Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment and honor a man who has greatly served his community and his Nation for more than 38 years.

Charles R. Adams retired from his position of National Employee Development Center Director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS, in Fort Worth, TX, on November 3, 2005.

Charles learned the importance of self-development at an early age while growing up on his family farm in Logansport, LA. His parents, the late Mr. T.C. Adams and Elneva Adams, gave him and his 10 siblings firsthand experience in working the land, and he still carries those experiences with him today.

After leaving Logansport, Charles graduated from Southern University at Baton Rouge with a bachelor of science in agronomy. He received his master's degree in public administration from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, in 1983 and has Ph.D. studies in urban and public affairs at the University of Texas in Arlington.

His impressive career with USDA spans some 38 years, having held some of the top positions in his Agency, including regional conservationist for the NRCS Southeast Region, based in Atlanta, GA, from 1997 to 2004, director of the National Employee Development

Center, based in Fort Worth, TX, from 1993 to 1997, South National Technical Center associate director, also based in Fort Worth, from 1992 to 1993, and water quality coordinator at the center from 1990 to 1992.

Before that Charles served as NRCS's State Conservationist for Arizona, based in Phoenix, from 1988 to 1990, after having been the State Conservationist for Nevada, based in Reno, from 1986 to 1988. He was the Deputy State Conservationist in New Mexico, based in Albuquerque, from 1985 to 1986, after having been the Assistant State Conservationist for Operations at that location from 1984 to 1985.

Charles worked as an area conservationist in Rio Rancho, NM, from 1983 to 1984, after working as an area conservationist in Flagstaff, AZ, from 1981 to 1982. From 1978 to 1981 he served as a district conservationist in Edinburg, TX, following service from 1976 to 1978 as a district conservationist in Eastland, TX. He was a soil conservationist for the agency in Abilene, TX, from 1973 to 1976. He began his full-time career with the agency as a soil scientist in Athens, TX, in 1969.

During his tenure with USDA, Charles founded some of the Agency's most innovative approaches to outreach, including the Student Trainees in Agriculture Related Sciences, STARS, program, an initiative to introduce underserved high school students in the Southeast to agriculture, as well as NRCS's American Indian Program Delivery Initiative, an annual conference linking USDA officials with American Indian leaders to promote tribal participation in USDA programs and services.

While working for NRCS, Charles Adams has received a number of awards and recognitions. Within the last few years alone, he received several USDA Honor Awards, including the Secretary's Award for his leadership of the Southeast Region American Indian Initiative Workgroup and the Sustainable Coffee Production Team, and his work in the Agency's Streamlining and Cost-saving Initiative. He received special recognition through a national volunteer award for his longstanding dedication to the NRCS Earth Team Volunteer Program and was the recipient of the Chief's Workforce Diversity Award which praised his encouragement and promotion of professional development among his employees. In addition, his extensive outreach efforts to minorities and women earned him a nomination for the Agency's highest Civil Rights Award in 2003.

Charles is married to the former Prenella Williamson of Port Gibson, MS. In his spare time, he enjoys raising horses on his ranch in Shreveport, LA, restoring his collection antique cars and fishing with his young grandsons.

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment and honor a man who has influenced the lives of so many students for more than 35 years.

A band director since 1969, Dr. Isaac Greggs has taken the half time show for Southern University to a different level, electrifying audiences with the band's energetic and precise performances. However, these performances could not have happened without a lot of hard work. Dr. Greggs' practices are legendary for being gruelling, but they paid off in the end.

In many ways, Dr. Greggs' practices are a metaphor for his life--when one demonstrates discipline and effort, one can succeed anywhere.

This motto certainly proved true for Dr. Greggs' band. Under his direction, the band performed around the world, including for three United States Presidential inaugurations, four Sugar Bowls, and five Super Bowls. The band has also appeared at the Astro Dome, Superdome, Yankee Stadium, and the Oakland Stadium Coliseum. For six weeks, the band played at Radio City Music Hall, and they have also made appearances on television shows such as the Bob Hope Show, Jim Nabors Show, Almost Anything Goes Show, Perry Como Show, Henry, The Fonz, Winkler Show, and the Telly Savalas Show.

In addition to the talent Dr. Greggs has brought as a band leader, he is also an accomplished musician and song writer and is the author of Southern University's fight song and alma mater. He is an honorary member of both Louisiana's House of Representatives and State Senate, and has won several major music festival awards for the marching division. Dr. Greggs has conducted honor bands throughout the country, and on behalf of Southern University he was presented with a special trophy by the National Football League for his band's outstanding performance at a Super Bowl.

