Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007

Mr. President, I am very pleased to bring to the floor today the conference report on H.R. 1495, the Water Resources Development Act of 2007. I think I can pick up on something Senator Alexander said about how divided we are in this country over this Iraq war. That is very clear. No one understands more than our Senator who is sitting in the chair and presiding today how we are divided. This is a different story, so we will take a little break out of our discussions about Iraq, and we will continue to work for bipartisanship in bringing this war to an honorable close.

At this time, we take a little break from that and turn toward something that is very important, which is building and rebuilding the water infrastructure of our Nation. Today is a day that is 7 years in the making.

I wish to start off by thanking my committee, all of the Members on my side of the aisle, and Senator Inhofe, our ranking member, and all his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle. This is an unusual day. This is a day where we come forward united on a bill that will authorize the projects and policies of the Civil Works Program of the Army Corps of Engineers. I am so pleased we will vote today on final passage of that bill, and we will send it to the President.

I hope President Bush will reconsider his veto threat of this bill. I think colleagues will speak to how urgent this bill is. Imagine not having a water resources bill for 7 long years. That is too long to wait. If colleagues are concerned about the size of the bill--truly, if we had gone back the way we did it, every 2 years, it would be about the size that this bill is. As Senator Inhofe will say when he gets here--and, as you know, he and I don't agree on many environmental matters, but on public works matters we do agree--this is the first step in a long process--the authorizing step--and then comes the appropriations.

So every one of these projects that has gone through local governments all over this country--remember, for every one of these projects, there is a local match. These are projects that came from the bottom up, from our people who were saying to us we need help with flood control, with economic development, with dredging and we need help with wetlands restoration and in a number of areas involving the movement of water; and this country learned it when we watched after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

If we didn't know it then, we certainly know it now. So I say to this President, this bill is in line, in terms of the pricetag, with what we would have had if we had done this bill every 2 years. There is huge support for this bill. The votes in the House and the Senate are enormous, very one-sided.

So I hope, Mr. President, if you are listening or people in your office are listening, this is a respectful request to please join with us. We don't have to fight over every single thing. When it comes to the economy, the quality of life of our people, we should be united.

The House vote on this conference report was 381 to 40. We are hoping we will vote in that same fashion in the Senate.

Mr. President, how much time do I have, since I am Senator Reid's designee?

Mr. President, will Senator Landrieu be amenable to taking 10 minutes at this time, and I will reserve time later for her in the debate?

I yield 10 minutes of my time to Senator Landrieu. I wish to say before she begins, she has been a mover behind this bill. She has worked her heart out to get this bill to the floor and, as a result of her working, of course, along with her colleague, Senator Vitter, who is on the committee, our committee came to Louisiana and held a very unique hearing. We had many colleagues--I see Senator Cardin is on the floor. He was there. We had a very good turnout, and Senator Landrieu was eloquent. She has been eloquent on the floor of the Senate in the past I look forward to hearing her remarks.

Mr. President, I have a little UC to take care of the people on the floor right now.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Collins be allowed to speak for up to 5 minutes; Senator Nelson for up to 10 minutes, and Senator Baucus for up to 10 minutes.

Yes. And, for now, this will be it, but I will do a second UC to include Senator Landrieu for another 10 at a later time.

Mr. President, before my friend begins, I wanted to get the parliamentary situation, if he will yield for a minute?

It is my understanding that Senator Feingold has up to 30 minutes to speak on the bill. He and I discussed it. If he has any added time, he has graciously agreed to yield it to me with the understanding that if he wants additional time, I will get it back to him later. But I think, if it is necessary for me to make such a request, I ask unanimous consent that whatever time the Senator yields back be yielded back to me with the understanding he will be able to speak again if he so chooses.

Mr. President, is it a fact that I have 34 minutes remaining on my manager's time?

Senator Feingold graciously said he would yield me the remainder of his time with the understanding that if he needed more, I would give him some of it. So what is his amount that is remaining?

I ask unanimous consent that that be done.

Mr. President, again, in a way I am glad I didn't have a chance to speak before because there has been so much interest in this bill that I waited until we had a little quieter time on the floor, although several are coming.

Part of our work is making sure that in coordination with local governments and State governments and communities and the American people, we do what we need to do so we can build our economy, so our economy has behind it the infrastructure it needs. What happens when an infrastructure fails? We saw that in Minnesota when the bridge collapsed.

I am proud the Environment and Public Works Committee held a very strong hearing at the behest of Senator Klobuchar, and we are moving forward on a way to ensure that we can fund those kinds of improvements. We saw what happens when water infrastructure fails, when we look at what happened in Hurricane Katrina. We saw that the levees we thought were built to protect against category 5 storms simply didn't stand up.

There is no way we can talk our way out of the problem we face in America. The problem we face is we have an aging infrastructure. Whether it is our roads or bridges, our highways, or our water infrastructure, these need attention. That is why today is such an important day and why I am so proud to stand here, because even though not every Member will support this bill, I would say almost every Member will. Senator Feingold was eloquent and he was disappointed that we didn't do everything he and Senator McCain asked us on Corps reform. I understand that. We are very close friends and colleagues. The fact is, I see it a little differently. We went a very long way. I know he and I have our differences. What I wish to do, rather than take the

time to engage in an argument, is to place in the Record the program highlights of Corps reform initiatives that are in this bill. I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record.

What everyone will be able to read is the independent review we now have in place in the bill that is truly independent, done by the National Academy of Sciences, which includes safety assurance reviews, mitigation, planning principles and guidelines, watershed- based planning, levee safety, and other program improvements, including expediting the process for deauthorizing the unconstructed backlog of projects. Rather than get into a big argument, to me it is such a positive day today.

I see the Senator from Virginia coming to say a few words.

This is a very important day. We are struggling in the Senate to work together. The war in Iraq has torn us apart. It is very hard. But on this matter of building an infrastructure and making sure it works, we are as one. This conference report has the support of my ranking member, Senator Inhofe, the entire Environment and Public Works Committee. It is important to note that the conference report was signed by every conferee from both Chambers. The conference report was signed by every conferee, Republican, Democratic, Independent, as they may be, in both Chambers. The conference report has already received an overwhelming vote in the House: 381 in favor; 40 opposed. Imagine what a wonderful message that is that we can work together.

I also say for the record that this conference report fully complies with the rules of the Senate as amended by S. 1, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. Under the requirements of new rule XLIV, I certify that each congressionally directed spending item in the conference report and the name of each Senator who submitted a request to the committee for that item has been identified through a chart that has been available on the committee Web site at least 48 hours prior to the vote on this conference report. So we have been faithful as we must be to the new rule XLIV on our ethics, where you can see what every Senator requested and a certification that in fact there is no conflict of interest, no pecuniary interest on the part of the Senator or any member of the immediate family. This is truly a bipartisan bill.

I am going to make a unanimous consent request that at the conclusion of my 10 minutes, Senator Cardin be recognized for up to 10 minutes and that then Senator Warner be recognized.

Well, the Senator from Maryland has been on the floor all day.

How much time would my colleague wish?

Then why don't we give you 5 minutes first and then 10 minutes for Senator Cardin.

He is very pleased with that.

How many more minutes do I have on my 10 minutes?

So, again, we have complied with the new ethics rules. I want to say also, in terms of the Corps reform matters, there is an environmental organization, American Rivers, and they have written a very important release that I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.

They certainly believe we should have gone further with Corps reform. That is clear.

But they do say:

The reforms in this bill begin to put the Corps on track

towards becoming a more reliable and credible agency.

This is important. They do say:

The gains in the WRDA bill would not have been possible

without the tireless work from lawmakers on both sides of the

aisle.

They name some names of Senators.

Even though, as I say, they would have wanted 100 percent of what Senator Feingold asked for, they again say:

Congress has taken a first step towards more responsible

river management.

I feel pleased with this result. I know sometimes we see a glass half full and sometimes we see it half empty. I see it half full. I am proud we made these amazing strides toward Corps reform. Senator Feingold is, shall we say, very disappointed, and I respect that. I do not see it the way he sees it.

