Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to speak just for a few moments, not about the pending business, which I know is extremely important and that debate will go on throughout the day and perhaps over the next several days as we try to make decisions about supplemental spending for the Gulf of Mexico and the importance of the emergency that is still underway there, and as we try to debate the best way to find success in Iraq.

I wanted to take a moment to speak about another issue that is important today to many Americans. In fact, we are celebrating that day on Capitol Hill. It is called Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.

I have been honored over the many years with my cochair, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is on the floor of the Senate today, to cohost this event for the Senate. We have many colleagues and staff members who participate in bringing their children and grandchildren and friends and neighbors to the Capitol to work to see the work of the Senate and the Capitol--how it happens, who makes it happen, and the significance of it. These children come from all over our country and take this experience back to their classrooms and into their homes and neighborhoods and share with their friends throughout the year.

I thank Ms. Magazine for starting this. Over 35 million adults and children will participate today. So in skyscrapers all over America, and on farms out in our rural areas, in small businesses and restaurants and small little boutique hotels, and even in home offices, children will be working with their parents or with their grandparents understanding the value of work, understanding and exploring options for themselves as they grow, and trying to make choices about how they can contribute significantly to this economy and to being part of the world community.

So I am pleased today to be able to submit for the Record the names of 14 young ladies who are with me today. I am not going to take the time to read their names, but I will submit them for the Record. They are from New Orleans, LA, and some from Manderville; some are from Washington, DC, friends of the family who are here; and others are from outlying areas such as Maryland and Virginia who have joined us today to be part of the Senate.

Already this morning some of these girls have participated in closing the gap with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation that met on Capitol Hill out on the west lawn of our Capitol this morning to talk about the great effort that is being made to address breast cancer, particularly in this country, and to not only find cures but to offer preventive measures to help women and families stay healthy in our country. They have already participated in a press conference and will be joining us later today as we work through our offices in and around the Senate complex.

I wanted to welcome them to the Senate. I will submit their names to be printed in the Record, and I encourage anyone in the Capitol complex, if you are not participating today, to think about next year and what you could do to contribute to make this day a special day for some child in either your family or in your community who could use an extra boost or some insight into a possible career for themselves.

I thank Senator Reid for making the tour of the Senate possible today for the young girls and boys who got to spend some time on the floor earlier this morning, and I thank minority leader Mitch McConnell for arranging the special tours for that as well.

Mr. President, I again thank Ms. Magazine for an extraordinary effort. I know the children enjoy getting a day off from school, but it is more than that, and I have enjoyed participating these many years.

I ask unanimous consent that the list to which I referred be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have a book which is a poignant and wonderful account of life in Louisiana after the storms. It is called ``1 Dead in Attic,'' written by Chris Rose, a reporter for the Times Picayune. The title refers to the unique system for identifying what happened in people's homes during the storm. The notation, sprayed on the wall for everyone to see, would explain whether there were pets or people or, in this case, someone no longer living. This symbol--this information--remains spray painted on the sides of many houses to this day.

In this book, Mr. Rose describes 2005:

This was the year that defines our city, our lives, our

destiny. Nothing comparable has ever happened in modem times

in America, and there is no blueprint for how we do this. We

just wing it. Do good works. Save someone or something.

* * *

If there was no New Orleans, America would just be a bunch

of free people dying of boredom.

A photographer for from England noted:

I witnessed the destruction of one of the finest cities in

America, her soul bared and exposed, her inequality and

inefficiency laid out for all to see. And through it all I

saw the grace, courage and dignity of her citizens, forced to

flee their homes, their lives, their history. I trust her

soul will be repaired.

I want to thank Chairman Byrd for his many courtesies and assistance in this bill. I also want to thank his staff for all of their hard work and long hours. I also want to thank Senator Cochran, who has done so much for the people of the gulf and who shares so much of the hard work on the recovery with me and the other gulf coast Senators. In fact, the entire Senate appropriations Committee--my fellow Senators and their staff--have been so supportive of us through this process--and I thank them.

There are many provisions that will help the ongoing recovery efforts in my state and along the rest of the gulf coast included in this bill.

I intend to vote for this bill because it provides critical resources and removes obstacles to the recovery of the gulf coast. In addition, the bill provides funding necessary to support our troops in Iraq.

Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast in August of 2005 and Hurricane Rita followed on its heels just a few weeks later. While a great deal of time has passed, and a lot of progress has been made, this recovery will take many, many years.

As you have heard me say on many occasions, the damage to the gulf coast is unimaginable. Sometimes I think that people forget just how unimaginable the damage was. Mr. President, 1,836 people were killed. To put this in perspective, this means that l out of every 3 people who work here in the Senate would have lost their lives 6008 people work for the Senate. Mr. President, 650,000 people were displaced. It would be as if every single solitary person in the District of Columbia were displaced from their homes and neighborhood.

Over 275,000 homes were damaged, with over 205,000 of those in Louisiana alone--again, this is the equivalent of every home in the District of Columbia being flooded, damaged, or destroyed, and 240,000 jobs were lost. Here in DC, we are lucky, there are more jobs than there are residents. However, were a similar disaster to strike DC., every other person employed in the District would have lost their job. Also, 875 schools were destroyed and there was $82 billion in property damage.

If you want to try an experiment at home, paint a chalk line at a point 3 feet from the floor and imagine that everything below that line submerged in water.

But we are coming back from that aweful year. It is a long, hard struggle but there are signs of hope. Our people are rebuilding their homes. There are now over 223,000 people living in Orleans Parish-- about 43 percent of the pre-storm population--and over 450,000 in Jefferson. Our businesses are reopening. Visitors are returning. Our schools are rebuilding--better than before. We are creating a new health care system for the 21st century in Louisiana.

However, much work remains. This bill will help so very much with those

ongoing efforts. I want to thank all of you for supporting these measures.

Some out there have taken issue with this funding. This assistance to the gulf coast is not ``extraneous''. It is necessary. However, the President has called this spending ``excessive non-emergency spending''. This is simply untrue.

This bill provides about $3 billion in additional direct aid to the gulf coast. We spend $8.6 billion per month in Iraq, which is $286 million per day. So, we are providing the people of the Gulf Coast with the equivalent of 10 days of the funding for the war. To date; we have spend $470 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq only, we have spent $379 billion.

Mr. President, you tell Cameron Parish where all 6 of their grade schools were closed until October 31, 2005 and 62 percent of all school facilities were destroyed that their teachers don't deserve a little extra money and that providing $30 million for bonuses and incentives for the grade schools in Mississippi and Louisiana is too much.

You tell Dillard University, which had $115 million dollars in physical damage and lost $26 million in revenues--which counts Ellis Marsalis and Reavis Ortiz among its alumni--whose campus is not far from the lower levee breach of the London Avenue Canal and which suffered extensive flood damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and whose main hall, Nelson Hall, was destroyed by a fire, during the flood, whose students took their normal classes at The New Orleans World Trade Center and The New Orleans Hilton Riverside Hotel until this fall, that $30 million in assistance--to be divided among the 27 universities that were closed in Louisiana and Mississippi--is ``excessive''.

You tell small businesses in St. Bernard--where there were 1,400 businesses before the storm and only about 400 have re-opened and less than 70 percent of the population has returned--that $25 million for economic injury loans is ``extraneous'' or unnecessary. Even Wal-Mart has not reopened in this Parish.

You tell the people of Jefferson Parish, St. Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, and Orleans Parish that their levees should not be repaired and that their homes and businesses will remain vulnerable to the next storm and that an additional $1.3 billion for their safety is too much.