Dr. Greggs' leadership is not limited to the sporting field. As president of the Louisiana College Band Directors Association, founder and president of the Lakeside Music Mart and School of Music, and State Chairman of the L.I.A.L.O. Band Festival, Dr. Greggs has proved his leadership skills and shown his commitment to the arts.

Dr. Greggs was presented with the Key of Life Award at the 31st NAACP Image Awards. The Key of Life Award was created in honor of musician Stevie Wonder and is presented to an individual or group who exemplifies Wonder's ``inner vision.'' The award also recognizes extraordinary achievements in the areas of civil rights, human rights, and community. It is clear through all of his career, Dr. Greggs exemplified these attributes.

Dr. Greggs' power to move people through music is an amazing gift. If one is lucky in life, one improves the life of one's own children. However, Dr. Greggs has improved the lives of thousands and has left an indelible mark on African-American students and fans.

I thank the Senator. I will probably speak for about 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I begin as my leader is in the Senate to say the bill they most certainly have presented for our consideration is one that needs attention and needs deliberation. The PATRIOT Act is a very important part of the security of our Nation. We can debate the inside and pieces of it, but I strongly suggest to the leadership that protecting America is more than just the chapters and statutes related to the PATRIOT Act.

Protecting America is about protecting patriots in the gulf coast, in Louisiana, in Mississippi--not just citizens who are patriots, taxpayer citizens, hard-working citizens who have come to believe the notion that in America they are safe, or should be safe, and if disaster does strike, the government, with the private sector and with their own effort, will be there to help.

What about the patriots on the gulf coast who are veterans themselves, the 400,000 veterans in Louisiana, the 250,000-plus veterans in Mississippi--just for two States that were affected--men and women who have put on the uniform, served their time, true patriots. What are we doing to secure their homes, their schools, their churches?

I suggest to the leadership that while the PATRIOT Act itself has many pieces of what helps make America secure, it is one piece but not the only piece. We should most certainly not be comfortable leaving here without securing the homes and businesses and dreams of average Americans, patriots, on the gulf coast.

As I speak for just a few minutes this afternoon, it has been over 100 days

since two of the deadliest storms hit the coast of America: Katrina and Rita, Katrina on the southeastern part of Louisiana, on the Mississippi section as well, and Rita, just a little over a week later hitting the southwest part of Louisiana and Texas counties as well.

As the days and weeks have unfolded and as there have been investigations and hearings and committees that have looked into what happened, I suggest it was not just a natural disaster that led us to this point but a manmade disaster.

The Times-Picayune, the major newspaper in New Orleans, and other papers in the region, have written extensively on this subject. I ask unanimous consent that this article, ``Evidence Points to a Man-Made Disaster,'' be printed in the Record.

I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record ``Corps' Own Study Backs Critics of Levee Engineering.''

The point is, this was not just a natural disaster, it was a manmade disaster. One of our columnists captured it correctly. You could almost argue, based on the evidence that is in, independent evidence, that it was a Federal Government-sponsored disaster.

Let me repeat, these are strong words: A Federal Government-sponsored disaster because it was the Corps of Engineers, the failing of a sophisticated and supposedly a strong levee system that failed, that put a major American city underwater 10 to 15 feet for 2 weeks and flooded a region, with multiple levee breaks in an urban area.

It has never happened in the recent hitory of America. It has not happened since the great floods of 1927 when the Mississippi system was designed. It is written and documented beautifully in John Barry's book, ``Rising Tide.''

We have a natural disaster of unprecedented proportion coupled by a manmade disaster of neglect, poor design, faulty design, and no telling what else will be discovered. This is the result. These are homes that resulted. A hurricane did not do this. Katrina did not do this. Rita did not do this. We did this. The Federal Government sponsored this disaster by not securing and supporting the levee system, by not engineering it properly, and this home that is in Chalmette, which is in St. Bernard Parish which lost almost every home in the parish. This is why I say we shouldn't go home because people in St. Bernard, in St. Tammany, in Orleans, in Vermilion, in Cameron, in Calcasieu, in counties along the Mississippi gulf coast from towns such as Biloxi and Waveland, this is what their homes look like.

Let me show another picture. The sun is shining, but it is not a happy time for the family that lived in this home. This could have been done from a hurricane, from wind damage. There may or may not have been flooding in this home. I am not sure if this was on the gulf coast, but I can promise, hundreds of thousands of homes along the gulf coast looked like this.

