Employment Impact Act of 2011

Mr. President, I wish to support the remarks of the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Franken, and the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Sanders, who have described beautifully several different aspects of this debate. Senator Franken said: How is it that so many on the other side rush to support funding for wars and rebuilding in Afghanistan and Iraq and never ask for one dime to be offset, and yet at a time when Americans need help, they are not, let's say, leaning forward?

I think there are a lot of Americans, not only from around the country but from their own States, who might be very puzzled by this sudden commitment to find offsets when it comes to rebuilding neighborhoods in Minnesota or Vermont or neighborhoods in Virginia or in Massachusetts or in other States, such as New York, which have been so hard hit. I think they will have some explaining to do, which is why I hope today, when we retake this vote, many of my friends on the other side will consider the leadership shown last night by Senators Blunt, Brown, Coats, Collins, Heller, and Snowe. These six Senators voted yes to move forward to try to find a way to find the political will to provide funding for disaster victims now, not wait but send them a powerful and strong and clear and unambiguous signal that the Senate and the Congress hear their cry. We know of their anxiousness and distress and we will respond and we will fight about how to pay for this later--but not now.

They need to hear from us now that help is on the way. What they need to hear is that the fund will be replenished. What they need to hear-- the mayors, county commissioners, and Governors, Republicans and Democrats, from Governor Christie in New Jersey to Governor McDonnell in Virginia, who have given their support for funding disasters now-- what they need to do is not worry about us because they have enough to worry about. They have roads to rebuild and neighborhoods to rebuild and rivers to get in their banks.

I heard today from Senator Schumer that in one of the canals--I think the Erie Canal--the lock is no longer connected to the canal. That is how powerful the water was. There is a lock and a canal, but they are not together. That is a problem not just for New York but for the entire northeastern transportation infrastructure, which affects us all.

As a Senator from Louisiana, I, of course, feel particularly strong about this because many of these Senators, Republicans and Democrats, came to our aid 6 years ago when Katrina hit--the worst natural and manmade disaster because, as you know, it wasn't just the hurricane that did us in down there on the gulf coast, it was the collapse of a Federal levee system that should have held and didn't and breached or broke or evaporated in 52 places and left a major metropolitan, internationally famed city underwater and literally fighting for its very survival--a metropolitan area of over 1.5 million people.

This country rallied, after a lot of push from me and others and the private sector stood up and the nonprofit community was terrific. We still have literally thousands of volunteers still

coming. It is so heartwarming. They are coming to Louisiana and to Mississippi to help us rebuild. I just drove the gulf coast 3 weeks ago--my husband and I. We said, let's go see the coast of Waveland and the coast of Mississippi and how it is coming along. I visit our neighborhoods regularly in south Louisiana to see how they are coming along. Still, 6 years later, they are struggling. I don't think there is 1 house up for every 10 destroyed in Waveland today.

That is how hard this work is. It doesn't happen automatically. Mississippi is working hard and Louisiana is working hard. I can only imagine how other States feel, such as Joplin, MO, which was hit by a tornado with winds that might have exceeded 250 miles an hour. That is unheard of.

This is not time for my friends on the other side to sit on their hands or take out their green eyeshade and pencil and figure out how we are going to pay for it this week. We have all year to discuss that. We need to send them emergency funding now and learn how to pay for it later.

This is what our map looks like. Green is too pleasant a color for this map. This indicates the destruction--or the number of disasters that have been declared by the President. For the first time, I believe, in our Nation's history, a disaster has been declared in every State but two--Michigan and West Virginia. Michigan technically could be declared a disaster because it has been under an economic disaster for several years but not a natural weather event. They most certainly are having very tough economic times in Michigan. West Virginia always has tough times as one of our poorest States. The whole country is in need.

Why would the other side sit when America is lit up with disasters? We have to ask them to reconsider and move forward with the $7 billion help now. Not only is it the right thing to do and the moral thing to do and what Americans do for each other and what we should do, but it is all about--besides the moral aspect, which is obviously the most important--there being a real immediate economic benefit to this. If there was ever a jobs bill, this is it. I can promise you, having lived through this disaster recovery, it is like a shot in the arm for these communities. Literally, every single dollar that leaves our hands and goes to theirs will be spent immediately on food, clothes, and building materials. This is the most direct stimulative job creation we could do, and we need to do it now, this week, and send a strong signal to the House of Representatives: Don't fool around with disasters, and let's get this job done.

Let me just show you that when people say you haven't provided funding for disasters, we have provided funding in our base bill for disasters. I see the Senator from California, and I will be just 2 minutes more. I want people to know we have budgeted for disasters. I chair the Homeland Security appropriations bill. It is about a $42 billion bill. As we know from marking the 9/11 anniversary this past Sunday, that department was created after 9/11 to respond to new threats. We pulled disparate agencies together--tried to pull them together. That is still a work in progress. We have $42 billion. So we budgeted for FEMA in that budget, in 2003, $800 million. It was obviously not enough. So then we went up because disasters were increasing to 128. In 2005, Katrina hit and completely shattered the model. The expenses of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma exceeded the entire budget of Homeland Security. It was $43 billion just for Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The whole budget is only $42 billion.

When people say pay for it out of our budget, we cannot do that. In some cases, it exceeds the entire budget of the country. It is not right to pay for past disasters with money we use to prepare for future disasters. We have beefed up base funding, but we don't have the level of base funding that potentially may be necessary. Now is not the time--we can see--now is not the time to keep the east coast waiting and Missouri waiting and the floods along the Mississippi River waiting and some people in California waiting. Texas, might I say, has had 20,000 fires. This is not the time to keep the people of Texas waiting while we figure this out. Eventually, we are going to have to figure it out, but we don't have to do it this week.

I see the Senator from California. I will yield to her, and then I will be happy to add a few more comments to the record.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

I thank the Senator from New York for those very descriptive and moving comments about his State, and particularly the part of his State that we don't hear a lot about. That is why we depend on the Senators to speak the truth about what is going on and what they are seeing. I know the Senator from New Jersey is here to speak, but pictures are worth a thousand words and I wanted to put this chart up. I hope the cameras can grasp the horror of all four of these pictures. What is I think most telling about them is they are all from a different State in a different part of the country.

This picture is of Joplin, MO. I haven't myself personally been to Joplin, but before the year is out I will go, and I think other Senators should go see what has happened in one of the great tornado disasters in the history of our country.

This picture, which almost brings tears to my eyes because it looks exactly as Lake Pontchartrain looked in the city of New Orleans, I believe is from Irene, from North Carolina. It is heartbreaking. I am sure this is a family who was on the coast, and everything they had is destroyed. It really is quite moving.

This is a picture on the Mississippi River, I am not sure in what county. But when our Senators come to the floor to talk about rural areas and the devastation, at least in Missouri, you can walk down the street and find a neighbor whose home was equally destroyed and at least get a hug. Out here in these rural areas, you are by yourself. It could be miles between your house and your neighbor's home. You cannot even find the church where you worshipped together on Sunday.