What is included in the Emergency Supplemental is FAIR funding, waiver of the 10 percent match. This bill eliminates the red-tape associated with so much of the Federal money. This supplemental includes the FAIR Funding Act language which will waive the local cost share for FEMA public assistance. This is FAIR. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were the first and third most costly disasters in the history of this country and the Federal Government has waived this local share requirement in 32 different disasters since 1985, including Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki.

Forgiveability of CDLs is included. This bill will also correct a grave inequity and allow for our community Disaster loans to have the same treatment as all others.

Levee money is included. In addition, this bill will shore up a shortfall that has been identified by the Army Corp of Engineers. They have estimated that they will be short $1.3 billion dollars this year for necessary levee work in Louisiana. However, instead of asking for money to alleviate this shortfall, the administration merely wanted to rob Peter to pay Paul. However, this committee has wisely decided to provide additional money for this necessary work. Unfortunately, I do not believe that this will be sufficient to meet the ongoing needs--or will be enough to restore, repair and rebuild our levee system.

There is support for our education system. The Universities in Louisiana have been critical to our rebuilding efforts. They have fought to come back and about 80 percent of the students have returned. More importantly, the universities have provided resources and leadership during the rebuilding of the region. In Louisiana, they are also helping our grade schools stand up--forging new and stronger partnerships with our new school system.

Our universities suffered over a billion dollars in damages as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In the 4th supplementa1 passed last Congress, we provided $40 million dollars for higher ed assistance--of which $33 million went to Louisiana universities. In this bill, we appropriate another $30 million, every penny of which is necessary.

We also provide $30 million in order to reward the teachers who give their hearts out trying to bring normalcy to our children and prepare them for the future.

I appreciate the continued assistance that this committee and my colleagues in the Seanate have given to the people of the Gulf Coast-- and the hope that this legislation provides to them.

Mr. President, it is not often I disagree with my good friend from Mississippi, but I will say the people of the gulf coast don't think they are riding on the backs of the troops; they think they are the troops. The Guard and National Reserve who were in Iraq who are from Louisiana, 3,000 fighting in Iraq, only to come home to have their homes destroyed, have their jobs lost. They don't think it is too much to ask of the President to include $3 billion in a $24 billion bill--$3 billion for the gulf coast recovery, which is domestic emergency funding that has been included in every supplemental, even when the Republicans drafted a bill where there was money for domestic emergencies. The people of the gulf coast don't believe $3 billion is too much to ask.

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

We are spending $8.6 billion a month in Iraq, which is $286 million a day. In this bill, we are asking the gulf coast to have 10 days--10 days of funding for the troops who are fighting in Iraq who lost their homes in the gulf coast. I don't think it is excessive. I ask the President to rethink his veto policy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business on another subject for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise today not to speak about the Iraq war or the supplemental, which has been the focus of this morning's debate. I will return to the floor later to speak on both of those subjects. I wanted to take a minute this morning, while we had some time, to speak about a bill I intend to introduce later this week with my cochair, the ranking member of our new Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska, and other members of my subcommittee, Senators Carper and Pryor, as we begin to lay down pieces of legislation that are apparent and necessary to improve the general disaster response for this country, which has been found to be severely lacking.

The bill I will introduce later today is called the First Response Broadcasters Act. It is a piece of legislation, as I said, I will be filing with other members of my subcommittee.

As my State continues to rebuild out of the rubble and destruction and devastation of the first and third worst natural disasters to hit the country, and the subsequent levee breaks that filled up a major American city within 24 hours and continues to wreak havoc on those struggling to get home and rebuild their lives, we learned one of the most vital lessons was that information--good information, accurate information--was not only vital, but it was essential as the first building block to our recovery. In providing it, all of our local media--broadcasters, Web sites and newspapers--did an amazing job to keep the people of Louisiana and our region and the gulf coast informed. Frankly, they also kept informed the Nation and world community that was aghast at what was happening in south Louisiana and the New Orleans region from Katrina, and in the Southwest region from Rita 4 weeks later.

With phone lines down, cell phones out, and streets too flooded to move around to get any kind of perspective about what was actually happening, and where the 4 to 20 feet of water was coming from, when we had never seen anything like that in the history of our city, the sound of local radio and television stations was what hundreds of thousands of my constituents relied on. It was the only voice for them in the first darkest days and nights, and it continued for weeks and months. Actually, Mr. President, it continues to this day. And because of the credibility of our local broadcasters at a time when the public needed them, they were there. Our local broadcasters provided lifesaving information.

As you will recall, we have lost over 1,000 lives in Louisiana and over 200 lives in Mississippi. But many lives, I am convinced, were saved because broadcasters, having lost their own stations, their own equipment, their own homes, and with their own loved ones missing, stayed on the job. More importantly, they stayed on the air so the reporters could report what was happening, and even those of us in powerful positions could get a better handle on the situation.

As local radio and television stations stand up, as so many did, and put commercial interests aside to serve the public interest, the Federal Government, in my opinion, should be ready to stand up with them. That is what this bill is about. It is not a long or complicated bill. It really doesn't cost very much money. But it will have a major impact as this Nation tries to fashion better responses for our country. We are in desperate need of new tools, new tool boxes, and this is one of them.

In fact, for more than 50 years, we have required local broadcasters to be at the front line of sounding the alarm in a disaster. With the entire industry dependent upon public airwaves, broadcasters have a duty to serve the public in times of crisis. That is what so many of them did.

This is why stations today are required by law to be part of the emergency alert system. At the system's core are 34 primary entry points, radio stations with direct lines from emergency command centers in Washington and in their State. But half of our States don't even have these entry points. To receive an alert in Mississippi, for example, you needed to rely on the message being passed on from station to station from an entry point in Louisiana.

One of the several things this bill does is add primary entry points to every underserved State and region to make sure every State has an equal chance to be well prepared when disaster strikes and to try to put their best assets forward. I have said many times that all the assets in the world, all the plans in the world are not worth the paper they are written on, or the text found on Internet Web sites, if you cannot communicate them at the appropriate time to the appropriate people in the appropriate order.

What good is a successful emergency information chain if the last link fails? By technical necessity, this last link is right in the disaster's path. Simply put, a transmitter needs to be in the same area as the people in need of a warning.

Despite our Federal investment in emergency systems and entry point stations, there were several gulf coast broadcasters after the hurricanes who could not stay on the air simply because the Government, our Government, took their fuel away. Let me repeat this. The stations struggling to stay on the air, to tell first responders and others what was actually happening, to try to get their signals up, their electricity up, so when people in Washington kept asking what is going on, we could give some answers, the fuel was confiscated because some low-level FEMA person decided they had higher priorities.

When this bill is passed, local broadcasters will be on the list as first responders, and their food, water, and fuel will not be allowed to be taken away, so that the public can get the information they are desperate for in as independent and accurate way as possible.

It also creates a matching grant program. It also helps to bring broadcast engineers back into the disaster zone more quickly to restore transmitters and other key facilities.

No disaster warning evacuation plan or emergency instruction matters if it cannot get to the people who need to hear it. That is basically why this bill is so important.

Finally, the bill is very important for the journalists, who depend on all of this equipment, technology and access to do their job, which is to report the story in as accurate a fashion as they can to the public that needs to respond, as well as the first responders themselves, and to Government leaders.

For journalists working to tell the story, newspapers and Web sites included, the bill makes sure that the local officials who know the local reporters best decide where the journalists can go, who can go and how long they can stay.

Again, there will be no longer a contract, part-time FEMA official directing the news media or the broadcasters. The law will govern their basic rights, put them on the right list, make it clear they themselves are first responders and, in this Senator's view, extremely important first responders.

