Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor and join my colleagues who were here just a few minutes ago talking about the importance of robust funding and immediate funding for disaster relief in our country.

Leader Reid came to the floor to explain the importance of this issue, followed by the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad, who has helped lead portions of his State back literally from the brink of destruction several times. So when a Member like Senator Conrad speaks, we really should listen. He has been through--excuse me--hell and back in parts of his State, and he really does understand what is at stake, and some Members who think they know about disasters and have not really quite experienced them in their State would be well advised to listen to his plea to get this done right now.

I wish to address three specific statements that have been made on the floor of the Senate by my friends on the other side of the aisle that are, with all due respect, patently false.

Leader McConnell came to the floor either last night or this morning--because it was reported in the Washington Post--and said we don't have to worry because Congress always does what is appropriate when it comes to disasters.

I don't even know where to begin to say how false that statement is. And I know the leader didn't mean to mislead anyone; he just made a comment: We don't have to worry about this; we always do the right thing. I was there for Katrina and Rita. This Congress did not always do the right thing. There are still things Congress should have done in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita that have not yet been done, and there is a whole list of things that were done by this Congress but 2 years too late or 3 years too late. So let me be very clear with people following this debate. Congress does not always do the right thing when it comes to disasters, and we are about ready to make another mistake, and it is so unnecessary and so unfortunate.

No. 2, there is a disagreement going on about whether this is politics or principle. And I know our side has said and we believe there has to be politics involved because there is no other reason to explain why the House Republican leadership continues to throw a wrench into this when it is completely unnecessary. What is the principle they are fighting for, if it is a principle? The only principle I can think of is the principle of, when things are going smoothly, blow it up, because that is what they are doing.

What do I mean by that? Let me take a minute to explain. As the Republican House leadership knows full well, the Senate and the House have already agreed--we agreed 30 days ago. Before Hurricane Irene, before Tropical Storm Lee, before these storms ever happened, the Republican and Democratic leadership agreed, in the big fight we had over the whole meltdown--not of the government but of the shutdown, almost, of the economy--we remember that, Mr. President, don't we, that big fight we had--in that negotiation, the leadership of both Houses, Republicans

and Democrats, already agreed--in anticipation that we would be running short of FEMA money because we have been running short of FEMA money now for 8 months, in anticipation of that, they said in that agreement: We are going to carve out an $11 billion approximate pot of money or cap adjustment so that when we come to ask for disaster aid, we won't have to fight again.

Why do we like to fight so much? I mean, I can fight, I do fight, but I choose not to. What is the principle the House Republicans are fighting for? It must be ``when things are going smoothly, let's blow it up.'' That is why I am so frustrated. It is an unnecessary fight to be having. Again, we have already made provision for $11 billion. So the leader puts in $6.9 billion--well within the range of this $11 billion allowance--and lo and behold the House leadership says: Absolutely not. We are not doing that. We are not even going to consider the $6.9 billion. What we are going to do is just continue last year's level of funding, which was inadequate then. That is why we have run out of it.

So they are going to take the inadequate level we had last year before all these storms happened and extend it for 6 weeks and claim victory and then come back after the fact and require, for one of the first times--not the first time in history but one of the few times in history--to then grab back and say: To finish the disaster money for 2011, you have to go gut a program that is very important to some Members--more important to some than others but an important program.

The House is insisting that we gut $1.5 billion of a program that is creating jobs in Michigan and other parts of the country. So why are we destroying jobs when we don't have to? Again, it must be the principle of, when things are going smoothly, when things are working, when the leadership has actually agreed, the House Republican leadership will just throw a wrench and really mess things up.

Thank goodness there are 10 Republican Senators in this Chamber who don't follow that principle of throwing a wrench when things are going smoothly. They follow the principle of common sense and compassion and being forward-leaning when it comes to helping Americans who need our help. Senator Blunt, Senator Rubio, Senator Snowe, Senator Collins, Senator Murkowski, Senator Brown from Massachusetts, Senator Heller from Nevada, Senator Hoeven from North Dakota, Senator Toomey from Pennsylvania, and Senator Vitter from Louisiana--many of them have experienced disasters in their States in the past and remember those terrible days or they are experiencing them now, and they said: We don't follow the ``throw the wrench in the gears'' principle. We are going to follow the ``let's get it done'' principle. Let's get the work done. Let's move forward. Let's stop fighting. Let's provide immediate and robust funding to help our communities.

So they voted across party lines. I have done that before. I have been elected now three times. I mean, you can sometimes cross party lines to do the right thing, find middle ground. So they did. They found middle ground, and we came up with the $6.9 billion package.

Now, let me say, to answer specifically the Senator from Arizona, for whom I have a lot of respect, we did not pull this sum out of the air. This $6.9 billion, which is much more robust than the $2.6 billion the House wants to provide, is a much more accurate estimate based on actual numbers given to the Appropriations Committee, which is the committee of authority here, by the agencies that are in charge of the disasters, from Agriculture, from the Corps of Engineers. So our number, the 6.9 that is being ridiculed as just being pulled out of the air--no, contraire--it was given to us by the agencies. The number that came from absolutely nowhere, that has no bearing on any sense of reality today, is the number the House pulled up, which is last year's number, which was the estimate before the storms even hit. So if you want to argue which number is more accurate, please put your money on our number because you will lose this bet.

Our number is based on actual estimates that have already been made of disasters that have already occurred. In fact, it doesn't even--our number--because we don't have the estimates in, we don't even have the estimates yet for Tropical Storm Lee or for Irene. It was too early. It takes a while for these numbers. So when I say the 6.9 is much better than the 2.6 and more accurate, that is true. Is it the real, actual number that might take us through next year? Even I can't say that and I am the chairman of the committee. I have more information than anybody in here on this. But I can tell you one thing: It is much better than 2.65, it is much more accurate, and at least it is based on realistic estimates.

So when people on my side say: We don't even understand what the Republicans in the House are fighting about, it is the truth. They picked a fight they didn't need to pick. They are arguing over something that was already decided. They are rejecting their own government estimates of what these disasters cost because of what? On principle? What is the principle? The only thing I can think of--and I have said it five times, and I am going to say it six--it must be the principle of, let's throw a wrench when things are working well, and I think the American people are tired of it. It is exhausting.

So we now have projects--I would like to show the projects that are stopped. We have a list that is literally too thick to put into the Record, and I am not going to ask for it to be put in the Record because somebody will have to stay here for days and type it in, and I am not going to ask the clerks to do that. But I am going to hold it up so people can see. These are pages and pages of projects that are stopped right now.

I want to say directly to the House Member from Alabama, Mr. Aderholt, who is the chairman, my counterpart, there are pages of projects here in Alabama, in his own district, that are stopped, and he is not helping by supporting last year's numbers for this year's disasters. I hope he will rethink and start arguing not for his party but for his State. Sometimes we have to put our parties aside and fight hard for our districts and our State. I have done that before. I think it is the right way to do it.

These are pages and pages of projects that have been stopped. They are finished. They are not finished forever, we hope, but they are stopped--roads, libraries, bridges. Talk about jobs, most of these are done by small businesses, as we know. There is not any government agency that swoops in to do these projects in small towns. They are local contractors that get contracts with FEMA or the Corps of Engineers for the work. They are issuing pink slips for these projects right now. One would think that would motivate people. If compassion doesn't motivate them, if the morality of the situation doesn't motivate them, maybe thousands of jobs would motivate them. It seems none of those are working. I am running out of enticements.

All these projects have been stopped. Will the $2.6 billion the House is offering start these projects again? Yes, it will--their offer they put on the table, that they are pushing us to accept, against which we are fighting hard. We do not want to accept it, but we will not shut the government down over this. We are pushing back as hard as we can without shutting the government down because over there they keep holding the economy hostage, then holding the government hostage. But I am saying, yes, these projects will get started again. They will go for 6 weeks, and then we will be back where we are right now, which is no place.

When we have a chance to fix a problem, there is already an agreement it should be fixed, already the leadership has agreed how to fix it, and there is an allocation of the money set aside--we still cannot do it? Why? Because we want to come back in 6 weeks and have this fight again? How much time is wasted.

Do you know what Tom Ridge said about this--a Republican, the first guy who ran Homeland Security, the first Secretary? He said:

Never in the history of the country have we worried about

the budget around emergency appropriations for natural

disasters and, frankly, in my view, we should not 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.

That is a former Secretary of the department that was in charge of this.

Governor Christie, I spoke with him yesterday on the phone. He said last week:

You want to figure out budget cuts, that's fine . . . you

expect the citizens of my State to wait? They are not going

to wait, and I am going to fight to make sure they don't do

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

We need the support now here in New Jersey. This is not a

Republican or Democratic issue.

That is from Gov. Chris Christie, a very popular Republican, I might say.

Then Gov. Bob McDowell, from Virginia, another Republican:

My concern is that we help people in need. For the FEMA

money, that's going to flow, it's up to them how they get it.

I don't think it's the time to get into that (deficit)

debate.

Why are we fighting over this? Why does the House Republican leadership think last year's number that was inadequate last year is good enough for this year when, as my staff just reminded me, we have had 10 disasters, each one over $1 billion this last year? This is Mother Nature. This wasn't caused by some conspiracy of the Democratic Party; this is just what happened. Why do they want people to have to worry whether help will be there when we can so easily fix this? On what principle are they standing? It cannot be fiscal responsibility; it is already provided for in the budget.

If this is conservatism, I don't think America likes that. I don't think they will accept that. It is not their vision of conservatism, it is their vision of foolishness.

I also think, as Patrick Leahy, Senator from Vermont, has said many times, many people are starting to think, why is it some people in Congress rush out to fund programs in Afghanistan and Iraq and never wanted to debate when we went to war how we were going to pay for that. We literally did it in 30 days. Nobody even questioned how we were going to pay for it--literally. I was here. Maybe a few people raised the issue this is going to be expensive, but nobody on the other side did--to go to war, twice. Yet after a hurricane, a tornado, we now have to have a knock-down, drag-out, full-fledged debate on how we are going to pay for every single penny before we can give a green light to these Governors and mayors and county commissioners. I think it is outrageous, it is unnecessary, and it is so terribly unfair.