Here is Texas. We prayed for the rain last week to go west to Texas. It hit Louisiana again. They are the ones who need it, but they cannot get it. There were 20,000 fires in Texas. There were thousands of homes burned up.

Before everybody starts to think, what is the great help--yes, FEMA is a great help. But let me put this in perspective. You get $2,000 a family--$2,000--to help buy a toothbrush, maybe a few pieces of clothing, some initial toiletries, et cetera, and you get $30,000 for some immediate needs. It is not as if we are trying to send people $1 million a house. How can people stand in the way of $2,000 for immediate needs and $30,000? If you had a house that was worth $150,000 and you ran a little printing business and you lost both, the most you could get out of this bill is $30,000. Do they think we are being too generous? It is minimum support. I want to make that clear--minimum support.

Some people are lucky enough to have insurance. If the insurance company steps up and does not try to pull out the fine print, as they did in Katrina, and come up with 100,000 excuses why they can't fund the homes, maybe they will get homes. This isn't us just trying to dump millions of dollars on people who do not deserve it.

That is what I wanted to say. I will have more to say, but I think these pictures speak 1,000 words. Again, FEMA is out of money. I don't want anybody coming here to vote to say: I didn't vote because FEMA has money. They are out of money. They are stopping projects all over the country because all they can basically do is have enough money to pay those immediate needs on the east coast. Joplin, MO, has been told: No, you have to wait. Louisiana, on the gulf coast, has been told: No, you have to wait. We are happy to wait a few weeks. We understand the dilemma. But this cannot go on week after week, month after month. We have to pass a bill for an entire year and not have to come back to it.

I see the Senator from New Jersey on the floor, so I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator from New Jersey for adding his strong and powerful voice to this. I wished to clarify a few points that I think are important for people to understand.

First, for those who might be engaging in or listening to this debate, we are going to have a vote in about an hour or so, and if we do not get 60 votes, we will likely not be able to replenish the FEMA coffers that are virtually empty. The Federal fiscal year, to remind everyone, does not start January 1. It starts October 1. We run on a fiscal year, not a calendar year. We are coming to the end of our year in September, this month. FEMA has run out of money in the last 11 days. I wish to submit for the Record--this is just an 11-day count, $387 million worth of projects that have been halted because FEMA is stretching the few dollars it has have left to cover the emergency needs, literally, of meals and shelter for the people on the east coast.

In other parts of the country where there are jobs underway, rebuilding highways, rebuilding libraries, rebuilding schools, rebuilding sewer systems, water systems, et cetera, those projects have been sent a pink slip, basically, from Washington saying cease and desist. You know what the worst thing about that is, it is not necessary if we would immediately act and refill this coffer so these projects can get started immediately. What is very bad about this pink slip is that this $387

million worth of projects, many of these projects have already been done by small businesses, private sector contractors. This is not money owed to the government. This is money, in large measure, owed to private small business people or medium-sized business people or, in some cases, large businesses that are in the process of fixing the library. In the last 11 days, because of some ideology here, some sort of political party agenda, they have received a pink slip that says: Stop work.

If these companies that have already purchased the lumber or purchased the concrete or purchased the pipe to build the project do not get paid soon, they will go bankrupt. Believe me, I have companies in my State that have gone bankrupt because the Federal Government is a notoriously late payer even under good conditions. This is not what I would describe as a good condition. This is a terrible condition. So the other side needs to think about the politics of this. This is not just a moral question, it is a business question.

There are many dimensions to this question. We have basically sent a cease-and-desist order to $387 million worth of contractors and businesses that might not be in New Jersey or affected in Vermont but are working on a project. They have a work order from the Federal Government, only to find out, sorry, Congress cannot decide how to pay, so good luck trying to make your payroll on Friday. This is wrong.

The second argument I would like to make to the other side when they are considering this important and significant vote is, when the other side says to me: Well, we need to budget for it, I would like to budget for it, but I do not have a crystal ball. I think I am a pretty good Senator, but one thing I do not do very well is predict the future. I sometimes have instincts about it, but I am not a fortune teller, and one would have to be a fortune teller to see what is happening.

This is not Mary Landrieu's opinion. These are the facts. In 2003, we needed less than $1 billion to fund all disasters. It was a relatively mild year. Had we put $2 billion in the budget, we would have had $1 billion extra. The next year it jumped to $5 billion. The next year it went up to $45 billion. It broke all records. The next year it went down to $12 billion. The next year it fell to $8 billion. How are we on the Appropriations Committee--Danny Inouye is a fabulous chairman from Hawaii and Thad Cochran is a terrific Senator from Mississippi, but neither Thad Cochran nor Daniel Inouye can predict a year and a half out what the disasters are going to be and budget accordingly.

Even if you can't motivate yourself--some people here--to vote for people because they need help, just look at the argument on the finances. We do not know in advance. We could set aside some money, maybe more than the $1.8 billion we have. I do not disagree there, but we still would have missed it every year except for 2 years. Even if we had put $5 billion in the base budget, we would have still missed it. We cannot predict it. Should we set aside $25 billion every year?

The point is, when disasters happen, just fund what we have committed to, which is a base benefit package to people. As I said, no one is going to get rich off $2,000 and $30,000 to help people get themselves started. Hopefully, their insurance comes in, nonprofits step up to help. They can maybe dig into a little bit of their savings.

This is as much a jobs bill, it is as much a business bill as it is a bill that is the right moral thing to do for people. It is not because Democrats do not know how to budget. I am so tired of being lectured on the other side about Democrats don't know how to budget. I would like to remind everyone the last time this budget was balanced, we had a Democratic President. Democrats can balance budgets. I was a State treasurer for 8 years, and I did a lot to help my State get back on a strong financial footing. I am proud of my record and so is every Democrat here. It is impossible to predict in advance.

What we could do is what we always do, send help. Help these companies and help these people get jobs, put people to work in America. Do the right thing. Over the course of the next 6 months, as our big committee is working and trying to figure out lots of big problems we have--and this is one of them--we can have time to sit down and figure out, based on this reality, what we should do. If anyone has a suggestion, please come to the floor now.

My committee has been talking about this for 6 months, and I wish to say thanks to my cochair, Senator Coats, who serves with me on the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee. We have been thinking about this for 6 months. He voted yes yesterday because he knows there are not many good options out there. Can we find a way? Yes. Can we find it this week? No. We might not even be able to find it in the next 30 days, but I am confident that over the course of the next month and year we will find a way to pay for it.

Right now people in New Jersey and Vermont and Louisiana and Missouri and Minnesota and North Dakota do not want to listen to this. They want to tell their kids: Yes, we are going to rebuild. They want to tell their employees: Yes, we are going to put our business back. They do not need to listen to this and they should not have to.

I am urging a strong vote at 4:15. Again, we have, in the last 11 days, $387 million in projects that have been stopped.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the summary of projects on hold due to the immediate needs financing decision as of September 9, 2011.

Every day this list is going to get bigger and bigger. All this is is a pink slip to someone unrelated to the current emergency. They are working on emergencies from 3 years ago and now they are being put out of work because of this bullheadedness that is coming from someplace. I hope we can break through on that today.