I am extremely pleased to have Senator Stevens join me. This is a bipartisan bill. It is not complicated, it is rather simple, but critical as we begin to stand up a better disaster response this country is certainly most worthy of. The people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, and other parts of the country are still suffering from disasters that in split seconds, in minutes, sometimes in a few hours, dash the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans.

We cannot prevent tornadoes. We most certainly cannot prevent hurricanes. We cannot prevent earthquakes. We can do a better job of predicting them. But the most important thing we can do is to warn people and help people deal with these terrible tragedies that come their way.

In this Senator's view, we have a lot of work to do.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation entitled Giving Reductions to Energy Efficient New Buildings, the GREEN Buildings Act. This bill will extend the energy efficient building tax deduction from December 31, 2008 until December 31, 2013. This bill will also increase the tax deduction from $1.80 to $2.25 per square foot.

Our Nation is diligently searching to find the long-term solutions to global warming and, how to reduce our carbon foot print. As Congress continues to search for these solutions, we must continue to provide incentives to those who have the knowledge and resources to make an impact now. Congress understands the impact `green buildings' have on reducing our Nation's energy consumption and carbon emissions. That is why in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 we created a tax deduction for energy efficient buildings. Unfortunately, that deduction will expire on December 31, 2008. Congress must not allow this deduction to expire. Building energy efficient buildings is one of the key things being done right now to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as well as reduce our Nation's energy consumption.

Commercial buildings are a substantial part of our Nation's energy consumption and can be a key to reducing demand for electricity. These buildings are responsible for 40 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, they use 70 percent of the nation's electricity and they are accountable for 40 percent of the U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. They are a major piece to enabling our Nation's energy independence and to solving the global warming puzzle and Congress must not overlook them or leave them out.

The average life-span of a commercial building is 75 years. We must use our resources, to build energy-efficient buildings today and make these buildings truly ready for the future. One way to do so is to provide incentives to those who are willing to step up to the plate and accept the challenge.

Another benefit from building energy efficient or green buildings is that they also improve our health. Americans spend about 90 percent of their time indoors. The concentration of indoor pollutants is sometimes 10 to 100 times more than outdoor pollutants increasing the frequency of illnesses and ailments.

Researchers have proven that employees who are exposed to more sunlight are more productive workers. They have proven that by changing the carpets on the floor and paint on the walls workers have less respiratory ailments. These are simple things that can be done to increase employees' health and their productivity and our nation's overall success.

Our Nation is doing a good job of researching and developing new technologies to reduce our dependence on foreign energy and to combat global warming, and Congress has helped move these technologies along by providing incentives in the way of tax deductions. Unfortunately, many of these incentives have an expiration date that expires too soon to provide the help it is intended to provide. Congress needs to keep these incentives intact and provide stability so companies and investors can be assured of their investment. In turn, maintaining these incentives will advance our Nation's energy independence and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions--two very important goals. I urge my fellow Senators to support this sensible and much needed tax incentive. We don't have another 75 years to wait.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the First Response Broadcasters Act, legislation I am introducing today along with Senators Stevens, Carper and Pryor.

As my State suffered the devastating impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the levee breaks that followed, we learned that one of the most vital relief supplies is information. In providing it, all of our local media--newspapers, broadcasters and web sites included--did amazing work to keep the people of my State informed, even when displaced thousands of miles away. But with phone lines down and streets too flooded to move around, the sound of a local radio or television station was for many of my constituents the only voice in those first few dark nights after the hurricanes. Our local broadcasters provided life-saving information and comfort when both were needed the most. Many of them worked through unimaginable technical and emotional obstacles, staying on the air as their facilities and staff homes were destroyed, and loved ones remained missing.

With the entire industry dependent on public airwaves, broadcasters have a duty to serve the public in times of crisis. As local radio and television stations stand up, as so many did, to put commercial interests aside to serve the public interest, the federal government

should be ready to stand with them. This is not a new partnership.

Under laws going back to 1951, radio and television stations are today required to participate in the national Emergency Alert System (EAS), and many stations have protected, government-funded circuits connecting them to emergency command centers. This legislation would directly connect more stations nationwide to this network by authorizing $6.5 million to FEMA to set up Primary Entry Point radio stations in another twenty five states and U.S. territories. Currently there are thirty-two stations and two under development in Alabama and Mississippi.

A Primary Entry Point (PEP) station is a radio broadcast station designated to provide public information following national and local emergencies where there is no commercial power. For example, WWL Radio in New Orleans was the only PEP station in the Gulf Coast after Katrina and it provided radio broadcasts for two weeks after the storm until commercial power was restored. FEMA commissioned recommendations from the Primary Entry Point Advisory Committee, a non-profit group they set up to oversee the stations, and just needs the additional funds to build the additional facilities. Included in the findings of the legislation is a comprehensive list of the states that are currently without PEP stations and which would benefit from this provision. There are also States which have PEP stations, but because of geographic limitations, require an additional station to fully cover the State. This bill would provide those two additional stations in Kansas and Florida.

But what good is this successful emergency information chain if the last link fails? By technical necessity, this last link is right in the disaster's path. Simply put, the transmitter needs to be in the same area as the people in need of warning. Despite our Federal investments in the emergency system and entry point stations, there were several Gulf Coast broadcasters after the hurricanes that could not stay on the air simply because the government took their fuel away. They were told they weren't on the list.''

This legislation puts these broadcasters on the list, where they belong. To protect vital broadcast infrastructure and encourage more broadcasters to deploy disaster-resistant telecommunications equipment, this bill would also create a 3-year pilot program managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide annual matching grants to qualified First Response Broadcasters for the protection and reinforcement of critical-to-air facilities and infrastructure. The program would receive $10 million per year to fund matching program grants, and grants could also be used for projects to enhance essential disaster-related public information services.

As the program encourages both disaster preparedness and community coordination, increased scoring would be granted to applications from broadcasters who form cooperative proposals with other broadcasters in the area or those who submit plans in conjunction with local or State governments. Priority scoring would also be given to applicants in disaster-prone areas and also based on the public service merits of the broadcasters disaster programming plan.

No disaster warning, evacuation plan or emergency instruction matters if it can't get to the people who need it. This is why the Federal Communications Commission and a presidential advisory panel have each recommended we take steps to keep these lifesaving broadcasts on the air.

In particular, this bill would require that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other Federal response agencies, in coordination with State and local authorities and the National Guard, honor press access guidelines and credentials set by the local governing authority in the declared disaster area. For example, if the City of New Orleans issued press credentials before the disaster and the city decided to continue honoring them post-disaster, FEMA officials operating in the area would be required to honor those credentials as well. The local entity, at its own discretion, would be able to request that this credentialing authority be passed instead to federal or state officials.

Along these same lines, the bill would also direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate with local and State agencies to allow access, where practicable and not impeding recovery or endangering public safety, into the disaster area for personnel and equipment essential to restoring or maintaining critical-to-air broadcast infrastructure. The priority policies and procedures for this coordination would be similar to those practiced for restoring public utilities, and would include access for refueling generators and re- supplying critical facilities.

For all journalists working to tell the story-newspapers and web sites included-the First Response Broadcasters Act makes sure that the local officials, who know local reporters best, decide where the journalists can go, not some Washington bureaucrat who just stepped off the plane.