What our delegation has said with the rising voices of the Mississippi delegation, as well as the Louisiana delegation, without action, homes are going to stay looking like this for months, if not years.

I do not know how to express any more clearly that what we have done to date is wholly insufficient. FEMA, on its best day, being led by the finest executive you could find in the country, is not designed to meet the challenges of this kind of disaster. Let me repeat, on its best day, with the finest executive we could find, it is not designed to meet this disaster. So when people continue to say, and legislators and Congressmen, ``Well, we have sent $62 billion to FEMA. We have done enough,'' I, please, want to plead with my colleagues and the citizens of our Nation, do not confuse sending money to FEMA with giving help to homeowners, businesses, large and small, in Mississippi and Louisiana. Please do not confuse that. They are two separate things. You can send money to FEMA and then maybe cross your fingers to see if any of that money gets to solve this problem.

This is a picture I have used a lot because it reminds me of my own grandmother who had a camp a lot like this. There is virtually nothing left of the camp we owned. But this is typical of senior citizens throughout the gulf coast. This would be what most of our grandparents and parents are going to do this holiday. This picture--it really is one of the most heart wrenching,

moving pictures, and I have seen thousands of them.

What does this woman do? FEMA is not enough to help. That is why I have said we are going to slow this process down. I know people are anxious to get home for the holidays. I know this is not the only issue before America. But it goes to the heart of what homeland security is about--or should be about. If you cannot be secure in your own hometown, if you cannot be secure in your own home, if you cannot be secure when you are kneeling in your own church or when you are in your own business, where can you be secure? I am not suggesting we are powerful enough to stop hurricanes, but I am suggesting we should be smart enough and powerful enough to mitigate against their damage, to prevent manmade disasters by underinvestment in civil works systems that are important for the growth of the country, and men and women enough when the disaster does happen to step up and think outside the box and do something that actually helps people. So I am not anxious to go home because the people I represent do not have any homes to go home to.

Now, this next picture is not as dramatic a picture, but it will tell you the story. In the South, we have been talking about Hurricane Andrew since it hit. I think it was in 1992. Yes, here it is, 1992. Hurricane Andrew in the South is like a legend. People talk about Camille, they talk about Betsy, but then everybody says: Andrew. It hit Florida. It did not hit us, but a lot of our people went over to Florida to help. We remembered Andrew. We saw pictures of Andrew for months, and we did everything we could to try to help in Florida. And it was the worst, costliest storm ever to hit.

Can I show you what Katrina is? This is not even counting Rita. For Katrina, insured losses are twice--twice--that of Hurricane Andrew. And this is not even showing the costs for Rita. It could be triple the costliest storm in the history of the United States. It is not because the hurricanes were really maybe as bad. And maybe they were equal. But this differential is about a levee break in an urban area, putting 200,000 homes underwater and uninhabitable, and 18,000 businesses.

I believe, if I am not wrong about Hurricane Andrew, we lost 28,000 homes. That is a lot of homes. Think about a town with 30,000 people. That is a pretty big-sized town. Think about every home in the town being destroyed. That is a very terrible tragedy. We had 205,000 homes totally destroyed, uninhabitable, from Katrina. These are not homes with blue tarps on the roof until the roofer can come in, with people in the kitchen; these are homes that you cannot stay in for more than 5 minutes or maybe an hour or two to clean up. There is no water. There is no electricity. There is mold. There is mildew. People are gutting their homes, basically sitting on slabs. That is 205,000 homes totally destroyed. Mississippi had 68,000 homes totally destroyed, we had 205,000 homes totally destroyed, for a total of almost 300,000 homes-- poof--gone, destroyed. That is not damaged. That is not thousands of homes that have a tree through the roof or the porch fell off or there was water in the kitchen and the appliances do not work but you can sleep in the bedroom and just kind of wait for the kitchen to get back. These are 300,000 homes gone.

Many of them did not have insurance because they were not required to because our laws were not written correctly to require them to. They were sitting in high places, in places that had never flooded before. And they looked up, and because our levee system failed, they have lost their house, they have lost their business, they have lost their financial future. Their children are not going to college. Their kids are not in the school. They are not worshiping in their church. And we are sitting around here passing 100 bills that have nothing to do with helping them.

Yes, this chart is what I was looking for. Sometimes I cannot keep numbers in my head and sometimes I can. There were 28,000 homes lost from Andrew. Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne--we still talk about those hurricanes. They were terrible hurricanes and 27,000 homes destroyed. Look at Katrina--275,000 homes destroyed.

