Floor Statements

Madam speaker, I want to thank my friend from Arkansas for organizing this hour to give the Blue Dogs a chance to talk to the Nation about our 12-point plan. I came here 9 years ago and have been a part of the Blue Dog Coalition since that time and am real proud of the work that they do in trying to bring a message to this Congress and to the country that fiscal responsibility and fiscal discipline does matter.

Now, as our friend from Arkansas, Congressman Ross, said earlier, he grew up in a small town in Arkansas. I

grew up in a small rural community in North Florida just right on the Georgia border, a little community, 3,000 people or so, grew up on a farm. My wife and I still live today on that farm.

I spent all of my adult life as a business person, and, Madam Speaker, one of the things that I learned a long time ago was the lesson that all of our business people out there understand, our government leaders and even those who are not running a business, but are running households, that fiscal responsibility does matter.

We always have to be conscious of our fiscal condition no matter what kind of operation we are running. And indeed, this U.S. Congress and the administration are running the largest business, almost a $2.5 trillion business. That is about the budget, about the average annual U.S. Government budget now. And we are running about a $350 billion annual deficit.

Now, Madam Speaker, I got into politics back about 17 years ago, and one of the reasons that I chose to run for public office was because I was concerned about some of our governments, State and particularly Federal governments, spending more money as a matter of practice than they took in on an annual basis. And so I got into the State legislature, and I watched the Federal Government build annual spending deficits of almost $300 billion.

I think the number in 1992 was about $290 billion, at which point the American people finally said this is not right, we ought to do something about this. Pursuant to that 1992 Presidential election, the United States Government, under a Democratic President and a Republican-run Congress, later on House and Senate after 1994, worked really hard on eliminating that Federal annual deficit. And it went from $290 billion. It was not easy. A lot of sacrifice. A lot of pain. A lot of programs cut, and it was necessary, led by, at that time, President Clinton.

We moved from in 1992 a $290 billion annual deficit, and in a short 8 years later, we actually had an annual surplus. $290 billion annual deficit in 1992. In 2000 we had an annual surplus; our U.S. Government budget was right.

What has happened since then? We have gone from an annual surplus and a $5.6 trillion debt in 2001, when we had the last one, this administration came into office, to today where we have about a $350 billion annual deficit.

As you see there on the chart, a debt amassed at over $8.1 trillion dollars, $27,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. You know, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Speaker, we know what we have to do to eliminate this deficit and start reducing this debt.

We cannot do it all at once. It takes a lot of hard work. We want to use the model that President Clinton and the Republican-led Congress in 1997 put together.

And that is what the Blue Dogs are trying to convince the leaders of the Congress and the administration today, is that it has to come together in a bipartisan way. We have to work together. We cannot continue to try to move policies strictly on a polarized and partisan basis.

I am real honored to be here tonight. Again, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross) for putting this together. But I believe that the most important thing we can do in that 12-step plan is to put a provision in our Constitution that requires us to balance our budget.

Otherwise, sometimes maybe the Congress, the administration, do not have the will to do it. So that is one of the points that we should be talking about tonight, and that is a constitutional requirement for a balanced budget. We had many votes on that prior to 2001, prior to the current administration coming in to office. We had many votes on the House floor to put in the Constitution a balanced budget.

But I do not think we have had any since 2001. So I look forward to the discussion tonight. I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas.

I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Some of us were here when we put the 1997 Balanced Budget Act in place. I think you heard Mr. Tanner and the others talk about the economic model. You heard them talk about human capital, health for our citizens, and also education for our citizens.

The economic model that the U.S. has is the greatest experiment in democracy ever in the history of mankind. We are the richest nation in the history of the Earth. I tell my constituents that we have 5 percent of the world's population and control 25 percent of the world's wealth.

There is an underlying model, an infrastructure, human capital that Representative Tanner talked about. We have to get back to this notion of fiscal responsibility and make sure that economic model works. It does not work if we got to go into the markets every year and borrow $350 billion or $400 billion or $500 million to run the government. You are borrowing much of that from overseas so it will not work. What do we do to get back to a balanced budget and to reduce the deficit spending?