Again, these pictures are difficult to see, but I think it is worth seeing them again. This is what people look like who are listening to this debate--this family sitting on those steps. Someone, either they or their neighbor, is going to say: Did you hear Senator Landrieu on the floor? Did you hear the Senate debate? Why would the Senate of the United States be arguing whether we can get aid? Aren't we building in Afghanistan and Iraq and we are not going to build in North Carolina? I think they are sitting on the Outer Banks of North Carolina thinking: What is going on in the Congress? People are going to be angry, believe me.

I do not know what we are going to tell them. What are we going to tell them if we vote no on this? Are we going to tell them we do not have the money? Are we going to tell them we cannot figure out how to budget it?

We will figure it out later. We have to, eventually. Every bill we enter into

has to be paid for, eventually. You know that, Mr. President. We do not have to decide that this week.

Let's tell them yes. Let's do the right thing and let's get help to Joplin, MO. Let's get help to our rural communities that sometimes get very forgotten. Let's get help to our folks in North Carolina and to our people in Texas who have been suffering terribly over this, and let's do it now.

Let me share another quote that I think is particularly significant. The Senator from New York talked about Gov. Bob McDonald, a conservative Republican from Virginia. He said fund it now. Another Republican Governor, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said:

Let's fund it now. It is not a Republican or Democratic

issue.

I wish to read what Gov. Tom Ridge, the former Governor of Pennsylvania and the first Secretary of Homeland Security, a staunch Republican, said:

Never in the history of the country have we worried about

budget around emergency appropriations for natural disasters,

and, frankly, in my view, we shouldn't be worried about it

now. We are all in this as a country. And when Mother Nature

devastates a community, we may need emergency appropriations

and we ought to just deal with it and then deal with the

fiscal issues later on.

He is a very influential leader in our country and was the first Secretary of Homeland Security. He ran the FEMA budget. He understands what is at stake.

Please, let's not make this a partisan issue. Let's get a strong bipartisan vote; the Senate can be very proud of that; and then we can negotiate the issues with the House. I will work with the House leadership to say there are several ways we can pay for this. We can debate it over the course of the next several months and maybe come up with a new way. I know one thing we cannot do is take it out of the Department of Homeland Security. Our budget would be devastated, and it wouldn't be fair to all the perimeters and the security and our ports and our firefighters to use their money to pay for past or present disasters. We could potentially find the money somewhere under some new mechanism, but let's not make the people of the east coast, the people of Joplin, MO, and the people of Louisiana, in the floods that we have just gone through ourselves, scapegoats. We will figure out there is time for debate later, but the time for action is now.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I had to slip away from the floor for a few minutes, and I understand that no one from the other side has come down to speak this afternoon. I cannot say I blame them because it is a very tough position to take.

We are getting ready to take a very important vote in 5 minutes on whether we are going to provide disaster relief for the country, and particularly for the east coast, which has been so terribly hit with Hurricane Irene and then, of course, Tropical Storm Lee that came up through the gulf coast--and you know we have had our share of difficulty--but then it dumped additional rain in an area that was already saturated. We have wildfires raging in Texas. We have the destruction still in Joplin, MO, and other places throughout the Midwest.

The question for Americans in all of these States--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and some who are totally unaffiliated with the political process--is: Is Congress going to help? Our answer today needs to be yes. We need to fill the FEMA coffers that are empty. Our fiscal year ends this month. FEMA was given a certain amount of money in the earlier part of this year. The end of the year is coming up, and they are virtually out of money.

I submitted for the Record only 30 minutes ago that in the last 11 days $387 million for ongoing construction projects for past disasters have been put on hold so FEMA can stretch those dollars to make sure people can eat in the shelters and at least have one set of clothes to wear in other parts of the country. This is unheard of in our Nation. We have never, ever gotten so low in our disaster account.

There is plenty of money in the account to rebuild Iraq. There is plenty of money in the account to rebuild Afghanistan. There is money in accounts for refugee camps all over the world. But the account for Americans who are homeless, desperate, and without their businesses, their churches and, in some cases, their neighborhoods is empty, and Members are going to come to the floor today and vote no? I strongly suggest a ``yes'' vote.

I said the reason we cannot budget exactly for these disasters is because we, A, do not know when they are going to happen, and we do not even know the amount of the damage. As I have shown in my arguments this afternoon, the amount wildly fluctuates. One year it was zero, over the last 10 years. One year it was zero. The next year it was $5 billion. One year it was $8 billion. The next year it was $43 billion.

So I am saying, no one here--we are all very good, very powerful people, but we are not fortune tellers, and we do not have crystal balls on our desk, so there is no way we can know.

When people say to me: Well, you don't know exactly, but could you budget something, the answer is, yes, we could figure that out, but we do not have to figure that out today. We do not even have to figure that out this month. We have this supercommittee set up to fix every problem in the world, it seems. We will just give them another one to work on because we have been working on this in the Appropriations Committee for some time. The White House is engaged. The Republican leadership, hopefully, will get engaged. The Democratic leadership is engaged. We will figure it out. But now is not the time to have the victims of these disasters and the survivors of these disasters worry about this.

We need to refill FEMA's coffers, refill the Corps of Engineers that are stretched beyond imagination at this time. You can imagine with the Mississippi River. The highest flooding in 50 years occurred this year. Now they have other flash floods all over the country--a bridge here, several bridges there, dams and dikes bursting. One of the Governors, I understand, just shut down a major bridge because they found a structural fault. So the Corps of Engineers has more than they can say grace over. Now is not the time to cut their budget. Now is the time to give them additional funding and do some reform of the Corps of Engineers that my people are crying for in Louisiana.

I think a picture is worth a thousand words. I know we are getting ready to vote, and the leader will come and, I guess, call for the vote. But a picture is worth a thousand words.

These are people who are desperate. I have shown this picture this afternoon. This is Joplin, MO. This is somewhere along the Mississippi River and the great flood. How lonely is this? At least in Joplin you could find a neighbor to talk to or a group of people who worshipped at a church, and you could pray together. This family is isolated, as others are in many rural communities. They need a yes from us this afternoon.

Here is Texas, and this breaks my heart. I think this is North Carolina. How sad are these pictures? They are real. Behind them are thousands of families and businesses.

In addition, if this argument of compassion doesn't move people, maybe the argument of flat business will move people. We are ready for the vote; I think the time has come. I urge my colleagues to please vote yes on this motion to proceed. If we get 60 votes, we can proceed to the disaster bill and figure out how to pay for it sometime in the next month ahead.

I thank the Chair.

Cloture Motion

I understand that Senator Conrad is on the schedule to speak in just a few minutes, but with his permission I just wanted to say thank you to the Members who voted favorably to move forward with the discussion about how to fund disaster relief and to provide this emergency funding.

