMA is taking the position that the conduct of elections--even federal elections--does not meet the test for assistance under the Stafford Act.

That is a curious position for FEMA to take since that agency did provide election assistance to both New York City, following 9-11, and to Miami-Dade County, Florida, following Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

In the case of Miami-Dade--which faced a very similar situation to what the Gulf Coast faces today--FEMA provided temporary polling places, water, generators, lights, fans and portable restroom facilities on election day. FEMA also provided trailers for absentee voting in the September primary.

More importantly, FEMA even reimbursed Miami-Dade for the costs of holding the election that were over and above the normal costs of the election.

In New York City, officials were in the process of holding primary elections on September 11 when they were interrupted by the terrorist attack. Elections were rescheduled two weeks later, and FEMA reimbursed the state roughly $8 million for the costs involved in cancelling and rescheduling the primary election.

The Katrina impacted States are not asking for anything that has not been provided by FEMA before for the conduct of elections following a natural disaster.

And yet, when these States have requested assistance to conduct elections--including federal elections--following what has been described as the most devastating hurricane season to ever hit the region, FEMA has balked.

The federal Election Assistance Commission, established in 2002 under the Help America Vote Act, has attempted to work with impacted states in order to help identify both the requirements for ensuring accurate and accessible federal elections and potential sources of assistance for these communities.

To date, FEMA has come up largely emptyhanded. So far, FEMA has been willing to only reimburse states for the uninsured loss of certain polling equipment, machines, supplies and storage facilities. In the case of Louisiana, that has amounted to just over $1 million.

But Louisiana officials estimate that the state will face costs of up to $18 million this year to hold elections--well in excess of what FEMA has been willing to certify to date. Similarly, Mississippi officials anticipate un-reimbursed expenses for holding elections to total $7.8 million while Alabama faces nearly $3 million in un-reimbursed costs.

And there is little reason to expect FEMA to offer more assistance. In a letter addressed to Paul DeGregorio, Chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, dated March 9 of this year, FEMA advises the EAC that--and I quote from the letter:

FEMA does not have the authority to pay for operating costs

related to the conduct of elections.

Well if FEMA does not, then who does?

I would suggest to my colleagues that the Election Assistance Commission not only has the expertise to accurately access the requirements and costs of holding federal elections, but they are in a better position to do so.

Consequently, the amendment my distinguished colleague, Senator Lott, the Chairman of the Rules Committee, and I are offering today.

It is a very modest and targeted amendment. It provides $30 million to the Election Assistance Commission to provide grants to eligible states impacted by these natural disasters to restore and replace supplies, materials, records, equipment and technology used in the administration of federal elections and to ensure the full participation of individuals displaced by the 2005 hurricanes.

This amendment is supported by a broad bipartisan coalition of voting rights activists and election officials, headed by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the National Association of Secretaries of States. Joining in support of the amendment is the National Association of Counties, the National Association of Election Officials, the National Association of State Election Directors, and the National Conference of State Legislatures.

I ask unanimous consent that this letter be included in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. President, these funds will enable the states to establish temporary polling places, secure generators for running the electronic voting machines, provide basic sanitation services for poll workers and voters, such as water and portable restroom facilities.

Congress has taken great efforts to address the immediate needs of those affected by the hurricanes. Now Congress must take additional steps to assist the long-term needs of these communities as they rebuild and move forward.

Ensuring the integrity of federal elections in these states by guaranteeing that the people of the Gulf Coast have access to a polling place is the very least this Congress can do.

Senator Lott and I first brought these anticipated needs to the attention of the Senate last October. At that time we noted the loss of polling places, election equipment, and election records in the impacted states. While we did not have reliable cost estimates at that time, we served notice that as the committee of jurisdiction over federal elections, we would come back to the Senate as the full extent of the damage and its potential impact on the 2006 federal elections became clear.

Well, by last December it had become clear that the states could not reconstruct the infrastructure to conduct federal elections without assistance.

And so in December Chairman Lott and I introduced the ``Hurricane Election Relief Act of 2005.'' This bill authorizes the necessary funding to aid impacted states in the conduct of federal elections this year, consistent with the Help America Vote Act--HAVA.

Specifically, it provides federal funding to impacted states to restore and replace supplies, materials, records, equipment and technology that were damaged, destroyed, or dislocated as result of the storms. The bill directs the Election Assistance Commission to determine need and disburse grants to eligible states.

The Senate passed this measure by unanimous consent on February 9. A House companion bill, H.R. 4140, ``Ensuring Ballot Access for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Victims Act of 2005,'' was introduced by Representative Millender-McDonald.