In closing, I would like to submit for the record the stories of a few incredible broadcasters who through recent disasters have demonstrated exactly the type of response this bill is intended to encourage. I would also like to submit for the record a list of organizations which have already endorsed this legislation-including the state broadcasting associations from every one of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Broadcasters have a duty to the American people to spread the word in times of crisis. No one else can do it. They are already a key part of our national emergency response plan, and have been for more than 50 years. This bill merely reinforces this fact and secures the logical extension of commitments already made by Federal government. We have a responsibility to make sure the tools are protected to make the system work.

Broadcasters are first responders--and with this bill today, we will strengthen our essential partnership with them for the benefit of all Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation and ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation, the broadcaster stories, and a list of the organizations already supporting this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation entitled Giving Reductions to Energy Efficient New Buildings, the GREEN Buildings Act. This bill will extend the energy efficient building tax deduction from December 31, 2008 until December 31, 2013. This bill will also increase the tax deduction from $1.80 to $2.25 per square foot.

Our Nation is diligently searching to find the long-term solutions to global warming and, how to reduce our carbon foot print. As Congress continues to search for these solutions, we must continue to provide incentives to those who have the knowledge and resources to make an impact now. Congress understands the impact `green buildings' have on reducing our Nation's energy consumption and carbon emissions. That is why in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 we created a tax deduction for energy efficient buildings. Unfortunately, that deduction will expire on December 31, 2008. Congress must not allow this deduction to expire. Building energy efficient buildings is one of the key things being done right now to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as well as reduce our Nation's energy consumption.

Commercial buildings are a substantial part of our Nation's energy consumption and can be a key to reducing demand for electricity. These buildings are responsible for 40 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, they use 70 percent of the nation's electricity and they are accountable for 40 percent of the U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. They are a major piece to enabling our Nation's energy independence and to solving the global warming puzzle and Congress must not overlook them or leave them out.

The average life-span of a commercial building is 75 years. We must use our resources, to build energy-efficient buildings today and make these buildings truly ready for the future. One way to do so is to provide incentives to those who are willing to step up to the plate and accept the challenge.

Another benefit from building energy efficient or green buildings is that they also improve our health. Americans spend about 90 percent of their time indoors. The concentration of indoor pollutants is sometimes 10 to 100 times more than outdoor pollutants increasing the frequency of illnesses and ailments.

Researchers have proven that employees who are exposed to more sunlight are more productive workers. They have proven that by changing the carpets on the floor and paint on the walls workers have less respiratory ailments. These are simple things that can be done to increase employees' health and their productivity and our nation's overall success.

Our Nation is doing a good job of researching and developing new technologies to reduce our dependence on foreign energy and to combat global warming, and Congress has helped move these technologies along by providing incentives in the way of tax deductions. Unfortunately, many of these incentives have an expiration date that expires too soon to provide the help it is intended to provide. Congress needs to keep these incentives intact and provide stability so companies and investors can be assured of their investment. In turn, maintaining these incentives will advance our Nation's energy independence and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions--two very important goals. I urge my fellow Senators to support this sensible and much needed tax incentive. We don't have another 75 years to wait.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the First Response Broadcasters Act, legislation I am introducing today along with Senators Stevens, Carper and Pryor.

As my State suffered the devastating impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the levee breaks that followed, we learned that one of the most vital relief supplies is information. In providing it, all of our local media--newspapers, broadcasters and web sites included--did amazing work to keep the people of my State informed, even when displaced thousands of miles away. But with phone lines down and streets too flooded to move around, the sound of a local radio or television station was for many of my constituents the only voice in those first few dark nights after the hurricanes. Our local broadcasters provided life-saving information and comfort when both were needed the most. Many of them worked through unimaginable technical and emotional obstacles, staying on the air as their facilities and staff homes were destroyed, and loved ones remained missing.

With the entire industry dependent on public airwaves, broadcasters have a duty to serve the public in times of crisis. As local radio and television stations stand up, as so many did, to put commercial interests aside to serve the public interest, the federal government

should be ready to stand with them. This is not a new partnership.

Under laws going back to 1951, radio and television stations are today required to participate in the national Emergency Alert System (EAS), and many stations have protected, government-funded circuits connecting them to emergency command centers. This legislation would directly connect more stations nationwide to this network by authorizing $6.5 million to FEMA to set up Primary Entry Point radio stations in another twenty five states and U.S. territories. Currently there are thirty-two stations and two under development in Alabama and Mississippi.

A Primary Entry Point (PEP) station is a radio broadcast station designated to provide public information following national and local emergencies where there is no commercial power. For example, WWL Radio in New Orleans was the only PEP station in the Gulf Coast after Katrina and it provided radio broadcasts for two weeks after the storm until commercial power was restored. FEMA commissioned recommendations from the Primary Entry Point Advisory Committee, a non-profit group they set up to oversee the stations, and just needs the additional funds to build the additional facilities. Included in the findings of the legislation is a comprehensive list of the states that are currently without PEP stations and which would benefit from this provision. There are also States which have PEP stations, but because of geographic limitations, require an additional station to fully cover the State. This bill would provide those two additional stations in Kansas and Florida.

But what good is this successful emergency information chain if the last link fails? By technical necessity, this last link is right in the disaster's path. Simply put, the transmitter needs to be in the same area as the people in need of warning. Despite our Federal investments in the emergency system and entry point stations, there were several Gulf Coast broadcasters after the hurricanes that could not stay on the air simply because the government took their fuel away. They were told they weren't on the list.''

This legislation puts these broadcasters on the list, where they belong. To protect vital broadcast infrastructure and encourage more broadcasters to deploy disaster-resistant telecommunications equipment, this bill would also create a 3-year pilot program managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide annual matching grants to qualified First Response Broadcasters for the protection and reinforcement of critical-to-air facilities and infrastructure. The program would receive $10 million per year to fund matching program grants, and grants could also be used for projects to enhance essential disaster-related public information services.

As the program encourages both disaster preparedness and community coordination, increased scoring would be granted to applications from broadcasters who form cooperative proposals with other broadcasters in the area or those who submit plans in conjunction with local or State governments. Priority scoring would also be given to applicants in disaster-prone areas and also based on the public service merits of the broadcasters disaster programming plan.

No disaster warning, evacuation plan or emergency instruction matters if it can't get to the people who need it. This is why the Federal Communications Commission and a presidential advisory panel have each recommended we take steps to keep these lifesaving broadcasts on the air.

In particular, this bill would require that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other Federal response agencies, in coordination with State and local authorities and the National Guard, honor press access guidelines and credentials set by the local governing authority in the declared disaster area. For example, if the City of New Orleans issued press credentials before the disaster and the city decided to continue honoring them post-disaster, FEMA officials operating in the area would be required to honor those credentials as well. The local entity, at its own discretion, would be able to request that this credentialing authority be passed instead to federal or state officials.

Along these same lines, the bill would also direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate with local and State agencies to allow access, where practicable and not impeding recovery or endangering public safety, into the disaster area for personnel and equipment essential to restoring or maintaining critical-to-air broadcast infrastructure. The priority policies and procedures for this coordination would be similar to those practiced for restoring public utilities, and would include access for refueling generators and re- supplying critical facilities.

For all journalists working to tell the story-newspapers and web sites included-the First Response Broadcasters Act makes sure that the local officials, who know local reporters best, decide where the journalists can go, not some Washington bureaucrat who just stepped off the plane.

In closing, I would like to submit for the record the stories of a few incredible broadcasters who through recent disasters have demonstrated exactly the type of response this bill is intended to encourage. I would also like to submit for the record a list of organizations which have already endorsed this legislation-including the state broadcasting associations from every one of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Broadcasters have a duty to the American people to spread the word in times of crisis. No one else can do it. They are already a key part of our national emergency response plan, and have been for more than 50 years. This bill merely reinforces this fact and secures the logical extension of commitments already made by Federal government. We have a responsibility to make sure the tools are protected to make the system work.