The leader has laid down a very responsible $6.9 billion emergency bill for victims and survivors of the many disasters with which our country is struggling. These numbers were not pulled from the air. These numbers came through the appropriate appropriations committees. I think it is a solid amount to deal with the emergencies right before us for the next months and perhaps through the coming year. These numbers will be fine-tuned as we move forward. But it was a very powerful ``yes'' vote for thousands, tens of thousands of people who are waiting for us to say yes to move forward, filling the accounts that are now virtually empty, and giving a positive signal to Governors, both Republicans and Democrats; mayors, Republicans and Democrats; county commissioners, Republicans and Democrats, that help is on the way and that the Federal Government is not, and will not, turn its back on them at this time of need. So I thank the Members.

We had a strong vote, 61 votes. We needed 60; we got 61. But it was a strong vote, and I am glad we were joined by several Members from the other side, and I thank those who said yes to move this disaster relief forward.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I wish to echo the comments made by my colleague from Wyoming regarding regulations. That is something I hear from small businesses all across South Dakota, traveling my State during the month of August. I toured businesses, and I visited with farmers and ranchers and small businesspeople. That was a recurring theme, one thing people continued to bring up unsolicited. When you asked them questions about what can be done to help create jobs, to get them investing and putting their capital to work, that was the overwhelming response. It came back literally every single time, that businesses are concerned about the overreaching regulations coming out of Washington, DC, and the economic uncertainty that it creates. Part of it just has to do with the predictability that businesses need to make long-term investment decisions. If they do not know what is going to happen next in Washington, DC, it makes it awfully hard for them to plan. So as a consequence of that, we see billions of dollars, trillions of dollars, sitting on the sidelines right now that could be invested and could be put to work, could be getting people back to work in this country.

Last week we all listened with great interest as the President came out to a joint session of Congress and made a speech about a jobs plan. He talked about passing this jobs plan. He has been traveling around the country making that same argument. What was interesting to me about that proposal--and, of course, the speech itself was sufficiently vague. It was very difficult to know exactly what was in that proposal, where more of those details now are coming to light. It sounded eerily similar to the very same proposal we voted on a couple of years ago in the Senate. It ultimately became law. It was called the stimulus bill. It had a pricetag of nearly $1 trillion.

The assertions made at the time were along the lines that if we passed this it would keep unemployment below 8 percent. We know employment is over 9 percent, and since that stimulus bill was passed we have lost 1.7 million jobs in our economy. There are 1.7 million fewer Americans employed today than there were when the stimulus bill passed a couple of years ago. So the question, then, is, Why would we want to go down that same path?

In many respects this proposal is like that one because it consists of more spending and more taxing and more borrowing--all the things we believe are detrimental to the economy in the long run. They do nothing to address the concern that was raised to me by the small businesses across South Dakota and the issue to which the Senator from Wyoming was just speaking; that is, the issue of overregulation that we keep hearing from our businesses across this country, the job creators in our economy.

It strikes me, if the President is serious about actually doing something that would create jobs in this country, it ought to involve putting policies in place that will be conducive toward long-term economic growth to provide the economic certainty these small businesses are asking for.

Right now there is uncertainty with regard to taxes. Tax rates are at least locked in now until the end of 2012, but beyond that it is anybody's guess. There is a concern, of course, that any proposal coming out of Washington right now that deals with deficit reduction might include higher taxes. That certainly is something the President put on the table yet again yesterday as a proposed way to pay for his new stimulus bill.

There is this repeated and consistent assault upon small businesses in the form of more regulations. The President backed off of the ozone regulations, which is something that everybody reacted very favorably toward in the business community and people I

talked to. But there are so many other regulations that are out there: the CO2 emission regulation, appropriated dust regulation, the change in the classification for coal ash. There are all kinds of regulations--particularly out of the EPA, but not exclusively the EPA-- coming out of agencies of this government that are creating greater uncertainty and making it more difficult and more costly for small businesses to create jobs. So why not focus on that issue? Why not focus on getting the free-trade agreements?

There were three free-trade agreements essentially negotiated in the previous administration. They are languishing because they have not been submitted to Congress for ratification. The President talks about free trade and creating jobs through exports. We had three free-trade agreements in 2006 and 2007. Colombia was 2006. Panama and Korea were June of 2007. The President said: I want Congress to approve these free-trade agreements.

We cannot do that until he submits them to the Congress. We would love to approve those free-trade agreements. It would mean thousands of jobs in this economy. We know that. It is low-hanging fruit. It is something we could do today that is something positive to actually create jobs in this country.

Just as an example, in my State of South Dakota in 2008, the top three crops were corn, wheat, and soybeans. In those three commodities we had 81 percent of the market in the country of Colombia. In 2010 that had dropped off to 19 percent. It is a major collapse in our market share in that country simply because we have not ratified this free-trade agreement, and in the interim we have had other countries that have moved in and filled the vacuum.

Most recently the Canadians, on August 15, I think, had their own bilateral trade agreement with Colombia. We may go down to zero market share if we do not act quickly to get the free-trade agreements approved. It is not a function of us wanting to do it; it is a function of the President submitting those agreements to Congress for ratification. We cannot vote on and ratify those trade agreements, put them into effect, and get them implemented absent the President of the United States sending them to Capitol Hill. That is something on which Republicans would love to work with the President.

We would also love to work with the President on a moratorium on regulations. I think it would make perfect sense, given what we know about what small businesses are telling us in terms of creating jobs and hiring people and investing capital, that regulation is a huge impediment to that. So why not--at least for the foreseeable future, until such time as we start getting this unemployment rate down and get people back to work--put a moratorium on all these crazy regulations coming out of Washington, DC?

There are literally millions of jobs that are impacted by these various regulations according to estimates that have been put forward by organizations such as the chamber of commerce and others. There are millions of jobs in this country impacted by the issue of regulation. I would think it would make perfect sense for this President to say to us, as part of his jobs package, his jobs plan: We want to work with you to put a moratorium on regulations for a 2-year period, until the end of his term in office--whatever that period is--but at least some amount of time so businesses know with some certainty that if they invest their dollars, they are not going to be slapped with some new regulation coming out of Washington, DC.

There was a story just this morning about 500 jobs lost in the State of Texas over a new EPA regulation. We have seen examples of that in my State of South Dakota. We have had coal-fired powerplants that have been nixed simply because of this uncertainty that has been created by regulations coming from Washington, DC. That is something that Republicans on Capitol Hill--if the President wants to be proactive in terms of job creation and actually having a forward-looking proposal and plan for job creation, he would certainly get cooperation from lots of folks on our side of the aisle when it comes to the issue of regulations.

Another thing we would be more than happy to work with the President on is broad-based and comprehensive tax reform. We all talk about it, and nobody seems to be willing, at least from the President's perspective, to put forward a proposal that would actually broaden the tax base in this country, lower the rates on businesses and individuals. I think it would lead to an enormous amount of economic growth. Most people and businesses I talk to suggest that right now in America the complexity in the Tax Code, the rates in our Tax Code, make us anticompetitive.

