Katrina Emergency Assistance Act of 2006

I do not know who is yielding the time.

Not yet. I plan to speak now.

Mr. President, 9 weeks ago yesterday, Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf, killing over 1,000 people, displacing over 1 million people, leaving the region with a cleanup bill that might reach $200 billion. Katrina left a gaping need in health care in the affected States and those that are hosting States. I do not know how to say it any other way but that the devastation is biblical.

I visited the area 5 or 6 weeks ago. Other Senators did, too. I do not think there is any Senator who actually visited who would come up with any other feeling or belief that it is biblical. Unfortunately, very few Members of this body have actually been there. Unfortunately, very few Members of this body have actually seen the area, seen what is left, and it is not much, whether it is in Louisiana, New Orleans or the Gulf States. It is incredible how much the area has been destroyed. People who are alive do not have jobs, do not have homes, do not have schools, do not have their lives. It is absolutely incredible, and it is devastating. It is biblical. I do believe firmly, if every Senator in this institution were to see the areas affected, see the people, see what is happening, there would be a different result.

We have become too academic around here. We read too many memos. We talk too much among ourselves. There is too much sort of theory, not enough actual on the ground, what really is going on. If Senators were to see it, feel it, taste it, smell it, there is no doubt in my mind that this amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas would pass, it would pass unanimously, and we would not be debating it. We would be probably asking how could we help some more.

So in the meantime, how has this Congress responded? To be fair, it has not. Incredibly, it has not. In the hurricane's wake, the chairman of the Finance Committee and I drafted a bill to cover evacuees under Medicaid for a short period of time, 5 months, to help provide health care to low-income people who do not have their jobs anymore, who do not have health insurance anymore, who do not have a place to put their kids in school, do not have homes--just temporary health care, 5 months. That was the bill we offered, a bill that Senator Grassley and I put together.

Who supported it? Everybody in the affected States, Republicans, Democrats, Senators, Governors, supported it. Did we get it passed? No. We cover evacuees below the poverty level of $9,500. Think of that. People who earn that low income need help, particularly in the circumstances faced by the people in the aftermath of this destruction of the hurricane.

Our amendment also would cover pregnant women and kids at twice that income level. That is not a lot of money. That is about $19,000 a year. That is all. Pregnant women and kids with incomes above that much would not get covered by our amendment but up to that level, $19,000 a year, that is all, pregnant women who only earn $19,000 a year. We say let's help them out for 5 months but at least help them out. That bill did not pass.

What else did Senator Grassley and I provide for? Well, an $800 million fund for health care providers' uncompensated care cost. What is that all about, uncompensated care? What does that mean? That means help to those hospitals, those doctors, who gave free medical care out of the goodness of their hearts. Free medical care to people, regardless of what it cost, they just gave it; it is uncompensated care. Because those folks did not have insurance coverage, they did not have ways to pay the bills. It was free care. So we are saying, those hospitals are Good Samaritans, those doctors are Good Samaritans. They were not compensated at all for their care, so let us give them a little bit, $800 million--that is all. I know that the true uncompensated care cost is many times that. We are saying, let's help those Good Samaritans and show them that we care.

And who is ``we''? We are the American people who pay taxes. We are Members of the Senate saying, OK, we represent our people back home. Those of us offering this amendment say we believe that our people in our States want to help out. They want to help these people who do not have health care, who have lost their jobs, lost their health insurance, help people who are in desperate need of help.

Indefinitely? No, for 5 months. For a long time? No. For a huge amount? No, a little bit. We think the American people want to help give some care to those people who need it and who are good Samaritans. But this body so far has said we are not going to help those good Samaritans. We are going to leave them out in the cold.

Senator Grassley and I also suggested giving 16 months of full Federal funding to the beleaguered Federal programs of the affected States. What does that mean? That means for 16 months

we, as Americans, are going to help those States meet their Medicaid bills--for 16 months. But our bill has been blocked. It has been blocked by a small group of Senators on the other side of the aisle.

What do these Senators on the other side of the aisle say? What is their reason for blocking this bill, this little, small bill that helps some people for a short period of time? What do they say? That our bill provides an open-ended expansion of Medicaid. It is the camel's nose under the tent. It is a theoretical, ideological argument.

They argue also that the Government, that is HHS, Department of Health and Human Services, can take care of this crisis without congressional action. They say you don't need that, Congress. We, the administration, can take care of this. That is what they say. They also argue that our legislation is unnecessary spending. They keep those same arguments in effect today.

Let me take those points on one by one. On the first, the amendment before us provides, as did the bill Senator Grassley and I offered, temporary 5-month Medicaid coverage. It is not indefinite; it is temporary, 5 months. We also suggest the President can renew that coverage for an additional 5 months, but that is it. It is not an open- ended Medicaid expansion. It is getting help to those who need it; not down the road, not forever, but now, because people need health care now. That is not something they can postpone. When you need health care, you need it right now. What about the argument that the administration, HHS, can take care of this problem without congressional action, that the administration can take care of Katrina health needs through something called Medicaid waivers?

Simply put, that is not true. It is simply not true. They cannot do that under the law. They need a change in the law to do that. They cannot do that on their own. Last week in the Finance Committee, HHS testified they do need legislation to provide additional funds for the States to meet Katrina health needs. They admitted it before the Finance Committee. They also said the plan to provide only $100 million for new funds for uncompensated care costs--that $100 million is a paltry pittance compared to what is needed in the State of Louisiana alone.

I might say, too, legislation is needed to address these needs, but the President still has not asked Congress to pass the legislation to make that happen. We provide it in this amendment, but they do not.

Finally, Senators on the other side of the aisle argue that this bill constitutes wasteful spending; since we have already appropriated $60 billion through FEMA, two-thirds unspent, we should use those funds first. These same Senators argue we should scale back the bill's pricetag.

I have listened to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Senator Lincoln has listened to them. Senator Landrieu has listened to them. We want to get legislation passed. We want to help people in some way.

Guess what. In the spirit of compromise we scaled back our bill, offsetting it with unspent FEMA funds. That is, we are doing what the Senators wanted us to do. The amendment before us reduces the cost of the Katrina health package by giving 12 months of State Medicaid relief instead of 16 months; it removes the reductions in 29 State Medicaid programs--that bothered them, we removed that part--and by using unspent FEMA funds to offset its costs, the amendment does what the White House advocated last week.

As you know, last week the White House proposed redirecting $17 billion in unspent FEMA funds to help rebuild the gulf coast. Let's look at that $17 billion. Of that $17 billion, $3.3 billion would go to reconstruct military bases--not health care needs but military bases-- and $2.3 will be spent on highways and bridge construction.

I am speaking perhaps out of place here, but I visited the military bases that have been the subject of this amendment here. Yes, there is damage there, but it does not begin to compare with the other damage, the damage to the homes and the roads and the bridges, the lost jobs and health care needs. There is no comparison. I don't know why we are spending $3.3 billion to reconstruct a military base but not spending the money to help people with their health care needs.

Mr. President, $410 million would help farmers remove debris and rehabilitate the land. Those are good causes. But the President's request doesn't ask for increased health care funding. It does not help those hospitals or doctors who were Good Samaritans by providing uncompensated care relief. It does not help States care for evacuees through their overburdened health care programs, and it doesn't help patients now.

As I say, this amendment, to remind my colleagues what one of the opponents on the other side argued for a moment ago--it does it. What is that? When trying to move this bill through the Senate, a Senator on the other side, on September 30, said, and I quote him:

The question is not whether we should or want to provide

assistance. But we want to make sure we do it in a way that

ensures that resources get where they are most needed and in

a way that takes advantage of the $45 billion or so that has

already been appropriated but has not been committed yet.

Guess what. That is what this amendment does. It uses unspent funds to meet the urgent health care needs of Katrina victims. More than 9 weeks after this major national disaster hit our shores, we are still waiting for this Congress and the President to act on Katrina health care needs. The reconciliation bill we are considering provides some help for victims, but the $1.8 billion in the bill is not enough. It has been called a downpayment. It is not a downpayment; it is an end payment in the minds of the administration and those on the other side of the aisle. It is a last payment; it is not a downpayment. Why is it not a downpayment? Because they are saying no to extra funds being suggested here. So it is not a downpayment. That is flat inaccurate. It sounds nice, but it is inaccurate.