I don't know what is going to happen because we sent a bill over to the House that has $6.9 billion. It, as I said, may not be enough, but it is much better than $2.65 from last year that was not sufficient then. We sent a bill over. It is a stand-alone bill. The House, if they do not think the number--if they think the number is too high, take it down a little bit or tell us they do not think this item is worth funding--say something. We could negotiate on that number. It is not written in the scripture, but it is the best estimate we had of what we actually need right now.

No, they will not even look at the bill. They just send us $2.6 billion on a continuing resolution. So, basically, Senate, take our old, tired, inadequate number and we are going to go home and then you can shut the Government down if you don't like it. What kind of way is that to treat disaster victims? It is no way at all.

Senator Hagan just told me--she got out of a meeting today--some of her people are living literally in tents. I know, when I went down to Cameron Parish, some of my people were sleeping in the open air, on concrete. I know what these scenes are. They roll in my head. Unfortunately, I have lots of memories about people sleeping on the street, 500 people sleeping under an overpass waiting for the Federal Government or the State or local government to set up a trailer or rental unit.

Again, if we did not have the provision for this already decided, if this was not the way we had operated in the past, I could understand it, but everything moves us: the agreement that has already been raised, the precedent of history, the accurate estimates of disaster. Yet the Republicans want to fight about it. I think it is a bad fight for them to have, let me just say. It is a shame. But we are going to do our best to get immediate and full funding, and if we cannot, we will be back in 6 weeks talking about it again, which is very unfortunate because we cannot rebuild Tuscaloosa, AL, and Joplin, MO, and parts of North Dakota, Minot, ND, and small towns in Alaska and Alabama 6 weeks at a time. We cannot do it. When we have the money, we have the provision, we have history and precedent on our side and the need is so great for the Republican leadership to throw a wrench just because they like to keep things stirred up, it is a shame.

That is where we are. We are going to do our best. This is what Republican leaders say. This is what the pictures look like on the ground. When it is not on CNN every night, people don't think it is truly happening, but the fact is the fires are burning, there is rubble in town that looks like this, the water may have receded from this particular farm, but the damage is still there. The water I am sure has receded from this scene, but this family is still wandering around their lot looking for spoons and forks and things that might remind them of what they once had, and Republicans have decided, for whatever reason, to throw a wrench in this whole thing and make a big fight, when it is absolutely not necessary.

We are going to keep working and see what we can do to bring relief to a lot of this misery.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I know the short debate we had, just in the last couple of hours, and the votes are important, about the Senate and the House figuring out a way as to how to move forward on some of the trade agreements that are pending, and the appropriate ways to make sure American workers are not left behind, that they are actually helped and supported. And those issues are very important.

But I come to the floor today to talk again about another important issue that is pending before the Congress right now that is of extreme importance to millions and millions of Americans who are following this debate through the viewing of the procedures here on the Senate floor and in the House, and also following on Twitter and other Internet sites and opportunities on their local news and radio stations about what we are doing on disaster relief.

That is a good question because I think--and many of the Senators, Democrats and Republicans, as well, on the Senate side; particularly 10 of my colleagues from the other side who stood with us last week to say--it is time to fund the disasters in America today.

We are questioning why the House of Representatives is dragging its feet on this important issue or why the leadership, the Republican leadership in the House would be even hesitating to fund the ongoing needs of FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, the Department of Housing and Urban Development through community development block grant funding and agricultural disaster relief, which is so important.

In disasters, sometimes the pictures are focused on cities or suburbs, and it is heartwrenching.

It is heartrending.

I will show you some of those pictures now. This is Joplin, MO, earlier this year. A third of the city was literally destroyed by a group of tornadoes that came through. Some of the weather specialists said they had never clocked winds of this speed and power in the entire time they have been recording this data. They said they believe some of the winds exceeded 300 miles per hour. This is horrifying.

For those of us who shudder at category 4 and 5 hurricanes which can blow up to 150 miles an hour, the idea of 300-mile-an-hour winds is beyond our comprehension. But that is what happened in Joplin, MO.

Then, here we have the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It is heartbreaking to see the water come up on barrier islands. We have many barrier islands where people live safely. When the water rises, everybody doesn't just pick up and leave the island forever. They use their engineering and might to come up with better technology. They invest wisely. That is what we have to do to help these families.

These fires could be California, and it could also be Texas. Texas has had over 20,000 wildfires this year, I understand.

Here is a rural community. Sometimes we see pictures of these urban areas and these coastal areas that make for great television, but we don't always see farm communities underwater. This is what happened around our country. Why the Republican House leadership says that now is the time to try to find offsets for these disasters--had we insisted on that for the Katrina and Rita recoveries, the gulf coast would still be devastated. But year after year as a country, when our people have been harmed by natural disasters this National Government has come together and said: Yes, we as a nation, the United States of America-- we are not a divided nation--is going to come to help our brothers and sisters who need help.

Why is this different? The House Republican leadership can't run fast enough to spend money and send money to Iraq and Afghanistan to rebuild those communities and those cities. Yet when our own people from these communities ask for help, they want to now throw up the smokescreen that we have to find an offset.

Let me give two good reasons: One, we are eventually going to have to pay for everything the Federal Government shells out. We are going to have to find the money to pay for it. But we don't have to find it this week. We don't have to find it next month. We can debate that as the process of legislation goes on. We can say yes to full funding for disasters now, not an inadequate amount of money, which is what the House wants to do.

Let me tell you how ridiculous the House position is. Not only do they want to partially fund FEMA and basically fund it for only 6 weeks, which is the extension of the continuing resolution, they want to basically say we will extend the Government of the United States to operate for 6 weeks at the current level of spending, and we will agree that FEMA can operate for another 6 weeks.

If they don't already know this, let me remind them that Governors, mayors, and county commissioners who are struggling to rebuild communities after disasters such as this need a little more than 6 weeks to do planning. They need a year or two sometimes to actually come out of shock, to have public meetings with people.

I have been through this and lived through this. You have to organize community meetings neighborhood by neighborhood. Sometimes in a community--let's say in Joplin--I don't know how many schools they had, but in our case out of 147 public schools in New Orleans we had 100 that were damaged beyond repair, uninhabitable. We could not decide in 4 weeks what we were going to do. We had to take a long time, and we needed to know that the Federal funding would be there. This government acted--not as quickly as I would have liked, but it acted under the prior administration.

Finally, we got the long-term funding commitments that our Governors and mayors needed--Democrats and Republicans alike--to lay down good and smart plans because they knew what they could count on. Why the House doesn't want to do that, I don't know.

Second, I have heard criticism of the Senate approach, which I am proud to lead. They say things in the press such as: Well, the Senate just picked a number out of the air.

Let me be very clear. We picked no number out of the air. The clerks of the Appropriations Committees, who are steeped and knowledgeable about what these agencies need now and what they may need in the years ahead, met and crunched the numbers. Senator Reid looked at those numbers, took them down a bit to try to accommodate the anxiety on the other side of the aisle about spending too much money, and came up with a rational, reasonable number for FEMA, for agricultural relief, and for community development block grants. I think under the circumstances that is about the best we could do.

Do you know what the House of Representatives did, which makes no sense whatsoever? I hope some of the print press are listening to this so they might write this in the newspapers tomorrow. They took last year's number. These disasters are happening now. They took the number that was in the bill before the disasters happened and plugged that in, like they are doing something good for the country, and basically said: Take 6 weeks of it, and then we are out of here. We are going home for the week.

I don't take kindly to any kind of criticism that the Landrieu numbers or the Senate numbers might not be crunched or reviewed carefully enough. I have done the best review I can possibly do, and I have every confidence that the numbers I have presented to this Senate--about $6.9 billion--are as accurate an assessment I have at my fingertips to say what we are going to need in the next year.

At least I am dealing in reality. In what land do they live? This isn't about a year and a half ago; this is about now. Their number is wrong, their approach is wrong, their approach is totally insignificant and inadequate, and it is morally wrong.

I will not even ask the clerk to do a beautiful job trying to type everything we say--and sometimes it is hard to keep up--because we don't have everything written down, and I am not even going to ask them to print this in the Record because it is really too long. I want to read a little bit from this.

This is the whole list of projects that the Republican House leadership, with all their--I will say what it is; it is shenanigans. These are the projects they have stopped. We all know about big cities such as New Orleans and Chicago and New York. We hear about all these big cities such as Denver and Birmingham, AL, but we don't hear about cities like this so often. I will read some of them into the Record because these taxpayers deserve to have their cities read into the Record. That is where these projects are going on that the Republican leadership in the House says they don't really need the money now and they can wait. These have all been put on hold.

Here is a town I have never been to, Crooked Creek, AL. There is a public building there--a vehicle maintenance shop--that is on hold. Here are Florence, AL, and Lipscomb, AL, and Evergreen, AL. There are five pages for little towns in Arkansas that maybe don't make the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post, but they are important communities. They are important to our country. Here is Herbert Springs. I have never heard of it, but I am sure it is a lovely place to live. They have several projects that have been held up.

I could go on and on through every State in our country--small towns and counties that have been devastated--roads, bridges, public buildings, and water-sewer control facilities.

Again, I think people at home are looking at and reviewing this debate and saying: Let me get this straight. Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor rush to fund rebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan and didn't require offsets when we went into war and this rebuilding effort. But now we have to debate for weeks and months over finding proper offsets to rebuild here?

I hope people will let their voices be heard in the next couple of days. It is very important.

We had a very important vote on the floor of the Senate last week. We don't often have bipartisan cooperation. I thanked by name the 10 Republican

Senators who helped on this effort because they said: Party politics is important, and sometimes party politics dictates the way that I should look and vote and feel, but not on this because this is disaster aid that is either going to my State--or, potentially, in Senator Rubio's case, who knows what disasters are like in Florida. He said: It could happen, Senator Landrieu, and if it happens in Florida, I certainly want to come back and ask the Nation to help and not have to be engaged in a debate in finding an offset. I would rather work with my mayors and county commissioners to find a way to rebuild.