Now, this graph is why we are struggling to a point where I just cannot quite describe that if we do not get some real help real soon, this region is not going to be able to stand back up. Now, we will eventually--I will get to that point in a minute--but it is going to be very difficult. We lost 18,752 businesses in Louisiana alone. Mississippi lost close to 2,000. Let me repeat: 18,000 in Louisiana, 2,000 in Mississippi.

Now, I am not saying this to minimize what happened to the gulf coast. As I have shared with Senators with whom I serve, I grew up on the gulf coast. I love Pass Christian probably as much as they do, but they had 2,000 businesses destroyed. But when levees break in a major city, this is what happens. This is virtually every small business or a large part of the small businesses in the metropolitan area.

Now, we stand up here in this Senate all the time and say: Small business is the backbone of our economy. Please, let's help small business. Could somebody tell me how FEMA is actually going to stand up these 18,752 businesses that pay taxes, that were patriots, that played by the rules, paid their employees? These are not big corporations. We only have one Fortune 500 company. But we have a lot of good people who worked hard to build those businesses, and--poof--they are gone. Some of them had insurance, but some of them did not.

So we put in a bill 7 weeks ago. Olympia Snowe and John Kerry passed a bill almost unanimously in the Senate. It is sitting somewhere because we just cannot get out of the box enough to help these people. We have to go through the same old regular process that is not working. And last time I checked, under the administration's proposal, we had processed a grand total of six--six--six--GO Loans in Louisiana. I have 18,000 businesses gone, and we processed 6 GO Loans last week.

When I suggest we have been about as patient as we can be, that is why we may be staying here through Christmas.

The system is not working. Business owners are losing everything they worked for, not in one lifetime, three lifetimes--grandfather, father, son, or grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, 60, 70 years, businesses gone. And this Congress can't figure out how to help these businesses. But we are building infrastructure in Iraq. We are building businesses in Iraq, but we can't help our own American businesses.

Political allies of the White House have said that more has been accomplished than any other American disaster including 9/11. The claim cannot be justified. That claim is inaccurate. It is not valid. It cannot be substantiated. It is not justified under any objective criteria. What might be true is that we have sent more money through FEMA to try to help, but it is anemic. It is not functioning well. And the money is not getting to the people who need it.

That is why Senator Cochran and Senator Byrd have stepped up with a reallocation and said: OK, we hear you Louisiana. We hear you Mississippi. Let's not add any money, but let's take $30 billion of the FEMA money, since it is sitting in a bank account not being used, and move it over, give it to our Governors with community development block grants, full accountability, full flexibility.

We will send you some money, $6,000 per child for your education, because the schools took these children in. They knocked at the door. The schools took our children in, 370,000. They were never asked if they could pay. They have been educating these children for 6 months. The Federal Government has yet to give one of these school systems in Houston or Baton Rouge or Lafayette or Jackson, MS, one penny for taking these kids in. I don't know, do we expect schools that are having trouble anyway to take in children and educate them for free? They have added teachers, classrooms, and the Federal Government sits here giving money out right and left through every door as fast as it can get out, and we can't give money to school systems educating kids whose homes flooded and whose parents have no business anymore.

Senator Cochran has put that in his bill, mostly for Louisiana. We don't think that we have to keep saying that if we don't get better levees, not only can we not rebuild our city and region,

but it would be morally the worst thing that could be done not to help people feel safe and protected as they make decisions to go back. We have put a substantial amount of money in the budget with Senator Cochran's proposal for category 3 real levee protection and a downpayment on category 5 which is essential to us as we rebuild. With the community development block grant, the Governors, along with our parish presidents and municipal officials, can take that money and fashion it to help match private sector donors, to help supplement insurance payments, to help with some strategic housing initiatives and begin getting tools and capital and money out in these communities in the right ways to help stand them up.

We have to argue about this, not adding money to the budget, reallocating FEMA, and yet we are still arguing with the House on the total amount. Maybe they don't want to do 17, so we are down to this or that.

This week we cannot leave until we pass a Cochran-Byrd reallocation of the President's supplemental. With all due respect to the administration, the supplemental that was sent to us was a bill of $17 billion, except for some serious levee money which I thank the administration for. I thank the administration for putting that money-- I think it was $1.6 billion--in their original request. We appreciate it. But the rest of the money in that bill was basically to refurbish Federal facilities.