We need to provide more Federal funds to help the affected States. Louisiana is in very dire financial straits. It will have to cut its Medicaid program by an estimated 40 percent if that State doesn't get funds by the end of this year. Think of that. It has to cut Medicaid by huge amounts if it does not get the needed funds.

We also need to provide the funds for uncompensated health care costs to ensure providers--doctors, hospitals, health centers, the Good Samaritans--are recognized. And we need to ensure that low-income survivors get the health care they need, whether or not they meet Medicaid's rigid eligibility rules.

In Louisiana alone, half of those who have applied for Medicaid have been turned away because they don't meet those standards. Think of that. Half the people in Louisiana have been turned away. They have health care needs. It is diabetics, cancer patients, people with dire needs who are turned away. We are not talking about high-income levels. Currently, a single mom who makes more than $2,500 a year would not get covered. Think of that. We are raising that to $9,500 a year. Right now, in the view taken by the other side of the aisle, a single mom who makes more than $2,500 a year would not get coverage. She would not get any help.

What are we saying? Let's raise it up to $9,500 at least. That is not a lot of money; $9,500 a year. That is not a lot of money. If she makes more than that, she doesn't get help, but if she makes up to that level, she does get some help.

This is not right, that this amendment is not being passed. It will not be agreed to. It is clear by the tone of this debate here. The Senator from Louisiana said we are going to keep working until we get something passed. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.

I see the chairman of the Budget Committee is sitting there, deeply pondering, his chin on his hand there. I am saying to the chairman: There is a way to do this. The way to do it is to pay for it out of unspent Katrina appropriated dollars. There is a way to do this.

I know the chairman is very concerned about total costs. He should be concerned about total costs. That is his job. But there is a way to do this and that is through this amendment. It is through the already appropriated dollars that are unspent. It does not add

to the deficit, does not add to the budget woes the chairman is worrying about. There is a way of doing this.

I am calling upon all of us as Senators to find a way to do this. We all know it is the right thing to do. We all know it is the right thing to give temporary health care assistance to people in the affected areas. We all know that. We all know it is the right thing to do to help some of those hospitals and doctors who have been Good Samaritans get a little bit of help because all America wants to help. We all know that. All America wants to help those doctors and those hospitals a little bit.

I say to my good friend from New Hampshire, find it in his head and in his heart to help make this thing work because it is so important to so many people who are counting on us to recognize them, give them a little bit of hope--that is the very least we can do--and support the amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, now that we have the amendment offered and the time straight, I wish to thank the Senator from Arkansas for her extraordinary leadership on this issue because this is not the first time she has come to the Senate floor. She has spent hours on the Finance Committee and hours on this floor trying to describe to our colleagues the critical nature of this situation.

She comes from a State that was not directly hit by the hurricane but was, nonetheless, impacted, as so many other States were that had the goodness, the graciousness, the wherewithal, and the inclination to take on thousands and thousands of people from Louisiana and Mississippi, truly tens of thousands of people who fled for safety, for security, for food, and for shelter.

It has been 64 days since Katrina hit and about 50-some-odd days since Rita hit, two of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. But it was not just the storms that did us in, not just the category 4 or category 5 storms of 175-mile-an-hour winds that did us in. It was the 17 levee breaks in one of the largest cities and metropolitan areas in the United States. And not just any city--an international city, an international region, the heart of the energy coast, the city that secures the mouth of the Mississippi River and, may I say, the parishes that surround the great city of New Orleans--Jefferson, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and to the south we have parishes such as Vermillion, and along the southwestern part of the State, Calcasieu, and Cameron that were hard hit by Rita. There were over 2 million people displaced because of the storms and the subsequent levee breaks. It was the largest catastrophe, natural disaster in the history of the Nation.

Our frustration--the Senator from Arkansas, the Senator from Montana, and other Senators from the Democratic side, and even Senator Grassley--is that it has been very difficult for people in Washington, particularly

members of the administration and the majority party, to understand the desperate and unprecedented nature of this disaster and what it has done to people--poor, middle income, and wealthy.

Let me share a statistic in terms of doctors that is quite startling. Doctors are not usually in a poor category, nor are they really in any government program in a sense. Most doctors make a considerable amount of money, and most doctors live in very nice homes. They have studied hard, and they have worked hard. Most doctors would not be in a Government program. But just to give a sense of the displacement, there were 6,000 active patient care physicians in this region before the storm. Sixty-five days ago, there were 6,000 active patient care physicians. Over two-thirds, 4,486 have basically been displaced out of 3 central New Orleans parishes that were evacuated.

Not only do we not have hospitals or clinics, our doctors are gone and our nurses are gone. The system is literally collapsing as we speak. That is why Senator Lincoln has been here not just today but almost every one of these 64 days trying to get this body and Congress to understand the magnitude of the disaster, the unprecedented nature of the disaster, and why it is important for us to provide a few billion dollars to help us keep the lights on, get our doctors back, our nurses back, keep what hospitals we can standing up, because an unprecedented number of people have not just lost their homes but have lost their jobs and, as a result, have lost whatever health care, whatever access to good care they needed.

Let me make one other point. The point I want to make in my short time--the ranking member of the Finance Committee is here--as Senator Lincoln said, this is about choices. I believe we as a Congress can make better choices. We can do better. We can do better by the people we serve.

The reason I say that is because the majority party is in a position to write the rules. We are writing a rule today that basically says we are going to provide $70 billion for tax-cut extensions. Some of them may be good, but we are deciding as a Congress that we are going to give $70 billion in tax cuts for 5 years. That is $14 billion a year. Yet when Senator Lincoln and Senator Baucus come to the floor to say we need $6.2 billion to just help people who have lost their homes, lost their churches, lost their schools, lost their neighborhoods, and lost their jobs, to just give the poorest of the poor access to health care so they can take care of their cancer or diabetes or even desperate mental health situations just for a few months or a year, we are told that we cannot afford that.

It is about choices. It is about the choices we are going to make on spending and tax cuts. We are basically told: I am sorry, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The only thing you rate is $1.8 billion for health care. That is all you rate, and that is all this will do, is take care of just the Medicaid Program that was only in the 13 parishes.

But what I have to explain to people is, because New Orleans is the largest city in Louisiana, because this region is the largest economic contributor--it is a profit center to the State--our State budget is now struggling with a $1.5 billion to $3 billion shortfall in the State general fund. As a result of the loss of revenue due to this catastrophic event, our entire program is struggling, not just in the parishes in which the hurricane hit, where the wind blew, the waters rose, the trees fell, and the homes collapsed, but our whole State is struggling. That is why Senator Lincoln and Senator Baucus come to the floor and say: We thank you for the $1.8 billion, but it is not enough to keep our program up and running this year.

This is not just any program. This is not a program that Louisiana thought about. This is a Federal program. It is in the essence of a Federal-State partnership, as you know, Mr. President, from your work in Tennessee. The Federal Government puts up 70 percent, and the State government puts up 30 percent. What I am here to tell you is the State partner has experienced a great setback. The State partner is going to have a very hard time, if not impossible time, putting up the 30- percent match to keep our children and our poorest citizens, as well as those who are vulnerable, in health care for the year.

So we come here 65 days after the storm, when we are spending money on everything we can imagine--from new programs, expansion of programs, tax cuts--to say, please consider a basic service of health care, not just for the parishes that were affected and the counties in Mississippi but for the whole States of Louisiana and Mississippi that are struggling.

Particularly in Louisiana's case, we were harder hit, we had more levees break, our major city was flooded. Jackson was not flooded. New Orleans was flooded. Our major economic base, from our ports to our energy industry, have been directly impacted and revenues have fallen off precipitously.

Let me share one other statistic and then I am going to wrap up. I asked my staff to give me something so I can explain to people what the losses are. They went back to 2003. Now, this is only 2 years. This is an average of people who are unemployed in Louisiana. We work hard just like everyone else. We averaged about 135,000 people unemployed in June of 2003. Let us pick June of 2004: We had 119,000 people receiving unemployment. Let us go to January 2005: We had 119,000 people. Right before the storm in August of 2005, we had 122,000 people unemployed.