I have embellished a little bit of the conversation, but I know that is what was on his mind. He said: I can't think of what Florida would do.

Senator Vitter from Louisiana, who has been shoulder to shoulder with me in helping with our disaster recovery--we have pages. Jefferson Parish called me the other day--a Republican mayor of Jefferson Parish--and said he has $100 million in help for Jefferson Parish stopped up because of this unnecessary debate.

We have the two Senators from Maine, Ms. Collins and Ms. Snowe, who most certainly felt the effects of Hurricane Irene up the east coast. We also had Senator Toomey from Pennsylvania whose State also received record amounts of flooding. We had Senator Blunt from Missouri--the people of Missouri not only are desperate for FEMA money, they need agricultural help immediately, community development block grant funding, and they need Corps of Engineers funding. Is there Corps of Engineers funding in the House approach? Zero. Zero for the Corps of Engineers.

If you are representing a community that has had flooding because your levee failed or you don't have a levee and you need one or because your runoff or streams were not regulated appropriately, you most certainly don't need to call Craig Fugate. You need to call the Corps of Engineers. They are going to tell you they are out of money. We have grossly underfunded the Corps, in my view, in capital projects year after year. And, frankly, both Republican and Democratic Presidents have been guilty of underfunding the Corps of Engineers and their budgets because in the old days, when we could earmark, we would add back money to the Corps. But those days are over, A, because we are not earmarking and, B, because we are on tight constraints.

The Corps of Engineers has no emergency funding. If you are interested in protecting your communities and levees and flood control, and you vote against the Senate position, you are going to have a lot of explaining to do because even when you go home and pound your chest and say: I voted for the House number that was last year's number, there is no money there for the Corps of Engineers. So good luck explaining that to your constituents. I could not explain it to mine and remain a Senator from Louisiana.

This is an example of what some of my coastal levees look like.

The other thing we have to battle--but this is a battle for another day--is when the levees break up like this--and this is the coastal barrier--the Corps of Engineers is actually prohibited from building them better. We have had solutions for this. We are going to try to get that changed. But this is a constant battle and a big issue not just for the State of Louisiana but for the gulf coast, the eastern seaboard, and the west coast as well. So we will continue to work in that regard.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for an additional 5 minutes. I don't see anyone else on the floor wishing to speak.

Let me show what some of the Republican leaders who are not in the House of Representatives are saying. And we should listen to them because this is from the Governor of New Jersey, Governor Christie, a leader in the Republican Party, a conservative leader of the Republican Party. No one would accuse him of not being a strong voice for conservative philosophy. He said: Now is not the time, ladies and gentlemen in Congress, to argue for weeks and weeks or months and months about finding offsets for these disasters. Let's fund them. Let's fund them robustly. These are job-creation opportunities for our communities. It is about smart planning and being a reliable partner with the State of New Jersey and my counties. He said: Let's get about the business.

In fact, he specifically said:

You want to figure out budget cuts, that's fine. You expect

the citizens of my State to wait? They're not going to wait,

and I'm going to fight to make sure that they do not. Our

people are suffering now and they need support now. We need

support now here in New Jersey, and that is not a Republican

or a Democratic issue.

I just got off the phone with Governor Christie within the hour, and this is still his position. He said he is not backing down, and he is going to continue to give voice to this issue. I wish the Republican leaders in the House would listen to him.

We have had Republican leaders in the Senate--I named about six of them--and I want to compliment the others later on when I get back to that point.

This is what Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia said:

My concern is that we help people in need. For the FEMA

money that's going to flow, it's up to them on how they get

it. I don't think it's the time to get into that deficit

debate.

I want people to think about this. Let's say we have another hurricane season like we had--I believe it was right before Hurricane Katrina. I believe it was in 2004 that we had four hurricanes hit the State of Florida--four in 1 year. It was devastating to the State of Florida.

Does anyone think it would be the right thing to do to get the Governor of the State of Florida, the Senators of the State of Florida, the entire congressional delegation of the State of Florida and every accountant working for every county to come up to Washington and go through the Federal budget to find where they can cut, right there, that week, while the winds have just died down? Would we have to get the Florida accountants to come up here to find an offset so we could send the help to Florida?

That argument is ludicrous on its face. I wouldn't want Senator Rubio worrying about that. I wouldn't want Senator Nelson worrying about that. I would want them comforting their people. That is what I would want to see them do because I had to do an awful lot of that. And I am sure they would do it naturally. I would want them going shelter to shelter and telling people it is going to be OK. I would want them visiting with businesspeople, pleading with them not to pick up stakes now but to invest in Florida because it can be a good place to come back to. I would want them saving their universities and working on that as well. The last thing they would need to be doing--and their staff--would be taking out a pencil and putting on their green eyeshades and going through the Federal budget to see where we could eliminate this from Colorado, with no time for hearings or oversight because we have to act now. Let's just cut out all these programs.

That is hogwash. It is ludicrous on its face. It is not the way a government should be run. It is not about conservatives or liberals; it is truly just stupidity. It makes me so angry that anyone would suggest this.

So, again, let's send the help now. We can find a way to pay for this. We are finding a way to pay for Katrina now. We do it through the ordinary budget process. We are finding a way to reduce the deficit substantially. That is what the committee of 12 is about. That is what all our debates are about. That is what the appropriations process is about. But not now.

Tom Ridge. If you don't think the Governor of Virginia is an expert on this or the Governor of New Jersey--though I think they are pretty strong public figures--how about the first Secretary of the department that oversees disaster response, Tom Ridge himself? Here is what Tom Ridge said last week when this debate started:

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're 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.

Thank you. That is exactly what we should be doing.

So, Mr. President, I have tried, as the leader of this committee, not to make

this a Democratic or Republican issue. I have asked and succeeded in getting 10 of my Republican colleagues to join the effort. So this isn't trying to make one party look good or one party look bad. All we want to do is help disaster victims and help the Governors and the mayors and the county commissioners who, right now, believe me, are just pulling their hair out. They have very limited tools. They are not sure what they can do.

People are angry, they are devastated, and they are shocked. Families are having to bunch in and live together. Some people are still in shelters. I have been through this nightmare. I know what they are going through. And then they have to hear from Washington that the Eric Cantor crowd decided now is the time for us--even though for 50 years we have been doing emergency funding--to figure out where to get offsets before we can send them help. This is no way to run a railroad, and it is no way to fund disaster assistance.

As I said earlier, this color is too pleasant--this green on this map--to really reflect what this map shows. These are all the States in the Nation that are experiencing disasters this year. For the first time in a very long time--maybe in our history--we have had Presidential disasters declared in all but two States. They are different kinds of disasters--some fire, some floods, some earthquakes--but nonetheless devastating to the communities trying to rebuild. So this isn't a Texas or Louisiana or just a west coast issue, this is an entire nation that is waiting for Congress to act and to send not just FEMA money but FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, Agriculture, and community development block grant funding. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we are having this debate at all.

Just to recap, here is the list. And I will not ask that it be submitted for the record because it is too long and comprehensive. It is very fine print of project after project that has now been stopped-- stopped--because FEMA is operating on fumes. They are virtually out of money.

Now, yes, the new fiscal year for the Federal Government starts next week, but, remember, the House of Representatives only offered 6 weeks of help based on last year's reality. They are not even taking into account what actually happened. They are just saying: Well, we budgeted $2.65 billion last year; that must be good enough for this next year-- not taking into account any of the realities of what I have just talked about. And by the way, you can have basically a 6-week rate--no money for the Corps of Engineers, no money for Agriculture.

Please, if you hear one thing--any of the Members of the House who are considering voting for this--please don't try to go home and explain this to your constituents because hopefully they will be smart enough by listening to this debate and understanding that you really didn't vote to help them. You voted for some philosophy that is hard for even some in your party to understand, but you did not vote to help your constituents.

One final point. People on the other side will say: Well, I voted for this $2.65 billion, and I know it is not a real number, but it is sort of enough to get everybody through, and then we will pass the regular appropriations. Mr. President, I have heard that as well. And then when the regular appropriations bills come, this money can be tucked into these bills and help will be on the way, they will say.

Well, I want to say again that 1994 was the last time this Congress passed all 13 appropriations bills on time and got them to the President's desk. So that is wishful thinking. That is not going to happen this year, no matter how hard we try, because it hasn't happened since 1994.

So don't think you can fool your people and say: Well, I voted for this, but we are going to help you through the appropriations process. I am on the Appropriations Committee. We have had a very difficult time because of all sorts of reasons in getting our process back on track. We are supposed to be finished with all of our bills in November. It is already the end of September, and we still don't have all our bills out of committee. And even if the House has their bills out of committee, getting those numbers reconciled between the House and the Senate sometimes takes months. Sometimes, Mr. President, as you know, we never get to it and we just do a continuing resolution. So there is not enough appropriations in the regular bills.

So for all the reasons I spoke of--and I will end where I started-- let's fund disasters now. Let's fund the help to our people now. We are going to be here until Friday--potentially our leadership will keep us in until we get this resolved. But the Senate has made a great bipartisan effort, with Senators such as Senator Blunt and Senator Toomey and Senator Vitter and the Senators from Maine and other Senators from the other side who have joined this effort.

I am asking the House: Please reconsider your position. Please fund disasters now. We will figure out the way to pay for this over time. We have already made provision for this in the negotiations that were done a month ago between the Republican and House leaders. Our people are depending on us to act.

Mr. President, again I urge my colleagues in the House, please reconsider your position. Join the bipartisan work underway in the Senate to get this job done for the people we represent and the people of our country who are truly desperate for us to act right now.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the life of Mr. Henry Smith, Jr. The people of Louisiana lost a giant of a man when Henry A. ``Buster'' Smith, Jr. passed away on Friday, September 9, 2011, at age 82 after a lengthy illness.

Born in St. Charles Parish and raised in an area outside of New Orleans known as the River Parishes, Mr. Henry, as we affectionately knew him, was a confident and self-made man who had an optimistic outlook on life that would lift you when you were in his presence. He, and others like him, helped build this Nation.