One of the really key things is spending caps, and that is the third point of our 12 point plan. Put a lid on spending. We know that you cannot fix it all in one year, but you put in a long-term

plan, a long-term budget. Most of our small business people are used to doing that, a 5 or 3 or 10 year budget, or whatever it might be. That is what we did in 1997, and you cap your spending at certain levels and live within that, and then economically you can grow your revenue to a point where you get back into a balanced situation.

Let me just give you one example of what happened when we did this earlier during the nineties. The non-discretionary defense spending increases were 2.5 percent, the annual increase, during the Clinton years. During the nineties, 2.5 percent, non-defense, discretionary spending.

Under this administration they have been between 8 and 9 percent. We have an annual average growth in government spending between 2001 and 2003 of 16 percent. No wonder we have $350 billion annual deficits. We have to get a handle on that spending.

So that is point number three.

I thank the gentleman from Arkansas. There are several other points. One is something that I think most of us understand. Set aside a rainy day fund. You know, I am sure Mr. Ross, Mr. Cardoza, Madam Speaker, I am sure you have rainy day funds in your businesses or even in your own personal home budgets. Most people understand that. We are not always able to have as big a rainy day fund as we want, and sometimes we have to spend our fund, but, if we do, we try to build it back up.

Congress never set aside a rainy day fund. That is one of the things we want to get Congress to do. That is part of our 12 point plan.

If I can, Mr. Ross, I will go on to number seven, and that is one that really bugs me a lot. When you move from a $5.6 trillion debt in 2001 when this administration came into office to a $8.137 trillion debt, that is $2.5 trillion of additional money that Congress had to borrow on behalf of the American people to pay our bills. That has to be authorized in statute. That has to be authorized. The Treasury cannot just go and borrow the money without the U.S. Congress authorizing it and the President signing it into law.

We have gotten into a bad habit around here in the last few years of raising that debt limit without a separate vote. You know, from time to time our listeners, our constituent, have to go and borrow money. Most of the time when they have to borrow money, they have to get a corporate resolution, some sort of authorization to go borrow that money. They have to have a meeting, have to have a vote of the board.

Guess what? Here, we stick it into some other bill that has to be passed, or some self-executing rule or something like that, and never have a vote on the debt limit increase.

I think that is the seventh point of our 12-point plan.

It is the American people's tax money, and we should justify if we are going to spend it.

The work we have done here the last 2 or 3 days, we are 8 days before Christmas, we are working really hard to try to get out of here and doing some work that has been put off that should have been done earlier in the fall, even earlier in the summer. But the work that has been done here in the last 2 or 3 days, all of it has been done under what we call a marshal law rule which allows bills to be brought to the floor without even 24 hours' notice. It really exacerbates this problem of having stuff going into the statutes that Members really do not have a chance, the American people do not have a chance to read and understand. I think this solves that problem.

Honesty and integrity are basic character traits that our citizens warrant us to have. We see so much of that in all of government now, the dishonest statements, the misleading statements, people defrauding or bribing or taking bribes, those kinds of things. Corruption, it is a pattern of corruption. And this is what this is about.

We want honesty and integrity in our government. I think we should shoot straight and talk straight with the American citizens.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 55 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Sunday, December 18, 2005, at 1 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo) for their work and for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, as has been said here earlier, the Coast Guard facility in New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina that handles vessel licensing for those of us on the gulf coast, and with that, many of the records that handle the relicensing for those vessels.

I want to thank Chairman Young and Ranking Member Oberstar and these gentlemen for having the foresight to try to fix this problem. They were working on it in the Coast Guard reauthorization bill, obviously; and this piece of legislation will do that.

I also want to particularly thank them for resolving the issue as it relates to Florida boat owners; and so, Mr. Speaker, I just came to say to them, thanks.