So I think one can say over the last 2 years we have had roughly an average of 120,000 people unemployed. In one month, our number jumped from 122,000 to 227,000 people--100,000 people in one month are seeking unemployment. That is how desperate people are. It has never happened in these 2 years. I bet if we went back and looked at it for the last 20 years, the only spike that one would find like this is maybe in the 1980s when the oil industry collapsed and almost everybody in Louisiana lost their livelihood. We have not seen this in so long, we do not remember a time such as this.

I do not know why we are having a hard time explaining this to an administration and to the majority about how desperate the situation is. We are not ungrateful for the steps that have been taken. We are not ungrateful for the FEMA money that is slowly getting to us. What we are saying is we need to do better.

Today, how do my colleagues think I felt watching the President of the United States stand up and tell everybody that he was going to allocate $8 billion for the avian flu? I do not know where he is getting the $8 billion for the avian flu. All we are asking for is $6.2 billion to keep a health care system of the whole State standing up until we can figure out what we might need to do because we do not have all the answers. It has only been a few weeks. Our system has basically collapsed. It is going to take us a little bit more time to figure out what the long-term solution is.

For the people that Senator Lincoln talked about that stayed on their refrigerator for 3 days, for Mr. Albert Bass, who was a painter in the ninth ward, who went to the hospital with a 104-degree fever, his Medicaid application has been denied; he needs help now. For Ms. Stewart, who lives in Jefferson Parish, she was a teacher; she has been denied Medicaid. She is 51. She is married. Her husband receives Social Security. She was diagnosed with cancer. Her cancer is back. Her health situation is worsening. She has no more income. I need to tell Mrs. Stewart what her outlook is.

What I am going to tell her is, we are going to find money for the avian flu, we are finding money for Iraq, we are finding money for a tax cut, we are going to raise $4 billion more by selling off spectrum, but I am sorry, we cannot get you into a hospital.

The final thing I am going to say, maybe the majority does not like that it is a Government program. So Senator Lincoln, Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley come up and say, well, let us have some way for the businesses that had people on unemployment--I mean insurance, the businesses have collapsed, but these businesses are valiantly trying to keep people on their insurance program because they know the desperate situation of their employees.

I cannot say what most businesses are going through. Business owners are taking money out of their own pocket, going into their own savings account, trying to pay their employees with no money coming in the front door. These businesses have been in business 30

years. These employees have been loyal to them. They have showed up for work every day. Talk about public-private partnerships. This amendment is an $800 million fund that is not a new program. It goes to our insurance commissioner to try to help work with small businesses and businesses so that people can keep their health insurance, so that they do not fall onto the Government payroll, so they do not become wards of the State.

This is self-help. This is partnership. This is self-reliance. With all of that, we have been told, no, come back later.

We are going to continue to come back because while we are grateful for the $1.8 billion, it is so far short of what we need to stabilize our health care system. For a State that is 4.5 million people, that has literally been punched in the gut and is rolling back, this administration has got to do better by the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and the gulf coast. Charity starts right at home. Strength begins right at home. Our war is right at home in the Gulf Coast States. When one is fighting cancer, it is about as tough as it gets. When one has their son or daughter dying of a fatal disease, it is about as tough as it gets. That is a private war that people are going through. We keep walking away from it, pretending that it is going to go away. Well, it is not going to go away. I am not going to go away. The Louisiana delegation is not going to go away.

Finally, we will realize that this is not a regular hurricane. This was an unprecedented catastrophe that has taken a major economic center to its knees, and it is going to take more than whitewashing and press conferences and a little bit of money drabbed here and there to stand us up so that we can continue to be the great region we are, pay taxes to this country and contribute to the economic benefit.

As I said, we are not a charity case. We have contributed billions of dollars to this Government and will continue to. In our hour of need, we have to come and ask for pennies on the dollar. So I hope that we can do better. We must. We can. There is most certainly room in this budget on the spending side or the tax side to do better.

We are grateful for the $1.8 billion, but we need Senator Lincoln's amendment, we need the leadership of Senator Baucus. I thank Mr. Grassley, the Senator from Iowa, the Republican leader of the Finance Committee, who has been a champion on this issue. If he had a little more support from his caucus and from the administration, we might get more than a Band-Aid, because we are hemorrhaging.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I think the best face I could put on this--after this unfortunate situation which was totally unexpected by myself, or my staff, or the Republican members on the committee, for that matter, the Republican leadership--is that we have agreed to do what we already agreed to do; that is, to complete as best we can phase II of the Intelligence Committee's review of prewar intelligence in reference to Iraq.

I think it is very important to point out that the Intelligence Committee has had an absolutely outstanding record working with Senator Rockefeller and my colleagues across the aisle to produce the original review in regard to the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate prior to the military activities into Iraq, and also as to whether Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction. That was a 17-to-0 vote. We had some differences, but that report came out. It was a good report. It was a seminal report. As a matter of fact, I take pride in saying that it was a bipartisan effort that was agreed to by the 9/11 Commission, by the WMD Commission that was later formed, and made about 93 or 94 recommendations to the administration of which probably 93 to 94 out of 95 have already been implemented. So we worked in a bipartisan fashion to do that.

We also at the same time--and I am basically quoting from the statement the vice chairman and I made on February 12 of 2004--agreed we would go to something called phase II. There has been a lot of talk about phase II. What is phase II? Why is it that has been delayed, if in fact it has been delayed?

There was some talk on the floor that got a little personal, and I regret that. It seems to me it was rather convenient because it was only yesterday our staff was working with the staff of the minority indicating that not this week but next week we would spend as much time as possible, 5 or 6 days, to complete our work in regard to phase II. It isn't as though it has been delayed. As a matter of fact, it has been ongoing. As a matter of fact, we have been doing our work on phase II. It is difficult, as I will indicate in a minute, while I go through these provisions on what we agreed to do.

So it seems to be a little convenient all of a sudden to go into a closed session of the Senate and call for a full Senate investigation of phase II when the committee is already doing its work. I think that basically is an unfortunate stunt. I would call it something else, but I think probably I will simply leave it at that.

Let me tell you what phase II is all about. Again, let me point out that we took a look at whether Saddam Hussein did reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction. That took us a long time. It is a 511-page report. It is a seminal report. It is a good report, and it signifies what we can do in the committee when we at least let one another know what is going on and we work in a bipartisan fashion.

This is what phase II is all about. That is what we will begin as we have planned to do and what our staff has indicated to the other side's staff in regard to what we were going to do as of next week--that we will start next week, and we will hope to continue that effort. We will cancel all other hearings until we can reach some sort of an accommodation. Now, if we can do this on the WMD report, certainly we can do it in regard to phase II.

My good friends across the aisle are people of good faith. We had strong differences of opinion then. I suppose we will have it in regard to phase II as well. We have seen that happen time and time again. As a matter of fact, we brought up phase II on May 17 of this year.

The biggest issue is as follows. There are five things in phase II: Whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the gulf war period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information. In other words, the public statements made in the administration and the public statements made by public officials, whether they be in Congress, whether they be in the administration, or whatever, Congress, because we voted for regime change and we voted to go to war. Obviously, the administration, because they looked at the intelligence and thought our national security was in danger, we went to war.

Were the public statements backed up by intelligence or were they backed up by flawed intelligence? We have that material. We were supplied about 300 to 400 names by my colleagues across the aisle from all sorts of statements made by people in the administration. We took a good look at what Members of Congress have said about the same intelligence. I must say, at this point, some of those statements are even more declarative and more aggressive than those made in the administration.

That is the big issue: the use of intelligence. Whether somebody in the administration or somebody in the Congress made a statement that they thought was based on intelligence that was later proved wrong and somehow we are suppose to get in their head and ask: Why did you make that statement? Is that credible?

On May 17, in the spring, we started down the list of statements. We took names off of the statements because I didn't want it to be a situation, in terms of naming who made the statement, because I thought it might perjure or affect how people would vote in the committee. We started down that road. We didn't get very far. We had requests on the total progress of phase II, other portions of phase II.

So we started again on the first statement. Does that first statement match up with the intelligence? We didn't get very far. We started phase II in May, and we went back to work to see what we could get done, where we would agree and come back to the ``use'' question, when that would be possible.