It is imperative that Congress ensure that affected states have the resources necessary to conduct federal elections this year in a fair and accurate manner. It is equally imperative that all eligible voters affected by these natural disasters have an opportunity to participate in their democracy.

Being displaced by a hurricane should not result in being disenfranchised from a federal election.

Each affected state will have its own challenges. For example, according to the Secretary of State in Louisiana, over 400,000 registered voters are dispersed in 49 states.

While fewer voters were displaced in Mississippi, the election infrastructure was completely destroyed or severely damaged by winds and surges, according to the Secretary of State of Mississippi.

In Alabama, the Secretary of State has indicated that their allocated election costs were spent not on conducting elections, but removing debris and repairing election infrastructure following the hurricanes.

Other states have been impacted, to a lesser extent, by the influx of temporary residents displaced by the hurricanes. In many of those states, displaced citizens may have decided not to return home but to become residents of the host state, thereby adding to the election administration responsibilities of those jurisdictions.

The amendment we are offering today will ensure that these unforseen needs are met and that the federal elections required this year are accessible, accurate, and transparent.

Regardless of the funding needs of the impacted states, one thing is clear. They are similarly situated with all other states conducting 2006 federal elections. They have a solemn duty to protect and preserve the constitutionally guaranteed right of each eligible voter to cast a vote and have that vote counted.

The impacted states are prepared to work hard to secure the rights of our nation's voters and they will conduct these elections with whatever resources are available to them. But the access to the ballot box should not depend upon whether or not a state has recovered from an unprecedented series of natural disasters.

And voters are ready to work hard and participate in the governance and rebuilding of their communities, no matter what the damage inflicted on them by nature. But their ability to participate in our democracy through the ballot box should not depend upon whether their community has been successfully rebuilt.

It is essential that we join together to ensure that all states impacted by these natural disasters have the resources to conduct timely federal elections that fully enfranchise all eligible voters.

This is literally our last opportunity to provide these funds in time to make a difference. It would be irresponsible not to ensure that these states have sufficient resources to conduct federal elections this year. The health of our democracy depends upon it.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Exhibit I

Make Election Reform A Reality

support gulf coast states in their extraordinary efforts to administer

elections after katrina

April 24, 2006.

Dear Senators: We, the undersigned organizations, urge you

assist Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in their efforts to

hold meaningful elections in the aftermath of Hurricane

Katrina. We are asking for $50 million in the upcoming

Emergency Supplemental Appropriations legislation for those

states in their efforts to administer transparent and

accountable elections.

It is imperative that the citizens of the Gulf Coast region

are provided with the opportunity to participate in the

critical and difficult decision making that each of these

states face in the foreseeable future. Every election

presents states with challenges, but never before has there

been such great potential for disenfranchisement than in the

elections the Gulf Coast states are facing this year.

Voters have been displaced, voting equipment has been

destroyed or severely damaged and polling places have been

leveled. The outcome of the devastation is that county

budgets which were strained before the hurricane have now

been depleted dealing with issues like debris removal and

infrastructure rebuilding. Many of the businesses have shut

down, thereby reducing or eliminating a tax base for those

counties. The funding is just not available at the state and

local level to rebuild the elections infrastructure.

Time is of the essence. Starting this month and running

through the summer, all of these states have primary

elections for local and federal offices.

The officials and residents of the Gulf Coast states are

extremely grateful for the support from all levels of

government and from the many Americans who have been devoted

to helping them rebuild and move forward. We look forward to

working with you on this critical issue. Should you have any

questions, please contact Leslie Reynolds of the National

Association of Secretaries of State at (202) 624-3525 or Val

Frias of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights at (202)

263-2852, or any of the individual organizations listed

below.

Sincerely,

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights,

National Association of Counties,

National Association of Election Officials,

National Association of Secretaries of State,

National Association of State Election Directors,

National Conference of State Legislatures.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. President, I want to reiterate my motion simply to have an opportunity to offer an amendment. I think it is an emergency, and it is a moral imperative to deal with the issue in Darfur, Sudan. So I hope the mere opportunity to have a debate on the floor of the Senate would be allowed.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. President, I say to my distinguished colleague, if I may, that we have talked with both the chairman's staff and with others who express the view that this is a moral imperative and have suggested offsets, none of which have been accepted. So it is very difficult to have a position in which we all agree there is a moral imperative to act and then we reject every offset that is proposed.

Understanding the Senator's concern, but also understanding that genocide does not have an offset to it, I once again ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Reserving the right to object.