We lose jobs every single day to other countries around the world that have lower tax rates. Businesses are taking their capital and investing it overseas, creating jobs overseas, and are opposed to putting it in our country because our rates are not competitive. Our corporate tax rate at 35 percent is the second highest in the world. We are second only to Japan, and they were going to lower theirs prior to the tsunami.

The fact is, we have tax rates in America today that are making it very difficult for our businesses to compete and to keep those jobs and keep that investment in this country.

What can we do about that? Well, if we had broad-based tax reductions on individuals and small businesses in this country, lowered taxes on investment, I think we would see an explosion of economic growth and get these businesses--provided that there is enough certainty associated with that. In other words, we don't do it for a short period of time, we do it for a long period of time. If we do that, we will see businesses pick up on that signal from Washington, DC, and begin to invest again and get a rate structure that is competitive with other countries around the world.

Tax reform regulations, regulatory reform, a moratorium on regulations, trade, those are all issues that we are more than willing to work with this President on if he is willing to work with us because those are policies proven over time that actually will create jobs. Again, they are the things we consistently hear.

I dare to say that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are hearing the same thing I am hearing. I hear it from colleagues on my side who are repeatedly visited by small businesses in their travels in their individual States, and when they go to make contact with their small businesses they hear this over and over. These are the issues the American business communities are saying we need to address to get people back to work in this country.

I am certainly hopeful the President will change directions away from what he is proposing to do now, which is a very similar path to what was done 2 years ago, which we all know has been unsuccessful. If we look at it based upon the metrics--and, again, I am talking about job creation. If we look at it based upon the employment rate, the unemployment rate has gone up. The number of jobs lost has gone up. The amount of our debt has gone up by $4 trillion. We have borrowed more, we are spending more, and we are getting nothing in return--in fact, the very opposite of what we hope to get; that is, job creation. That approach has not worked.

Let's not double down on that and go back and try the same failed policies again. Let's change direction. Let's go in a different direction for this country, and I would hope the President would do that.

The other thing that I think is particularly troubling about his proposal--not to mention some of the things that he put out in his speech last week that give me a good amount of heartburn in terms of the direction he is headed--is how he proposes to pay for that. It was indicated yesterday that 90 percent of the cost of this stimulus bill would be paid for by allowing or preventing people from taking deductions--the two top income tax rates in this country and the people who are in those income tax brackets, to be able to claim deductions on their tax returns.

Well, that impacts millions of Americans and millions of job creators, millions of small businesses, not to mention a lot of charities. Many of the people who contribute to charities today don't do it simply because of the tax consequence, but the amount they contribute to a charity is affected by the Tax Code, and reducing the amount they can deduct is going to make it more difficult for many of our charitable organizations that rely upon the

generosity of people. In many cases these are high-income people in this country.

That being said, raising taxes, in my view, is not the way to pay for a new stimulus, a stimulus 2.0, an approach that has been tried and failed. It is something we should not be moving toward, but moving away from, and moving in a different direction.

Again, we have no greater priority in America today than getting this economy growing, creating jobs, getting people back to work. That helps bring in more revenue in the Federal Government and helps deal with our issue of the deficit and the debt. There are two ways we can deal with that: We can reduce spending, and we can grow the economy. We have to do both.

Certainly, those are not unrelated. When we reduce spending, that is essential to growing the economy. We also have to put policies in place that will grow the economy and create jobs. Raising taxes is not the way to do that, and so the President's proposal to pay for his new stimulus bill which raises taxes on people is a wrongheaded approach that has not worked in the past. It will not work in the future. We need to try a different direction.

Republicans are willing, ready, and able to work with this President on passing trade agreements that have been languishing around here, literally, for 4 to 5 years; on reducing the overreaching regulations, which are creating economic uncertainty for our small businesses across this country; and on tax reform that would lower rates and broaden the tax base and bring in an incredible explosion of economic growth and jobs.

Those are the types of things we ought to be looking at--long-term policies that will affect in a positive way the environment, the atmosphere for our job creators, not doing another Washington-directed spending program that has already demonstrated that it doesn't work.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from California for her poignant, eloquent, and appropriate words. I thank the chair of our Homeland Security Subcommittee which handles FEMA disasters for the great work she has done.

Mr. President, I spent several days, both this week and last week, visiting the places in upstate New York that were so badly damaged. Upstate New York is a large community. Without New York City and the suburbs we would still be about the eighth or ninth largest State, and the eastern half of upstate New York has been unexpectedly devastated not once but twice--first by Irene and then by Lee.

It comes on top of an awful season. Because we have had so much rain and the ground has been so wet when these

torrential rains occur--one a hurricane, one a tropical storm--no groundwater could be absorbed and it made things worse. Let me tell you a few of the things I have seen, just to share with my colleagues.

We went to a small village in Schoharie County. Schoharie County is a beautiful agricultural, dairy county, and it is dotted by small towns like much of upstate New York. We have the third largest rural population in the country. Only Pennsylvania and North Carolina have larger rural populations than New York. We went down a beautiful street, a nice typical street. It could be a street you might see on an Ozzie and Harriet-type TV series. Every single house, street after street, had all its belongings piled in front. The water from Schoharie Creek had so overflowed its banks that the entire town was flooded, not by a foot of water but by 3, 4, 5, 6 feet of water. Out front you see the lives of the people whose lives have been so turned inside out by the torrent of water. They have lost thousands of dollars worth, each family, at a time they can ill afford it, but it is beyond that. It is the picture of grandma and grandpa at their wedding, the only one left. That is gone. It is the chair dad loved and sat in every night when he came home from work. It is their lives wiped out in a few sheer moments.

In this town in Schoharie County and in most of New York State, almost all, the evacuation plans were amazing. We lost very few lives. In some counties, with huge amounts of devastation, no lives were lost in most. That is because of the great emergency work of our relief workers. As bad as Schoharie County was, because years ago FEMA had installed their warning system and warning sirens, people were able to get out of their homes and avoid being drowned. A dam that again we had provided some dollars for, Federal dollars, didn't break. Had it, it would have been even worse. But FEMA money to prevent disaster has helped strengthen the Gilboa Dam. So the creek went over it and around it but not through it, and that saved lives.

I visited a place in Ulster County. These are vignettes. The town of Shandaken is beautiful, in the foothills of the Catskills. There is a major road that connects one part of Shandaken to the other, a county road. As you are driving along, it is newly paved macadam. All of a sudden you see the yellow strips to prevent you from going further and there is a 30-foot gash in the road, totally gone--30 feet. But what is astounding is it is 20 feet deep. At Esopus Creek, the waterway there changed its course, went through not just the macadam, not just the underlay that holds the road, not just the dirt fill of a foot or two, but through the bedrock, through 10 feet of bedrock. It will take years to bring this road back, and it is a cost the town of Shandaken can't afford. Our little towns, our little villages, our cities, even our counties of some significant population, can't absorb the millions and millions of dollars of damage. The total estimate by our Governor is we have suffered more than $1 billion of damage from Irene alone, and of course Lee moved slightly further west than Irene.