Mr. Speaker, my young friend from Florida (Mr. Putnam) knows very well that his constituents and most Americans understand that when you reconcile a budget that you have two sides of that budget, the spending side and the tax side. I would agree with many things that he says, that spending has run out of control. It certainly has run out of control in the last 5 years since this administration has been in and the Republicans have controlled the Congress and the White House.

Americans also understand that we need to balance our books. They do it in their homes. They do it in their businesses. They do it in their local governments. That is the problem that most of us have with this process that is going on here.

Today we are looking at a spending cut bill that is somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 billion, give or take a few hundred million. Tomorrow we are going to look at a revenue reduction bill that is somewhere in the range of $60 to $70 billion, depending upon what the Rules Committee reports out. In any event, what we will have will be an increase in the deficit, money that will have to be borrowed by the American people to cover those differences.

The American people also understand that this United States Government has an $8 trillion Federal debt, that we have about a $500 billion annual deficit, the highest in the Nation's history. We have the largest trade deficits in the history of the Nation. We have got a very expensive and controversial war in Iraq. We have got the highest gas prices in the history of this Nation. We have got interest rates that are going up on a monthly basis.

Mr. Speaker, the economic model has suffered, and it is time to put it right with a bipartisan summit called by the President of the United States.

Madam Speaker, the Republican leadership has announced earlier that tomorrow we will vote on budget reconciliation. I wanted to understand better what reconciliation meant, so I went to Webster. And let me read to you what it means to reconcile: to restore to friendship or harmony; secondly, to make consistent or congruous; thirdly, to check a financial account against another for accuracy. That is Webster. The Republican budget reconciliation certainly does not restore friendship and harmony since they have been unwilling to include any Democrats, including our Blue Dog Coalition, in the discussion of this huge deficit problem. And it certainly does not make our financial accounts balance since it will increase our annual deficit by more than $16 billion. Under this administration and Republican leadership in Congress, our national debt has shot through the $8 trillion mark and continues to rise.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record my comments on the life of a great Floridian from my district who passed away recently.

Born on December 26, 1930, in Peekskill, New York, Don F. Gilbert gave tirelessly of himself to his family and community. A veteran of the Korean Conflict, Don served in the United States Marine Corps from 1951-1952.

Following his tour in the Corps, Don attended Texas Western College, now the University of Texas at EI Paso. During that time, he worked for the FBI and later began a career in court reporting.

Throughout his professional career, Don had many interests and was active in the Masonic Order, Job's Daughters and the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. After his service in Korea, Don joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary, where he helped organize Flotilla 12 and served as its commander.

Don passed away at his home in Tallahassee, Florida, on August 28, 2005, and is survived by his children and wife, Gwen, whom he shared 49 years of marriage.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate DeSoto Trail Elementary School in Tallahassee, Florida for receiving the Blue Ribbon School award under the No Child Left Behind program. As the home of the Trailblazers they have lived up to their mascots name in earning this award. This is a testament to the quality of education this school provides and to the hard work the administrators, faculty and students have done to be one of only thirteen schools in the entire State to win this award.

Many identify No Child Left Behind with efforts to improve failing schools. However, schools like DeSoto Trail that go above and beyond what is required by the law should not be forgotten. I am extremely proud of not just the students who worked so hard, but also the faculty and administrators whom spent so many hours helping the students become better citizens through education.

DeSoto Trail Elementary is a model of excellence that will serve as an example for every elementary school throughout the United States. This school has proven that through hard work and dedication, academic success is not out of reach for any student.

Therefore, I ask every member to please, join with me in congratulating the children and teachers who have worked so hard to achieve their goal. I would also like to congratulate Principal Janis Johnson and Assistant Principal Hank McGrotha for providing this level of excellence.