Mr. Henry was a product of the River Parishes whose people draw their strength and sustenance from the Mississippi River, and whose ingenuity and hard work built the incredible industrial complex along the river that fuels so much of our Nation's energy and commerce. He was the guiding force in the development of what became the Magnolia Companies, a multicompany conglomerate in the fields of construction, housing, material sales, real estate, finance, disaster recovery and consulting. He traveled the world in order to help people recover from disasters on six continents, but always returned home to Louisiana and his beloved River Parishes. Mr. Henry assisted with securing the futures for hundreds of families by creating opportunities for meaningful and rewarding work for them to pursue.

Mr. Henry was a champion for his community and the surrounding region. He supported numerous charities, churches and schools in and around the New Orleans area, including the Ursuline Academy, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, First Baptist Church of Norco, and the Mahalia Jackson Early Childhood Development Center. He was a leader who was sincere and steadfast in his drive to help others. He truly believed in the spirit and generosity of mankind and thought that everyone deserved a chance.

He was very passionate about politics and immersed himself in supporting candidates for local, State, and Federal office. I was fortunate enough to have Mr. Henry's support and counsel through my years in politics. Even though Mr. Henry was opinionated, he always said that no matter what, there were two sides to every story. He was a Democrat but was always more interested in the merits of a debate rather than partisanship. He believed most of all in moving his community, State, and Nation in a positive direction. We could certainly use more people like Mr. Henry.

Above all else, Mr. Henry was devoted to his family his sons, Glen and his wife Marilyn and Gary and his wife Pam, along with his grandchildren, Representative Gary Smith, Jr. and his wife Katherine, Rebecca Smith Tassin and her husband Justin, and Madison Elizabeth Smith-just as they were to him and each other. The Smith family is one of the most loving families I have ever known. Mr. Henry worked joyfully with his two sons Glen and Gary every day for more than 40 years. Never have I seen two sons more devoted to their father.

Today I ask my colleagues to join me along with Mr. Henry's family in honoring and celebrating the life of this most extraordinary son of Louisiana.

Mr. President, I come before you today to celebrate the life and contributions of one of Louisiana's favorite sons. This week the citizens of Louisiana are remembering the monumental life of Mr. Victor Bussie. Mr. Bussie passed away Sunday, September 4, 2011, at the age of 92. He was laid to rest in Baton Rouge, LA last Friday. Mr. Bussie was buried not far from our State Capitol, where he fought tirelessly for more 50 years to strengthen and uphold the rights of working men and women in Louisiana and across the Nation.

A hero to thousands, the scourge of some, and ally for many; Mr. Bussie spent a lifetime fighting side-by-side with like-minded men and women. He

was motivated by a sense of justice and a desire to secure worker protections and the fundamental civil rights that many of us take for granted. During his 41 years at the helm of the Louisiana AFL-CIO Mr. Bussie saw the evolution of not just workers rights but our country's constant struggle for fundamental civil rights. From 1956-1997 Mr. Bussie worked to secure civil rights, equal rights for minorities and women, a fair minimum wage, adequate workplace safety, defined pension plans, and numerous other fair labor laws for the people of Louisiana.

Mr. Bussie kept his sharp and analytical mind to the very end. He passed with his beloved wife Fran at his side.

When I began my political career as a State legislator almost 33 years ago, Mr. Bussie was a fixture at the Louisiana Legislature. He spent tireless hours effectively advocating on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of men and women he represented. I remember him as fearless and resolute in his belief in civil rights and fair treatment for all. He refused to back down even after his house was bombed by a member of the Ku Klux Klan in 1967. In 2010, I attended a dinner honoring the lifetime achievements of Mr. Bussie and was in awe of his accomplishments. Mr. Bussie was a strong willed and tenacious advocate for what he believed in but he consistently treated everyone with dignity and respect.

Mr. Bussie was born in Natchitoches Parish, home of the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase. His family later moved to Boyce in the central part of Louisiana near Alexandria. He served in the Navy during WWII and later worked as a hose man with the Shreveport Fire Department. Many times over the years he described to me how much he had loved being a firefighter and how much he loved the camaraderie among the men in his unit.

It was because of his sense of fairness, sharp intellect and demeanor that he was approached by his fellow firefighters to represent their interests. In 1956, he was elected president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO. He remained president until his retirement in 1997. Throughout his career Mr. Bussie acted with dignity and garnered the respect of even from those who opposed his position.

Mr. Bussie was a giant in the State of Louisiana and an example of how passionate advocacy could and should be expressed with dignity and grace. Like countless other Louisianians, I am a better person for having known him. On behalf of the U.S. Senate, I wish to offer my condolences to his wife Fran, the entire Bussie family, and all the members of the Louisiana AFL-CIO. Louisiana lost a true hero.

I know the vote has been scheduled, but I ask unanimous consent 2 minutes be provided prior to the amendment votes and 4 minutes prior to final passage.

Madam President, how much time before the vote?

I wish to speak, if I could, before the time is out.

Madam President, in a few minutes, because the two amendments have been debated extensively this afternoon, I want to thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his strong objection to one of the amendments and the eloquent way he expressed the feelings of so many of us who will be voting with Senator Kerry against the Paul amendment.

Let me put this up, as I have been using this all week. The underlying bill we will be voting on in a few minutes will give the Senate the opportunity to vote for disaster relief now. It is the only vehicle available to us in the Senate to vote for relatively full disaster relief for the year 2012 now. I want people to realize, as they are considering how they are going to vote, we received 61 votes.

I understand we are out of time. I will speak later. Again, it gives us an opportunity to vote for disaster relief now.

I yield back the time, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I would like to speak for final passage. I would like to speak last.

Is there anyone who wants to speak in opposition?

If not, then I will take the time to close. I wanted to say thanks to several Members, many Members on my side who have helped this week to clarify this issue and to build support for disaster funding for the 48 States that are currently experiencing devastation.

I wish to thank Members on the other side of the aisle, particularly Senators Blunt, Vitter, Rubio, others, Senator Snowe who have left their voice and their vote to help us get to this point. I particularly wish to thank Senator Blunt for spending 15 minutes on the floor today saying how crucial this is not only to his State of Missouri but to the whole country.

I wish to thank the Members on my side, Senators Leahy and Schumer and Hagan and others who have helped so much this week--Senator Shaheen, who has been at all the press conferences, Senator Sanders.

Let me say this is the only vehicle--the only vehicle--we have before us to do long-term full funding for the disaster relief. This bill will provide help to Nebraska, to Minot, ND, to New York, to the east coast, to Tuscaloosa, AL, Joplin, MO.

If we do not vote for this, the DRF funding will be empty. This money gives us not only additional funding for disaster relief, but it also provides an additional $1.1 billion for the Corps of Engineers and funding for a few other programs that are essential to rebuilding.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Since there is no opposition that is going to speak, I would like to take those 2 minutes as well.

This is a very important vote. I know there are some people who think we should have gone through a regular process. The last time we went through a regular process, with individual votes coming to the floor by October 1, was 1994. It is 2011. As the appropriator, the chair of this committee, I knew that was not a way to go to bring quick relief to the disaster victims who need help.

So the stand-alone approach, sending a strong vote from the Senate today, will help us negotiate with the House. They have a different idea. I happen not to agree with their idea. They are entitled to their own idea. We are entitled to our own idea, and our own idea is with Democrats and Republicans voting yes on this Burma sanctions bill, we can send reliable, long-term funding.

In closing, let me tell you what the alternative is if you vote no. If you vote no on this and think you can go home and tell your people you helped them, you are going to be faced next week with a vote to give your people 6 weeks of disaster funding. That is how long the continuing resolution lasts.

Believe me, having had to rebuild a good part of our State, you cannot do it 6 weeks at a time. I strongly suggest you give a strong vote for disaster victims, long-term funding they can rely on, and we negotiate with the House next week.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor an extraordinary group of women for their passion and commitment to scientific research. These women have pursued careers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields knowing that their hard work and dedication might one day have profound effects in the worlds of science and medicine.

In partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the L'Oreal USA for Women in Science Fellowship program was established in 2003. Today, five remarkable women are being accepted into this fellowship where they will join the 35 postdoctoral women scientists from across the United States who came before them.

I would like to recognize each of these five women: Dr. Trisha Andrew, for research in organic electronics with the possibility of improving the performance of polymer-based solar cells; Dr. Karlin Bark, for work in haptic feedback that aims to help retrain the motor pathways of stroke survivors; Dr. Sasha Devore, a neuroscientist studying sensory processing which could lead to understanding numerous neurological diseases and disorders; Dr. Regan Blythe Towal, a biomedical engineer working to understand information processing of the nervous system thus leading to improved robotic technologies; and, Dr. Tijana Ivanovic, a virologist working on how viruses, such as influenza, enter into cells. These women are truly an inspiration to us all.

Please join me in honoring these five extraordinary women and the L'Oreal USA for Women in Science Fellowship Program for striving to raise awareness of women's contributions in the field of scientific research and serving as strong female role models for generations to come.

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

Mr. President, I know we have had several speeches over the last couple of hours on very important topics--the jobs bill, our efforts to stimulate the recovery, a response from one of our Democratic leaders to Senator Sessions, and the good Senator who was just speaking talking about health care--but I have

come to focus our attention, if I could, again this afternoon on a particular issue. We spent most of yesterday talking about a matter that is absolutely right at hand; that is, disaster relief funding and calling on this Senate and the House of Representatives to focus some immediate and comprehensive thought and attention on this subject, which is affecting so many of our constituents--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--in big cities, small towns, and rural areas all over this country.

In fact, this is the first year in our memory and in, I think, the recorded recent history, we have had a Presidentially declared disaster in 48 of our 50 States. Just a few days ago, we along the eastern seaboard and the gulf coast, where I am from representing Louisiana, suffered from the original hit and then remnants of Tropical Storm Lee and then Hurricane Irene.