Broadcasters are first responders--and with this bill today, we will strengthen our essential partnership with them for the benefit of all Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation and ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation, the broadcaster stories, and a list of the organizations already supporting this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as the gulf coast recovers from Katrina and Rita, rebuilding our housing remains the key to our recovery. I have talked about this issue on this floor before. We need housing so that our citizens have a place to live while they rebuild our businesses, restore our infrastructure, and renew our communities. Congress and the President responded by making billions of dollars available to us and we are grateful for this assistance.

I am proud to say that this assistance is working. Every time I go home I see signs of improvement. They are often small: a gas station or a store reopening on a corner; children playing on a street where no one lived only a few months before. I wish I could say that these signs are everywhere, but they are not. Some parts of New Orleans are doing well, some are not. We knew from the start that recovery would take longer in some areas than in others; and we all knew that nothing would happen overnight.

America has never rebuilt a city of 500,000 people before. Our experience in Louisiana and in the Gulf has taught us some valuable lessons about postcatastrophe rebuilding and recovery. We have learned about the shortcomings of government programs at FEMA, the Small Business Administration, and other agencies. In responding to Katrina they used the systems that worked great for smaller disasters, but were woefully inadequate for larger ones. For future megacatastrophes we now understand that it may take government programs several months to ramp up before they are in a position to distribute assistance.

One of the key lessons we have learned from this catastrophe has been the affect of such massive destruction

and displacement on the supply and the costs of labor and building materials, and the impact these have on how long it takes to rebuild. New Orleans, for example, is about half the population it used to be. We do not have enough workers in building and contracting to meet the huge demand we have for this work. As a result, it may take several months to get building started. Developers are also having difficulty getting insurance and the infrastructure in many areas is still heavily damaged.

This timing delay means that Congress will have to reexamine the policies that we have enacted to help rebuild the Gulf region in order to ensure that they are meeting the new kinds of disaster recovery challenges Katrina and Rita have posed. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was one of the major pieces of legislation that we passed. The GO Zone Act provided important tax incentives to encourage investment in businesses and housing in the Gulf.

To help ensure that we can rebuild our housing, GO Zone Act increased the state's allocation of Low Income Housing Tax Credits, LIHTC. These credits finance affordable and mixed income housing. Under the GO Zone Act, any housing developed with these tax credits must be built and operating by December 31, 2008. The statute refers to this as the ``placed in service'' date. This date is consistent with the normal LIHTC program guidelines that require tax credit housing developments to be placed in service within 2 years of allocation.

The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, LHFA, reports that there was a great demand for these GO Zone credits. For the credits allocated in 2006, the LHFA received 266 applications from developers for more than $253 million. But it only funded 102 projects with $56.9 million in tax credits.

For 2007 and 2008, however, the State received far fewer applications. The reason for this is because of the placed-in-service date. Because of the labor shortage, increased costs, and lack of insurance that we are facing in the Gulf, developers are not sure whether they can get their projects placed in service by the end of 2008. Yet there is still a huge need for the housing that these credits will fund.

The placed-in-service date is also raising new concerns. I have heard from a number of organizations that already received tax credit allocations before 2006 who are concerned that they will not be able to get their developments placed in service by the end of 2008. The LHFA estimates that 65 percent of the affordable housing units under development in New Orleans, roughly 11,050 units, will not make the deadline to be available for rent by the end of 2008. In the surrounding parishes, home sales prices have literally hit the roof meaning working and middle-income families cannot reasonably justify living in the area that they still call home, 19 months since the storm. Again, the culprit is the shortages and increased costs that I mentioned before. Some developers have even told me that they face losing credits that had been allocated to them before the storm because building has been delayed in the region. Since Katrina, rental prices have increased by 39 percent.

Today, I am introducing legislation that will help to ensure that these housing tax credits are available so that we can continue the road to recovery. The Workforce Housing for the GO Zone Act of 2007 will extend the placed-in-service date for the GO Zone Low Income Housing Tax Credit by an additional 2 years. This will allow developers to make full use of the credits that are available to build affordable housing in the Gulf Coast.

Another critical provision lets GO Zone low-income housing projects receive additional federally subsidized loans without losing tax credits. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit provisions included in this bill further assist our people to return home. These credits are competitively awarded to qualified developers and subject to constant oversight by the State housing authority to make sure that only quality affordable housing is being constructed. The citizens of the gulf coast are ready to go back home, and this legislation helps get them there.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as the gulf coast recovers from Katrina and Rita, rebuilding our housing remains the key to our recovery. I have talked about this issue on this floor before. We need housing so that our citizens have a place to live while they rebuild our businesses, restore our infrastructure, and renew our communities. Congress and the President responded by making billions of dollars available to us and we are grateful for this assistance.

I am proud to say that this assistance is working. Every time I go home I see signs of improvement. They are often small: a gas station or a store reopening on a corner; children playing on a street where no one lived only a few months before. I wish I could say that these signs are everywhere, but they are not. Some parts of New Orleans are doing well, some are not. We knew from the start that recovery would take longer in some areas than in others; and we all knew that nothing would happen overnight.

America has never rebuilt a city of 500,000 people before. Our experience in Louisiana and in the Gulf has taught us some valuable lessons about postcatastrophe rebuilding and recovery. We have learned about the shortcomings of government programs at FEMA, the Small Business Administration, and other agencies. In responding to Katrina they used the systems that worked great for smaller disasters, but were woefully inadequate for larger ones. For future megacatastrophes we now understand that it may take government programs several months to ramp up before they are in a position to distribute assistance.

One of the key lessons we have learned from this catastrophe has been the affect of such massive destruction

and displacement on the supply and the costs of labor and building materials, and the impact these have on how long it takes to rebuild. New Orleans, for example, is about half the population it used to be. We do not have enough workers in building and contracting to meet the huge demand we have for this work. As a result, it may take several months to get building started. Developers are also having difficulty getting insurance and the infrastructure in many areas is still heavily damaged.

This timing delay means that Congress will have to reexamine the policies that we have enacted to help rebuild the Gulf region in order to ensure that they are meeting the new kinds of disaster recovery challenges Katrina and Rita have posed. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was one of the major pieces of legislation that we passed. The GO Zone Act provided important tax incentives to encourage investment in businesses and housing in the Gulf.

To help ensure that we can rebuild our housing, GO Zone Act increased the state's allocation of Low Income Housing Tax Credits, LIHTC. These credits finance affordable and mixed income housing. Under the GO Zone Act, any housing developed with these tax credits must be built and operating by December 31, 2008. The statute refers to this as the ``placed in service'' date. This date is consistent with the normal LIHTC program guidelines that require tax credit housing developments to be placed in service within 2 years of allocation.

The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, LHFA, reports that there was a great demand for these GO Zone credits. For the credits allocated in 2006, the LHFA received 266 applications from developers for more than $253 million. But it only funded 102 projects with $56.9 million in tax credits.

For 2007 and 2008, however, the State received far fewer applications. The reason for this is because of the placed-in-service date. Because of the labor shortage, increased costs, and lack of insurance that we are facing in the Gulf, developers are not sure whether they can get their projects placed in service by the end of 2008. Yet there is still a huge need for the housing that these credits will fund.