So when I come back to some more of my time--but I will yield at this time--I will talk about how important this bill is to the health and safety of our families, our communities, and our economy. At this time I yield and we will go to the unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. President, if I might make a unanimous consent request before my good colleague speaks.

First of all, because my friends on the other side are looking for time, I yield them 3 minutes of my time, to Senator Inhofe, right off the bat--3 minutes. If the Chair could add that to the time they have remaining.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following Senator Cardin, Senator DeMint be recognized for up to 20 minutes.

I object. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me say this. For 7 years, we waited for flood control and then we saw Katrina. For 7 years, we have waited for environmental restoration. For 7 years, we have waited for navigation improvements. For 7 years, we have waited, and the bottom line is, every single project in this bill has a letter attached to it saying who asked for it, whether it was added in conference, added in the first bill, the second or the third.

I would urge that we get on with this today, and I object to the unanimous consent request that we slow this thing down.

Mr. President, I yield myself 4 minutes at this time.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that now I have 14 minutes remaining on my side. Senator Inhofe has how much time remaining?

And Senator Feingold retains 20 minutes.

If he doesn't take that 20 minutes, Senator Inhofe and I will share that time.

I am sorry that Senator DeMint has left the floor, which oftentimes happens after a Senator speaks. But I have to say that when I said we need to do these Katrina-related fixes, his answer was that the reason we had a problem with Katrina in the first place is the Corps didn't do a good job, and I think certainly the Corps didn't live up to our expectations. But what Senator DeMint doesn't mention is that in this bill before us, because of the hard work of Senator Feingold and others, we have now put into this bill an independent review process where there will be no projects going forward unless and until there is an independent report that the National Academy of Sciences will, in fact, oversee. We have gone light years from where we were before. That is why we have so much strong support for the bill. The Audubon Society supports the bill, along with the Clean Water Fund, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the American Shore and Beach Preservation Society, the National Water Resources Association, and on and on and on. The fact is, if we had allowed the DeMint request to go forward, we would be back to square one. We cannot afford that. It has been 7 long years.

Again, the health of our communities is at stake. The safety of our families is at stake. I could talk about Sacramento. Finally, we have language in the authorization to move forward with the proper flood control for the community of Sacramento. Mr. President, 300,000 people live there. It is the home of our State, the capital of our State. We finally reached agreement. These are not agreements that come from the top down; they come from local government up. I think it is important, as colleagues come to the floor to in a way demean this process, to understand if they demean the process, they are demeaning their own communities. In Oklahoma, or in California, or Georgia--I see Senator Isakson here. He and Senator Baucus were invaluable to Senator Inhofe and me in doing all of this.

The fact is these projects and these ideas and these needs come up from local governments. As a matter of fact, homeowners' associations find themselves faced with dangerous circumstances because a river is rising and there have not been the needed improvements. Senator Inhofe and I share a commitment to shoring up our infrastructure, including water resources, and I think when we look at all of the things that come before us--and we are so torn in half here, Democrat versus Republican--here we have an opportunity to move forward in a bipartisan fashion. As Senator Inhofe would say in his way, because he has been hammering at this, this is one step of a very important process. We have added these independent reviews so that we have checks and balances all the way through.

I will retain the remainder of my time. I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I yield 6 minutes to Senator Landrieu of Louisiana.

Will my friend yield just on the time issue?

It is my understanding that Senator Feingold has yielded us 20 minutes, so

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Inhofe get an additional 10 minutes and I get an additional 10 minutes.

Madam President, could you tell us how much time remains between Senator Inhofe and myself?

Madam President, let me say as we wind down that I think this committee, of which I am so proud to be the chairman, and I am so pleased to work with Senator Inhofe on these infrastructure issues, has done its work. I think we have done our job.

Now, of course, you can always find something that somebody doesn't like in a bill, but the fact is, as Senator Inhofe explained with a most instructive set of charts--and I thank him so much for going back through the history of the difference between appropriations and authorizations--this is an important step and a necessary step in the process but by no means the last step.

He talked about the appropriations process, and I talked about the process now that Senator Feingold and Senator McCain got added to this bill. Although they are still not happy with everything we have done, it creates an independent review. So we will have independent review, we will have appropriations. Therefore, this is a very necessary first step after these projects have come up really from our constituents, from our homeowners, from our city councils, from our boards of supervisors, from our mayors and governors, et cetera. So I believe we have put together a bill that meets our communities' needs, and I think we have done it in the very best way we can. We have complied with the new ethics rules.

By the way, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter dated today from Majority Leader Reid and the Rules Committee chair, Senator Feinstein, replying to Senator DeMint on the issue of whether the Senate rule XLIV point of order applies to authorization bills.

So, Madam President, we have complied in full with the Ethics Committee, and we worked with the Parliamentarian every step of the way to make sure we were in total concert with that new law because we are respectful of it. We have letters from every Senator. We have a transparent process here. Everyone who asked for a project put their name on the line, and we made sure there was no pecuniary interest of a Member or their family.

So this is an important day for our country. We have all said this in different ways, but we are authorizing projects our communities need to help protect millions of people in our Nation from catastrophic flooding. It also will help restore the great wetlands, estuaries, and rivers of our Nation, places where wildlife thrive and that our families enjoy today. We want to make sure they enjoy them in the future--the hunting, the fishing, the boating, the camping, the outdoor industries.

By the way, those outdoor industries are a very important part of our economy. We call it the recreation economy. Without these projects, they simply won't be able to thrive.

WRDA makes other important contributions. It authorizes projects for our communities that they need to increase their capacity at their ports, to make shipping easier, safer, and more efficient. It literally keeps America's economy moving. You cannot have a great country if you don't keep up with the infrastructure needs. We saw what happened when a bridge collapses, and we are dealing with that in the committee as well.

Look what happens if we don't keep up with our water projects. We are not going to be able to move our ships. I know there are, for example, in California so many ports, but in many cases a lot of silt builds up and they can't move those ships through. So we need to do that. These are our gateways to the world. Our manufactured goods, such as computer chips, agricultural goods, grains, wines, and fruits, pass through our ports and harbors to be sold around the world. We have $5.5 billion worth of goods passing through our ports each day and more than 2.5 billion tons of trade moving through our ports each year. Colleagues, that volume is expected to double over the next 15 years.

That is why we say to this President: Please, please sign this bill. Why do we have to fight over every single thing? The fact is, you can't have a great economy, the greatest economy in the world, if we can't keep our goods moving. And we need to create thousands of new jobs right here in America. The port economy is responsible for approximately 5 million jobs--and ``jobs'' is your middle name, Madam President. So this bill will keep jobs being created and keep goods moving. WRDA is essential for goods movement.

I mentioned recreation. Maybe some people don't know this, but the Corps of Engineers is the largest provider of outdoor recreation, operating more than 2,500 recreation areas at 463 projects and leasing an additional 1,800 sites to State or local parks and recreation authorities or private interests. At these projects around the country, the Corps hosts 360 million visitors a year at its lakes, beaches, and other areas. One in ten Americans--25 million people--visits a Corps project at least once a year, and this generates 600,000 jobs related to all of this movement.

So, colleagues, we can all agree that public health and safety, economic growth, and environmental protection are important goals, and this bill helps to achieve them.

Finally, I wish to say a word of thanks to leader Harry Reid, who has just come onto the floor to make a statement of his own. I know Senator Inhofe and I spoke to Senator Reid many, many times, and I know it is difficult for him because, just so the public understands, everyone who gets a bill out of his or her committee goes right to the majority leader to beg for time.

He made a commitment to me. He told me, and I remember it: When the Jewish holidays are completed, we will turn to WRDA. And that is what he did. He is a man of his word. This is so very important for the country.

Finally, let me thank the staff. First, the Democratic staff: Bettina Poirier, Ken Kopocis, Jeff Rosato, Tyler Rushforth; EPW Republican staff: Andy Wheeler, Ruth Van Mark, Angie Giancarlo, Let Mon Lee--I have gotten to know these as family; also, the staff of Senator Baucus: Jo-Ellen Darcy and Paul Wilkins; and staff of Senator Isakson: Mike Quiello.