The future of this country depends on the success of our education system. As the Representative of Tallahassee, Florida, I am honored and proud to be on the floor today speaking about such students and the parents who support them everyday.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Deerlake Middle School, home of the Bucks, in Tallahassee, Florida for receiving the Blue Ribbon School award under the No Child Left Behind program. This award is certainly a testament to the quality of education this school provides and to the hard work the administrators, faculty and students have done to be one of only thirteen schools in the entire state to win this award.

Many identify No Child Left Behind with efforts to improve failing schools. However, schools like Deerlake that go above and beyond what is required by the law should not be forgotten. I am extremely proud of not just the students who worked so hard, but also the faculty and administrators whom spent so many hours helping the students become better citizens through education.

Deerlake Middle School is a model of excellence that will serve as an example to every Middle school throughout the United States. This school has proven that through hard work and dedication, academic success is not out of reach for any student.

Therefore, I ask every member to please, join with me in congratulating the children and teachers of Deerlake Middle School who have worked so hard to achieve their goal. I would also like to congratulate Principal Jackie Pons and Assistant Principals Gwendolyn Lynn Williams and Shane Syfrett for providing this level of excellence.

The future of this country depends on the success of our education system. As the Representative of Tallahassee Florida, I am honored and proud to be on the floor today speaking about such students and the parents who support them everyday.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to take a moment to thank the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), ranking member, and their staffs for working with me to include as part of the manager's amendment the text of the substance of House Resolution 372 which will transfer ownership of St. Marks Lighthouse from the Coast Guard to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This lighthouse, Mr. Chairman, was built in the 1820s and today still serves as an acting navigational aid for vessels on the Apalachee Bay. This old lighthouse has survived, Mr. Chairman, many wars and many storms, and we were going to lose the building itself if this transfer was not made.

I want to thank again the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), ranking member, for their help in accomplishing this.

I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his comments. We are always blessed to have the benefit of someone who has as much knowledge as the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) does.

This lighthouse that has been addressed in this manager's amendment is still serving as a navigational aid to air transportation and also to maritime navigation.

Amendment No. 10 Offered by Mr. Souder

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the exceptional service of Dr. David Skinner to the United States Navy.

Dr. Skinner is retiring at the end of May after more than three decades of service at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City (NSWCPC). Dr. Skinner has served the Navy most recently, with a national focus as the NAVSEA Product Area Director for Littoral Warfare Systems. In this capacity, Dr. Skinner was responsible for all activities in the Naval Surface Warfare Center supporting Navy and Marine Corps' operations in the littoral environment. Systems developed at NSWCPC are currently in service today helping fight the global war on terrorism.

Dr. Skinner's service has played a pivotal role in the development of systems in use today across the NSWCPC mission spectrum. His accomplishments in this leadership role have produced many results including the next generation of modular air and surface mine countermeasures systems, soon to be introduced to the Fleet; (2) Fleet introduction of the Gator Class Swimmer Delivery Vehicle; (3) Fleet introduction of a Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) with fully integrated fly-by-wire communications suite and craft control system; (4) installation of Fire Fighter Breathing Apparatus systems on all Navy ships and submarines and Coast Guard ships; (5) establishment of, and technical support for the Deployable Joint Command and Control Program Office in Panama City; and (5) unmanned underwater vehicles, computer-aided detection and classification techniques, and electro- optic sensors for mine detection, classification and identification, respectively.

During his career, Dr. Skinner held leadership roles at NSWCPC including Head of the Nonacoustic Division, Deputy Head of the Engineering Test and Evaluation Department, Head of the Submarine Undersea Weapons Defense Program, Head of the Coastal Research and Technology Department, and Executive Director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City.

Dr. Skinner received the Navy Superior Civilian Service Award in 2001, the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award in 2002, and the NDIA David Bushnell Award in 2005. Dr. Skinner has authored or co- authored more than 30 publications and holds a patent for the Naval Continuous Tone Frequency Modulated Sonar.

A native and resident' of Panama City, Florida, Dr. Skinner is also a leader in his community. His activities include working with the youth at Northside Baptist Church and coaching both youth soccer and basketball. Dr. Skinner is also a former ex-officio board member of the Coastal Operations Institute.