There are some Senators who joined me in a press conference earlier today. I think it was the Senator from North Carolina who said it has actually been three disasters: an economic disaster, in terms of an economy that is weak and fragile and we are doing our best to lift it and to strengthen it, and then Tropical Storm Lee and then Hurricane Irene.

It has been millions and millions of dollars of damage. Unfortunately, we on the gulf coast tragically are getting to be experts in this field because we, as Senators and House Members from the gulf coast, have battled multiple disasters over this last decade. Katrina and Rita, which broke all records, surpassed any planning this government has ever done.

We had a FEMA that showed up not ready, not comprehensive enough in its view. Our people have suffered. But we have made a lot of changes since then, and here we are today with actually a better FEMA, from all accounts. I wish to give a lot of credit to this administration, particularly, and not just Homeland Security. But the Cabinet of this President has been extraordinary in their reasonableness when it comes to this subject.

I have seen the opposite. So I think I am in a position to see the difference. It is a big difference in this Obama administration in terms of the Cabinet. They want to say yes to disaster victims. They did not want to say no. That is very important. They cannot always say yes to everything, to rebuild every building, repave every street, elevate every home. But they are trying to say yes. Most importantly, the lawyers have been instructed to find a way forward, as opposed to instruction that came from the last administration which was to find a way to say no.

So let me give credit where credit is due, to the Obama administration and their willingness to be flexible, to be forward leaning, to have attorneys who are trying to be on the side of the taxpayer, on the side of the victims, and not shortchanging people in times of desperate need.

Having said that, the administration cannot do it all on its own. They need Congress, as the Constitution says, to provide the funding so the executive branch can do its job. The executive branch, by all accounts, even Republicans have come to the floor from States that have been hard hit and said: It is a more muscular FEMA, it is a more dynamic FEMA, it is a more flexible FEMA.

I wish to thank Senators Lieberman and Collins. They are the authorizers. Yes, I have had a part of it--others have, but they have worked tirelessly after Katrina and the disaster that happened on the gulf coast, where we were all shamed when we saw what did not happen that should have.

We fixed a lot of it, and that is something to be happy and proud about. When government does set its mind to improve things, it can. But we cannot do anything without the funding. Right now, FEMA is empty. The pot of money is empty. Projects, millions, hundreds of millions of dollars today, not just in my State but in California, in Tennessee, in Iowa, in Texas, and in North Dakota--and I could go on and on--but for the Record let me say a couple.

In Tennessee, mitigation of private residences from the 2010 floods has been halted. For those who might not be familiar with the word ``mitigation,'' which most people are, it means one could be elevating their house, one could be putting shutters or storm windows on their windows. Let's see what else. A person could be potentially strengthening the frame of their house if they are trying to mitigate against high winds from a tornado. There are rules that allow people to try to improve their home so the next time it happens not only are they not homeless, but taxpayers are not paying again for the same sort of incident.

The Federal Government, under good policy, requires a certain portion of all disaster funding to be specific, to go to mitigation because taxpayers think, when we are trying to rebuild from a flood or a storm or a tornado or a bridge collapse, do not just build the same old thing, try to mitigate so it does not happen again. That is smart because then we are not double, triple spending taxpayer money.

But in Tennessee this family, let's say, is in the middle of elevating their home. Let's say they have gotten it off the ground by 2 feet, and the contractor showed up on Monday. They were sent home because this project has been stopped. So somewhere there are homes in Tennessee--I am not sure in what particular community--where private sector contractors, many small business owners and their employees, showed up to work and were told: Go home. FEMA is out of money.

We have to fix this this week before we leave and, if not, at the latest by next week.

In Iowa, repairs for an electric utility--I am not sure who provides utilities in Iowa. Potentially, it may be, as in my State in rural areas, the local rural co-op. Everybody knows what a rural co-op is. Their project has been shut down. Potentially, people are still receiving electricity. I do not think people are sitting in the dark. I am hoping not. But whatever they were planning to repair and fix in Iowa has been halted because we have run out of money.

In Texas, repairs to the University of Texas medical facility have been stopped. In Louisiana, roadway construction has been stopped. In fact, there was an article in our paper, the Times-Picayune, just this week that said $100 million for Jefferson Parish--$100 million--that is just 1 of my parishes, 1 of 64, the suburban parish that sits right beside Orleans that was very hard hit by these storms, not as hard as Orleans Parish but received billions of dollars of damage--those projects have been put on hold while we move that money to help the victims in the Northeast. That should not be the case.

We need to act quickly to refill the FEMA funds. In addition, I understand in North Dakota and in other places there are problems. It is not just the DRF. The Corps of Engineers in its budget last year did not have enough money for emergencies. I slipped out of the Chamber a few minutes ago to go actually meet with the mayor of Grand Isle, who was here, as he is quite often, advocating on behalf of the only barrier island that is inhabited in the State of Louisiana, and he brought up pictures. Again, they are too small to see, but I am going to have them blown up for tomorrow. But I have in my hand pictures of the levees that were just ripped up and destroyed again from Tropical Storm Lee. These were levees on the gulf that we just completed.

But because the Corps of Engineers, when they rebuild levees, in their authorizing legislation are prohibited--which makes no sense whatsoever, it is a complete waste of taxpayer money--they are prohibited from betterment. They can build back what was there, but they cannot build it better or higher, unless they are directed to do so.

I am about ready to direct them because I am tired, on behalf of my people and the people of this country and the taxpayers, from rebuilding levees 10 times in a matter of 5 years. It is a waste of money--it is aggravating to the people whose homes are behind these levees--because we do not even have a policy, when we are building levees, to be ordered to build them stronger, higher, except, of course, in the case of some levee systems in Katrina. That was specifically directed, and it is being done.

We are building around the city of New Orleans a much stronger, much better system. One would think that would be being done all over the country. It is not. Why? Because we are

short on funding, short on political will, and short on imagination and creativity when it comes to building infrastructure in this country. I, for one, am tired of it. So are the people I represent.

I am asking the other side of the aisle to step up and to provide funding, funding that is not offset in the middle of a disaster. We will figure out how to pay for these later--these disaster funds later. But as I think Senator Leahy said so eloquently in our press conference today: Do the Republicans, some people in the Republican Party, actually believe we want fire departments all over the United States, when someone's house is on fire and they show up with the engines, to debate in the middle of the street how they are going to pay for the extra overtime to put out the fire? I do not think so.

Even if the fire department is broke, even if the funding has run out, we do not want to have a debate over how they are going to pay for overtime when the fire is burning. Put the fire out. Bring the people to safety. Put the families in shelter. Then go back to the city council meeting next week and they can debate for as long as they want how they are going to ultimately pay for it.

We paid for World War II, obviously. It was a long time ago. It is completely paid for. We paid for World War I. We are paying for Afghanistan. We are paying for Iraq, which, by the way, not one, single, solitary Republican--and not many Democrats, for that matter, but not one Republican whom I can recall stood and asked or debated for 5 seconds how we were going to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But when the people of Vermont stand in front of their bridges collapsed, their homes collapsed, their schools collapsed, and say: We need help, we have to have now a month-long debate on how we are going to pay for it. We have not done this since the 1800s.

We will eventually pay for it. America has to pay for everything. We will pay for it. We do not have to have that debate now. What we do have to have a debate about is how do we repair levees and what is the best way to mitigate it. What are the new technologies that can be used to make our communities stronger and smarter? How can we streamline the process? How can we eliminate the redtape? How can we get help to people faster? That is what we should be debating.

Instead, I have Cantor and Boehner making us argue about what offsets there are. So I have to go to the State of Maryland and say: Senator, what can you give up this year in your State? I have to go to Michigan: What can you up in Michigan? I have to go to California: What can you give up in California, so we can pay for people who are underwater in Vermont and North Carolina?

What kind of government is this? I do not want to be a part of that and I am not going to be. So we have to fund these disasters now. The saddest thing about all this--it is sad and it is also puzzling and it is perplexing and it is aggravating is that we already sort of made this deal 1 month ago, when we negotiated that big agreement we all came to, about how the levels of funding would be for 2012.

Everybody remembers that, before we left for August, and we had this big knock-down, drag-out--in that agreement, our leadership, Republicans and Democrats, already agreed to do something that I think is very smart. I want to show what they agreed to. They agreed--because it is a puzzlement--how do we fund in advance disasters, how do we know how much to set aside. It is a problem because every year is different.

I wish to show what our problem is, so people listening can give me their own suggestions about how to solve it. In 2003, we set aside, in the whole budget of the United States--we can see this a little bit-- $800 million for disasters. But we had $1.7 billion. So we were short $984 million. We funded it. That went on our books.

The next year we said: Well, this year we had $1.7 billion in disasters. So the next year we put $1.8 in our bill, thinking we would cover it because last year was $1.7. But, lo and behold, we had an additional $3 billion worth of disaster funding. We did not know these disasters were going to happen.

So the next year we increased the amount of money in our base budget. Then, lo and behold, in that year, we put in $2 billion dollars. Katrina hit.

The levees broke. Do you know what the bill came in for? It was $43 billion. We had budgeted $2 billion because in the history of the past that is all we needed to cover disasters. It went from $2 billion to $43 billion. Who would have had a crystal ball to know that? Did we sit and debate? Some people tried to, until I said there was no way I was going to have to find a $43 billion offset before we can let the people of the gulf coast know that help was on the way. We spent what was required to help the gulf coast.

You can see the next year here. These numbers are very erratic, unpredictable. So what our leadership did, looking back on these 10 years and listening to the debate and argument, was come up with a pretty good plan. They said, OK, we will throw out the high number, we will throw out the low number--in 2009 we didn't have any emergencies. Can you imagine 1 year that you have no declared emergencies, and the next year you have one in almost every State? That is how erratic this is. It is not as though we are not trying to plan. It is just impossible by the nature of what an emergency or disaster is. You can plan for them, but you cannot always predict how many you are going to have and where they will be. Of course, everybody understands that.

What our leaders did is they threw out the top one and the bottom one and came up with an average. That average is about $11 billion--a very reasonable approach. So they put in our agreement that we made 30 days ago--we said, OK, next year, this is what the Federal Government can spend and, in addition to that, you can go up to the average. You can spend an additional $11 billion, which is a very small amount of money compared to the whole Federal budget.