This has been not an easy time. But when you get a bill that is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau, and the three biggest construction labor organizations--Laborers' International, International Union of Operating Engineers, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners--when you get all those, plus a host of local people, plus a host of water people, I think we are answering a need.

Again, I thank each and every member of the staff, my dear friend Senator Inhofe for being such a good fighter for this, and all the Members of the Senate. I know we are going to have a great vote.

It is my understanding Senator Inhofe may have a closing word prior to Senator Reid speaking, so I yield my time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that we have 22 minutes remaining.

Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. President, first, let me thank the Senator from Georgia. Working on these authorization committees is not easy. We have a lot of hearings and a lot of expertise, people looking, studying to see what is deserving to be authorized. I can tell you that the Senator from Georgia--I don't know of a member on the committee who has worked harder, or maybe even as hard as the Senator from Georgia. So I thank him for coming here today and making his statement.

I know my good friend from South Carolina, Senator DeMint, would not intentionally misrepresent anything, but when he says once it is authorized, it is just like spending, that isn't true. I know he hasn't thought that through or he would not make that statement. We have a backlog, which has already been talked about several times here--a backlog of some $32 billion of Corps projects that have been authorized but haven't been done. That speaks for itself. They are out there. How can you say that--by the way, it is worthwhile saying or some people might say: Why are you authorizing more if they haven't even done those? Maybe some of them are no longer necessary. I will give you a couple examples. In Oklahoma, we have a channel that goes all the way to Muskogee, OK, or the Port of Katusa. A lot of people don't think of us as being navigable in Oklahoma, but we are. It is a short distance that is 9 feet, where the choke is. So we have had it authorized for a long period of time to make that a 12-foot channel. It would make a huge difference. It hasn't been authorized.

The Passaic River in New Jersey has a flood control tunnel up there that was authorized at $1.2 billion back in 1990. That wasn't last year or the year before. So far, no money has come in there.

Mr. President, I was disappointed in the way time was handled here. Let me make a few comments and then perhaps see if anybody else comes down who needs to be heard.

Right now, let me first redeem myself. We have a lot of people talking about this. I know a lot of people are watching, saying we are going to find out who the conservatives are. There are a lot of ``born- again'' conservatives I have heard so far, who are not conservative but are opposing an authorization bill. I say that, redeeming myself, in that--every organization, including Human Events and the American Conservative Union, says I am not No. 2 or No. 3, Mr. President, I am No. 1. Did you know that I am the No. 1 most conservative Member of the Senate?

I am here to tell you something that is very unpopular because nobody is going to understand it after I explain it to you. I will get right into it. I am going to tell you what authorization is. I hope some Members are listening, but I fear they are not. I think minds are made up. By the way, this bill will pass by an overwhelming majority. No question about that. In a way, we are wasting a lot of time right now. But I think it is important that at least somebody says something that has to be said: What is authorization all about?

The background of authorization goes all the way back to 1816. In 1816, our permanent committees were put together. We didn't have committees prior to that. So the responsibilities of authorizing and appropriating were put into these 11 committees in accordance with jurisdiction.

By 1867, 51 years later, the Senate created the Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee had the idea that there was to be separate authorizing language with the appropriations. They were going to actually spend the money. Somebody else was going to do the authorization.

In 1899, it was seen that they had kind of moved together, so the Appropriations Committee was actually legislating on appropriation bills.

In 1922, a major change took place. In 1922, after the Accounting Act of 1921, the Senate changed the rules. They established not only that the Senators were going to be appropriating and not authorizing on the appropriations bills, but that is when the current rule XVI came into effect. It had been there for a different purpose. Rule XVI says if the appropriators appropriate something that is not authorized, it is going to take a 60-vote point of order. That is huge. That was very clear in 1922. They said we want to make it virtually impossible for the appropriators, without going through any authorization, to unilaterally say we ought to have all these projects; we don't care if they are worthwhile or not. That is what happened.

Then, slowly, since that time it has been going back to the appropriators getting more and more power. They have been diminishing the power of the authorizers.

Put up the military chart.

I am on another committee.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, the Armed Services Committee is an authorization committee. Let me tell you why the process of authorizing is important. I could use almost any example I want to, but I will use missile defense.

Right now, there are very few people around since 9/11 who don't know that there are monsters out there who will send a missile into the United States. We now have a missile defense system we are still developing. There are three phases: the boost phase, the midcourse phase, and the terminal phase.

In the boost phase, quite frankly, we do not have anything that will knock down a missile. We are working on two systems: one, a kinetic energy booster, and the other is an airborne laser system. The airborne laser system is going to be great for us, but we are not there yet.

Midcourse--we all have heard about the AEGIS system. I believe there are 16 AEGIS ships right now. They have the capability of knocking down a missile during the midcourse phase. We also have ground-based systems. We

know we need this redundancy because we don't know from where these missiles are going to be fired. We all know the President has been trying to get a location in Eastern Europe and up around the old Soviet Union, and it has been very difficult. What we ultimately have to have is a way of knocking these missiles down from anyplace in midcourse. We have two systems. An appropriator might look at that and say: I know where we can save money. We don't need two midcourse systems; one is enough. But that is not right because the expertise in the authorizing committees says we have to have that coverage.

Lastly, the terminal phase. We know about the THAAD system, the PAC- 3, the Patriot Capability-3 advanced system. One may say they are redundant, but they are not.

Here is the point I am trying to make. The reason we know, in the Senate Armed Services Committee, it is important we have these systems is because we are staffed with a lot of really smart people. They are specialists in this area of national defense. I could have used the F- 22 versus the F-35 or any other system we have, but the point is that the Armed Services Committee is an authorizing committee which is staffed with experts. So is the Environment and Public Works Committee. We have people who are experts in certain areas. The committee authorizes projects for the future.

If we take away the Senate Armed Services Committee and the committee is no longer able to authorize, then we are going to have appropriators sitting around waiting for somebody to come up with what they want. Maybe it is a contractor they know who has a system and they will go ahead and use that system, but they wouldn't have the expertise.

I am not bashing appropriators. That is a very important part of the process. But they have to have some kind of a discipline in their spending. There is no discipline.

Let me mention something else that would be very unpopular. I said this on the floor during the Transportation reauthorization bill, which, at the time the Republicans were in the majority, I chaired the committee Senator Boxer now chairs. At that time, a lot of people were trying to latch on to items that were wrong so they could use them to demagog. Remember the famous bridge to nowhere? Actually, it would have been more accurate to say it is a bridge to nobody because the bridge actually went someplace where they couldn't get except by barge traffic and they could never develop that area.

One of the few things that works well in Government, in my estimation, is the way we do the Transportation reauthorization. Everyone pays at the pump, and then the money comes into the highway trust fund. Then we establish criteria.

Senator Boxer will remember that we had some 30 criteria we used with the Transportation reauthorization bill. One of the criteria was, What do the people at home want? In the case of the bridge to nowhere, the 100 projects the State of Alaska said they wanted to do with their tax dollars, it was No. 5 from the top. We, in our infinite wisdom in Washington, say we are smarter than the dumb people out in the States. We said: Even though this is what you want or have to have, you can't have it because we have this infinite wisdom in Washington.

I use these examples only because the authorizing system does work. We are supposed to pass this water resources development reauthorization every 2 years. If we had done that every 2 years, we would not be faced with what we are faced today. We would not be looking at $21 billion. It averages out about $3 billion, if my math serves me correctly. We tried to get a bill in 2002, and we were not able to do it. We tried in 2004, and we were not able to do it. We tried in 2006, and that didn't work, either. In fact, we did our job; we just ran out of time, as I recall. Now it is 2007. If we don't do it this time, it is going to be another year, and it is going to mean the appropriators are going to go ahead and do these projects without going through the right authorizing process.

I have to say it, and I say it in all sincerity to my good conservative friends: This is not money we are spending; it is authorizing projects as to what meets certain criteria. If we look at some of the problems we are having right now--Hurricane Katrina, that was not foreseen and that was a wake-up call. It could happen anywhere. It was an infrastructure need. The collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis, that was a bridge on an interstate. In Oklahoma, on I-40, we have a bridge built with the same technology at the same time, and right now chunks of concrete are dropping off that bridge and falling down below. We have, in my State of Oklahoma, the worst bridge situation. I am not proud of this fact, but it is true. We have more deteriorating bridges than any other State. These are projects we need to be doing.