If I may ask the Presiding Officer a parliamentary question: If we were to proceed to the Senator's unanimous consent request, would that obviate the ability to offer an amendment during that time period?

Then I have to object.

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

Mr. President, I call up my amendment that is at the desk with a modification and ask unanimous consent that it be considered at this time.

Mr. President, last Sunday, thousands of Americans gathered here in Washington, DC, and in other cities across the country to focus our attention on the horrific acts being committed a world away in Darfur, Sudan. But it wasn't a gathering of the powerful, although politicians and celebrities were there. It was a gathering of the American community--of high school students, of members of synagogues and colleges, of churches, of people of all races, ethnicities, and religions. In fact, the movement to stop genocide in Darfur has been led by some of the youngest in our society.

In New Jersey, students in middle schools have raised funds for refugees. Young people at colleges have led the movement to divest from Sudan. They are not the leaders of the future; they are the leaders of today.

I know that as I stand here calling for action, I am not alone. In my home State of New Jersey, high school students started a nonprofit organization called Help Darfur Now which raises awareness and funds for the refugees in the Sudan.

Newark, NJ, is the headquarters of the Darfur Rehabilitation Project, a national group started by the Sudanese people living in the United States who lobby for humanitarian aid, intervention, and conflict resolution in the Sudan. And across the country, Americans are signing petitions, participating in marches, holding townhall events and contacting their elected officials to demand that the dire needs of the Darfurian people be addressed. It seems to me as representatives of the people, it is our job to act.

Here in Congress, many of our fellow colleagues in the Senate and in the House of Representatives have led the fight for real action to address the genocide in Darfur, and I certainly salute them for their hard work.

When we talk about genocide, it seems to me it is almost impossible for any of us to take the intellectual understanding of what that means: the number of people killed, over what period of time, and for what reason, and to comprehend the dimensions of such atrocities.

The truth is that each of the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 people murdered in Darfur was a father, a mother, a sister, a daughter, or son slaughtered by their own countrymen whose ethnic makeup and religion was similar to their own. Each of these people has a family who mourns them and a community that lost them.

Many of us here cannot imagine what life is like for the at least 2 million

who have been displaced in this conflict. Those who have survived have the scars of watching their relatives and neighbors murdered, raped, and subjected to other horrors we cannot imagine.

For the hundreds of thousands of people who fled to Chad, the terror continues as they face new attacks in this expanding conflict. Samantha Power, who is a Pulitzer Prize winning expert on genocide, has pointed out that many women face the essence of a Sophie's choice: They can either leave their villages and camps to gather firewood, facing the likelihood of rape or attack by the jingaweit, or starve inside the camp.

It is in this dire context that the World Food Program announced that it would be forced to cut the rations to feed those who are affected by the conflict in Darfur. This means people already facing a humanitarian crisis will now only receive half of the recommended level of calories per day. Even worse are reports that at least 200,000 people have been displaced since January, and that many of those cannot be reached or helped by aid agencies.

A recent article in the New York Times quoted one senior humanitarian aid official as saying:

The situation for humanitarian workers and the United

Nations has never been as bad as it is now. The space for us

to work is just getting smaller and smaller.

Not surprisingly, the Sudanese Government, which is supporting the groups that conduct this campaign of death and destruction, continues to hinder any attempts by the international community to assess the situation and provide aid to the millions of refugees. Just this month, the Sudanese Government denied entry into the country to Mr. Jan Egeland, a top U.N. official on humanitarian issues. Last week, Sudan refused to grant visas to officials who intended to conduct a U.N. military assessment on planning a peacekeeping operation in Darfur.

So in a region the size of Texas, 7,000 African Union troops have been put in place to protect the people of Darfur. While I believe the African Union force is better than nothing, their troop numbers are clearly too small. They are underfunded, underequipped, and lack a mandate to protect civilians. I agree with many of the experts who have said that we need to at least triple the size of the African Union force as a bridge until we can get a U.N. force operational in Darfur. I also think the President and others have the right idea of using NATO forces to provide logistical support while letting countries with Muslim populations take the lead on the ground.

Of course, we face some obstacles to getting a U.N. force into the Sudan and controlling the situation. First, the Chinese continuously stand in the way of the United Nations. Let's make it simple: The Chinese buy oil from the Sudanese, and they don't want to stop. In fact, China, because of its rule that it doesn't involve itself in any way in the domestic affairs of other countries, has no problem buying oil from a government committing genocide in the Sudan. Then there is the issue of Osama bin Laden, who has denounced the idea of U.N. troops and in his most recent audiotape broadcast called on Muslims to fight such a force.