You would think we would not be having this debate. Why? The need is very evident, the history would dictate that we don't have debate over disasters, and the Republican and Democratic leadership has already provided a way, over and above our 2012 numbers, to pay for these disasters.

I ask this: Why are we having to fight for this? That is a very good question. I think it is because some people on the other side of the aisle think this is a good thing to fight about. They think they have to find a pay-for for everything we do even, as I have described, when you cannot predict. Even if you do plan responsibly, you never know, as in the cases of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. But our leadership negotiated a way forward.

Yet we have people all over the country looking to the Republican leadership and listening to Representative Cantor and to Speaker Boehner saying: I want to help you, ladies and gentlemen, but we have to find an offset.

I think people might say: Why didn't we hear that when they sent troops into Afghanistan or Iraq? Why didn't we hear that when they are rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan? The same people are not yelling and screaming--or didn't do it when we went in there. I think we have a good point.

I am saying I am proud of the Senate for last night, with Democrats mostly--and, yes, about 8 Republicans--who voted to move this debate forward. I thank particularly Senator Blunt from Missouri, who is an outspoken leader on the Appropriations Committee, for the need to act now, act quickly, to fund the DRF, the Corps of Engineers. Of course, Missouri has had terrible tornadoes and flooding. Not only did they have Joplin, but they had the great flood of the Mississippi River, which was the highest in 50 years. It was so high along our capital city when I visited our mayor a couple months ago--that is Baton Rouge, which is our largest city, since 100,000 people left New Orleans to literally live on higher ground, although it has broken their hearts and divided their families. They have moved to Baton Rouge, as we are rebuilding levees and our flood control is stronger in the southeastern part of our State. People spend time walking on levees and riding bikes on the levees. Of course, mechanical vehicles are not allowed. You cannot have cars, trucks, and four-wheelers because that would be destructive to our levees. Our levees are quite huge. They are almost like linear parks. For the first time in the history of anybody who can remember, the mayor had to declare that

everyone stay off the levees because the water was so high and seeping through. We literally thought maybe some of these great levee systems would breach. Happily, they did not. It was a frightening situation for millions and millions.

In some parts of Missouri, and other parts north of us, the levees did breach. Sometimes the levees will blow to protect other areas. It is frightening if your business is behind one of those levees, as North Dakota residents know all too well.

Nonetheless, we should not be debating this. I hope our bill will pass this week and get over to the House for a quick vote. If the House decides to send us a continuing resolution, please, I want the leadership to hear clearly what I am saying--and I will send them a message by letter in the next few minutes--please do not think you can nickel and dime recovery efforts, that you can fund it 6 weeks at a time, or 4 weeks at a time. Disaster recovery doesn't operate that way. Our mayors, Governors, the Republican Governor of New Jersey, the Republican Governor of Virginia, the mayor of Patterson, who was with us today, and mayors up along the east coast who are with their people every day--the mayor of Joplin, MO, who has to be able to know that he can plan a year out or 2 years out--having to rebuild an entire town is overwhelming even if you have the money and the plan. Can you imagine if you sort of have a plan, but you don't know if the Federal Government will provide you money? Do you know the frustrating council meetings and school board meetings that will be had, and they will say, well, the Republican party in Washington cannot figure out if we should get funding, but it is 6 weeks at a time?

I will not allow that to happen. I am going to draw the line in the sand right now. You may get around me on it, but it will take a huge effort to get around this desk on that subject--a huge effort. If I have to shut the Senate down--and I have done it before--I will do it again, because I can tell you, as much as my name is Mary Landrieu, you cannot rebuild communities with 6-week plans. It took us 2 years to put together the Road Home Program--2 years after we got the funding. The reason we could not put it together before was--even though Mississippi had their money because President Bush gave it to them right away but made the people of Louisiana wait--because Congress would not decide how much money to give us. No mayor, no Governor, no matter how great they are, no matter how smart they are, no matter how many engineers they have, no matter how many Rotary Clubs are helping, no matter what the chamber of commerce is doing, I am telling you that it cannot be done without a reliable source of funding, so the planners can say something like this: We lost eight schools in this flood. They bring the community together--and these are how these discussions go--and say we might not have money to build all eight, but we have money to build six. Which six do you want to build, and where, what materials do you want to use, and which kids should go to which schools?

I have been in these meetings. I am not going to allow the mayors and Governors to call their people together and say we lost six schools and we don't know when the money is coming to build them, and we cannot make any plans because the Republican leadership has decided that every 6 weeks they are going to let us know how much money we are going to get.

That is not going to happen.

I want Speaker Boehner to think about this, and I want Mitch McConnell to think about this, and I want the Republican leadership to think about it. I will negotiate on the top number. I will talk about maybe FEMA doesn't need quite this much. I will talk about maybe the Corps of Engineers doesn't need that much. But I will not, under any circumstances, agree to a 6-week or 4-week continuing resolution. You may run the Government of the United States that way. We have, unfortunately, gotten used to it. That is a sad commentary, I might say, that we run the greatest government ever created in the eyes and vision and hearts of mankind, but we operate it on a 6-week basis. That might be the game we play with the government, but I am not going to allow that game to be played with people who have lost their homes, lost their businesses, and who look up from a storm and say, my gosh, what happened to me? Then they don't know what is going to happen because we cannot make a decision that lasts more than 6 months or a year. So the minimum will be 6 months. I hope we can find the will to do a whole year, because without that you are going to shut down recovery operations at a time when it is heartbreaking to think of small business owners who have lost their print shop or their dress store or their shoe store, and they see everybody talking about creating jobs. They used to have three of them last week--selling printing material or selling shoes or whatever--and they are trying to get their business back, and we cannot decide--even though we have the money, even though we already budgeted the money, and although we already made an agreement about how we would do this--we are going to still argue.

I will tell you, if this is on the tea party's agenda, I suggest they take it off. If it is somebody else's agenda, please speak up. I have not had one single Republican Senator come down and defend this position, because it is indefensible. I hope when the leadership is negotiating--and they are doing so now--they will hear me in summary very quickly: The FEMA pot is empty. The Corps of Engineers is always running on fumes. Levees are breaking and flooding, and it is occurring in places that haven't flooded in a hundred years. When we wake up and realize that we have to put more money in emergency funding and be there when our people are hurting, as they are now--and we will eventually pay for this; we don't have to figure that out in the next 30 days. We have to give them a green light and the billions of dollars they need to operate for a year. Everything else is negotiable. But this is not going to be negotiated. We are not going to rebuild pieces of 48 States 4 weeks at a time. That will not happen. Whatever amount of money we give, let it be for as long as we can make it, let it be as robust as it can possibly be, and let's give a green light to our Republican Governors, Republican mayors, Independents, and Democrats out there, who are shellshocked about the work before them.

The people in neighborhoods are still crying and in shock about what they have to do in making decisions. Should we come back? Should we not come back? What should our neighborhood or community do? Maybe we should all move to higher ground. These decisions are being made right now. The last thing they should worry about is Congress debating whether there is money there to turn that hose on.

Let's do our job the way we have done it for 150 years.

Let's continue to do it and let our people know we are there for them, as we try to be there for other people in the world who are caught in situations such as this. We most certainly need to be here for our people in America.

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

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

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

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.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to my home State of Louisiana: disaster recovery. As you know, along the Gulf Coast, we keep an eye trained on the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season. This is following the devastating one-two punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005; Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008; and more recently the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Our communities and businesses are still recovering from these disasters--some from a disaster that devastated the Gulf Coast over 6 years ago. For this reason, as Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship disaster preparedness is one of my top priorities. While the Gulf Coast is prone to hurricanes, other parts of the country are no strangers to disaster as we have seen recently. For example, we just saw an earthquake strike Washington, DC, and Hurricane Irene work its way up the East Coast. In general though, the Midwest also has annual tornadoes, California experiences earthquakes and wildfires, and the Northeast sees crippling snowstorms. So no part of our country is spared from disasters-- disasters which can and will strike at any moment. With this in mind, we must ensure that the Federal Government is better prepared and assist those businesses impacted by natural disasters.

As I mentioned, everyone around the country is familiar with the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the New Orleans area and the southeast part of our State. Images from the devastation following these storms, and the subsequent Federal levee breaks, were transmitted around the country and around the world. This is because Katrina was the deadliest natural disaster in United States history, with 1,800 people killed--1,500 alone in Louisiana. Katrina was also the costliest natural disaster in United States history with over $81.2 billion in damage. In Louisiana, we had 18,000 businesses catastrophically destroyed and 81,000 businesses economically impacted. I believe that, across the entire Gulf Coast, some estimates ran as high as 125,000 businesses impacted by Katrina and Rita. While we have made significant progress in rebuilding infrastructure, housing, and our economy, I continue to hear from individual business owners who are struggling to fully recover. These business owners tell me that they have not been hit by one disaster but three: Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hurricane Gustav in 2008, and the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.

In order to help ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast, I am introducing today the Gulf Coast Disadvantaged Business Relief Act of 2011. This legislation is the Senate companion bill to H.R. 2808 introduced by my colleague Representative Cedric Richmond last month. I note that his legislation also had two original cosponsors from Alabama and Mississippi: Representative Terri Sewell and Representative Bennie Thompson.

This bill focuses on assisting minority businesses in the Gulf Coast that were impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Everyone is familiar with the images and the cost of these storms,

but they may not be too familiar with the impact on individual businesses. In particular, I am speaking about the affects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on minority firms in the Gulf Coast. As a result of these storms, many minority firms in the Gulf Coast were disrupted and thus lost valuable time for participating in the 8(a) program. The 8(a) business development initiative, created under the Small Business Administration, helps minority entrepreneurs access Federal contracts and allows companies to be certified for increments of 3 years. These contracts are vital to the revival of these impacted areas. However, as currently structured the program allows businesses to participate for a limited length of time, 9 years, after which they can never re-apply nor get back into the program. It is imperative that we provide contracting assistance to our local minority businesses.