The placed-in-service date is also raising new concerns. I have heard from a number of organizations that already received tax credit allocations before 2006 who are concerned that they will not be able to get their developments placed in service by the end of 2008. The LHFA estimates that 65 percent of the affordable housing units under development in New Orleans, roughly 11,050 units, will not make the deadline to be available for rent by the end of 2008. In the surrounding parishes, home sales prices have literally hit the roof meaning working and middle-income families cannot reasonably justify living in the area that they still call home, 19 months since the storm. Again, the culprit is the shortages and increased costs that I mentioned before. Some developers have even told me that they face losing credits that had been allocated to them before the storm because building has been delayed in the region. Since Katrina, rental prices have increased by 39 percent.

Today, I am introducing legislation that will help to ensure that these housing tax credits are available so that we can continue the road to recovery. The Workforce Housing for the GO Zone Act of 2007 will extend the placed-in-service date for the GO Zone Low Income Housing Tax Credit by an additional 2 years. This will allow developers to make full use of the credits that are available to build affordable housing in the Gulf Coast.

Another critical provision lets GO Zone low-income housing projects receive additional federally subsidized loans without losing tax credits. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit provisions included in this bill further assist our people to return home. These credits are competitively awarded to qualified developers and subject to constant oversight by the State housing authority to make sure that only quality affordable housing is being constructed. The citizens of the gulf coast are ready to go back home, and this legislation helps get them there.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I want the record to reflect that I would have voted ``aye'' on the previous vote on S. 5 had I been able to be here. I was traveling today for a funeral and was unable to get back. Subsequently, I voted ``aye'' on the bill that just passed. But I would like the record to reflect that had I been able to make the first vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 142, and that the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, without further intervening action or debate.

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

Mr. President, I rise today in morning business to speak about the passing of an extraordinary man. Today, in Baton Rouge, in the capital, the son of a sharecropper will lie in state. It is a fitting tribute to Coach Eddie Robinson, the winningest

coach in the history of football, but a man who excelled beyond the playing field, a man whose life touched hundreds and thousands of athletes, on the field and off, and millions of lives in a positive way around the world.

I rise to pay him tribute today. He is a true American hero. He began coaching in 1941 at Grambling State University. During his 57-year coaching tenure, he won more than 400 football games--more than any other coach before him--and 17 championships in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

Coach Robinson shattered the glass ceiling that had always held back the true potential of African-American players and coaches. He did it with a strong and indomitable spirit and with determination and love of country.

In a time before the civil rights movement, when overt and state- sponsored racism was the order of the day and permeated both college and professional sports, Coach Robinson proved that all athletes deserve to compete on the same playing field.

Through the years, more than 200 of his players have played in the NFL, including Paul ``Tank'' Younger, the first NFL player from a predominantly African-American college.

Coach Robinson was personally responsible for paving the way for hundreds of African-American players to have the opportunity to play in the NFL and, as well, to play in majority White colleges and universities throughout the country.

His legacy includes one of the most exciting annual matchups in college sports held every year: the Thanksgiving Bayou Classic football game, held usually in New Orleans, LA, between Grambling State, his beloved university, and Southern University of Baton Rouge.

But his achievements are not limited to his athletic victories. He taught the players the meaning of teamwork and patriotism, self-respect and hard work. He provided them with real lessons of life that extended far beyond the playing field.

After their experience at Grambling, I know how proud he was to see his young athletes excel and move all over the world, impacting the wider community in business and in athletics, as well as in general community service in multiple ways.

He leaves behind a vibrant legacy. He leaves behind a legacy of mentorship that is truly unmatched. He leaves behind a loving and wonderful family, a faith that permeated his entire life and had impact throughout the community. He leaves behind a life well lived and a model for all.

One of his former players said it best when he said: ``Everyone wanted to be like Eddie.''

Mr. President, I close these remarks today by saying that I, like most everyone in Louisiana, knew Coach Robinson. We had been in his presence. We had watched him coach. We had heard him laugh. I had the great privilege of spending some time with him recently at his home in Grambling, with his wife Doris and some of the family members. I could not help to be, even at his late age of 88, impressed with his strong and wonderful spirit. When he was just a few years younger, as he walked into the room, you could feel that spirit immediately.

So it is with great sadness that we say good-bye to Coach Eddie Robinson. But it is with great joy we share with the world this man, the son of a sharecropper, a man who refused to let the limits of even the laws of those times and the limits of the culture in which he lived to stop him or to stop his belief in the young men and women he coached and served.

So we say good-bye today. But he is getting a proper tribute lying in state at our State capital in Baton Rouge, and we are confident his legacy will live on.

In my last visit with his family, I hoped and suggested we could build a museum in his honor. I am hoping it is something in which Members of this Congress will join with our leaders at home--not just any museum but a museum that will honor his life and legacy; a place where athletes, professional and amateur, could receive ongoing training and support both scholastically as well as in terms of general leadership, so his legacy could live on. Perhaps this place or the center of learning and leadership should be located either on or somewhere very near the Grambling campus where he served for so many years.

So, again, it is with great sadness we say good-bye, but with great pride in a true American hero, Eddie Robinson.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I intend, in a few minutes, to call up a bill for passage, and I think I will be joined on the floor by Senator Reid at the appropriate time. The bill I am going to speak about in a minute is the Catastrophic Disaster Recovery Fairness Act of 2007, which I am proud to cosponsor with Senator Lott and others. We have been working on trying to get this bill cleared, and I will come back to that in a moment, but before I call this bill up for final passage, I would like to speak for a moment about the emergency supplemental bill that we passed.

The Congress must--and usually does--and is required to take care of emergency issues. These are situations that, by the nature of emergencies, we cannot plan for. The war we are prosecuting and trying to win has extended well beyond the boundaries that many of us believed initially, so there are new costs associated with that war. There have been emergencies right here in the country that have taken place that could never have been predicted or anticipated.

We are still recovering, as you know, from two of those very terrible storms, two of the worst to ever hit the United States of America, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The aftermath of those storms was the multiple failure of a levee system that has protected this great community for over 300 years. It is not just any city or any region, it is a very special historic city and region, the city of New Orleans. It is also of great economic significance for the Nation.

We could not necessarily predict this in our regular budgets, and so it is appropriate that we provide emergency funding for emergencies, and that is what the supplemental is. It isn't a war spending bill, it is an emergency bill. There are things associated with the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan that are emergencies, but there are things happening in the United States also that are emergencies.

For Senators to come to this floor and argue over the last 2 weeks that there are no emergencies in the United States that we need to take care of and that all we need to do is to focus on the war in Iraq, I would ask them to go home and talk to their constituents because that is not what my constituents are saying, Republicans and Democrats. I don't think that is what anyone is saying, any constituent in anybody's State. I think they are saying, whatever their feelings are about the war and how we should prosecute it, there are most certainly emergencies right here in the United States that need to be dealt with.

I am proud that many of us on the Democratic side, as well as some of our Republican friends, decided to put some money in this emergency supplemental bill to take care of real American emergencies right here on the home soil--right here in America. One of those emergencies is the ongoing attempts to rebuild the gulf coast, primarily in Louisiana and Mississippi, but we also have friends in the southern part of Texas who are still hurting and also in the southern part of Alabama and through some parts of Florida. So I like to always say we are fighting hard for the gulf coast and trying to rebuild the gulf coast.

This Congress has been generous, has been innovative, and has been trying to think outside of the box to respond to an unprecedented disaster. Again, the scope of this disaster is beyond anything we have attempted. You know the long and sorry record: When we went to call on FEMA, it showed up but it was weak, anemic, underled, and underresourced. When we called on the Red Cross, as respectable as that organization and that name is, and they have done remarkable work, they too were overwhelmed. This is a job that was beyond the ability of the tools that we normally have to rebuild, and so we have been scrambling as a Congress to redesign tools. Some we have done a good job on and some we haven't.