In the past, some steps have been taken on the part of the United States and the international community to address the crisis in Darfur, but the violence continues. Congress has appropriated funds for African Union peacekeeping, food aid, and support for refugees. The United Nations Security Council has passed various resolutions raising concerns about war crimes committed in Darfur. The Government of Sudan and the two rebel groups involved are now in negotiations, and I know that Deputy Secretary of State Zoellick is there now trying to reach a final agreement with the rebels. Yet, despite all of these measures, the sad truth remains that the people of Darfur face a bleak future of uncertainty, suffering, and death. It is time that we take additional action to stop the genocide in the Sudan.

That is why this amendment that I have had other colleagues join me in would provide $60 million to support U.N. peacekeeping in Darfur. I certainly wish to thank the cosponsors of this amendment--Senators Leahy, Durbin, Sarbanes, Dodd, Obama, Lautenberg, Wyden, and Stabenow-- for their support and for their efforts.

The African Union troops in Darfur are clearly overwhelmed by the challenge at hand. This amendment would provide critical funding to equip international troops and restore law and order to the region of Darfur. Although the intervention of U.N. troops has not been authorized, this amendment would assure that when it is accomplished, the money is there, and it will increase pressure on the African Union, the Khartoum Government, and the international community to make sure that a U.N. force is put in place in Darfur.

For those who would question the amount--even though it is now offset--proposed in this amendment, I would like to point out that my amendment adds the same level of funding to the Contributions for International Peacekeeping account that has already been approved in the House supplemental appropriations bill. There is no other way to get these funds to protect the people of Darfur. They are not in the current funds appropriated for fiscal year 2006. I think we can all agree that genocide in Darfur constitutes an emergency--an emergency to which this body has a moral obligation to respond.

Genocide is not a new phenomenon. We have witnessed this hatred and inhumanity many times over the past century. After the world learned the horrors of the Holocaust, America and the international community vowed: Never again. Never again. After we saw the gruesome slaughter of approximately 800,000 Tutsis in less than 100 days in Rwanda, we swore: Never again. Never again, however, is an empty promise--it is an empty promise--if we do not take action to stop the murder of innocent people when we know it is happening.

Once again we find ourselves in a position to make that choice, and history is going to judge what we do--not what we say about never again but what we do when we have the power to do it. For even as I stand here today, I know the number of dead and displaced persons in Darfur continues to grow. Genocide is not Sudan's problem, it is not Africa's problem, it is the world's problem. It is our problem. And by failing to take part in the solution, we have become part of the problem. As Americans and as human beings, we have a moral obligation to help those who are suffering the consequences of genocide and who cannot help themselves. Now is not the time to forget that obligation, and history will judge us by the actions we take or fail to take in the next days as we move forward on this amendment.

Jan Egeland, one of the top U.N. humanitarian officials, has said, ``Africa is the biggest drama of our time; nowhere else in the world are so many lives at stake as in Africa.'' Now is the time to act.

Some people might say that the fiscal 2007 budget proposal allocates sufficient funds to help the people of the Sudan. I would say you cannot put a price on human lives. Genocide is not a horror of the past; it is the reality, unfortunately, of the present. It is an emergency we must face today. The $60 million this amendment offers will help put an end to the senseless murder and displacement of the people of Darfur. If American lives were at stake, I am certain we would find the money to act. I hope we have both the humanity and the commitment to say ``never again,'' to make sure that we do so in this case. Simon Wiesenthal said, ``For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.'' Let us act now to put an end to this evil.

I hope my colleagues will see that in the face of genocide, this is money well spent. I certainly hope we are permitted to respond to a moral imperative because history will judge each and every one of us for how we act in the face of the genocide going on in Darfur and in the Sudan. I hope that when it comes time for a vote on this amendment, the chairman will actually be able to accept the amendment as offset as it is now. I find it sometimes difficult to hear that we have a moral imperative, that we say ``never again,'' and yet we put up roadblocks for fulfilling and responding to that moral imperative, and when we offer solutions to it, there are those who do not like the solution of offsets.

The bottom line is, if it were one of us--if it were one of us--thank God we

live in the greatest country in the world, and it is not, but if it were one of us, if it were our family suffering the slaughter, would we be content with the councils of patience and delay? I daresay the answer is no. That is why I feel so passionately that we have an opportunity to fulfill the commitment to say ``never again.''

Mr. President, I yield the floor.