I want to show again the picture of the lady. This is what I want to refurbish. I understand we have to refurbish Federal facilities. I know that Federal bureaucracies are important. But this is where we are trying to get the money, to citizens such as this woman who have worked hard their whole life, raised their family, never asked anybody for too much. Now they are sitting in a house with nothing. This is whom we are trying to help. We are trying to get money to the private sector, to private property owners, not to refurbish Federal Government buildings. So Senator Cochran took that bill and said: If you want to help refurbish Federal buildings, fine, but we need to add money to help citizens, patriots, business owners in our States.

I sure hope we can do that because it will be a shame if we do not.

I want to add a quote from Governor Haley Barbour. There has been a lot of discussion about Mississippi's approach and Louisiana's approach. But pain has a way of bringing people together.

Governor Barbour said yesterday:

We are at a point where our recovery and renewal efforts

are stalled because of inaction in Washington, D.C., and the

delay has created uncertainty that is having a very negative

effect on our recovery and our rebuilding.

If this is coming from Governor Barbour, who is part of the party in power and was head of the Republican Party for many years, who lost a fraction of the homes that we lost, how do you think the people of Louisiana are feeling about the stalled recovery effort and the desperation as they see Congress winding down for the holidays? They ask: Why aren't people in Washington understanding what we are going through?

I want to read for the Record an appropriate and moving quote, right on target as far as I am concerned, from Vanity Fair in November. It says:

. . . when the damage is this catastrophic, the people so

helpless, the government so weak and clumsy, we expect it to

take place somewhere else--on the coast of Sri Lanka or

Bangladesh, for instance--somewhere distant and more poor. .

. . We do not expect to see our government so impotent and

indifferent that it is completely paralyzed . . .

I know the men and women with whom I work. I don't find them to be incompetent or paralyzed. I believe they are sensitive and smart and intelligent people. What is it that is keeping us in this Congress from understanding FEMA isn't working. The Red Cross is not sufficient. People are suffering. New tools are needed. Let's get about helping people here at home.

There has been some unbelievable debate about whether New Orleans should be rebuilt. Our city has been there for 300 years. Thomas Jefferson leveraged the entire Treasury to buy the city of New Orleans because of its strategic advantage, which was true then. It is true now. Andrew Jackson took his troops and defeated the British to protect it in 1815 because it is the greatest port system in America. It is America's only energy coast. You can't have a great nation without protecting your Southern border. You can't have great trade. What thought of anyone would be that we can't rebuild New Orleans in the region of south Louisiana after we have given so much to this economy? We are not a charity case. We need help, we need respect, and we need a partner.

We will rebuild New Orleans and south Louisiana and the gulf coast of Mississippi. The people have spoken, and the spirit is strong. We may not have houses to live in or businesses to go to, but the people who have lived in this part of the world are strong people. We are Black and White, Hispanic, different socioeconomic levels, but we have lived there. The question is, Will we have a partner in the Federal Government? This week we will see if we have a partner.

Let's get on to the business of getting these bills passed. We will be slowing it down until we do.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am reserving the right to object, to speak with the leader for a moment about a situation that is developing at home and one of which he is certainly aware.

I understand that the motion that has been put forward would allow the Congress to go home for approximately 30 days and to come back in the middle of December to finish our business. I wanted to ask the leader if it is his intention when we come back to press forward for the supplemental bill that the senior Senator from Mississippi, Senator Cochran, and others have been working on for relief for the gulf coast. It is a very important piece of legislation, and many people, individuals and businesses, large and small, have been waiting for some direct, significant funding. I wanted to ask the leader from Tennessee what his intentions are when we get back, at least as he can press the Senate and press our colleagues in the House to move that piece of legislation.

I ask the leader, if I could, please, I understand, I want the leader to know, we have passed 21 pieces of legislation. I take him at his word. It has been very hard to follow as these things have moved so quickly, in some cases, and not so quickly in others. But I want to make a point and ask the leader that. Because we pass legislation does not necessarily mean it has been effective. Sometimes Congress has a way of passing legislation, but that is not any guarantee it is actually working.

As the Senator from Tennessee knows, the members of the Louisiana delegation, joined at times by members of the Mississippi delegation, have consistently said that money given to FEMA is not making its way to the hands of people in businesses. As the leader knows, the housing money has been very difficult for people to get. Shelter has been very difficult to get, housing has been very difficult to get. Many of our businesses that have applied for loans that are authorized have not yet received a response from FEMA or the Small Business Administration.