I am ranked as the No. 1 most conservative politician, but I have always been a big spender in two areas: One, defend America--we need to defend America; no one else is going to do that for us--and No. 2, infrastructure. That is what we have talked about today.

We went through the long, involved Transportation reauthorization. Mr. President, I am embarrassed to tell you, as sizable as that Transportation reauthorization bill was, if we were able to spend all the money that was authorized, it would not even maintain the current system we have today.

Let me mention one other point. Where were my conservative friends in 2000 when we passed this huge, open-ended bill called the Everglades Restoration Act? It didn't have any Corps of Engineers report. It did not have a Chief's report. It was open-ended, and the vote was 99 to 1. Guess who the one was. It was me. Where were my conservative friends at that time? That was huge.

In retrospect, I was right and the other 99 were wrong. They might argue with me on that point. But, nonetheless, in the current bill, there are now some reports in the Everglades, so we are doing it the right way with this bill.

I reserve the remainder of my time in case somebody else wishes to speak, but I have to say, in case I run out of time, I have a letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Civil Works, Secretary Woodley, and the arguments they use as to why they would recommend the President veto this bill are not right.

Frankly, I am really disappointed. If we are going to pass this bill--and it is going to be passed by a veto-proof margin--if the President vetoes it, he knows it is going to be overridden, and I have to question why he would veto it. Again, we are reauthorizing. We are not appropriating one nickel with this bill.

I retain the remainder of my time.

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

Madam President, let me say to my good friend from Louisiana that I do agree with her. I hope the President doesn't veto this bill, but whether he does or doesn't, it won't make any difference. The outcome is going to be the same. We are going to have this bill. But let me give him the assurance that the place to start using his veto is when we start spending money in places we shouldn't spend money and not on this authorization.

I am going to make sure everybody understands, even though I have made a number of statements here in support of this authorization bill, it doesn't mean I am going to support everything on it. There will be things, when it comes up to appropriations time, that I will be down here leading the opposition and asking the President to veto some of these things. But you have to have discipline in some way. There has to be some kind of a guideline, some kind of criteria used.

Let me for a minute talk parochially about my State of Oklahoma. These are things that are in here for my State but things that should be in here. These are things the Government should be doing.

Lake Arcadia is a good example. The city of Edmond is the fastest growing city in Oklahoma. Because of a set of circumstances, they were being billed and have been billed for years now for water they were not even using. All that is corrected in here. In the event this bill should not pass, those people of the city of Edmond, OK, are going to have to come up with money to pay for something they never got.

Lake Texoma--the same situation. The Red River Chloride Control Project in this bill clarifies the operation and maintenance of Oklahoma chloride control projects at the Red River. This is critically important to our farmers in southern Oklahoma.

We have Ottawa County's Tar Creek. The most devastating Superfund site in America that has been addressed now for 25, 26 years is Tar Creek in northern Oklahoma, which goes into southern Kansas, and nothing has been done. We have spent millions and millions of dollars, until 4\1/2\ years ago, when I became chairman of this committee, with the help of the Democrats, Senator Boxer included, we were able to actually get in there and do something. We have some of the projects that are necessary to ultimately take care of that devastating thing in northern Oklahoma.

Now, I spent several years--three terms--being mayor of a major city in Oklahoma--Tulsa, OK. In Tulsa, OK, one of the biggest problems we had--and I daresay if you were to talk to any mayor in America they would say the same thing--the biggest problem in my city was not prostitution or crime in the streets; it was unfunded mandates. So we had the Federal Government coming along telling us what to do and mandating that certain things be done, and some of my poorer communities in Oklahoma were just not able to do it. Let me just give a couple of examples.

All of these towns and cities in Oklahoma I have been in and I have seen different things the Federal Government has come in and told them to do and not funded them. They are projects in Ada, Norman, Wilburton, Weatherford, Bethany, Woodward, Langley, Durant, Midwest City--that project in Midwest City is a water infrastructure type of project-- Ardmore, Guymon, OK, out in the panhandle. I was out there during the last recess, and they were having a very serious problem with wastewater treatment. This would resolve that problem. Altus, OK; Chickasha, OK; Goodwell, OK; Bartlesville, Konawa, Mustang, and Alva. And when you stop and you think about all these things, these are things that--it should not be their responsibility. They do not have the capability of doing it. They are all things that came from the Federal government. Here I am, the No. 1 most conservative Member, saying Government does have a function. The major function I have always said is defending America and its infrastructure.

Let me mention a couple of things, if I could, Madam President.

I have a letter here from the Department of the Army, the Assistant Secretary of Civil Works, which is the Corps of Engineers, and they say the Corps already has an enormous backlog of ongoing projects that will require future appropriations of some $38 billion. Well, I use that in my argument as to why this is necessary. There is a reason for the backlog. At the time, they were authorized, but then circumstances changed. Some of these projects don't need to be done and will never be done.

By the way, when you talk about the amount of money that is going to be authorized, you don't know, first of all, how much of that $21 billion or $23 billion--maybe half of it--will ultimately be spent. We don't know. Some may be spent next year, some 10 years from now. It is just authorizing, just saying that at this snapshot in time, these are things which need to be done in America, these are legitimate, these meet the criteria. So that argument is no good.

He says that adding excessive new authorizations to this backlog is unaffordable and unnecessary. This sentence implies it is inadvisable to authorize new projects until all current authorized projects are completed, and nothing could be further from the truth. Certainly providing adequate hurricane protection in New Orleans is a higher priority than some of the already authorized projects, but we didn't know it at the time these were authorized. That is why this is important.

It said in this letter that the bill will include numerous authorizations that are outside of and inappropriate for the mission of the Corps of Engineers, and so forth. Well, the conference report does not include authorization of surface transportation projects for the Corps of Engineers. That isn't something we do.

So you look at the arguments they have, and it gets right back to the argument that the attack here, as I said, going all the way back to 1816, is on the authorization process. The only discipline we have in spending in this body is to have an authorization process.

Again, I will repeat, there is going to be some of these that are authorized that I would feel in my heart should not be appropriated, and I will fight against their appropriation. That is where the battle should be fought, and I think it is going to be.

I don't want to question anyone's sincerity in their opposition, but I think there are a lot of people who will go home and have a press release saying: I voted against spending some $23 billion. Nothing could be further from the truth. You oppose the authorization system and you oppose discipline in spending.

Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Madam President, it is my understanding I do have more time left than I will take. A quick word. I had a communication from my wife that she thought I was getting a little emotional about this, so let me end on a very positive note and say, yes, I have a presentation I make to groups, to conservative groups, talking about the history of authorizations since 1816. I gave an abbreviated edition a few minutes ago.

It is so frustrating to me to see people saying, if for some reason-- it isn't going to happen. This is going to pass by a huge margin. If the President vetoes, he knows it will be overridden. But if for some reason this didn't pass, we would be right back where we were in 2002, 2004, 2006, and we would be having appropriators out there without any kind of discipline or any kind of process to go through in making those determinations.

I think it would be the wrong thing to do.

Lastly--I didn't mention this--in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, we had quite a number of floods. If it had not been for what the Corps of Engineers had already done that was previously authorized and then later on was appropriated, it would have cost us, they now say, $5.4 billion more in damages than it did.

I hope the good conservatives will look at this and realize we have to have authorization in the process.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Oil Industry Merger Antitrust Enforcement Act. This legislation will significantly strengthen the antitrust laws to prevent anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas industry.

We have all seen the suffering felt by consumers and our national economy resulting from rising energy prices. Last year, gasoline prices shattered the once unthinkable $3.00 a gallon level, before receding in the fall. Prices are on the move upward once again, having increased by 15 percent in the last month alone. And prices for other crucial energy products--such as natural gas and home heating oil--have undergone similar sharp increases in the last year.