I invite my distinguished colleagues to join me in paying special tribute to Dr. Skinner for his invaluable service to the United States Navy. His work has made, and is making, a difference to our troops and our country. He will be deeply missed. We wish him the very best in all his future endeavors.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time.

Mr. Chairman, I am troubled by the attack on sugar cane and sugar beet growers that this amendment represents, and I strongly would like to urge all my colleagues to reject this proposal. Mr. Chairman, all U.S. commodities covered by the 2002 farm bill are eligible for loans from the Federal Government. So sugar cane and sugar beet farmers are not receiving special treatment. The only difference between the sugar loan program and other commodity loan programs is there is no cost to the taxpayer. Sugar farmers have had the same loan level for 20 years. Inflation continues to increase production prices.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment reopens the farm bill and singles out one commodity. This is an issue that we should discuss when the 5-year farm bill expires and is reenacted in 2007. I would urge my colleagues to reject this proposal and not yank the rug out from our American farmers who are trying to produce food and fiber for our country and others around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), for yielding me the time.

I want to start by thanking the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), our chairman, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), our ranking member, for their work to get to this point. They truly worked in a bipartisan way. There are two components to this bill that we have before us on the floor, Mr. Speaker, and that is, the MILCON portion and also the hurricane supplemental portion. We have heard about both of them, but I just want to make a few brief comments.

First of all, on the MILCON side, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) did the very best they could with the dollars given them, but my colleagues must know that the dollars are short. Many of the items that the President sent down for the MILCON request are not included in this bill simply because the House leadership did not set aside enough money to fulfill those requests made by the President to prosecute the war.

I must tell my colleagues that there is one item in here, though, that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) did bring in for a landing, and that is, the housing issue, to privatize the housing cap. I think all of this Nation, and particularly the troops and their families, owe a debt of gratitude to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and especially the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) who has bulldogged this issue for so many years now. He has done an absolutely fantastic job.

We heard our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) speak on the hurricane side, the hurricane relief. I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), Mr. Speaker, if I could, for the work that he has done. As everybody knows, the request that came down from the White House was insufficient. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) made a commitment to his people that he would get the money, and President Bush has provided it, but he has only provided it at the insistence of the gentleman from Florida (Mr.

Young) who would not quit until he got what he needed.

We needed that money because our beaches were destroyed. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) and I and our people lived through those hurricanes. Most of our people lived through them. We had some people who did not live through them. I had six constituents that died in Hurricane Ivan, Mr. Speaker, and this money was much needed to repair our beaches, to repair the transportation systems that were busted.

We have all seen the pictures of I-10, to repair the military facilities. The naval air station in Pensacola had significant damage. So it is imperative that we did this, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for getting it here.

I must tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, though, that it has been held up because of several issues, but one of those issues was the offset which was going to be required for some of the agricultural funding. Mr. Speaker, that issue has been resolved with a smoke-and-mirrors game as the public will begin to understand as we go on. It is offset by directed scoring, and it is also offset sometime in the future, as many as 10 years out into the future, and it is offset in the farm bill, and we will write a new farm bill before we even get the full offset.

Again, let me close, Mr. Speaker, by thanking again the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) but also the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for bringing this in for a landing.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Illinois (Mr. Davis) for yielding me time.

I will not take long. I think many Members have been here talking about Jack Fields and folks that served with him. I, like the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), did not have the opportunity to serve with him, but I have gotten to know him quite well.

I first heard about him when I was in the State legislature working in Florida and we were doing a rewrite of the telecommunications law. We knew that Jack Fields was the subcommittee chairman and would ultimately take some of what we did and use it as a model. At least we hoped he would.

After I got here and got to know Jack Fields, then I began to understand what people were saying about him and what you heard here today about what a broad-reaching gentleman he was, not only in terms of the legislation that he worked on but also in his friends on both sides of the aisle.