There are five issues to phase II. Let me read them. The postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and their weapons programs and the links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments. That was done by Charles Duelfer and David Kay. Those two paragraphs are already written. You can simply say that Charles Duelfer and David Kay did not find WMD. That was their conclusion. They made some statements

about it. It was commensurate, exactly, with what our WMD report said. There shouldn't be any problem with that. That should be adopted by the committee with hardly any dissent or any discussion.

The third issue is prewar intelligence about postwar Iraq. That is not necessarily true today. It is post-insurgency Iraq. That was my suggestion, saying if the intelligence community at least could figure out what we expected to find in Iraq postwar, post the military action. Where was the intelligence? That is ongoing. That is ongoing because we have what we think is a pretty good report, but we can make it more concise. I can say right off the bat that intelligence was as flawed as the intelligence in regard to the WMD report. We can agree with that. So there are two we can agree on.

Let me go to the next one. Any intelligence activities relating to Iraq conducted by the policy counterterrorism evaluation group and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense. This involved a question as to whether Under Secretary Douglas Feith had a special intelligence group that had undue influence in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and whether or not that group and that intelligence had an undue influence on the administration's decision to go to war.

We had Under Secretary Feith before the committee. Then we were going to have him up again. And then my good friends across the aisle wanted more information. In the midst of that, there was a statement made by the vice chairman--I will not get into that because it tends to be personal, and I don't want any remarks of mine to be personal, especially after what happened on the Senate floor in regard to this issue. Basically, there was a statement made that what was going on in the Office of Special Plans could be illegal. When that happened, everyone down there at the Office of Special Plans got lawyered up or at least thought about seeking legal representation.

The cooperation between that particular department and our committee was not nearly as good as it was. We can clear that up because we have asked the Department of Defense inspector general to come back and tell us if there was anything wrong in regard to what the Office of Special Plans was doing. We will rely on that. We will put that in the report. We can believe the inspector general of the Department of Defense.

Finally, the use of the intelligence community of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress. Now, remember back when the Congress was talking to members of the Iraqi National Congress. Mr. Chalabi was the head of that group. I had Senator after Senator come to me and ask, Why don't you have Mr. Chalabi appear before the committee? The people supporting him wanted to vote and eventually did vote for regime change.

Then the pendulum swung the other way and people said, Wait a minute. We are not really sure about his position or, for that matter, what he has said in the past, what are you doing, and the question of the INC. The whole question again was, how much effect did the Iraqi National Congress and Mr. Chalabi have on the input to the administration as to whether or not they would go to war.

We have found, basically, as far as I am concerned, there is very little evidence, if any, that would take place.

I wouldn't think that would take too much time, as well.

So those are the five things we had to do in regard to phase II.

Let me repeat, again, yesterday our staff talked with my colleagues' staff across the aisle and their staff--not my colleagues across the aisle but their staff--and said the chairman wants to move on this next week. My conversation in regard to the distinguished vice chairman, I think it was last Wednesday, and let me say it was in the middle of a hearing and let me say it was not exactly clear in terms of any kind of a date, but I did talk to Senator Rockefeller and indicated we had to move, we had to get this done.

He will doubtlessly say they have written letters and they have tried to get me to move and this, that or the other, but we have been doing this all along. Staff has been working on this very diligently. Consequently, I think we are very close. I am very pleased to announce, on schedule, exactly what we planned to do, we will start next week. We will start on Tuesday, and I will announce the time in the morning. Members of the Intelligence Committee will know Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, how long it takes, working in good faith. We will look into phase II and see what we can do and finish that product.

I said a long time ago on the Intelligence Committee we had to work in a bipartisan fashion. I said a long time ago that whatever ended up on the fan, we were going to have to clean it up. I said a long time ago we will let the chips fall where they may, and that went for phase II as well as the WMD special inquiry.

I ought to say one other thing. There was a memo that was highly publicized back about a year and a half ago. That memo, which was not provided to Republicans--obviously, it was a Democratic memo--and paragraph four caused a big fuss. It caused us about a month to sort of walk gingerly around one another and smother each other with the milk of kindness and say, Well, let's see if we can't work things out. And we did. I credit a lot of that to Senator Rockefeller. He is not a partisan man.

Here is the paragraph:

Be prepared to launch an independent investigation when it

becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully

collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an

independent investigation any time, but we can only do so

once. The best time to do so will probably be next year.

Well, the trigger has been pulled today with an executive session of the Senate that is not needed, not necessary, and, in my personal opinion, was a stunt. I plead with my colleagues across the aisle and my colleagues, all Republicans on the committee, next week when we start this, on Tuesday--we will go through Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday--I have no illusions, we will have differences, but I plead with you, as we have done in the past, for the good of our national security, and to finish the inquiry on whether or not Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction, we were able to do that, and it became the seminal study for intelligence reform and where we are now with the Director of National Intelligence.

If we can get back to that mode instead of this surprising stunt on the floor to go into executive session, we will be better off.

Phase II, yes, you bet, we have been on phase II, and we will do it exactly as we planned to do it as of next week. I see from the expression of the distinguished President's face my time has expired.

I thank the President.

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer. For the past 30 years, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been remarkably bipartisan. It has performed a terrific oversight factor for the Senate. The resolution creating the committee mandates an oversight role. We are not there watching clouds drift by. The resolution that creates the committee mandates an oversight role of the U.S. intelligence community and a responsibility to carefully review our Nation's most sensitive national security programs. It is very broad and widespread in the handling of highly classified secrets. The committee is designed to be nonpartisan. That is why I am called a vice chairman. That is not true in any other committee. But it is meant to work.

We have reached an agreement that shows what has happened today, in a somewhat abrupt manner, but nevertheless we have reached an agreement on what we will do. That is a large step forward. I congratulate all involved in that.

For the most part, the history has been a good one. Over the past 2 years, I have to say, in all honesty, I am troubled by a concerted effort by this administration to use its influence to limit, to delay, to frustrate, to deny the Intelligence Committee's oversight work into the intelligence reporting and activities leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

In June, 2003, the Senate Intelligence Committee began a formal investigation into the prewar intelligence on Iraq. The primary focus of the investigation was to evaluate the intelligence reporting underlying the claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had ties to terrorist groups. Although the Senate resolution establishing the Intelligence Committee intelligence clearly states in Senate resolution 400 we are to look at the ``use'' of intelligence, the majority on the committee initially rejected attempts by myself and by others to add to the investigation--that is, to add to phase I--how administration officials used or potentially misused intelligence and public statements leading up to the war which maybe helped lead up to the war. Only after considerable insistence by committee members and protracted discussions did the majority leadership of the committee agree to add to the scope of our investigation the issue of how intelligence was used prior to the Iraq war. It is a huge uncovered subject.

On February 12, 2004, the Intelligence Committee unanimously agreed and publicly announced that five issues would be added to the investigation, phase II. One, whether public statements, records and testimony regarding Iraq by Government officials made between the gulf war period, end of gulf war I and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, whether those statements by Government officials were substantiated by intelligence information.

Prewar intelligence is No. 2, prewar intelligence assessment about postwar Iraq.

Three, any intelligence activities related to Iraq within the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, headed by one Douglas Feith.

Four, the use of the intelligence community of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

Five, the postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs and links to terrorism.

Remember, this was constantly being thrown at us, links to terrorism and how they compare to the prewar assessments.

The committee press release explained all of that. Everyone agreed to it, and it added the resolution adopted unanimously today that illustrated the commitment to all members to a thorough review to learning the necessary lessons from our experience with Iraq and ensures that our Armed Forces and policymakers benefit from the best and most reliable intelligence that can be collected.

These five areas of inquiry commonly referred to as phase II were authorized well over a year and a half ago, in February of 2004. It has been 20 months since the committee committed to all Members of the Senate and to the American public a thorough review.

My colleague, the chairman of the committee, has referred to all of the things that have been done. In fact, we have had one hearing. And he referred to work that would take place next week. I didn't know about that. All of a sudden everyone will plow into phase II. I am not critical of that because I think today has helped to create that kind of momentum which I think is important.

Since the committee identified these five issues as a high priority in February of last year, I and other Democrats on the committee have repeatedly urged completion of the review--we agreed to it unanimously--and had been assured by the chairman, time and time again, that the committee will fulfill this commitment.

Yet, despite these repeated assurances, it is clear that only token work, at best, has been done on phase II since it was authorized. That is unacceptable. We have had only one business meeting on phase II, and no report has been written for members to review--nothing.