Industry experts debate the causes of these extraordinarily high prices. Possible culprits are growing worldwide demand, supply disruptions, the actions of the OPEC oil cartel and limits on refinery capacity in the United States. But we cannot overlook one important factor--the substantial rise in concentration and consolidation in the oil industry. Since 1990, the Government Accountability Office has counted over 2,600 mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures in the oil industry. Led by gigantic mergers such as Exxon/Mobil, BP/Arco, Conoco/ Phillips and Chevron/Texaco, by 2004, the five largest U.S. oil refining companies controlled over 56 percent of domestic refining capacity, a greater market share than that controlled by the top ten companies a decade earlier.

This merger wave has led to substantially less competition in the oil industry. In 2004, the GAO concluded that these mergers have directly caused increases in the price of gasoline. A study by the independent consumer watchdog Public Citizen found that in the five years between 1999 and 2004, U.S. oil refiners increased their average profits on every gallon of gasoline refined from 22.8 cents to 40.8 cents, a 79 percent jump. And the grossly inflated profit numbers of the major oil companies--led by Exxon Mobil's $8.4 billion profit in the first quarter of 2006, which followed its $36 billion profit in 2005, the highest corporate profits ever achieved in U.S. history, are conclusive evidence--if any more was needed--of the lack of competition in the U.S. oil industry. While it is true that the world price of crude oil has substantially increased, the fact that the oil companies can so easily pass along all of these price increases to consumers of gasoline and other refined products--and greatly compound their profits along the way--confirms that that there is a failure of competition in our oil and gas markets.

More than 90 years ago, one of our Nation's basic antitrust laws--the Clayton Act--was written to prevent just such industry concentration harming competition. It makes illegal any merger or acquisition the effect of which ``may be substantially to lessen competition.'' Despite the plain command of this law, the Federal Trade Commission the Federal agency with responsibility for enforcing antitrust law in the oil and gas industry has failed to take any effective action to prevent undue concentration in this industry. Instead, it permitted almost all of these 2,600 oil mergers and acquisitions to proceed without challenge. And where the FTC has ordered divestitures, they have been wholly ineffective to restore competition. Consumers have been at the mercy of an increasingly powerful oligopoly of a few giant oil companies, passing along price increases without remorse as the market becomes increasingly concentrated and competition diminishes. It is past time for us in Congress to take action to strengthen our antitrust law so that it will, as intended, stand as a bulwark to protect consumers and prevent any further loss of competition in this essential industry.

Our bill will strengthen merger enforcement under the antitrust law in two respects. First, it will direct that the FTC, in conjunction with the Justice Department, revise its Merger Guidelines to take into account the special conditions prevailing in the oil industry. In reviewing a pending merger or acquisition to determine whether to approve it or take legal action to block it, the FTC follows what are known as ``Merger Guidelines.'' The Merger Guidelines set forth the factors that the agency must examine to determine if a merger or acquisition lessens competition, and sets forth the legal tests the FTC is to follow in deciding whether to approve or challenge a merger. As presently written, the Merger Guidelines fail to direct the FTC, when reviewing an oil industry merger, to pay any heed at all to the special economic conditions prevailing in that industry.

Our bill will correct this deficiency. Many special conditions prevail in the oil and gas marketplace that warrant scrutiny, conditions that do not occur in other industries, and the Merger Guidelines should reflect these conditions. In most industries, when demand rises and existing producers earn ever-increasing profits, new producers enter the market and new supply expands, reducing the pressure on price. However, in the oil industry, there are severe limitations on supply and environmental and regulatory difficulty in opening new refineries, so this normal market mechanism cannot work. Additionally, in most industries, consumers shift to alternative products in the face of sharp price increases, leading to a reduction in demand and a corresponding reduction in the pressure to increase prices. But for such an essential commodity as gasoline, consumers have no such option they must continue to consume gasoline to get to work, to go to school, and to shop. These factors all mean that antitrust enforcers should be especially cautious about permitting increases in concentration in the oil industry.

Accordingly, our bill directs the FTC and Justice Department to revise their Merger Guidelines to take into account the special conditions prevailing in the oil industry--including the high inelasticity of demand for oil and petroleum-related products; the ease of gaining market power; supply and refining capacity limits; difficulties of market entry; and unique regulatory requirements applying to the oil industry. This revision of the Merger Guidelines must be completed within six months of enactment of this legislation.

The second manner in which this legislation will strengthen antitrust enforcement will be to shift the burden of proof in Clayton Act challenges to oil industry mergers and acquisitions. In such cases, the burden will be placed on the merging parties to establish, by a preponderance of evidence, that their transaction does not substantially lessen competition. This provision would reverse the usual rule that the government or private plaintiff challenging the merger must prove that the transaction harms competition. As the parties seeking to effect a merger with a competitor in an already concentrated industry, and possessing all the relevant data regarding the transaction,

it is entirely appropriate that the merging parties bear this burden. This provision does not forbid all mergers in the oil industry--if the merging parties can establish that their merger does not substantially harm competition, it may proceed. However, shifting the burden of proof in this manner will undoubtedly make it more difficult for oil mergers and acquisition to survive court challenge, thereby enhancing the law's ability to block truly anti-competitive transactions and deterring companies from even attempting such transactions. In today's concentrated oil industry and with consumers suffering record high prices, mergers and acquisitions that even the merging parties cannot justify should not be tolerated.

As Chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, I believe that this bill is a crucial step to ending this unprecedented move towards industry concentration and to begin to restore competitive balance to the oil and gas industry.

Since the days of the break-up of the Standard Oil trust one hundred years ago, antitrust enforcement has been essential to prevent undue concentration in this industry. This bill is an essential step to ensure that our antitrust laws are sufficiently strong to ensure a competitive oil industry in the 21st century. I urge my colleagues to support the Oil Industry Merger Antitrust Enforcement Act.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act of 2007 (``NOPEC''). It is time for the U.S. government to fight back on the price of oil and hold OPEC accountable when it acts illegally. This bill will hold OPEC member nations to account under U.S. antitrust law when they agree to limit supply or fix price in violation of the most basic principles of free competition.

Our bill will authorize the Attorney General to file suit against nations or other entities that participate in a conspiracy to limit the supply, or fix the price, of oil. In addition, it will expressly specify that the doctrines of sovereign immunity and act of state do not exempt nations that participate in oil cartels from basic antitrust law. I have introduced this bill in each Congress since 2000. This legislation has passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously three times since it was first introduced, and in 2005 passed the full Senate by voice vote as an amendment to the Energy Bill before being stripped from that bill in the conference committee. It is now time, in this new Congress, to finally pass this legislation into law and give our Nation a long needed tool to counteract this pernicious and anti-consumer conspiracy.

Throughout the last year, consumers all across the Nation watched gas prices rise to previously unimagined levels. As crude oil prices exceeded $40, then $50 and then $60 per barrel, retail prices of gasoline over $3.00 per gallon became commonplace. While prices temporarily receded last fall, the general trend is significantly upwards, and prices are rising even today. Gas prices have increased 32 cents in the last month alone to a national average of

$2.56 per gallon, a nearly 15 percent increase in just one month.

As we consider gas price changes, one fact has remained consistent any move downwards in price ends as soon as OPEC decides to cut production. Referring to the 18 percent rise in worldwide crude oil prices since the start of the year, OPEC President Mohammed al-Hamli commented ``we had a bad situation at the beginning of the year. It is much better now.'' The difference--combined output cuts of 1.7 million barrels of oil a day adopted by OPEC last October and December driving up crude oil prices. And while OPEC enjoys its newfound riches, the average American consumer suffers every time he or she visits the gas pump or pays a home heating bill.

So there is no doubt that the price of crude oil dances to the tune set by OPEC members. Such blatantly anti-competitive conduct by the oil cartel violates the most basic principles of fair competition and free markets and should not be tolerated.

Real people suffer real consequences every day in our Nation because of OPEC's actions. Rising gas prices are a silent tax that takes hard- earned money away from Americans every time they visit the gas pump. Higher oil prices drive up the cost of transportation, harming thousands of companies throughout the economy from trucking to aviation. And those costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for manufactured goods. Higher oil prices mean higher heating oil and electricity costs. Anyone who has gone through a Midwest winter can tell you about the tremendous personal costs associated with higher home heating bills.