I visited a lock in the Mohawk Valley and the city of Amsterdam. It had been very damaged. On a dam that a bridge went over, the metal of the bridge, the steel girders were twisted out of shape. But locks 9 and 10 a little further downriver are no longer functioning because the torrent of rain created such swells that the Mohawk changed its course. So the locks are here and the river is here.

The Erie Canal, one of our great pieces of history, is damaged so that it can't function. It won't function for quite a long time, even with Federal assistance--I don't know without Federal assistance what would happen--for months and even years.

Then I went to Binghamton. Maybe that was the saddest of all. Binghamton is a city that has struggled. It had IBM in its early days. IBM was founded there. Nothing is left of IBM there, and the city is struggling. It is at the confluence of two river valleys, the Susquehanna and the Shenango, and it had been terribly flooded in 2006. Senator Clinton and I visited. It was awful--hundreds of homes, the sewage plant, the hospital, Lourdes Hospital. Incidentally, Lourdes Hospital wasn't damaged because, again, FEMA, with remediation money after 2006 helped supply some of the money for a wall that prevented the Shenango River from damaging the hospital. So it, thank God, is functioning.

But then we went to the shelter, with 500, 600 people who had been there for days and have nowhere to go because they lived in rental apartments in downtown Binghamton, which was totally flooded. Every hotel and motel room in Binghamton is taken. There are very few rental apartments. They have nowhere to go--nowhere to go. Maybe FEMA will come in and bring trailers, as they did for your great State of Louisiana, Madam President. But without FEMA, I don't know what these people will do.

They have food. The Red Cross is doing a great job. But they have nothing else. Their homes are gone, their belongings are gone, their clothes are gone. One gentleman came over to me and said, I would just like to try to get to my bank--which is closed and flooded--so I can take a few dollars out so I can buy some slippers. It is awful.

What does this mean policywise? It means America cannot ignore these people. The people of New York, when Louisiana had trouble, didn't say: Our tax dollars shouldn't go to Louisiana. The people of New York did not say, when there were terrible tornados in Joplin: Our tax dollars should not go to Joplin. And I hope that the people in the rest of the country, represented by so many here on both sides of the aisle, will not say we are not going to step to the plate. America has always stood for disaster relief--always--because we are one Nation. We all have known that when God-given disasters, way beyond the powers of mankind, come, no single community can take care of it themselves, and that is why the Federal Government has traditionally stepped in and regarded it as an emergency and we have stepped in. We haven't had strings attached or conditions, or: Put it in this bill and we will give you a little money now and we will see what you need later.

FEMA, by the way, has done a great job. I want to tip my hat to the people of FEMA who did such a wonderful job. But they are basically out of money. Right now in Missouri, none of the relief work continues despite the devastation in Joplin, because they only have money to deal with the immediate emergency of Lee and of Irene that hit New York State. The FEMA workers are doing great, and the people, the volunteers I saw everywhere, everyone is pulling together. Why can't this Senate and this Congress pull together the way the people of our communities pull together when a disaster hits?

We had one gentleman whose house was gone but he hadn't even been able to tend to it because he was a skilled worker and he was tending to the homes of others for 5 days. I saw him and his sisters, and they even had some humor about it. They were wearing shirts, ``Goodnight, Irene.''

We have to pull together. We pay on an emergency basis, without looking for setoffs, for the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. We build bridges there, we build roads there, we give aid there. Now we are saying, When it comes to our American citizens, we are not going to do that any longer? What is going on?

This afternoon we will vote simply on a resolution. To those of you not schooled in the arcane ways of the Senate, it is called a motion to proceed. It simply allows us to put legislation on the floor so we can aid these victims. And it can be amended. If some of our colleagues think this is wrong or that is wrong, they can debate it. But today's vote will say whether we should even begin to move to cover this, and we are getting it blocked. On last night's vote, six of our colleagues from the other side of the aisle joined us, but not enough.

And so here it is. This is not me speaking, this is the AP, almost universally regarded as a nonbiased news source: Republicans block Senate disaster aid bill.

What is going on? They don't block bridges and money for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, to help rehabilitate those communities, and they are blocking this, for help in Missouri and Louisiana and New York and Vermont and the Missouri River Valley up through the Dakotas, the State of Missouri?

What is going on here? This has never been a partisan issue.

Republican Governors whose States have been hard hit have called for help. Chris Christie, hardly a wallflower, hardly someone who doesn't relish a partisan battle when he thinks it is right, but to his credit, when he thinks it is wrong:

Our people are suffering now and they need support now. And

they, Congress, can all go down there and get back to work

and figure out the budget cuts later.

That is Governor Christie.

Governor Bob McDonnell, a well-known conservative:

My concern is that we help people in need. I don't think

it's the time to get into the deficit debate.

Are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle listening? Let us begin to debate this bill. Let us move forward, and let us fund FEMA fully. Let's not put something in the CR and say, Well, in a month from now we will debate it. We all know CRs get tied up. FEMA has run out of money now--now. So this vote will be a vote that determines whether we keep the American tradition of helping one another in a time of disaster here in America; and a vote no says, no, I don't want to do it. A vote no says I am not going to proceed to even debate the bill. A vote no is against the greatness of America, in my opinion, because we always have stood for helping people, being one Nation, under God, indivisible. When a part of the country desperately needs help, we all pull together to help them, knowing that if, God forbid, it happens to us down the road, the Nation will be there for us.

I was just at the 9/11 memorial service, the tenth anniversary. It was a time when we all pulled together. George Bush did not ask, when we were in the Oval Office and said New York desperately needed $20 billion, Is it a blue State? How are we going to pay for it? He stepped to the plate. He was a patriot and he said: This is what America must do.

That was a manmade disaster, an awful disaster. Far more lives were lost than now. But it is not a different issue. This is a disaster, and people are hurting and people need help. The attitude of President George Bush hopefully will be the attitude of our colleagues across the aisle, that they won't block the bill, that they won't find seven excuses, or say, We will give you a little of the money a month from now in a continuing resolution, when the money is desperately needed now.

In conclusion, this vote is a crucial vote that says: Are we the same American people we have always been, who look out for one another, who help one another in a time of need, regardless of party and regardless of bickering and everything else? This vote will determine it. I urge a strong bipartisan vote for the resolution that we will vote on in an hour.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, the world has witnessed considerable upheaval across the Middle East this year as citizens from all walks of life have turned out by the millions to say enough to repressive regimes, stagnant political systems, and a lack of economic opportunities.

In fact, we should probably look back to the summer of 2009 when thousands upon thousands of ordinary Iranians bravely took to the streets to peacefully protest the country's likely stolen election.

These Iranian citizens were met with brutal violence, death, detention, and unspeakable torture.

While Iran's ruling dictatorship was able to temporarily repress the public aspirations of its own people, the seeds for wider public discontent were taking root through much of the region.

First, in Tunisia we saw peaceful protests lead to the ousting of corrupt, long-time strongman President Ben Ali.

Next, Egyptian President Mubarak resigned following sustained peaceful protests in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt.

And certainly Muammar Qaddafi's reign of erratic and despotic rule is nearing an end.