The bill includes a provision which would tackle this problem in three important ways. First, the bill extends 8(a) eligibility for program participants in Katrina/Rita-impacted areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama by 24 months. The bill would also apply to any areas in the state of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that have been designated by the administrator of the Small Business Administration as a disaster area as a result of Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. Lastly, the bill would require the administrator of the Small Business Administration to ensure that every small business participating in the 8(a) program before the date of enactment of the Act is reviewed and brought into compliance with this act. This requirement would ensure that any eligible previous 8(a) participants will be allowed back into the program. As such, these key provisions would ensure that these businesses continue to play a vital role in rebuilding their communities. I note that I introduced a similar provision as part of S. 3285, the disadvantaged Business Disaster Eligibility Act during the 110th Congress and as part of S. 2731 last Congress. During the 109th Congress, this proposal passed the House of Representatives but we were unable to pass the legislation here in the Senate before we adjourned for the year. I look forward to renewing my fight this Congress as I believe that this is a commonsense proposal which would not cost a great deal. It would, however, make a huge difference for these businesses impacted by Katrina and Rita.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to my home State of Louisiana: disaster recovery. As you know, along the Gulf Coast, we keep an eye trained on the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season. This is following the devastating one-two punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005; Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008; and more recently the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Our communities and businesses are still recovering from these disasters--some from a disaster that devastated the Gulf Coast over 6 years ago. For this reason, as Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship disaster preparedness is one of my top priorities. While the Gulf Coast is prone to hurricanes, other parts of the country are no strangers to disaster as we have seen recently. For example, we just saw an earthquake strike Washington, DC, and Hurricane Irene work its way up the East Coast. In general though, the Midwest also has annual tornadoes, California experiences earthquakes and wildfires, and the Northeast sees crippling snowstorms. So no part of our country is spared from disasters-- disasters which can and will strike at any moment. With this in mind, we must ensure that the Federal Government is better prepared and assist those businesses impacted by natural disasters.

As I mentioned, everyone around the country is familiar with the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the New Orleans area and the southeast part of our State. Images from the devastation following these storms, and the subsequent Federal levee breaks, were transmitted around the country and around the world. This is because Katrina was the deadliest natural disaster in United States history, with 1,800 people killed--1,500 alone in Louisiana. Katrina was also the costliest natural disaster in United States history with over $81.2 billion in damage. In Louisiana, we had 18,000 businesses catastrophically destroyed and 81,000 businesses economically impacted. I believe that, across the entire Gulf Coast, some estimates ran as high as 125,000 businesses impacted by Katrina and Rita. While we have made significant progress in rebuilding infrastructure, housing, and our economy, I continue to hear from individual business owners who are struggling to fully recover. These business owners tell me that they have not been hit by one disaster but three: Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hurricane Gustav in 2008, and the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.

In order to help ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast, I am introducing today the Gulf Coast Disadvantaged Business Relief Act of 2011. This legislation is the Senate companion bill to H.R. 2808 introduced by my colleague Representative Cedric Richmond last month. I note that his legislation also had two original cosponsors from Alabama and Mississippi: Representative Terri Sewell and Representative Bennie Thompson.

This bill focuses on assisting minority businesses in the Gulf Coast that were impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Everyone is familiar with the images and the cost of these storms,

but they may not be too familiar with the impact on individual businesses. In particular, I am speaking about the affects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on minority firms in the Gulf Coast. As a result of these storms, many minority firms in the Gulf Coast were disrupted and thus lost valuable time for participating in the 8(a) program. The 8(a) business development initiative, created under the Small Business Administration, helps minority entrepreneurs access Federal contracts and allows companies to be certified for increments of 3 years. These contracts are vital to the revival of these impacted areas. However, as currently structured the program allows businesses to participate for a limited length of time, 9 years, after which they can never re-apply nor get back into the program. It is imperative that we provide contracting assistance to our local minority businesses.

The bill includes a provision which would tackle this problem in three important ways. First, the bill extends 8(a) eligibility for program participants in Katrina/Rita-impacted areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama by 24 months. The bill would also apply to any areas in the state of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that have been designated by the administrator of the Small Business Administration as a disaster area as a result of Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. Lastly, the bill would require the administrator of the Small Business Administration to ensure that every small business participating in the 8(a) program before the date of enactment of the Act is reviewed and brought into compliance with this act. This requirement would ensure that any eligible previous 8(a) participants will be allowed back into the program. As such, these key provisions would ensure that these businesses continue to play a vital role in rebuilding their communities. I note that I introduced a similar provision as part of S. 3285, the disadvantaged Business Disaster Eligibility Act during the 110th Congress and as part of S. 2731 last Congress. During the 109th Congress, this proposal passed the House of Representatives but we were unable to pass the legislation here in the Senate before we adjourned for the year. I look forward to renewing my fight this Congress as I believe that this is a commonsense proposal which would not cost a great deal. It would, however, make a huge difference for these businesses impacted by Katrina and Rita.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, most of my Senate colleagues are aware of the rich culture and heritage that is on display in Louisiana during the days and weeks before Lent. Parties and parades mark the end of the Mardi Gras season and the beginning of fasting and sacrifice. But few outside of Louisiana are familiar with the unique tradition of the Mardi Gras Indians.

I rise today to celebrate this unique Louisiana tradition and recognize the Mardi Gras Indians Hall of Fame Day to be celebrated at Oretha Castle Haley Elementary School in New Orleans, LA, on August 7, 2011.

The history of the Mardi Gras Indians dates back to the late 1800s, but their origin remains a mystery. Because most of their history and practices have been passed from generation to generation orally, we may never know if the Mardi Gras Indians came about to pay homage to Native Americans for hiding runaway slaves or simply as a expression of the connection between Native Americans and African Americans. What we do know is that their tradition adds an incredible story to the history of New Orleans and Mardi Gras.

Today, the Mardi Gras Indians consist of more than 40 individual tribes. These tribes compete against one another using chants and music along with their elaborately decorated costumes called ``suits.'' The suits are each hand sewn by the tribe members and typically take an entire year to complete. Ornaments on the suits can include feathers, ostrich plumes, beads, velvet, rhinestones, and sequins, all beautifully sewn together to tell the story of the individual tribe member and contribute to the tapestry of whole tribe. Native American, Aztecan, Caribbean, and West African cultures have all greatly influenced the work of art that is the Mardi Gras Indian suit.

The traditions of the Mardi Gras Indians also include a hierarchy structure consisting of a ``big chief,'' a ``big queen,'' ``chiefs,'' ``spy boys,'' ``flag boys,'' and ``wild men,'' just to name a few. Every member of the tribe has a specific set of duties culminating in the big chief who represents the tribe against all other tribes.

In addition to being a key part of Mardi Gras, Mardi Gras Indians are strong community leaders in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The Mardi Gras Indians have worked to preserve, celebrate, and advance the cultural arts and music of their tribes and communities. By doing this, the tribes have also continued to encourage the younger generations to learn and embrace the tribes' histories. One tribe, the Guardians of the Flame, has established a nonprofit called Guardians Institute to educate New Orleans children on the importance of art, music, and history in order to keep these traditions alive.

Dr. Roslyn Smith, former principal of Oretha Castle Haley Elementary School in New Orleans, summarized the Mardi Gras Indians best by saying, ``the Big Chiefs are community leaders, and in many ways they are social warriors, struggling to preserve traditions of beauty in the community while working to make the communities better places.'' Please join me in honoring and celebrating the Mardi Gras Indians and especially the Mardi Gras Indians Hall of Fame Day on August, 7, 2011.

Thank you, Mr. President. I am happy to come to the floor with two of my colleagues--my colleague from Minnesota and my colleague from Alaska--to speak about the damage created by the Republicans' insistence on looking at just one side of the equation and failing to understand what businesses need to move forward during the next 28 minutes or so.

As my good friend from Alabama leaves the floor, I wish to say that I have enjoyed working with him on many issues. We have been shoulder to shoulder advocating for gulf coast restoration and many other issues. However, I have to strongly disagree with some of the points he has just made, and I will go into those in just a moment.

Part of the problem with the Senator from Alabama and other Senators on that side is that when they speak to the American people on this issue, they only talk about one side of the equation; that is, spending. They never, ever talk about revenues. Anybody--any family, any individual, any business, any high school student, any college student--understands--like the commercial running on television now that talks about equations--equations have two sides, not one. There is a spending side and there is a revenue side.

If a family's budget is out of whack--they are spending too much, and they are not taking in enough money--they could get a third job and fix that problem by bringing in more money to the budget or a second job or a part-time job and bring in more revenue, and that problem is solved or they could choose to not get another job and cut back spending all the way down to their income and solve the problem.

The problem with the other side is they are disingenuous. They do not want to be truthful with the American people and say that not only do we have a spending problem, which all Democrats agree with, but we also have a revenue problem, and that is why we are on this floor fighting today.

I wish to show beyond a shadow of a doubt the truth about what I am speaking. This is data from the Senate Appropriations Committee. This shows discretionary defense spending, all other spending, and mandatory programs for 10 years.

In 10 years, from 2001 until today, 10 years later, defense spending has increased $364 billion--73 percent--and that is because we have had two wars and any number of defense and security issues. We can debate whether that is right, but we have spent 73 percent more money, adjusted for inflation.

For mandatory programs, the increase has gone up 310 percent in 10 years. That is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This is the driver. This is the budget-buster. There are all sorts of solutions to that problem. Unfortunately, we are not talking about any of them today. But the push on the spending is coming from mandatory programs.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the charts I have been referring to.

Mr. President, what the Republicans fail to tell people, which makes me so angry and should make everyone angry, is that all other spending in the Federal Government has remained flat. There has been a zero-percent increase in 10 years, if we adjust for inflation--zero, not a 2-percent increase, not a 3-percent increase. These are the facts.

It is also true that we are spending more money--25 percent of GDP-- than at any time since World War II, but that spending is being driven by defense and mandatory. But what do they want to cut? What are they demanding to be cut today? They are demanding cuts from this line item, including agriculture, health, education, and respite care for the elderly. This is what they want to cut. This is why Democrats are saying: Wait a minute, take a couple of steps back. That is what this fight is really about.