He just always has done a great job. He has been involved in so many different kinds of legislation, telecommunications, environmental policy, national security improvements and many, many other issues in his 16-year career.

I am glad to come today and support this legislation which will honor Jack Fields.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I want us all to take a deep breath and remind ourselves of what is taking place here. This country was hit with five major storms within the last couple of months. All five of those storms made original landfall in the State of Florida. That is the first time that has happened in over 100 years. It is catastrophic in Florida and in other parts of the southeastern United States, actually, outside the southeastern United States.

We have an excellent emergency management agency in this country, in FEMA, and we get nothing but good remarks from everybody who has been hit by these storms about FEMA, and everyone has done a good job of keeping money in the FEMA pipeline. We have been able to do that under the leadership of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), who heads the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure I am speaking against this rule that is being brought to us under the leadership of the Committee on Rules and my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam), today. I am speaking against it because after those five storms that hit America, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) directed their staffs, under the leadership, and went out and did a lot of work to find out from the State, from the local governments, from the Federal agencies, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, all those areas which would be affected by the storms, what the needs were, what the Federal requirements were, what those needs were as a result of those storms. That report was compiled, brought back to Congress and put in the form of a bill and actually taken down to the White House for their blessing.

During that compilation, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), myself, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) visited Pensacola Naval Air Station, where Ivan hit and completely obliterated Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key, and did major damage to one of our defense installations there. The White House turned down the committee request for the emergency bill and said they would only accept the proposal that they had brought forward, which was about $2 billion short.

So when the Committee on Rules met yesterday, I went and asked the Committee on Rules to allow us to introduce as an amendment, the bill the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) held in his hands a few minutes ago when he made his presentation. I think that bill certainly more adequately reflects the needs of this Nation in response to these hurricanes, but I want to tell you the differences in those two bills.

There is $486 million more for agriculture producers and processors, and that is not just in Florida. There is $486 million in Ag, $455 million for defense, $750 million for transportation. We all saw pictures of I-10. So, Mr. Speaker, I hope we will defeat the rule.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my Ranking Member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), for yielding me this time.

Again, let me thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) my friend, who did invite me to travel with him around Florida to see the results of the five storms that landed in Florida, and it left Florida on many occasions and went to other parts of the country.

Now, many of the people in Florida, Mr. Chairman, are really probably not watching this tonight, because many of them do not have power still. They are trying to put their lives back together. In the district that I represent, we lost six people that were killed in Hurricane Ivan, not because they did not get out of the way of a hurricane, but because tornadoes spawned down and caught them off guard and killed them and some of their relatives.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has it right. He has it right. The bill that he says he is going to introduce has it right. The Office of Management and Budget of the White House and the leaders of this House have it wrong. The bill that we are on now is inadequate to meet the needs of the Nation caused by the five storms that landed in Florida in the last 2 months, and I want to outline very specifically what those shortfalls are.

In agriculture, after consultation with all of the agriculture folks around the country and in the different States that were affected, it is $486 million short. Defense and military construction: Defense, the main priority of this Federal Government, $455 million short in the bill that we are looking at now. That is the difference between this bill and the bill that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has introduced separately.

Interior: That is for cleanup and facility repairs and Forest Service repairs, $105 million. Those are Federal lands, Federal property.

Transportation: Mr. Chairman, many Americans saw the daunting picture of I-10 going across Escambia Bay that was torn up and ruined; that is a $250 million fix. Then there is the Federal highway, a $750 million shortfall in the bill before us today for the needs caused by the hurricane. I could go on and on.

Mr. Chairman, OMB of the White House has it wrong; the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) has it right. I know that the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) has a good plan and will work in concert with he gentleman from Wisconsin (Ranking Member Obey) to get this done the right way. It is important that the Members of this House remember that they were elected by the folks in their districts to represent their interests. If they are going to turn over that responsibility to somebody in the White House, they might as well give up their card, Mr. Chairman.

It is time to stand up and do the right thing and support the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) on getting this emergency supplemental done correctly.