For the record, I say it is not the quantity of legislation but the quality of legislation, and that is why this supplemental Senator Cochran has been crafting is so important. We think this may be the first major piece of legislation that actually gets money into the hands of people who can do something with it other than having it sit in bank accounts while people are suffering and trying to get their lives back together.

I understand the Senator from Tennessee is aware of these great needs. He himself has been down to our State, and we are appreciative of that. But that is the point. If I could get a comment about the importance of the supplemental, that would be of some comfort to the people of the gulf coast.

The Senator has been very patient. I realize we have to move forward. But if he would grant me a few more questions--one or two.

I understand those pieces and those packages, because of course we are following them very carefully. But I want the record to reflect that this morning, as we break, there was $70.9 billion appropriated and $30 billion is still sitting in a bank somewhere in a FEMA account. So we have allocated $40 billion. I would judge from the controversies and reports that much of that money was squandered in many ways that we know, and used in an inefficient manner. But I would call to the attention of the leader that we have not passed an emergency education bill which would cover tuition for children, 370,000 children who are today displaced from the school they were in the week before Katrina and Rita. Those 370,000 children have not yet received word from this Congress if their tuition will be covered. That is not done yet.

We have not passed a comprehensive health care piece that allows people with no job, no home, no school, and no church to think that they could show up at a hospital over the holidays and get their health care covered. That has not passed yet.

We have not passed any loans to our governments in Louisiana that would allow them to operate and pay for police and fire over the holidays because the loan package we passed was inoperable because they cannot pay the money back in 3 years.

So for the record, we have no real health care relief, no significant elementary and secondary care relief, our universities are teetering on bankruptcy and closure, and our medical schools are having difficulty. The dean of LSU Medical School took a job out of our State. It was announced this week. I don't blame him for leaving because he doesn't see any help on the way. It is one of the great medical schools in the country.

Finally, FEMA--to pour salt on the wound, to make sure we were all having just the very best Thanksgiving we could possibly have-- announced that they are going to make us homeless for the holiday and has announced that on December 1, everyone who is in a shelter or a hotel in the country--they do not have an accurate number, so they do not know how many, and if they do not know how many, how are they planning to help them? But believe me, there are thousands who are now going to be put on the streets and will be homeless for the holidays.

I just tell my colleagues as respectfully as I can that when we are sitting around our tables--and I will be at a different table, and many people from Louisiana will not be at the table which they usually are to have Thanksgiving dinner. I will be at a different table, Senator Lott will be at a different table, and perhaps Senator Cochran will be at a different table. But as we sit around our tables, there will be thousands and hundreds of thousands of families who have no table to pull up to. They are in shelters, they are on the street, and they are crowded into apartments that they can barely afford with no hope and no plan.

I will say it for the last time. We are not dealing with a regular hurricane. We are dealing with an unprecedented natural disaster caused by the collapse of a Federal levee system that was not invested in, not maintained, and not funded. It is a disaster for the region and for the Nation. I cannot say this more emphatically or more passionately. I have tried to be a team player. We have tried to be cooperative. We have tried every strategy. We are running out of strategies.

I want my colleagues to know that while I will allow this resolution to go forward today, if we do not come back in December and pass a robust supplemental that reflects the values of this body--not what Mary Landrieu wants in it, not what Louisiana thinks it deserves, although we think we are entitled to say what we deserve--that reflects the values of the men and women who serve in this body whom I know so well from having worked with them, if we don't have a supplemental and if we don't get some action on our levee system so people can have confidence to come back, and a few other emergency items that we need, we will not be going home for Christmas.

We are going home for Thanksgiving, but we will not be going home for Christmas until the people of the gulf coast understand they have a home they can go to, if not this Christmas, some Christmas soon.

Mr. President, is this the continuing resolution?

Mr. President, earlier this morning we had a colloquy that expressed concerns.

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

Mr. President, we had a colloquy this morning with the leader about the need to do more for the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I am not going to ask for a record vote, and I am not going to delay the debate, but I do want to be recorded as voting ``no'' if we have a voice vote. It is very important to let people in this country know that our work is not yet finished. While we are breaking for the holidays, there will be many people who have no holiday table to go home to. Members of this body have worked very hard. I respect the work that each has done. We have worked in a bipartisan way to address some issues of health care, education, and housing. But just because we have done our job doesn't mean the same thing is actually happening on the other side of the Capitol.