The public pronouncement of Chairman Roberts earlier this year that phase II was ``on the back burner'' has been, unfortunately, accurate. Do I enjoy saying this? Not particularly, true. But let people know.

The disturbing question is, why has the chairman relegated the phase II investigation to the back burner? Why did he do that?

The fact is--and I hope folks will listen closely--that any time the Intelligence Committee pursued a line of inquiry that brought us closer to the role of the White House in all of this, in the use of intelligence prior to the war, our efforts have been thwarted time and time again.

When it was reported that the Vice President's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby and the National Security Council prepared a draft speech making the intelligence case against Iraq and sent it to the CIA for Secretary of State Powell to give before the United Nations in February of 2003, my staff asked that the committee obtain the NSC, National Security Council, document as part of our ongoing review of how the Powell speech was formulated. Our requests were denied by the majority. Why?

Because of this denial, I personally wrote to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Tenet, requesting the Libby/NSC input into the Powell speech--it was important to have that information--and other documents in October of 2003. Director Tenet did not respond to my letter, nor did he respond to my two subsequent letters for the NSC paper in January and March of 2003. Why?

Perhaps the answer can be found in last week's National Journal article, which reports that Vice President Cheney and his Chief of Staff Libby overruled White House lawyers and withheld this information--withheld these documents--from us, and other documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

When, during the committee's Iraq investigation, my staff requested that the committee interview the White House speechwriter who wrote the President's 2003 State of the Union Address to better understand how the debunked claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger made it into the President's speech--how it got in there, when the same claim was removed, at the CIA's insistence, a few months earlier in Cincinnati--our request was denied by the majority. Why?

When we requested that the committee obtain a copy of the one-page summary of the Intelligence Community's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs that was prepared for the President in October 2002, our request was denied by the majority. Why?

And why has the committee's phase II investigation been moribund since February of 2004? When the committee told the American people it would conduct a thorough review, was the promise a hollow one? What other conclusion?

Could it be that the administration has made it clear it does not want the Congress to examine whether intelligence was accurately presented to the American people in the rush to war?

Could it be that the administration has made it clear it does not want Congress to examine the role that Pentagon policy officials under Douglas Feith played in circumventing the intelligence community and preparing an alternative analysis to the White House that drew a link between Iraq and the attacks of 9/11 that the intelligence did not support?

Could it be the administration has made it clear it does not want Congress to examine the claim that the Iraqi National Congress made to the Senate Appropriations Committee in June of 2002 that it was providing intelligence information directly to the Vice President's office--to Mr. Hadley, I believe--and the Office of the Secretary of Defense? Chalabi passed all intelligence agencies in our Government directly into the White House.

The administration's ability to head off any line of inquiry into matters of appropriate congressional oversight is not limited to the Intelligence Committee's Iraq investigation. Despite repeated attempts by me and other Intelligence Committee members to initiate a detailed review of fundamental legal and operational questions surrounding the detention, interrogation, and rendition of suspected terrorists held in U.S. custody--important national security measures that fall squarely within the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committee--the committee's majority has refused to conduct such an investigation. What are we to do?

The Intelligence Committee's obligation under Senate Resolution 400-- ``to provide vigilant oversight of the intelligence activities of the United

States''--requires us to not only answer questions related to cases of detainee abuse, but to examine the effectiveness of the methods used in interrogations.

But, again, it is apparent to me that the White House has sent down the edict to the majority--and I could say more--that the Congress is not to carry out its oversight responsibilities in detention, interrogation, and rendition matters, or some of the previous matters I discussed, as it would bring uncomfortable attention to the legal decisions and opinions coming from the White House and the Justice Department in the operation of various programs.

Finally, the delay in completing the remaining portion of the Intelligence Committee's Iraq review is inexcusable. Sadly, the committee's delinquency in completing an investigation that it unanimously voted to undertake over 20 months ago has diminished the committee's credibility as an effective overseer of the intelligence community.

But what disturbs me the most is that the majority has been willing, in this Senator's judgment, to take orders from this administration when it comes to limiting the scope of appropriate, authorized, and necessary oversight investigations. This is a very strong statement. The very independence of the Congress as a separate and coequal branch of Government has been called into question.

We need to not only complete the second phase of the Intelligence Committee's investigation, we need to reopen the first part of the Iraq report we released in July of last year, to find out what role the White House played in denying the committee documents it needed to carry out its investigation. That is not a part of the agreement, I fully and freely admit.

It is time the Senate, as a body, own up to our oversight responsibilities and provide the American people the answers we promised we would give them over 20 months ago.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I say to the distinguished Senator from Michigan, I have the same document and ask unanimous consent that be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, also, there was a reference in the chairman's remarks as to events that went on in the Douglas Feith matter, and he referred to ``lawyering up.'' There is a very clear, easy, simple answer to that, and I ask unanimous consent that be printed in the Record, also.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Don Young, Ranking Member Jim Oberstar, and, of course, my subcommittee chairman, Bill Shuster, for their leadership in acting together to assure that unemployment benefits are available to the many victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita who want to work.

We are acting in virtual unison, though under the wire, to pass S. 1777, the Katrina Emergency Assistance Act of 2006, which extends unemployment assistance under the Stafford Act, providing essential unemployment benefits before they lapse on Saturday. This bill extends the period that victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita would be eligible for unemployment benefits to an additional 13 weeks, for a total of 39 weeks.

Currently, the disaster unemployment assistance benefit period begins the week following the disaster or the date thereafter that the individual becomes unemployed and can extend up to 26 weeks after the declaration or until the individual becomes reemployed. This bill means 39 more desperately needed weeks, in addition to the first 26 weeks. The Department of Labor has the usual authority to administer the program.

The extension of these benefits would help untold thousands of workers who lost their jobs as a direct result of the unprecedented storms that hit the gulf region late last summer but do not qualify for regular unemployment assistance. The Labor Department reports that more than 500,000 individuals have already filed new unemployment claims.

Unemployment at 12.5 percent for those who had returned in November was more than twice the national rate; and for those still displaced the rate was an amazing 27.5 percent, more than twice the rate for those who had returned.

Unemployment benefits are available, of course, only for workers in search of actual employment. These benefits may, nevertheless, of course, be used wherever these workers are living today. However, the benefits also may encourage needed workers to take the many risks associated with returning to gulf cities and towns at a time when all the basic ingredients of working communities, from housing to health care, are at unprecedented low levels.

For example, relatively few workers have returned, despite a high rate of job openings in New Orleans. With at least the guarantee of unemployment benefits during the job hunt and much more rapid and sensible job training and reconstruction policies, these benefits could leverage new work opportunities for gulf residents that were unavailable even before the storm, leave alone what the benefits could do in helping the reconstruction of the region itself.

At the same time, I regret that a provision similar to the one approved by the committee of jurisdiction in the other body to increase unemployment benefits to 50 percent of the national average of unemployment benefits had to be removed from the final bill to achieve the rapid agreement needed. Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana have the lowest unemployment benefits in the country. As a result, disaster unemployment benefits for these States are as low as $87, $90 and $97 per week, respectively.

Fifty percent of the national average for unemployment benefit amounts to $135 a week. In an area of the country that even before Hurricane Katrina suffered long-term unemployment at record levels, this increase could have made a major difference to families who need much more assistance than the typical unemployed worker, because many have lost everything, including their homes.

For the gulf victims, the job search that S. 1777 will afford is much more than finding a job. This bill will help some victims return to the gulf region to begin building their lives from scratch. Many who qualify for these benefits were in the lowest wage categories and are among the neediest for assistance. This extension will help them move forward after experiencing the worst natural disaster in the Nation's history. The American people would want us to take at least the step of passing this urgently needed legislation today.

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

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

I must say, Mr. Speaker, we thought of going forward with this bill under unanimous consent because we did not think there was a single Member of the House of Representatives who would want to deny to people searching for a job after the worst disaster in American history the funds that would enable them to live while they search for a job. So I am amazed. I will be amazed that there is a single vote against the bill.