We have all heard many explanations offered for rising energy prices. Some say that the oil companies are gouging consumers. Some blame disruptions in supply. Others point to the EPA requirement mandating use of a new and more expensive type of ``reformulated'' gas in the Midwest or other ``boutique'' fuels around the country. Some even claim that refiners and distributors have illegally fixed prices. On this issue, I have repeatedly asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate these allegations. As a result of our requests, the FTC has put a task force in place to find out if those allegations were true. While we continue to urge the FTC to be vigilant, the FTC has to date found no evidence of illegal domestic price fixing as a cause of higher gas prices.

But one cause of these escalating prices is indisputable: the price fixing conspiracy of the OPEC nations. For years, this conspiracy has unfairly driven up the cost of imported crude oil to satisfy the greed of the oil exporters. We have long decried OPEC, but, sadly, no one in government has yet tried to take any action. Our bill will, for the first time, establish clearly and plainly that when a group of competing oil producers like the OPEC nations act together to restrict supply or set prices, they are violating U.S. law. The bill will not authorize private lawsuits, but it will authorize the Attorney General to file suit under the antitrust laws for redress. Our bill will also make plain that the nations of OPEC cannot hide behind the doctrines of ``sovereign immunity'' or ``act of state'' to escape the reach of American justice. In so doing, our bill will overrule one twenty-year old lower court decision which incorrectly failed to recognize that the actions of OPEC member nations was commercial activity exempt from the protections of sovereign immunity.

The most fundamental principle of a free market is that competitors cannot be permitted to conspire to limit supply or fix price. There can be no free market without this foundation. And we should not permit any nation to flout this fundamental principle.

Some critics of this legislation have argued that suing OPEC will not work or that threatening suit will hurt more than help. I disagree. Our NOPEC legislation will, for the first time, enable our Justice Department to take legal action to combat the illegitimate price-fixing conspiracy of the oil cartel. It will, at a minimum, have a real deterrent effect on nations that seek to join forces to fix oil prices to the detriment of consumers. This legislation will be the first real weapon the U.S. government has ever had to deter OPEC from its seemingly endless cycle of price increases.

There is nothing remarkable about applying U.S. antitrust law overseas. Our government has not hesitated to do so when faced with clear evidence of anti-competitive conduct that harms American consumers. A few years ago, for example, the Justice Department secured record fines totaling $725 million against German and Swiss companies engaged in a price fixing conspiracy to raise and fix the price of vitamins sold in the United States and elsewhere. Their behavior harmed consumers by raising the prices consumers paid for vitamins every day and plainly needed to be addressed. As this and other cases show, the mere fact that the conspirators are foreign nations is no basis to shield them from violating these most basic standards of fair economic behavior.

Even under current law, there is no doubt that the actions of the international oil cartel would be in gross violation of antitrust law if engaged in by private companies. If OPEC were a group of international private companies rather than foreign governments, their actions would be nothing more than an illegal price fixing scheme. But OPEC members have used the shield of ``sovereign immunity'' to escape accountability for their price-fixing. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, though, already recognizes that the ``commercial'' activity of nations is not protected by sovereign immunity. And it is hard to imagine an activity that is more obviously commercial than selling oil for profit, as the OPEC nations do. Our legislation will establish that the sovereign immunity doctrine will not divest a U.S. court from jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit alleging that members of the oil cartel are violating antitrust law.

The suffering of consumers across the Nation in the last year has made me more certain than ever that this legislation is necessary. Between OPEC's repeated decisions to cut oil production and the FTC's conclusion for the last several years that there is no illegal conduct by domestic companies responsible for rising gas prices, I am convinced that we need to take action, and take action now, before the damage spreads too far.

I urge my colleagues to support our legislation so that our Nation will finally have an effective means to combat this price-fixing conspiracy of oil-rich nations. Thank you.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Yes.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California and all of my colleagues on this particular committee who have worked so hard. The ranking member, Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, has also worked hard. But I have to say to this chairwoman who took the chairmanship of this committee and said 7 years is enough time to wait, it is too long for the people of Louisiana, for California, or Florida, or Maryland-- my good colleague from Maryland, Senator Cardin, who serves on this committee has been so forceful--she said: I am coming to Louisiana. I want to see it for myself, particularly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated our coast.

As the chairwoman knows, we lost 267 square miles of land in south Louisiana because of the storm and the devastation of the tides, the surges, and the flooding. That is more than the whole District of Columbia, more than two and a half times the size of the 100 square miles that represent the District of Columbia. This is a huge expanse of land that was lost.

This Senator said enough. We have been waiting too long. It has been 7 long years. Today with this conference report vote that is going to take place in about 2 hours, that wait will come to an end. The last step Congress can take to send this bill off will have been taken. The conference report, hopefully, will be approved by a vast majority of Senators on both sides of the aisle. It would not have happened without Senator Boxer's leadership. I am, indeed, so grateful on behalf of the people I represent in Louisiana.

This is a small map, but it shows my colleagues the vastness of the land we are trying to protect and preserve, this great wetlands, which is the green area shown on this chart. The Mississippi River comes down, of course, through the mouth of the Mississippi River. This is the Sabine River that divides Louisiana from Texas and the Pearl River that serves as a boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana.

From east Texas, all of Louisiana, and for west Mississippi, this is an extremely important bill for our coastal regions. It is going to provide historic

and first-time funding for a comprehensive wetlands restoration, a combination of levees, wetlands restoration, and freshwater diversion projects that are going to not only protect the 3.5 million people who live south of the I-10--when people say to me, Senator, why do you live there? I don't know exactly how to answer that question other than to say we have been there for 300 years.

I don't know exactly why the first person--and that was before the Native Americans. That was after the Native Americans settled the land. I am speaking about when Bienville put up a stake along the Mississippi River. I would say there are any number of reasons, one of which is it was absolutely imperative to settle on the mouth of the river for westward expansion for the Nation. We couldn't have had a nation without the Mississippi River and the Louisiana Purchase, of which 19 States now are made up from the Louisiana Purchase.

We remember our history. I cannot go into all the reasons, but they most certainly are there with 300 years of history. There are 3 million people who live here. We cannot relocate them. It would be cost prohibitive. We can only protect them. We have put in smart planning and smart zoning. That is what we are doing and have been doing. The parishes put up money, and the State, and the Federal Government, and that is what we are doing.

I only have a few minutes remaining. I will speak later.

There is another way to look at the levee system that is crucial to protect the people who live in south Louisiana. Unlike many States, we do not have beaches. I have been to the beautiful beaches in California, and I want them preserved. I have been to some of the most beautiful beaches in Virginia and North Carolina and throughout the country. We are the only State that does not have beaches. We only have two: Holly Beach which is 7 miles long--it was virtually destroyed in the storm--and Grand Isle, which is 7 miles long. This coastline is thousands of miles long with only two little beaches. But we do have wetlands. We do not have people living on these wetlands. Sometimes there is a little camp here or a little community there. But they are stuck on the high ridges. They have been living on ridges that can be protected, and with the right kind of levees and the right kind of comprehensive system such as is in the Netherlands and other places in the world, this can be done. It takes commitment, it takes dedication, and it needs a steady stream of funding.

Mr. President, how many minutes do I have remaining?

Mr. President, this is a fairly dramatic chart I want to show people. It is a little scary for me and, I am sure, the people I represent. It is also very scary for Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. This is the track of all hurricanes from 1955 to 2005. This is what the southeastern part of this country has to brace itself for every year--year after year after year.

According to all reports, these storms are getting stronger and stronger and more numerous. We have been very blessed that we have not had a critical storm this summer. But the season is still open until November.

This yellow track is the track of Katrina. This blue track is the track of Rita which actually hit 2 years ago today. I was down in Cameron Parish on the corner of Louisiana, and east Texas is still hurting very badly, as well as our areas, from this storm. It has not recovered yet.