There are still more issues that we need to find solutions for. We need to find a solution for the health care crisis along the gulf coast due to the hurricanes and subsequent levee breeches. We need to find a solution for the massive housing shortage throughout the States that Katrina and Rita whipped through. We need to find a solution for the small businesses that have been devastated and the thousands of people who have been left jobless. And we need to find a solution to building Category 5 levees and providing plenty of storm and flood protection which also means restoring our vital coastal wetlands, as they are our first line of defense. Without this protection, all our other efforts will be for naught.

We need solutions, Mr. President. We need real answers, because it is unsettling to know that while we go home to have Thanksgiving with our families, my constituents still have real problems and real needs. And so I thank you, Mr. President, for this time and for allowing me to note for the record, that I am voting no to this continuing resolution because our job is not finished, and these vital concerns are not settled.

Mr. President, I rise today in honor of National Adoption Day.

If the events of the last few months have done nothing else, they have reminded us of the importance of family, friends, and faith in a time of crisis. Not a moment has gone by without an image of a mother searching for her son or a daughter looking for her grandmother. Families bring people together and make it possible for them to make it through these times of uncertainty and hardship.

Now, more than ever, our focus is on bringing families together: we must rebuild, create, and transform these families. National Adoption Day is a way for this goal to be realized. It is in its sixth year and helps the dream of a permanent family come true through courts, judges, attorneys, and advocates who help to finalize adoptions.

On this day, I would like to paint two pictures for you all: In 227 cities and 45 States, at courthouses, churches, museums, parks, and beautiful public places all over the country, at least 4,000 children will find forever families, and dreams of thousands of adults will be realized. I want you to picture what happens on this fall day, children running, laughing, and playing with their new parent. Think about a girl or boy planning their special outfit and joyously awaiting the family celebration. Imagine the excitement welling up inside of a child as he or she looks into their new parent's eyes and knows they are finally part of a family. They will never dread the sound of a car coming to take them away again or wonder where they will lay their heads or which school they will be moved to. the other picture is dramatically different: In Louisiana alone, there are 4,424 children in foster care and 581,000 children nationwide waiting to be adopted. Only 10 percent of these children will ever be adopted. They have not had the luxury of their own room, a stable school environment, or a constant adult in their lives.

Most of these children entered into State custody because their parents were either unable or unwilling to care for them. What today is all about is transforming barriers into foundations. Tonight they will go home to their forever families. In speaking about forever families, I want to bring your attention to two of the many children in Louisiana that need forever families.

Many children in the foster care system are teenagers and have more difficulty being adopted. These beautiful children are just waiting to flourish with the right parent's guidance. Reva, for example, is a 15- year-old, reserved young woman who loves playing board games. She also is great at basketball and swimming. Reva does have a diagnosis of major depression and postraumatic stress disorder more than likely exacerbated by her time in foster care.

D'Vonte is a 13-year-old vivacious young man who loves to dance and listen to music on his CD player. His favorite activities are working on art projects and going swimming during the summer months. As a true Louisianan, he loves gumbo and is a caring and affectionate child.

I could stand here every day for the next month and talk about each child that needs to be adopted out of foster care. The bottom line is that each of these children, from 1 day old to 22 years old, needs permanency. They all need a loving, nurturing family that will help them to grow, bring out their unique personalities, and transform them into beautiful adults.

Today, on National Adoption Day, I have faith that this can be done and we must continue to be the catalysis. The miracle of adoption cannot be explained, but the loving parents that are holding their children for the first time today are living examples of how dreams can be realized. As an adoptive mother myself, I cannot really explain the miracle of it, but I can only take a moment to offer my most humble thanks, gratitude, and appreciation to all those across the Nation who have given their Saturday to help find waiting children safe and loving homes.

Let us continue to remember, when National Adoption Month and Day ends that there are still thousands of children like D'Vonte and Reva who need that sense of permanency. I challenge Congress to make these children their first priority and to help them to finally realize that dream.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to send amendment No. 2020 to the desk, on behalf of myself and my colleague, Senator Vitter.

Yes, I would.

As modified.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment would provide a very special and temporary tax relief to employers in the region of the hurricane that was hit so badly, to try to help them get their employees back to work by providing temporary housing and giving them a tax credit to do so. We are having a very serious housing crisis, as you all have been reading, and you have been trying to help us with that. This would go a long way. I thank you for your consideration tonight.

Mr. President, we observe Veterans Day on an anniversary of a day when war ended and our Nation was again at peace. November 11, 1918, Armistice Day, has been a day we use to remember our debt to all who have worn the uniform of the United States.

Our veterans have borne the costs of America's wars and have sacrificed so that not only our Nation but also our world can be free from terror. Today, every veteran can be certain, the Nation you serve and the people you defend are grateful.