But I think the chutzpah to stand on the floor and say we are throwing money at a problem, when I have just recounted what these benefits will mean in that part of the country, less than $100 a week for families looking for work, is an amazing statement to make. We are throwing money at a problem? We are giving unemployment benefits to people looking for work who have no other means because Mother Nature has taken their means from them. Moreover, may I remind this House that twice after 9/11 we extended unemployment benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. The kind of small business owners, for example, that the gentleman was talking about, if you are a hot dog vendor, those are some of

the most industrious people in society. An example would be people who are willing to work for themselves where they get no benefits of any kind, but work harder than most of us.

I used the hot dog vendor, because that is fairly typical of the kind of person we are talking about.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that I mentioned 9/11 because I think there is a standard here, a kind of control group. I mentioned that we had had to extend unemployment benefits twice during 9/11. This was a terrorist attack, 3,000 people killed. Thank God, the entire City of New York was not wiped out.

Compare, however, that disaster, as tragic as it was, with wiping out an entire city, the whole city gone, all means of employment gone, now being slowly revived. And I think we will have some appreciation for the American heart.

We knew what to do on 9/11. We will be there for people as long as you need us. And the wonderful thing about unemployment benefits is, they go straight to the person. And, of course, what unemployment benefits do, because the people who get them spend them for necessities in their communities, so what unemployment does at the same time is, of course, to help the community, the economy of the community where the unemployment benefits are being spent.

This is very good money for very desperate people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Orleans (Mr. Jefferson), the city which suffered the worst natural disaster of any big city in American history.

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

I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, thank you once again for the kind of bipartisan cooperation that I think truly reflects the spirit in which this bill comes to the floor today.

Our country is so well known for disaster relief, generously and spontaneously given to the rest of the world, that the rest of the world actually came forward and offered relief to the United States after Katrina occurred.

In a real sense the standard we have set for ourselves in the rest of the world sets the standard for what we do in our country. Will we be known when this disaster has cleared for the generosity of the response to Katrina?

Despite the sour note of one Member only at the beginning, I want to say that I have seen anything but that in the workings of our committee. It did make it necessary for us to make the case in a way we thought would have been unnecessary. For example, when you talk about throwing money at a problem, it makes me realize that some people do not even understand what unemployment benefits are about. They do not understand that you can only get unemployment benefits if you have had a job so that we are by definition talking about working people. And because many have not been unemployed, they may not understand what you have to go through to keep getting your benefits, to report to the office, to show evidence of having looked for a job.

In other words, we are talking here about people who worked, who have every desire to work, and who need a meager benefit in order to keep looking for work. That is why this bill is minimally reflective of where most Members would be. I think the bill at its base reflects the bipartisan spirit of this House when it comes to extending benefits that would allow people who want to work to, in fact, do that work.

And, indeed, if we should be so fortunate that these benefits may inspire some to go back home to places few of us would want to go because of all the future comforts that are gone, to go back home with meager benefits, with no housing, with insufficient health care, to go back home to help rebuild their community, that is the America that we all know.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased at the way the press has not closed up shop and gone home after Katrina. Story after story continues to tell us what is happening in the gulf region. We have just seen Mardi Gras stories over and over again. I was pleased to see Mardi Gras celebrated in the region.

The region is doing for itself what it can do. As I think about this bill, I think that there are people who are on unemployment benefits who got a job during Mardi Gras and who came back home who no longer need unemployment benefits.

I want us to also remember that New Orleans, in particular, which is known for its Mardi Gras gaiety, this is the oil producing, the energy producing region of our country. We need it to get back on its feet.

This bill will help the region, the whole region, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, to do just that. We are helping the people, and that is the way to help the region.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time to speak on this legislation.

I want to thank the bipartisan group that has developed this legislation. We, of course, had hoped for more from it. We were hoping that we would get to $135 a week, as the Senate had proposed. And we, of course, hoped for other provisions in the bill.

But, nonetheless, this is an important step forward, and an important response to the needs of the people in our area. I regret that there is objection to this legislation today, because I think it can only be objected to because folks just do not understand. I will not say that anyone is so callous as to not care, but I would have to say that you cannot really understand the dimensions of this issue if one objects to what we are doing here today.

In many ways, the district that I represent and the area that I represent and the whole gulf region is frozen in time. Not a whole lot has changed since August 29 in this aftermath, except that in our city the water has been pumped out. But other than that, the city is largely depopulated. Business has still not stood up. Hospitals are not working. The school system is not working. Our city has no tax base. People do not have jobs. Many have no place to come back to, even for temporary housing.

And those few who are there, of those who are there now, some 16,000 of them who are there in temporary housing, other housing conditions that are not ones that any of us would really like to have to put our families into, 16,000 of them do not have jobs now and are seeking this unemployment extension benefit.

Across the Gulf there are 165,000 families who are either there or displaced some other place around our country who do not have jobs, not because they are not seeking them, not because they do not want to work, but because the storm has displaced them and destroyed not only where they live but where they worked as well.

So the things we have talked about on the committee that reviewed the Katrina lawsuit, I do want to give some compliments to those who worked on that issue, who helped to, I think, make some critical decisions about it that I think will in the future portend better outcomes for these disasters as they occur. We hope they do not occur to anybody like they occurred to us; but if they do, I think we are in a far better position to deal with them now.

I do want to say there is a great deal more to be done in our area. And we are hoping that this Congress as a result of the trip that will be taken in just a few hours down there to take some 35 or 40 Members of Congress down to take a look at this, that people can continue to develop an appreciation for the extent of this disaster. Many of us have said it was not just a natural disaster that drowned our city. There are also some man-made issues here about how our levees failed and about how we could have done more to make sure that that did not happen. Frankly, had the levees had not failed, our city would not have drowned and we would not have had the 80 percent of our city under water, and all of the untoward consequences I just talked to you about would not have happened. We would have had a serious storm, a series of brief clean-up, and people would be back in town, and we would not have to be here talking about extending unemployment.

We are extending it today because this is a long-term set of issues here. This is not the ordinary disaster. We will be living with this for a very, very long time. It will take a lot of hard work on the part of all of us to make this close to right down the road.

So I hope this Congress is prepared to stick with the people of the region. I hope we will get a full understanding of exactly how folks are suffering and how this approach is a Band-Aid approach to helping people who are in the most dire circumstances, as I said, not because of anything they have done or have failed to do, not because they are not looking for work every day, but because they are displaced. They are disconnected. Their jobs are destroyed. They have no place to go. And they have no means of support for their families except this Congress and this country come to their aid. And this is a small measure to do that.

I am grateful to the committee for the work that it has done. I look forward to our committee realizing that there may be more work to do in this area. I hope we can make a rebound in this work as quickly as we can. But the biggest thing now is how we can keep families together, how we can give them a little support while they struggle to get back to normalcy, and how at the end of the day we can give them the choice to return to the place where they lived, where they have their cultural connections, and where they have dedicated a part of their lives and their influence and where they, frankly, want to return to.

All of us have someplace we call home around here; and for them, no matter how dangerous we think it is, how difficult it is for them, these people, all of our people, all of us want to have a way to come back and reconnect to our home, at least to make a decision about whether we want to make a reconnection or not.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this issue. I hope that whatever objections there are they will be withdrawn because this ought to be an issue on which we are all together, on which there is bipartisan agreement.

Mr. Speaker, before Katrina slammed into my city, we had 2,100 hospital beds. Now we have 400 beds between Touro and Children's. When Katrina struck, about 22 percent of Louisiana residents and 23 percent of New Orleans residents were living in poverty, $16,090 for a family of three. Over 900,000 people or 21 percent of all residents in Louisiana had no health insurance before Katrina and after the storm 1.2 million were uninsured. Tied to these poverty and uninsurance rates, Louisiana also had some of the poorest health statistics in the country with high rates of infant mortality, chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, and AIDS cases, and lower than average childhood immunization rates.

To this end Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join Congresswoman Christensen and a number of my congressional colleagues in introducing the first in a series of healthcare bills that I will be introducing in the coming weeks. The Katrina Health Access, Recovery, and Empowerment Act of 2006 or KHARE Act of 2006 has 4 main provision areas, each which addresses a key component in rebuilding the health care infrastructure in the Gulf Region, and meeting the unique health and health care needs of those displaced by the hurricanes. They include the following:

Title I: Rebuilding the Health Care Infrastructure. This title will meet the immediate

and longer-term needs of the health care providers in the hurricane- affected regions by directing the Department of Health and Human Services in consultation to provide forgivable low-interest loans to eligible small business concerns for the restoration of health care and other services connected to health care.