My point is, this bill not only has projects for inland waterways and navigation, but it provides vital projects for all of the southeastern United States and for the eastern seaboard to protect the people, the great industries, and manufacturing that are represented through all sorts of navigable waterways and ports that service this whole Nation.

Without this bill, this whole area will become significantly more vulnerable and open to storms, erosion, and surges. This is a very dramatic chart that shows what we are up against.

I am going to come back later and show some other charts, but in conclusion, this is a historic bill for Louisiana. It is extremely important for the Nation. For the first time we have authorized Morganza to the gulf which protects Houma, LA, a city not a lot of people hear about, but it is a very important city. It is smaller than Baton Rouge, smaller than New Orleans, smaller than Lafayette, but it is crucial to the energy infrastructure of this Nation.

We have many small towns in south Louisiana that my colleagues will not hear a lot about, but we store oil and gas there. We run pipelines through these towns. People are down there working their hearts out to give us the energy security we need. The least we can do is protect their schools, their communities, their way of life, and their culture.

I thank Senator Boxer for allowing me to speak. I thank my colleague Senator Vitter, who is a member of this committee. He will be speaking in a moment. He has been extremely helpful, energetic, and forceful in his advocacy for many of these projects. We have worked together. I am very pleased that he has put so much time and effort into this bill.

I see my colleague from Florida, who also has made a historic breakthrough on some projects, particularly the Everglades.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I wish to follow up on the comments of the good Senator from Oklahoma, who I believe made some very appropriate and strong arguments for this bill.

There are some reasons to vote against the bill, I guess, but I wouldn't say one of them is because you are a conservative. The Senator from Oklahoma is absolutely correct, this is a conservative approach to infrastructure. This is the right approach. This is about investments. Whether one is representing the State of California, which tends to be sometimes more liberal on issues, or representing a State such as Oklahoma, which tends to be more conservative, this is the right vote.

My colleagues can vote against this bill because they don't think it has enough Corps reforms. Senator Feingold's position, although I disagree with it, is a legitimate position. He just believes the Corps should have more reforms. Actually, I agree with a lot of what he says. But we couldn't get a majority of Senators to go along with his proposal. We had to drop it or sacrifice the whole bill. I did not think it was worth sacrificing the whole bill. We have some reforms, and I am committed and others are committed to continuing to work to reform the Corps, to streamline the Corps, to force them to stop wasting so much money and time. I am committed to do that in the future.

But right now, we have wetlands to save and levees to build. The Senator

from Oklahoma is exactly correct. This is a chart that shows the civil works as a percentage of the gross domestic product since 1929. There is a crisis in America. We are down below half a percentage point relative to gross domestic product. We are spending less today than we did in 1929.

I know nobody believes this information, but this is not a chart that came from Mary Landrieu's office; this is a chart from the Corps of Engineers.

We can see in the runup to the wars, World War I and World War II, how this bolted up because we had to make some of these investments. But look at the precipitous slide, Mr. President. I say this because the Senator is correct. The National Chamber of Commerce--not a bastion of liberalism--is supporting this bill. The Manufacturers of America-- not a bastion of liberalism--sent out a letter supporting this bill. Why? Because business cannot operate without ports and navigation and flood control. Agriculture cannot operate if every year their fields get flooded.

I don't know how to explain this anymore. This is not porkbarrel, runaway spending. This is critical investments, and it has been 7 years since this bill has passed.

Senator Boxer didn't run up a big tab. She has worked her heart out with Senator Inhofe to get a bill passed in 7 months that should have passed 7 years ago.

As to the argument from the good Senator from South Carolina--and I know somebody has to come to the floor and read talking points from some organization about this bill, but I wish to say something about South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. This chart shows the hurricanes that have hit since 1955. I don't know how many more Katrinas, I don't know how many more Ritas, I don't know how many more Hugos we need. But these are the tracks of the storms. We have 300 million people who live in the United States. I am just going to take a wild guess that 50 percent of them live in the Northeast and the South because I know the interior West is very lightly populated, so I would imagine the gravity of the population is where we are looking now.

How many more storms have to hit before we pass a water bill? How many more homes have to be flooded? We lost 275,000 in Louisiana and Mississippi last year. Two years ago today, Rita slammed into south Louisiana and east Texas. I focus so much on my State, and, of course, I represent Louisiana, but I picked up the Houston Chronicle this morning, front page, big headline: People in south Texas still waiting for help from the Federal Government for homes destroyed 2 years ago.

This bill is not going to solve every problem. It is not going to build every levee. But we better get about raising this chart up a little bit or I don't know what our manufacturers and businesses are going to do. You can buy anything you want on the Internet, but every now and then you have to ship it. You can purchase it with a mouse click, but that product has to get on a ship, it has to get on a truck, it has to get on a barge. It has to go somewhere. If we don't start building levees and protecting our people from these storms--and Lord help us if there is another terrorist attack--I just don't know what we are going to do. So there is some urgency about this situation.

I will say in my final minutes that I hope the President will not veto this bill. I hope he will reconsider his position and look at the vote, the overwhelming vote in the House--and I think we are going to have an overwhelming vote in the Senate--and say: I thought about vetoing this bill, but I decided not to because the arguments have been good.

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

So I hope the President will reconsider this number, the lowest investment since 1929. I hope he will look at the hurricane maps, and then I hope he will look at the land loss in Louisiana.

I would like to just end with this. We have lost more than twice the amount of land in just the last storm--these red dots represent significant land loss--that if an enemy came and took this land away from us, we would declare World War III. But it is not an enemy, it is ourselves.

So let us pass the WRDA bill.

I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their extraordinary leadership. There are many good reasons to pass this bill, and I hope we can get a good vote in just a few minutes.

Mr. President, as we conclude this historic vote, I thank colleagues on both sides of the aisle and briefly will put a few names into the Record. I know we are moving to another bill. I wish to thank Senator Boxer, Senator Inhofe, and Senator Reid, for living up to his commitment.

For the Record, there were several people on my staff who worked so hard over the last 7 years: Herman ``Bubba'' Gesser, Allen Richey, Paul Rainwater, Kathleen Strottman, Jason Matthews, Jason Schendle, Stephanie Leger, Robert Bailey, Jennifer Lancaster, Tanner Jackson, Mark Tiner, Lauren Jardell, Elaine Kimbrell and Lucia Marker-Moore.

That is how long this bill has been going on. I have literally had 12 people in and out of the Projects Department working on this bill.

(At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. President, since the March 2003 start of the Iraq war, more than 24,042 members of our Nation's armed forces have been injured, more than 10,685 of them too severely to be returned to action.

I have visited these soldiers at Walter Reed, at Fort Dix, and at the East Orange Veterans Hospital. I have heard stories consistently from our veterans about fighting against DoD and VA bureaucracy for months and even years simply to receive the basic benefits they are owed by a grateful Nation.

The controversy at Walter Reed again brings to light the shortcomings in the process our returning veterans must deal with in their difficult transition from soldier to civilian. Just as

the deplorable conditions that have come to light are unacceptable, so too are the countless stories detailing the maze of forms, hearings, and medical evaluations that prevent so many of our veterans from getting the health care and benefits they need.

Too often, it seems that rather than thanking the soldier for their sacrifice, this system sets up yet another battle of bureaucracy. Too often, it seems that the system is stacked against the very soldiers it is designed to help. Too often, veterans must seek out their own treatment options and benefits or risk missing deadlines and losing benefits. It doesn't have to be this way. We have an obligation not only to fulfill the promises we make to America's fighting men and women, but to do so in a manner that ensures the benefits we owe them are made readily available.

At the East Orange VA hospital in my State of New Jersey, for instance, we have a modern War-Related Illness and Injury Study Center that stands underutilized because many veterans aren't even informed that it's there. Patients whose quality of life could be drastically improved by the technology the center provides miss the opportunity simply because they are not aware the option is available. This country can do better; the will of the American people is to do better; now this government must do better.

That's why I am proud to introduce the ``Veterans Navigator Act'', a bill that would expand and enhance the important work done by VSOs and other non-governmental organizations to guide our Nation's servicemen and women to and through the VA healthcare system. It would, in fact, acknowledge the work of these organizations by providing $25 million in grants over 5 years to augment their capabilities.