There is a lot of redtape we unwittingly created, and not with any ill intent, but that has been the consequences of many of the things we have passed. And so people are caught up in a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of redtape. There has been a lot of money thrown at them, which is very frustrating because they hear about it, they think they are going to get it, but they can't feel it because the bureaucracy has it basically tied up.

So part of what we have done in this supplemental, which is very good, is we have removed some of the redtape and added some additional funding where we thought we were short, so that the hundreds of thousands of people on the gulf coast who have lost their homes, who have lost their businesses, who have seen everything they have worked for, some for 50 years or 60 years, literally washed away by floodwaters or collapsed levees, they could have a chance to rebuild.

I feel very strongly about this. I have been very generous as an appropriator with help to foreign countries. I have helped send money to Afghanistan, to countries in Africa, and to South America. I was one of the first Senators on the ground when Hurricane

Mitch hit Honduras. I believe in helping people when they are in their hour of need. But I can tell you people on the gulf coast are starting to ask: Does anybody remember that we are here in the United States and we need help as well?

So that is what this supplemental bill did. Let me say a couple of things we tried to do in it.

We passed in this supplemental emergency spending bill for the United States of America a waiver of a 10-percent match. In every disaster, we require the locals to put up money. It makes sense, and normally it works, and that is appropriate. But in a case where the disaster is so catastrophic, let's say in St. Bernard Parish, which is the parish I represent, there were 67,000 people who lived there before the storm. It was a middle-class, working-class community. Every single home was destroyed. Every fire station was destroyed. Every police station was destroyed.

The sheriff had to swim out of the second floor with his deputies. He is a big, strong sheriff, thank goodness, and a good swimmer. If he wasn't, he would have drowned--Jack Stevens, my good friend. He swam out, literally saving his deputies. His headquarters was destroyed.

Now, I ask you: How is St. Bernard Parish going to come up with a 10- percent match? It sounds reasonable, but in this case it is not.

No. 2, these 10-percent waivers, or matches, have been waived before. In 32 of the last 38 disasters, they have been waived. I asked the administration and others to waive this one. They said ``no.'' So we have done it now, as a matter of fact, in this bill. Congress said yes, it is right that this be waived. It will not only provide several hundred million dollars more in emergency disaster money for Louisiana and Mississippi, but, most importantly, it will completely eliminate the 10-percent match requirement which is required on each individual project worksheet.

Now, somebody may ask how many project worksheets we have, which means how many individual public entities have requested rebuilding, whether it is a library or half a library; a wing of a school or a whole school; a light post or a sewer system. We have 23,000 of those project worksheets pending for Louisiana alone. Because of this 10- percent requirement, there is a NEPA review, a FEMA review, a HUD review--we are being reviewed to death. We can't do this in this fashion. We have to waive this 10 percent.

Not only will $750 million be immediately available, but more than the money, the redtape goes away. Ninety percent of the redtape goes away, and we can actually do what we say we are going to do, which is rebuilding the gulf coast, one fire station, one police station, one library at a time. This is not theory, this is practical. If you want to rebuild a city, you have to rebuild the fire stations, you have to rebuild the police stations, you have to actually rebuild homes, pave streets, et cetera, et cetera. All of this is at a slow crawl because of this 10 percent.

So I am proud of my colleagues who voted for this supplemental, because we waived this big piece of redtape, and I wish to thank them. I hope the President does not veto this bill because of that. I hope to be negotiating with the President and the administration in good faith to perhaps explain some things he is not quite understanding about the difficulty we are facing in the gulf coast and see if he can work with us to keep this waiver in place.

In addition, we put in the supplemental $1.3 billion for levees. One of the most memorable speeches the President made was in Jackson Square, and I was pleased he came down right after the storms and spoke in Jackson Square when there weren't many lights on in the whole region. We put up lights that night for that speech. Generators were brought in to turn the lights on so the President could be seen when he made the speech. The rest of the French Quarter was completely dark. If you were in the city that night he made that speech, you wouldn't have been able to see your hand in front of your face, but the world saw the President because we got generators to turn those lights on so he could be seen. When he stood there in the dark, he said he would do whatever his administration needed to do to rebuild the levees in this metropolitan area.

I am not talking about little rinky-dink levees, I am talking about federally authorized levees that collapsed because they were not funded correctly, they were not maintained correctly, and the Corps of Engineers has admitted it was their fault and they need to fix it. Where I come from, if you break something, you fix it. The Corps of Engineers' levees collapsed, and they need to fix them.

So here comes the supplemental request, and lo and behold there is no new money for levees. We get a request from the administration that it wanted to move $1.3 billion from one set of projects to another, claiming this set of projects isn't ready to go, and they want to move it from the east bank to the west bank. Senator Vitter and I discussed this, and we said ``no.'' The days of moving money from the east bank to the west bank, in hopes that next year we would come back and find some new money for the east bank, are over with. We did that for the last 40 years, and then 18 months ago New Orleans and the surrounding area went underwater.

No more moving the money. No more shell games. This supplemental says ``no,'' and we put in an additional $1.3 billion. We are not moving levee monies from one of our constituent groups to another constituent group in hopes we will come back next year and fill in the pot. It is akin to musical chairs. You keep moving chairs, and when the music stops, somebody is going to be without a chair. I am not doing that anymore.

Every person in south Louisiana and in Mississippi who deserves a federally protected levee is going to get it. Those levees are going to hold, and we are not moving this money around anymore. So that money is in the supplemental, and I thank Senator Byrd and Senator Murray and Senator Dorgan particularly for their strong support of that principle.

Two more things, and then I will call up this bill for discussion.

We also got some funding--and I thank Senator Kennedy particularly for his help in this--for recruiting teachers. I can't tell you how difficult it has been for our teachers, our parents, and our students. We did have a happy success story, though, regarding education. Since I have talked about things that didn't work, let me spend a minute talking about something that did work.

On Monday morning, when the city of New Orleans was 80 percent underwater, and we looked up and millions of people had fled their homes along the gulf coast, we realized there were about 330,000 children who had no school to go to on Monday morning. I want that to sink in for a minute. There were 330,000 children, from kindergarten to 12th grade, who had no school to go to on Monday morning. That was a problem, and we had no solution for it.

There was no tool in the toolbox. FEMA didn't have a plan. There was nothing we could do. So we thought for a minute, and between the work of this Congress, the administration, and the good people down in Louisiana and Mississippi, we came up with a plan that basically said this: If every parent will show up at a school and get your child registered, the Federal Government will send that school a check. Don't worry about it. You don't have to pay for it, we will take care of it.

It was a most extraordinary effort because, you know what, it worked. For the most part, after this major disaster, almost all of those 330,000 children actually attended school somewhere last year and the schools were actually reimbursed. So when people tell me Congress can't do anything well, I like to point this out, to say: Yes, sometimes we actually manage to do something really well. And that worked.

What we failed to realize, though, is it was not just the tuition for the children we had to send--whether they left parochial school and went to public or public school and went to parochial, we covered it, no questions asked. But what we didn't think about is what happens to the thousands of teachers whose schools were ruined, whose homes were flooded, whose churches were destroyed, and they had to move--but they want to come back now and teach--how do we get them to come back and live in a community that is so destroyed? What incentives can we give them to come back?