This title will extend tax-credits for medical malpractice insurance to health professionals whose primary place of employment is located in the Hurricane Katrina-affected area and offer grants to eligible non- profit hospitals and clinics to assist hospitals and clinics in defraying qualified medical malpractice insurance expenditures.

In addition, this title will allow healthcare professionals whose healthcare practice is located in the Hurricane Katrina-affected area and is in a high risk specialty, will be allowed to deduct from gross income an amount equal to 125 percent of the aggregate premiums paid for medical liability insurance.

Title II: Rebuilding Pipelines of Providers in Medically-Needy and Underserved Areas and Communities. This title offers support to health care facilities in the hurricane-affected areas in order to expand access to needed health and health care services for hurricane affected individuals in medically needy and underserved areas and communities. The title establishes a Healthcare Safety Net Infrastructure Trust Fund. The Trust Fund will provide Federal guarantee of loan repayment, including guarantees of repayment of refinancing loans, to non-Federal lenders making loans to eligible healthcare facilities for healthcare facility replacement (either by construction or acquisition), modernization and renovation projects, and capital equipment acquisition.

Title III: Providing Relief to Academic Institutions. This provision provides support to academic institutions, with health and health care related programs, in hurricane-affected areas in order to ensure that they have the capacity to retain health and health care-related staff and personnel, and continue to offer programs that are important to bolstering the health and health care workforce in hurricane-affected areas.

Title IV: Restoring Key Components of the Health Care Infrastructure in Medically-Needy and Medically-Underserved Areas. This title provides grants and technical assistance support to low-income communities with noted health disparities in order to implement programs to improve health and healthcare. It also provides disparity grants to organizations and others in hurricane-affected areas to implement programs to healthcare programs. Finally, this provision expands access to care for low-income hurricane-affected residents by offering disaster relief Medicaid.

Mr. Speaker, this bill codifies legislatively the framework needed to implement sound public health and healthcare practices and this bill is a start to a new direction for healthcare in the Gulf Coast region and I urge my colleagues to support this bill, so that we do what is so clearly needed to improve the health and health care for millions of Americans.

I second the motion.

Will the Senator yield?

I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague and esteemed leader, our ranking member on the Budget Committee.

I rise this evening to oppose the amendment of my friend from Oklahoma, as well as the entire budget resolution that is in front of us.

Together, America can do better than this budget and this amendment. Basically, what the amendment is saying is, if we want to invest in education so every child has the opportunity to succeed in America, we wish to create greater opportunity, it would take 67 votes. If we want to provide another tax cut for those most blessed in this country, those doing most well, the best of anyone in terms of their financial situation, that would take 51 votes. If we want to invest in science and new cures for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and diabetes, it would take 67 votes. If we wish to give to those most blessed with resources in our country a tax cut, it would take 51 votes.

That is the wrong set of priorities for our country. I support tax cuts certainly. I sponsored and worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to add a new tax cut for manufacturers so if they create jobs in the United States they have a lower tax rate than if the jobs and business go overseas. Certainly, we agree together that the alternative minimum tax needs to be fixed so middle-class families are not impacted by something that was put into play to affect only those who are the most wealthy from avoiding all taxes.

We could go down the list of things that we support on a bipartisan basis. But where we differ is where we have gone in this country under a failed set of values and priorities.

And this amendment only makes that worse. We can do better than that. Our Nation's budget is designed to reflect the values and priorities of our great country. It is essentially our country's values document. I believe this budget does not honor our Nation's values, and it has the wrong priorities for our country.

I believe this amendment does the same, again, saying if we wish to invest in the health of the country, if we wish to help manufacturers who, in my great State, desperately need our help by changing the way we finance health care in this country, that would take 67 votes. But if we wish, instead, to provide another round of tax cuts to those who are most blessed in this country, that takes 51 votes. That is the wrong set of values and the wrong set of priorities, and we can do better than that in America.

As Americans, we believe we should leave a better future for our children and our grandchildren. The American people expect us to make tough choices, just like they do around their kitchen tables every day, trying to balance the budget. In my home State people are not sure if they are going to have a job, what the pay is going to be, are they going to have their pension, are they going to have to pay more for health care. They are having to make the toughest decisions every day. They expect us to be responsible and make the tough decisions we need to make.

We do this because we don't want our children to have to pay for our debts. That is why we make tough decisions. Parents across the country work hard enough to build a nest egg for their children so they can have a better life than we have had as their parents. We want that. My great concern is that we are losing that for our children. I believe we are in a fight for our way of life in this country and nothing less. And the budget documents in front of us only make that worse, only add to the race to the bottom too many of our families are feeling.

This budget we are considering in two separate reconciliation bills will actually increase the deficit, not reduce it--increase it by $31 billion. America expects us to do better than that. Most Americans might wonder why are we increasing the deficit when we already have the largest deficit in the history of the country. We are fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we must help to pay for the rebuilding of the gulf coast for all of those who have lost so much. Since 2001 when we had the largest surplus in history, we have taken a fiscal U-turn, and now we have the largest deficit in history, putting us back in the days of gloomy fiscal policies in the 1980s and early 1990s.

It is important to know there was a choice at that point, as our leader and our side of the aisle has indicated. When I started in the Budget Committee in 2001, we had the largest budget surplus in the history of the country. We had two choices. We could do what we were proposing at the time: take a third of that for stimulating investment in jobs, take a third of that in tax cuts to spur the economy, a third of that for strategic investments to spur the economy through education, innovation, to also spur the economy, and a third of that we wanted to put aside to pay down the debt and to keep Social Security secure. Instead, what happened. Our Republican colleagues rejected our approach, and now we have the largest deficits in the Nation's history due to the fact that all of it was put into a supply-side economics tax cut geared to the wealthiest among us at the expense of all of the rest of America.

Mr. President, these deficits are not free lunches. We have to pay them year by year. And how are we paying for them? Well, we are borrowing billions of dollars from Japan and China. Right now, Japan and China hold almost $1 trillion, $1 trillion of our national debt. And it is growing each and every year. Not only do taxpayers have to pay interest to China and Japan, our Government has refused to crack down on unfair trade practices with these two countries because we are so far in debt to them. I can tell you, coming from the great State of Michigan, our administration's unwillingness to crack

down on trade violations, currency manipulation, counterfeit auto parts, and stealing our patents has had a profound impact on our losing jobs in Michigan. They are all related because of our policies in terms of the national debt affecting our inability to, in fact, enforce trade violations.

We can do better than that. Together, America can do better than this. We can get our fiscal house in order and get tough with our trading partners who are not playing by the rules. The reconciliation bill, unfortunately, though, will hurt working families in Michigan. For seniors who have worked hard their entire lives, they will see their most basic services cut. For some working single-parent families, they will see their health insurance cut. For hard-working family farmers, their livelihoods will be put in jeopardy.

With so many working families losing health insurance or paying more for less, is this a good time to be cutting Medicare and Medicaid, our Nation's health insurance programs for seniors and children? We can do better than that.

Also, given all the economic problems hurting our rural communities, including a terrible drought in Michigan, is this a good time to cut programs that help our farmers? Is now the time to force farmers who are struggling into bankruptcy? We can do better that.

This budget's priorities are so different than those of Michigan families. Michigan families want us to fight for good-paying jobs, for affordable health care, and for a secure pension. In essence, they want us to fight to preserve their way of life, the middle class of our country, where they can raise their kids, send them to college, get quality health care, retire with dignity after 30 or 40 years of hard work, and know that pension is going to be there along with Social Security.

Mr. President, America can do better than this document and this amendment. If we make the right budget choices, we can expand health insurance for working families and lower costs. We can create jobs, protect pensions, bring down the deficit if we make better budget choices.

As my colleagues know, our Nation's largest auto parts manufacturer, Delphi, declared bankruptcy 3 weeks ago, threatening 13,000 jobs in Michigan and 35,000 jobs nationwide. Its workers may not only lose their jobs, they will lose their health care and their pension; in other words, everything they have worked for for their entire lives, everything they have earned, everything they are counting on for themselves and their families. Tragically, this budget package does nothing for them. It increases the deficit, which hurts our economy, gives Japan and China the upper hand in trade negotiations, cuts health care, and does nothing to protect people. That is why I intend to vote no on this budget and on the amendment. I will continue to fight for Michigan's families who are struggling every single day, and I believe it is not just Michigan families struggling now but American families all across our great country.