Other popular calls for political and economic reform from Bahrain to Yemen remain in flux.

And as we saw this weekend with the violent and very troubling protests breaching the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, ousting a repressive regime is only one step on a long road toward building effective long- term democratic and economic institutions.

The United States stands ready to support these peaceful transitions, but most of the hard work must continue to come from within--from the people who made such historic change possible in the first place.

Amid so much upheaval and potential hope, it is critically important that we also keep our attention on what is happening in another very important country in the Middle East--Syria.

Since March, millions of protesters have peacefully taken to the streets of towns and villages across Syria demanding an end to the brutal dictatorship of the Assad family.

The Syrian people have suffered 40 years of economic hardship, political repression, and corruption under the Assad family--first under former President Hafez al-Assad and now under his son, Bashar al- Assad.

Let me give an example of life under the Assad regimes.

Almost 30 years ago, then-President Hafez al-Assad ruthlessly leveled a Portion of the town of Hama to put down a rebellion by his own people.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 fellow Syrians were literally buried to death in the ruble.

This is how political dissent was dealt with in Syria.

And what has been his son's strategy for addressing public demands for change while reform is sweeping the rest of the region?

Tragically, the same as his father--mass murder.

Since the popular uprising began, an estimated 2,000 people have already been slaughtered by Assad's security services.

Government snipers on rooftops have fired on those who dare to go outside in areas where protesters are active. Men have been rounded up and detained in nighttime house-to-house raids. Tanks and anti-aircraft guns have been used against civilians and civilian buildings.

A recent example--sadly one that is not at all unique--obviously shows that the current Assad regime has no sense of history.

Last month government troops backed by tanks, armored vehicles, and snipers entered the heart of Hama--the same town of Hama that had been flattened by Assad's father three decades earlier--to quash antigovernment protesters.

Our dedicated U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford had gone to Hama not long before the siege to serve as witness to the unfolding events.

I wish to show this photo, which shows a giant Syrian flag held by the crowd during a protest against President Assad in the city of Hama on July 29.

The town--already under siege for days--saw its telephone, water, and electricity cut off at 5 a.m. as a prelude to the deployment.

Residents tried to stop the advancing armored columns with barricades--many of them built of furniture, iron railing, rocks, and cinderblocks--but stood little chance.

Dozens were killed and hundreds wounded.

Such public resilience and government brutality have continued unabated in Syria for months.

President Assad's tyrannical actions have been condemned around the world. The Arab League, not always known for its democratic advocacy, has urged Syria to ``end the spilling of blood and follow the way of reason before it is too late.''

Syria's neighbor and significant trading partner Turkey has spoken out. Turkish President Gul said he has ``lost confidence'' in the Syrian government. Prime Minister Erdogan has said, ``Turkey can no longer defend Syria.''

British Prime Minister Cameron, French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel jointly issued a statement urging Assad to ``face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people and to step aside in the best interests of Syria and the unity of its people.''

The United Nations human rights office in Geneva has issued a sweeping report concluding that the Syrian government might have committed crimes against humanity through summary executions, torture, and by harming children.

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have sharply criticized the Syrian government's crackdown from the start, and most recently the Administration announced additional sanctions against the regime, including those squeezing Assad's cash lifeline from petroleum exports. The European Union also cut its purchase of Syrian petroleum.

Senators Gillibrand and Lieberman have introduced legislation-- legislation I am pleased to support--that further tightens sanctions against Syria's

petroleum exports by penalizing those who buy Syrian oil or invest in its energy sector--an approach Congress has supported in the past against Iran.

I urge others to support this legislation and for the Congress to pass it expeditiously.

And when the crackdown in Syria began, I joined Senators Lieberman, McCain, Cardin, Kyl and at least 20 others on a Senate resolution condemning the violence. I understand that Senator Paul has had a hold on that resolution for a number of months. I call on Senator Paul to work with us on his concerns in a timely manner so we can move forward putting the Senate on record about these tragic events in Syria.

There is more still the international community can do.

Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa are still blocking a United Nations Security Council resolution that could impose more sweeping international sanctions on Syria. That some of these countries have emerged from decades under their own repressive regimes, only to sit silently as Assad slaughters his own people is extremely troubling.

Russia and China should also pledge not to purchase any surplus Syrian oil which is used by Assad to pay off his enablers and security henchmen.

Human rights monitors, humanitarian workers, and journalists must be allowed in the country.

And the International Criminal Court should look into indicting President Assad on war crimes.

This administration has shown great skill and diplomacy in navigating the turbulent calls for change in the Middle East.

These are demands from everyday people for a better life, for a chance to freely choose one's government, and to see hope and dignity for one's children.

The people of Syria should know that the rest of the world is watching and supporting their aspirations for freedom.

Saturday night in a suburb of Chicago I had a meeting with about 30 Syrian Americans, and we spoke at great length about the situation in the country of their birth. Many of them still have relatives, family, and friends, in Syria, and they are following on YouTube and through the international media the events of the day. They showed me on one of the computers nearby some of the YouTube footage which showed the Syrian security forces literally shooting a man dead, point blank. You could see him lying in the street, and you could see the blood flowing from his body.

To suggest that these peaceful protesters are anything else is to misstate the obvious. These people, by and large, in the streets of Syria are asking for the same thing that was asked for across the Middle East. They are asking for a chance for reform, for change, for self rule.

I promised my friends and people I represent in Illinois who have such strong feelings about Syria that I would do my best when I returned to Washington this week. This floor statement is just the beginning.

A few moments ago, I got off the telephone, having had a phone conversation with Ambassador Ford, who is in Damascus. He has done an exceptional job for our country. He has risked his life to let those who are protesting peacefully know that the United States is in their corner. We talked about the situation on the ground. He is a man of great talent and experience in the Middle East, and he analyzed all the different forces at work.

We know that Iran is, in fact, the major supporter and promoter of Assad and his repressive regime. We know, as well, that these five countries in the United Nations--Russia, India, China, Brazil, and South Africa--are stopping the United Nations action when it comes to Syria. I find it hard to imagine how some of these countries, in light of their own history, could ignore the obvious: the killing of innocent people in the streets of Syria. It cannot be tolerated, should not be condoned, and should not be protected by their veto in the United Nations.

I am going to work with President Obama and this administration and my friends in Congress on both sides of the aisle to let the people of Syria know that what is happening there has not been ignored by the U.S. Congress. I hope Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky will at least lift his hold on bipartisan legislation which we have pending here which will express that sentiment in the strongest of terms.

The people of Syria deserve that message, to know that the people of the United States, through their elected representatives in the Senate, understand their plight, stand behind them, and will work to bring justice to their country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask the majority leader, before he leaves, I didn't hear all he said. Is this the fact that we are going to vote again on proceeding to a bill that will allow us to take up this emergency FEMA funding?

Mr. President, taking back my time, I am very pleased we are having another chance at this because--just for the information of the public--we fell short of the votes required to take up this emergency bill. I just looked up the meaning of ``emergency'' in the dictionary. It says:

A serious situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly

and demands immediate attention.