Many of these teachers are very dedicated, and many of them have come back under harsh conditions. But we think it might be wise, when you are trying to rebuild from a nuclear bomb explosion--and we hope that never happens--or a dirty bomb or Tsunami or major terrorist attack or perhaps just a terrible storm or tornado or hurricane, if you have to rebuild a devastated area, you need to encourage some key people to come back: doctors, nurses, teachers. We have some money in this bill to give the appropriate incentives for teachers to come back.

We are not just going to build the old school system we had which was failing students and disappointing parents and not really a very successful story. We are in the process, with the help of Republicans and Democrats here, of building a new kind of public school system.

So this money in this supplemental will help us to recruit quality teachers, to acknowledge what we are asking of them. Teaching under normal circumstances is difficult. To teach children in a classroom that is a temporary and sometimes wholly inadequate structure, where these children are living in trailers at night, where the teachers themselves have to live in 16-by-8 trailers--the least we could do is give them some financial incentive to just make it through the next year or two until we can stabilize the situation and rebuild the infrastructure of this city. I am excited about that.

I am not going to go into any more detail about the historic preservation funding. Obviously, people in America know that New Orleans and south Louisiana have some of the most historic structures in the Nation and that they are at risk. This additional funding helps us preserve that.

We also have some funding in here for our fisheries. Our fishermen are small businesspeople, many of them. They don't work on the land; they work on the water. They don't work in an office; they work on their boats. Their boats were destroyed. We don't think of them as businesspeople, but they are. Our disaster assistance has to take care of our farmers, our ranchers, our urban and rural--and our fisheries. We have determined we had not done enough for them and for their needs, so we have some money to help them.

People say: Where do we get this funding? It comes off budget. This country is a great country. It is one of the great benefits of belonging to a great and powerful nation--if your region gets devastated, the rest of the country's money will be pooled to help you. If something happens--and it did in New York--we all pool our resources to help out. Now New York is doing magnificently. There was a question, after 9/11, as to what would happen, but because we all helped and they did a great job, that area is being rebuilt. Even though we still mourn the loss of those 3,000 Americans who lost their lives and it is still a very sad thing for us to think about, we are proud of helping to rebuild that great city.

If something were to happen, Mr. President, in your State--and your State is a coastal State as well; you have had your share of disasters--even though your State is tiny and you might not be able to bail yourself out, you are part of a great nation that will step up and help you as well.

I would like to speak for a minute about the Catastrophic Disaster Recovery Fairness Act. I will ask, at the appropriate time, for this bill to be called up and to clear it by unanimous consent. This particular bill was not included in the supplemental. It has not been included in any other major legislation. This bill will eliminate a great barrier to construction of homes in the gulf coast.

People ask me all the time: Senator, how is it possible that we have sent over $100 billion and yet we cannot seem to get massive rebuilding underway? This is one of the answers, and I hope I can explain this simply and clearly because it will help people understand.

The Small Business Administration, in a disaster, will lend money to people if they qualify for a small business disaster loan, and 81,000 people in my State qualified and have received approval for a loan-- 81,000. That is a huge number of homes. That is not all the homes which were destroyed. We had 250,000 homes destroyed. Of those, 81,000 families qualified for a home loan through the Small Business Administration.

It was painfully slow. It took months for these applications to get out, with us beating them every day and working with them and pushing, pushing, with Senator Kerry and Senator Snowe, who were, together, terrific to push the SBA. Then we got rid of the SBA Director, we got a new SBA Director, and they pushed those loans out the door. The good news is 81,000 people have gotten loans. The bad news is that as soon as these same people get their Road Home grants, which they are entitled to under another program we created, the SBA is interpreting their law so as to require these homeowners to immediately pay back their loan.

This bill which I am sponsoring with Senator Lott will release the homeowners, the borrowers, from that obligation. They must repay the loan. This is not a loan-forgiveness program. If you borrowed money, you must repay it under the terms you borrowed it. This is not a charity. This is not loan forgiveness. You must repay it under the terms of your loan. But you don't have to pay it today. You don't have to pay it next week when you get your Road Home money. You can pay it under the terms that it was lent to you, whether it was 5 years or 20 years, whether it was at 2 percent or 4 percent or 6 percent.

Mr. President, 81,000 people in Louisiana and 31,000 people in Mississippi have been told: The good news is you got an SBA loan; the bad news is the minute you get your Road Home Program money from the Federal Government, you have to pay this loan in full.

Believe me, this was not our intention when we passed these community development block grants. I do not believe there is a Senator in this Chamber who would expect that of a homeowner who has lost everything. In some cases, they had insurance. In some cases, they didn't. In most cases, neither their insurance nor the money we are giving them is making them whole. There is no coverage for contents. This is not for contents. Some people might have $100,000 of contents in their home. Some people might have $200,000 of contents. Some people might have only $25,000 of contents. We are not even covering contents.

We are not covering the expedited or accelerated cost of labor and materials. So people are already with no coverage for contents. Unless they had insurance, they have lost that. We are not covering the 30- percent increase in labor costs or the 30-percent increase in cost of supplies. That is not calculated.

This loan is very important for people. It is saving many of them from bankruptcy. If they manage to get their loan, we most certainly do not want them to have to pay their loan back in full when they get their Road Home grant. This is for Louisiana and for Mississippi. If you add up 81,000 people in Louisiana and 31,000, this is over 100,000 families--110,000 families. That is probably affecting more than a quarter of a million people. That is a lot of people.

When this bill passes, which it will--it may not pass today, but I wish it would. I wish no one would object to it. But when this bill passes, 250,000 people are actually going to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and they will be able to say: This is hard. I don't know if I can rebuild. I don't know if I want to rebuild. But at least I have a fighting chance to make that decision. If this bill does not pass, these 200,000-plus people who live in my State and Mississippi--I predict many of them will have to file bankruptcy.

I have said this before and I am going to say it again. The people I represent who lived behind these levees were not sunbathing when these levees broke. They were loading tankers on the river. They were working at the docks. They were drilling and exploring for oil and gas in the gulf. They were going to work at hospitals and nursing homes and teaching and running our libraries. This is not a resort community. These levees were not protecting a beach. These levees were protecting a port, and the levees failed.

In working-class neighborhoods, Black and White, in rich and poor neighborhoods, people's homes were destroyed, homes that had never had an inch of water. Let me repeat that. People's homes were destroyed, homes that had never had an inch of water. They were not in a flood plain.

When you lose everything you have--and for most Americans, their largest

asset is their home--it is our obligation to think about ways we can strengthen the insurance system; strengthen our levees so they do not break again and while people are struggling give them a hand.

Again, I am not asking for loan forgiveness. They have to pay back every penny. But let's give them a fighting chance to pay it back, over 10 years or 15 years. Let's not require them to take one grant program we have given them to build their home and the same day take it away because they have to fully pay their small business loan.

I understand Senator Reid is going to call up this bill and try to get it passed. I surely hope nobody objects to it. It is a Landrieu- Lott bill, with Senator Vitter as well. Senator Reid is going to call it up in a few minutes, and I hope nobody objects to it. But if they do object, I can promise you I am going to spend every day on the floor until this bill is passed, sometime before we go home--not this week but before we go home for the next break.

I do not think this is unreasonable. We are going to ask for everybody's support. Senator Lott will be happy to explain, when he has an opportunity, about the 31,000 families in Mississippi. But I am going to leave this here, and Senator Reid is going to come down and ask it be passed. I hope we can get it done today. If not, we will ask for it tomorrow. If not, we will continue to ask for it until we get it.

We are asking for fairness, not charity, and for justice for the people in the gulf coast.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on the previous vote, vote No. 120, I voted ``yea.'' I wish to change my vote to ``nay.'' I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''