The ``navigator'' concept is not new. It is similar to the Patient Navigator demonstration program I introduced and which was subsequently enacted into law. There, we also took a successful small-scale program being used at select medical facilities around the country and expanded it by providing grants for a scaled-up demonstration program to serve those with cancer and other chronic diseases, and in particular, to provide support to medically underserved populations.

With the Veterans Navigator bill, I propose to do something similar, capitalizing on the successes of the Patient Navigator concept, to help our troops. The $25 million over 5 years in the bill would allow VSOs and other organizations to apply for grants so that they could hire and train navigators to provide assistance, on an individualized basis, to members of the Armed Forces as they transition from military service to the VA healthcare system. They would do so in coordination with DoD and the VA. Right now, many VSOs rely principally on donations to perform these services.

At the end of the 5 years, the VA Secretary would submit a report to Congress on the effectiveness of the Veterans Navigator demonstration program and recommend whether or not it should be made permanent.

Often called National Service Officers or counselors, a navigator is a ``sherpa'', a guide through the maze of paper and people and specialists and benefits. A navigator is an advocate for those no longer able to go it alone. A navigator is a facilitator, someone who will be with you through the process, to provide the expertise you will need to transition between active duty and veterans status and to get the urgent care you need.

Let me be clear: a navigator does not supplant the role of the DoD or the VA. A navigator is meant to complement the work done by these organizations, particularly at a time when those systems are struggling to meet the needs of the soldiers returning from war and will continue to do so long after the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended.

While all veterans will benefit, the bill focuses particular attention on four underserved groups in the military community: the seriously injured or wounded soldiers, female soldiers, those suffering from psychological problems like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, and members of the activated National Guard and Reserves.

These underserved groups have not been sufficiently served in existing VA and DoD transition programs and activities. It is these underserved groups who especially need continuity of care as they enter and wind their way through the VA medical system. Part of the reason they have not been adequately cared for is that the nature of the current wars we are fighting, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, is different from previous conflicts we've undertaken.

During the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, we have the largest activation of National Guard and reservists since World War II. As of March 12, according to DoD, the United States had 141,000 military personnel deployed in Iraq. Of these, 119,005 were active component personnel and 21,995 were National Guard and Reserves. These numbers are set to increase due to the recent announcement by President Bush to send at least 20,000 more troops to Iraq by May.

The GAG released a report in February 2005 citing deficiencies in benefits for these soldiers. The report concluded that National Guard and Reserve soldiers ``are given little help navigating a thicket of regulations and procedures necessary to gain access to military doctors.''

To complicate matters, members of our National Guard who seek medical care must file for an extension of their active duty status in order to continue to access military bases and hospitals.

In its report, GAG also concluded that, and I quote, ``the Army has not consistently provided the infrastructure needed to accommodate the needs of soldiers trying to navigate their way through the ``active duty medical extension'' (ADME) process . . . this has resulted in injured and ill soldiers carrying a disproportionate share of the burden for ensuring that they do not fall off their active duty orders.''

The Veterans Navigator Act would help minimize such occurrences by providing National Guardsmen and Reservists someone to help bring them through the ADME process and to help correct any discrepancies before they cause a delay in accessing VA medical care.

Veterans with psychological problems also need help. In the last several years, we've been hearing a lot more about post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD in veterans and those returning from conflict. The GAO report concluded that almost four out of five service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who were found to be at risk for PTSD were not provided appropriate medical assistance. All of these factors mean that now, more than ever, our Nation's soldiers need help moving between the DoD and VA realms.

According to a recent study commissioned by the Department of Veterans Affairs, roughly 13 percent of service men and women returning from Iraq suffer from PTSD. GAO has concluded that roughly 78 percent of those service members at risk for PTSD do not get further evaluation. That means they return to active duty or are discharged without receiving the appropriate care.

It is the nature of this disorder to appear not right after the traumatic event is experienced, but often not until an individual re- experiences an event, has a flashback or is somehow reminded of a battlefield event. That may not happen until after a service member has been discharged from service. Once PTSD does emerge, the veteran may not know how to access VA medical assistance, or he or she may not have yet enrolled into the VA medical system.

Again, as in the case of the severely wounded, time is of the essence. PTSD can manifest itself so severely as to incapacitate a soldier, making medical care more urgent. In the case of returning National Guardsmen and Reservists, the problem is made more complex because of the 2-year time limit on filing for VA benefits.

Since 1991, opportunities for women in our Nation's armed forces have grown. For the first time, the military is placing women in support units at the front line. This has come partly as the result of more than 10 years of policy changes making 91 percent of the career fields gender neutral.

The Navy and the Air Force have begun to allow female soldiers to fly fighters and bombers. The Army has expanded the role of women in ground-combat operations. Right now, ``women command combat military police companies, fly Apache helicopters, work as

tactical intelligence analysts, and serve in artillery units.''

This would have been unheard of a decade ago, but it's happening right now. Right now, record numbers of female soldiers are fighting on the front lines and, as a result, more are being seriously wounded or killed. A Baltimore reporter profiling women soldiers' participation in Iraq observed that ``the war in Iraq has been an equal opportunity employer, by killing and injuring a historic number of female soldiers in combat situations.''

Therefore, a VA medical system designed to treat wounded male soldiers must now ensure that female soldiers get the right kind of medical care. They will need help finding that care and getting access to that care. A veteran navigator can help them do that.

Because of the length and size of the deployment, many more soldiers are being seriously wounded. According to the GAO, roughly 30 percent of U.S. soldiers wounded in combat during World War II later died. Today, that number has dropped to 3 percent for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan due to advances in technology and protective gear.

While this is clearly a positive development, it also means that many of these injured soldiers are returning home with severe disabilities, including traumatic brain injuries and missing limbs that require comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation services.

But, severe injuries often mean a lengthy transition from active duty to veteran status. As my story earlier indicates, the physical evaluation of a seriously wounded service member to determine whether he or she can return to active duty can take months to complete. In the interim, the VA has to be able to identify these soldiers so that they can perform early outreach, provided that they have the information to do so.

Despite this, the GAO observed in a March 2005 report that the VA faces ``significant challenges in providing services to seriously injured service members.''

In many cases, VA staff have reported that seriously injured service members are simply not ready to begin thinking about VA benefits or dealing with the VA system during the recovery process. The problem here, as GAO has pointed out, is that the VA has no policy for maintaining contact with these soldiers down the line, once they are discharged. Contact is often conducted on an ad hoc basis. Navigators can also help these seriously wounded soldiers.

VSOs such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Jewish War Veterans and so many others have emphasized the importance of maintaining contact with seriously injured veterans who do not initially apply for VA health care benefits because it may be many months or even years before they are prepared to apply for them.

The Veterans Navigator can help perform this function. Because this individual or individuals have reached out to the injured service member before his or her discharge, they can, in coordination with the VA caseworkers, remain in contact with them as they recover and prepare to re-enter civilian life. The navigator can also help obtain information from DoD on seriously injured soldiers earlier on so that they can help ensure that all service members and veterans benefit from VA health care services at the right time.

At a time when many active duty service people and veterans have fought and often made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, we cannot risk having any soldier fall through the cracks. We cannot take the risk that our female soldiers, who are fighting alongside their male colleagues, may not receive the medical care they need. We cannot risk the lives and health of soldiers with PTSD. We cannot risk the lives and the health of any service member who put their lives at risk for our country.

As we have seen with the situation at Walter Reed, DoD and VA simply do not have the manpower to effectively handle the influx of veterans cases coming into the system. With a backlog of over half a million claims, the VA can not adequately address the individual needs of America's warriors. Our service members didn't have to wait to sign up to serve their country; they shouldn't have to wait and fight to get the benefits they are seriously entitled to.

The very least that we can do is to ensure that all of these brave men and women are able to access the medical benefits to which they are entitled, particularly in their time of greatest need. At some point in each of our lives, we might need a guiding hand to help us find our way. Today, I am proposing to provide that helping hand to our troops in a time of their greatest need. It is the very least that we can do.