I worry about whether their way of life is going to continue to exist. They want a change. They know we can do better than this.

They know this budget debate really is a proxy for a larger philosophical debate, a larger choice on values and priorities.

The Republican approach to governing is that you are on your own--no matter what the issue.

We believe that all families need jobs, health care, quality schools and a secure pension.

The Republican approach is that you are on your own.

If you lose your job, you are on your own. If your Medicare premiums rise 13 percent, you are on your own. If your schools are not performing well, you get a school voucher. And if your pension is threatened, you can try to get some of it back from the PBGC.

Mr. President, America can do better. Together, we can create good jobs, maintain our middle class way of life and get our country back on track.

But this budget will take us in the wrong direction.

I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Mr. President, we actually now return to the deficit reduction bill, which some of my colleagues may have forgotten. But just to remind them, this bill saves $39 billion off the deficit, and is the first major attempt in 8 years to try to accomplish savings through the process of reducing the rate of growth of our entitlement accounts.

In that context, we have a number of amendments, and we are glad Members have been coming forward with them. We cannot formally agree right now on what the sequence will be, but to outline what we think the sequence will be, it will be Senator Lincoln going now--we can be sure of that--followed by Senator Inhofe, followed by Senator Nelson, followed by Senator Lott this evening. And tomorrow morning, the first two amendments will be Senator Cantwell, dealing with ANWR, and then an amendment by Senator Grassley, dealing with agriculture programs. That is the game plan.

Now, the understanding is that at 8 o'clock tonight we will complete our business today relative to the Deficit Reduction Act, and we will reconvene tomorrow, I believe, at 9 o'clock. Or is it 8:30? I am not sure. In any event, we will formalize that understanding in a few minutes, hopefully, after both sides have had a chance to review those amendments which I outlined.

I now yield to the Senator from North Dakota to yield such time as he may.

Mr. President, at this time I think we can reach unanimous consent on what at least the next three amendments will be. I ask unanimous consent that the next three people to be recognized for amendments will be Senator Lincoln, Senator Inhofe, and Senator Nelson. The next amendment after Senator Nelson we expect to be offered by Senator Lott. The other side has not had a chance to review that amendment yet, so we reserve on Senator Lott. I further ask unanimous consent that tomorrow morning we will begin with an amendment from Senator Cantwell, followed by an amendment by Senator Grassley.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I ask for the floor.

I appreciate that the Senator will not yield. I was going to ask the Senator for a copy of the amendment. Out of courtesy from this side of the aisle, I decided to let her go forward. I appreciate she won't yield to us to find out what her amendment is about.

Mrs. LINCOLN addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, at this point I yield time from our side to the chairman of the Committee of Finance.

Mrs. LINCOLN addressed the Chair.

Will the Senator yield?

Will the Senator yield just to make an apology to the Senator from Arkansas? It appears my staff did have this amendment. I was misinformed. I apologize to the Senator from Arkansas at this point for having stated we didn't have it. I didn't know what was in it; I still don't know what is in it. I presume somebody has it because the Senator from Iowa would not be opposing it if he didn't know what was in it.

Reserving the right to object, I presume the time used by the Senator from Arkansas will be charged to the Democratic side and the time used by the Senator from Iowa and myself will be charged to the Republican side.

Parliamentary inquiry: I am presuming, just to make sure everybody is on the same wavelength, even though the time is off the amendment, the time is also off the underlying 20 hours.

I will yield to the Senator from Mississippi such time as he may use off the amendment.

Mr. President, under the unanimous consent agreement, the understanding was that we move on to the Inhofe amendment and to the Nelson amendment. And although it wasn't agreed to, I believe it can now be agreed to that the amendment in order after the Nelson amendment will be the Lott amendment, except if we end up going into tomorrow, the first two amendments will be Senator Cantwell's amendment followed by Senator Grassley's amendment.

If Senator Lott's amendment or Senator Nelson's amendment do not come up tonight, we follow those two amendments. Is that correct?

I ask unanimous consent that be the order of business.

We will have a response, I presume. That is another 20 minutes.

I don't think the agreement reflected two amendments; it reflected one amendment. Let us take a look at it while the amendment of Senator Inhofe is going forward and see if we can work it out.

I understand now we go to Senator Nelson's amendment. I understand he needs about 10 minutes. I would suggest that Senator Nelson have until 5 of 8. We are going to wrap up at 8. And then I have the 5 minutes from 7:55 to 8 o'clock to respond to the amendment.

We are giving your side 12 minutes, and I am getting 5 minutes. It does not sound to me that you are getting frozen out.

Mr. President, first, I appreciate the Senator from Florida being concise in presenting this amendment. I thank him for that and for sticking with the time as was represented. It was appropriate and generous of him.

The amendment, obviously, has an impact on the deficit. It would expand it. As a practical matter, it really has to be put in the context of the overall Medicare adjustments in this bill and in other bills because under the new drug program, seniors will actually see a significant discount. They will save about $5 on their prescription drugs over what was expected.

The Part B premium increase which will occur as a result of this bill will be $1.60. It seems more than reasonable to have structured an agreement where we will essentially allow patients to see doctors because we will be giving them the opportunity to see doctors because the doctors will actually participate in the system, whereas they might well opt out if we cut their pay by 4.3 percent.

Under this bill, of course, we avoid that because the Finance Committee has put together a package which allows us to basically hold doctors harmless. It is reasonable that seniors--we are not talking about low-income seniors here because their entire Part B premium is picked up by the Government. We are talking about middle and high income. Not to pick anybody specific, but Bill Gates's father, who is probably doing very well, or my mother, for example, has a right to the Part B premium and, therefore, is subsidized by working Americans, people who are in day-to-day jobs, to the tune of 75 percent. It is reasonable that we ask seniors to participate in the Part B premium, as they get the benefit of it, to the extent of 25 percent. This bill simply continues that process while making sure seniors will have access to doctors by basically supporting the initiatives of holding doctors harmless from a pay cut.

The underlying bill has some very positive spending initiatives, and one of them happens to be giving more access to more patients who are under Medicare. So I believe we should be supporting this amendment rather than offering amendments which will essentially undermine this effort.

I will be happy to yield for a question.

I would be surprised to know that because, as I understand it from staff, the estimate, as by CMS, is $1.68. But I guess we can turn to the record and find that out. You may be right, CMS may be right.

In any event, the number seems to be reasonable in the context of the benefit being received, which is seniors are being asked to pay for 25 percent of the Part B, which is not a great deal compared to what Americans who are working are being asked to pay, which is 75 percent of that.

Certainly.

I would presume the seniors are going to have to pay some of the cost of the Part B premium. As I said before, they are paying 25 percent of it. As I note, working Americans are being asked to pay tens of billions of dollars to support that benefit. In many instances, seniors who are receiving the benefits are moderate- and high-income seniors who have higher incomes than those working Americans who are working at a restaurant as servers or who are working on a factory line or working at a garage or who are working in maybe even a minimum wage job and are being asked to bear the burden of the HI insurance costs.

So it does seem reasonable and I think most seniors view it as reasonable that they pay 25 percent of the cost of their Part B premium. Yes, that adds up, if you take all the seniors in America-- there are a lot of them--to a fairly significant number. So I would agree with that.

I will yield for a final question.

In response to the Senator, the practical effect of what the Senator is proposing is to change a contractual agreement which the drug companies have already entered into. The basic effect of that would mean probably you would have fewer people willing to participate in the system and, as a result, seniors would have fewer choices. And I suspect that the practical effect, if the Senator's amendment were to go forward, is that the seniors would have fewer choices.

One of the few advantages of the Part D program, which I still am not all that enamored of, is that it is giving seniors a variety of choices in their drug benefit. As seniors become more educated as to what those options are, they are going to be impressed that there are so many options on the table, and they can tailor their pharmaceutical needs to the options available to them. If you change the contractual agreements which encourage people to offer that type of opportunity, you obviously are going to undermine the number of options that would be available, in my opinion.