That was Webster's dictionary--no, it was dictionary.com. They have the best definition, and I want to repeat it. An emergency is a serious situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly and demands immediate action.

That isn't a Democratic definition or a Republican definition or an Independent Party definition. That is what an emergency is. To anyone who says don't worry; if an emergency happens we can take care of it just from our existing funds, that is not true.

Senator Landrieu is our leader in the Appropriations Committee, and what she told us in a meeting we just had a few minutes ago is that there is support in her committee to fund FEMA--the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They are the ones, as everyone knows, who gets out there.

I will never forget the wonderful James Lee Witt who headed FEMA during the days of Bill Clinton. He was out there with Senator Feinstein and myself when we had earthquakes, floods, fires, and everything. There wasn't even a question. He knew we would rebuild. He knew he could make those commitments.

I will just say this: Senator Landrieu held up a map that shows 48 States having been hit by horrible emergencies, some that we never anticipated, such as a terrible earthquake right here in this area, floods that had not been experienced since the 1920s in Vermont, and California has had some horrible problems, and we have had some terrible emergencies. The President worked with the Governor, and we have these disaster declarations. But now, because the funds we set aside just weren't enough--and that isn't anybody's fault, it is an emergency, a serious situation that happens unexpectedly--we have to move.

I have heard one of the Republican leaders in the House say we have to cut spending to pay for this emergency. He has recommended a place to cut that will cut jobs. It will cut jobs and it will stop us from being able to reinvigorate our manufacturing sector. That is ridiculous, unnecessary, and unwarranted. We all know we are going to do

deficit reduction. We all know there is a smart way to do it. We did it when Bill Clinton was President. We stopped spending on things we didn't need, we invested in the things we knew would create jobs, and we asked the billionaires to pay their fair share--thank you very much.

So let's not get this mixed up with deficit reduction. We are on a path to cut the deficit. We will cut the deficit. We know how to cut the deficit. We did it under Bill Clinton. We balanced the budget, we created surpluses, and we had the debt on the downswing. But don't confuse that with making sure our communities are OK.

The Senators from Vermont spoke today at our luncheon, and one of them had tears coming down his face talking about a woman who was very ill in one of their communities who had to go to chemotherapy. It used to be a 5-minute drive in her car. Now she has to drive an hour and a half in order to get her treatment. So please don't talk about making someone like that suffer even more. Talk about what we can do as a nation when we pull together as Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

I spoke at a memorial in my hometown on September 11, and when I put together my remarks, I kept harping on the unity we had then.

Well, we need to be true to ourselves and to our constituencies and to our beliefs, but there are moments in time when we come together as Americans. I don't know the party affiliation of that woman in Vermont, and I could care less. We need to help people who get stuck in these fires, in these disasters--in earthquakes, floods, and droughts. I do not believe the American people think when we have that kind of act of God--and that is the legal term as well as a true term--they are on their own.

Last night, our leader tried to move to a bill that would allow us to take up assistance to these people in desperate need and keep our promises to those who were the victims of disaster in my home State and other States. I believe I am correct that Senator Landrieu told us we have 48 States since January 1. So I don't know, but I think my caucus is going to stand on its feet until this is done. We are not going to back off.

This is one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I want to give justice to the people who are struggling, who are suffering, and who pay their taxes. I want to help the small businesses that are underwater. There is no liberty if someone is trapped in a house somewhere that is cut off because the road went out. The Senators from Vermont talked about the roads that are impassable-- impassable.

So last night we had a bad vote. We didn't have enough votes. We need 60 votes. I hope anyone listening to the sound of my voice will call their Senator and double-check how he or she voted because Hurricane Irene could cost more than $10 billion. It would make it 1 of the 10 most costly disasters in U.S. history. We have seen record flooding on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and we have seen lives lost and farmland devastated.

Senators spoke in our caucus about what happened to their farmers. They do not have crop insurance for all these crops. These particular crops were not covered. One of our colleagues said: It is bad enough we have to import oil from other countries; do we want to start importing our food from China and be reliant on other countries for our food supply?

Right now, as I stand here, we have brave heroes--our firefighters-- battling wildfires in California and Texas. Here is a picture, because a picture is worth a lot of words--here is a picture of a fire raging out of control. The firefighters are as close as they can get to the flames. This one shows the Comanche Fire in Kern County. It has burned more than 29,000 acres and is threatening 2,300 homes in Stallion Springs, CA.

The firefighters have gotten this fire 60 percent under control because they have had help from FEMA. They have been able to get help from the Federal Government. But the fire season in California has just begun. A lot of people don't realize that in our State September and October are the driest and the hottest months. So every wildfire threatens our communities just as this one. Right now FEMA barely has enough funds to get through the next couple of months. FEMA is running low on resources, and funds are so low they can't provide assistance for communities that are rebuilding from past disasters let alone respond to what is happening right now on the ground as we speak.

I heard the Lieutenant Governor of Texas complaining--complaining-- about the situation in Texas, that they need more Federal help. Well, fine. He ought to call up his Senators and tell them to vote with us today to get that Federal help.

We have more than $380 million in disaster recovery projects on hold--several in California. We had a tsunami March 11, 2011. We need the $5.3 million that has been promised to help communities in Del Norte, Monterey, and Santa Cruz, CA. This tsunami did damage.

Let me show a picture from the 2010 mud slide. In January and February of 2010 in California we were hit by severe winter storms, with flooding and mud slides. You can see a very important road has been blocked, again, shutting off people. We have a lot of mountains, so we have to cut through those mountains. Calaveras, Imperial, Los Angeles County, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Siskiyou Counties were hit, and FEMA promised them funding. They met the criteria, they had the level of damage, and they are waiting. Right now they can't proceed without the $3.5 million they need to recover.

So that is what this impasse is about. This isn't about make-believe. This is about real people who are cut off, shut off, businesses shut down, people laid off, and suffering. So let's not have a political spat around here. This isn't a partisan issue. When your neighbor's house is on fire, you don't haggle over the price of a garden hose. You get the hose out, connect it, and put the fire out.

The good news is we have people from both parties who are starting to realize we have to do this. We have to send a message to the House. An emergency is an emergency. We have to put aside politics for the good of our country.

So I will close where I started, with the dictionary definition of ``emergency'': a serious situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly and demands immediate action.

We all agree we have serious situations in our great land. We all agree we didn't expect all of this. Although, if I might say with a different hat on--my hat as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee--we better understand that climate change is coming. We better understand what we are seeing now is going to be a new normal. It pains me to say we have done nothing in terms of addressing some of the causes. But guess what. Regardless of our views, as my kids would say, we are where we are, and it is what it is, and this is what it looks like in too many parts of our great Nation.

So an emergency is a serious situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly and demands immediate action, and I echo the call by our Democratic leader for immediate action at 4:15. I hope the phones will light up and everyone will call their Senators. It is time to vote yes on our vote at 4:15 and get on with this so people will know we stand with them in this greatest of nations; that we don't walk away from our people when they are suffering like this.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.