In addition to waging this fight--and one would think this is a big fight to have--we would have it in the safest place possible. Some would think we would be having it in the safest place possible. My colleagues know that in the old western movies, when two guys

want to shoot it out, they say: Meet me on the edge of town. Do these guys meet you on the edge of town? No. Do you know where they meet us? Right on Main Street, where small business and big business and self- employed have been struggling for years, coming out of the greatest recession that in large measure they helped to create. Where do they want to stage this fight? On Main Street. That is what this fight is about. They could have chosen anyplace for this battle, but where do they choose it? They choose it over raising the debt ceiling, which, if we don't fix it in the next 72 hours, it is going to raise interest on every business.

I am already getting piles of letters from Louisiana that I will include in the Record from small business owners pleading with us to come to a deal because they are holding the economy hostage.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letters I just referred to be printed in the Record.

Has anybody read the newspapers this morning? It is full of cartoons: Republicans holding the economy hostage. They are not holding Barack Obama hostage. They are not holding Democrats hostage. They are not holding the Federal Government hostage. They have decided to fight the battle on Main Street, holding economic growth hostage, and they think that is a compromise or a fair fight. This hostage isn't strong enough to survive this siege.

Do we ever hear any one of them say that perhaps we need to raise a penny or two or three? Absolutely not. Now, there are Senators who have agreed to do so, but they haven't been as vocal as they possibly could be. I am honored to serve with many good Republicans who understand this equation has two sides: both taking spending down in the right ways and raising revenue.

Let me get one more fact out there, and I will turn it over to my colleague.

I understand corporate tax rates are higher than some other countries in the world, and our corporations are having some tough times, as well as some businesses. But I am going to submit data for the Record which shows that the top 400 companies in this country are not paying a 35- percent rate, they are not paying a 34-percent rate, their practical rate is 17 percent. Why would that be the case? Because this Tax Code is full of loopholes for special interests that many of them on the other side think are justified.

So we are not going to be able to solve all of these problems today, but I wanted to come to the floor on behalf of businesses--small businesses and large--and say that when the Republicans start talking about both sides of the equation, these Democrats, including myself, will walk up and negotiate. In the meantime, we are going to work hard to find a deal that works for the American people, and one solution that will work for the American people is not to have to repeat this 4 months from now.

I am going to conclude with this. Just a few months ago, we were getting letters from the other side saying business needs certainty, business needs to know what taxes they are going to pay. They need to have certainty. And then, all of a sudden, today this side is arguing that we have to go through this debate 4 months from now.

I am telling my colleagues that this hostage will not survive their siege. We have to fix this for the long term now.

I am going to turn it over to my colleague from Minnesota, who is going to talk about the businesses in her State and what she is hearing from businesses in her State and why this is so

grossly unfair from Republicans who want to bring this economy to its knees, and they are doing a really good job of it.

I yield to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. President, the Senator from Alaska is here to finish out this segment, which is focusing on the difficulties that businesses are going to have. I thank the Senator from Minnesota for joining us for this segment.

I just want to get something in the Record before yielding to the Senator from Alaska.

I said the spending is high, 25 percent of GDP. Everyone acknowledges that. We are working hard to get it down. But I want to put in the Record that revenues coming into the Treasury are the lowest since World War II, at 14 percent. We do not have revenues in this solution because Democrats have compromised and conceded on this point, which is a very difficult compromise for us to make when faced with the truth of the situation. But in trying to compromise, we have done that. We have not been met halfway. I hope the minority leader will reengage with the majority leader--having said last night he did not believe he wanted to engage with the majority leader to try to come to a compromise--because businesses are depending on it.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an excellent column in the Washington Post today to capstone my remarks.

I thank the Senator from Alaska, who has been an absolutely outstanding champion for small business not only in Alaska but around the Nation, who will talk with us about this short-term, repeat, 6-month uncertainty and how damaging that would be to businesses in Alaska. I thank the Senator for joining us.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska.

Mr. President, how much time do we have in this segment?

Mr. President, I thank the Senators, again, from Minnesota and Alaska for coming and making the point and underlying and scoring the point that this filibuster the Republican caucus is holding today--not allowing us to have a simple majority vote on the Reid plan--is hurting business.

As the Senator said, this is a pattern, unfortunately, it seems like coming from the other side. We had to overcome their filibuster just last year to pass the small business bill that is now having a terrific effect throughout the country in some pockets. We still are not where we would like to be, of course, in job creation, and the recovery is slow. I am starting to think that maybe that is what they want--for the recovery to be slow.

Then they filibustered the SBIR bill, which is the largest single research investment program for small businesses in America. We still cannot get that passed. They are filibustered.

Then they filibustered the EDA bill, which is one of the most important programs to Chambers of Commerce, which is not a liberal stronghold in America. Now they are filibustering this bill and demanding a two-step solution, and no businessperson has written to Congress saying they think that is a good way to go.

The opposite. They are saying: Get this over with now. The uncertainty is killing us.

I will yield to the Senator from Alaska.

A simple majority.

It would be clear if we could get 51 votes that the Reid plan would pass, just like the Boehner plan passed. Neither one can get the other side to agree. But at least then we would have the basis for a compromise.

But, no, the Republicans have decided we cannot have that vote. So this is getting strung out, and with every hour, with every day, businesses are hurting. Maybe that is what they want because, then, the President can be blamed for businesses not doing well, when they are the ones who are stepping in the way.

The details from the budget summary that I stated: 14 percent of the revenues coming in--this is on the Web site for anybody who wants to know. I have letters from Louisiana that I printed in the Record from businesses that have written to me saying: Not a two-step process, a one-step process. Get a good solution and move on.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to remember a great man and a wonderful friend, Mr. Tom Williams, Jr. Mr. Williams passed away on June 21, 2011, in Scottsdale, AZ, and leaves behind his wife Gloria; son Tom Williams, III; daughter Nicol Williams-Pruitt; son-in- law Jason Pruitt; and grandson Nicolas Pruitt. To Mr. Williams' family, please accept my condolences for your loss.

Mr. Williams and I met through a shared passion for the advancement of America's small businesses. In fact, Mr. Williams started his own small business in 1982 in Oakland, CA, an accounting firm called Williams, Adley & Company. In the beginning, Williams and Adley were the only two employees, but over the next few decades, they grew to be a three-office firm with two locations in California and one in Washington, DC. The firm now boasts over 100 employees.

In addition to his professional success, Mr. Williams has been a champion for small business-friendly legislation. He was a leader in changing the size standards for the accounting industry and fought tirelessly to improve access for small accounting firms to government contracts. Similarly, my colleagues in the Senate may remember language in the Small Business Jobs Act mandating annual reviews of the accounting firm size standards, a provision suggested by Mr. Williams.

Mr. Williams was also a pillar in his community. He helped establish the San Francisco Chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants, NABA, served in a number of NABA positions, including president, and was awarded their Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He was also an active member of the California Society of Public Accountants.

But perhaps the best description of Mr. Williams comes from the motto of the very company he created: ``Good people, doing great things.'' Mr. Williams, you were indeed a good person who did great things. I sincerely thank you for all of your contributions.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation entitled the Lower Mississippi River National Historic Site Study Act. This bill will direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating sites in Plaquemines Parish along the Lower Mississippi River Area as units of the National Park System. This area in Southeastern Louisiana has contributed much to our Nation's history and there are many stories that have yet to be preserved for future generations. Unless Congress acts to preserve these historical assets, they will be lost forever. That is why I am again, for the third time, introducing this legislation. It is important that this legislation become law and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact it.

In order to be designated as a unit in the National Park System, the Department of Interior must first conduct a special resources study to determine whether an area possesses nationally significant natural, cultural or recreational resources to be eligible for favorable consideration. This is exactly what my bill does. It asks the Department of Interior to take the first step in determining what I already know, that the Lower Mississippi River Area would be a suitable and feasible asset to the National Park Service.

As many from Louisiana are already aware, this area has vast historical significance and is rich with cultural history. In the 1500s, Spanish explorers traveled along the banks of the river. In 1682, Robert de LaSalle claimed all the land drained by the area. In 1699, the area became the site of the first fortification on the Lower Mississippi

river, known as Fort Mississippi. Since then, it has been home to ten different fortifications, including Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson.

Fort St. Philip, which was originally built in 1749, played a key role during the Battle of New Orleans when American soldiers blocked the British Navy from going upriver. Fort Jackson was built at the request of General Andrew Jackson and partially constructed by famous local Civil War General, P.G.T. Beauregard. This fort was the site of the famous Civil War battle known as the ``Battle of Forts'' which is also referred to as the ``night the war was lost.'' Mr. President, as you can see, from a historical perspective, this area has many treasures that provide a glimpse into our past. These are treasures that have national significance and they should be maintained and preserved.

In addition, there are many other important and unique attributes to this area. This area is home to the longest continuous river road and levee system in the U.S. It is also home to the ancient Head of Passes site, to the Plaquemines Bend, and to two National Wildlife Refuges.

Finally, this area has a rich cultural heritage. Over the years, many different cultures have made this area home, including Creoles, Europeans, Indians, Yugoslavs, African-Americans and Vietnamese. These cultures have worked together to create the infrastructure for the transport of our Nation's energy, which is being produced by these same people off our shores in the Gulf of Mexico. They have also created a vibrant fishing industry that contributes to Louisiana's economy.

I think it is easy to see why this area would make an excellent addition to the National Park Service. However, the longer Congress takes to act, the greater the opportunity for these treasures and their rich history to erode away. Unfortunately, this area has weathered the passing of several hurricanes, including Katrina, and is now suffering from the impacts of the BP oil spill. All of these events threaten to destroy these historical assets, but this need not be the case. These assets need protection and this is the first step in securing it. That is why I am reintroducing this bill to conduct a study to determine the suitability and feasibility of including this area in the system and ultimately to begin the process of adding this area as a unit of the National Park Service. I look forward to working with my colleagues to quickly enact this bill.