Today more than 25 million Americans are either veterans or retired military. This number includes men and women from World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Every Veteran has their own story of how they entered military service. Many enlisted on December 8, 1941, or at the beginning of other conflicts. Some began their military careers at a service academy or with a letter from the U.S. government. Yet when their service is complete, veterans of every era, every background, every branch, have certain shared commitments and experiences that form bonds that will last a lifetime.

America's war veterans have fought for the security of this Nation and for the safety and peace of the world. They have humbled tyrants and defended the innocent and oppressed. The men and women of our Armed Forces have engaged the enemy on many fronts and confronted grave dangers to defend the safety of the American people. They serve and fight today, and their great achievements are added to American history. Americans are forever grateful for their honor, their courage, and their sacrifice.

Today and every day, the prayers of the American people are with those who wear our country's uniform. They follow a great tradition handed down to them by America's veterans. Our veterans from every era are the finest of citizens. We owe them the life we know today. They command the respect of the people, and they have our lasting gratitude.

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

Mr. President, I would like to spend a few minutes this morning speaking about a subject that is extremely important to the State I represent, the State of Louisiana, and to the gulf coast and also to call attention to a small but important victory we achieved this week that I hope will signal a turning or a course correction that Congress should take to help prevent the destruction we have seen on the gulf coast in the last several weeks.

Mr. President, you are from Kansas, and you know the power of tornadoes and Mother Nature. There is not anything we can do to prevent the fury of nature, but we can minimize the damage. We most certainly can use our intelligence that God has given us and our talent that God has given us and the wisdom that He gives us to make wise investments and smart choices and try to set priorities that help us make good choices for the people we represent so that we can minimize their pain and their suffering and we

can maximize their hopes and their dreams for the future. I believe that is why we are here. I know I have talked with you personally, Mr. President, about the reasons you came to the Senate and I came to the Senate, and I think most of our colleagues share that view.

I wish to speak for a few minutes this morning to remind the Nation and my colleagues about the devastation and the destruction that occurred only 10 weeks ago in one of the greatest cities in the United States of America, and that is the city of New Orleans and the surrounding parishes.

New Orleans is our largest city in Louisiana, with 450,000 people, but it sits right next to Jefferson Parish of 450,000, right next to St. Bernard parish of about 60,000, and right next to Plaquemine, which is about 30,000. So it is a metropolitan area of close to 1.5 million to 2 million people.

We have never in the history of the Nation seen destruction such as this. It is unprecedented. It was not, we now know and as I said 2 days after the hurricanes, the hurricanes that got us, Katrina and Rita--a double hit, one to the southeastern part of our State, a category 4 and 5, and one to the southwestern part--but it was our own failings, if you will, that got us stuck. It was the breaching of a levee system that has successfully protected this city for over 300 years. But because of a lack of investment, because we have not set the right priorities in the last several years and over some time, and because we have our focus abroad and not at home, this is the destruction that has occurred, not just in New Orleans but in the region, in the southwestern part of our State as well, and throughout the gulf coast of Mississippi.

Let me show another chart that does not have the same kind of picture, but in a more graphic form it shows the number of people who have been affected by this storm and the breaching of the levee systems which occurred throughout south Louisiana primarily.

Not many levees were breached to the north, but there were levee systems that were breached. In Louisiana, 3 million people were affected; in Texas, 802,000; in Mississippi, 1.7 million; and in Alabama, 829,000 people. Six million people were hit directly by a storm. Again, Katrina and Rita could not have been avoided, but I promise you, Mr. President, we could have minimized the damage and maximized hope if we had set better priorities and invested our money better right in this Congress with a different choice, a different course than the one set by this administration. What do I mean by that? I will get to that in a minute.

I also want to show the significance of this region. There were 6 million people affected in this region, but it is not just any region in the country. Forgive me, I represent this area, so I am quite partial to it. I do know every other area of this country is spectacular and wonderful, and I have visited many places, but I think anybody looking at this chart can understand there is something special about Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama.

What is special about it is we are the Nation's only energy coast. Most of the domestic production comes off the shores, basically, of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Yes, we have some important production in the West in shallow plays of oil and gas, but we have virtually shut down drilling in other parts of the country--in my opinion, not on very good data, but nonetheless that is a choice that has been made.

The point is that we have continued to supply this Nation at a time when it needs oil and gas and needs energy production. Louisiana has not sat down on the job, Texas has not sat down, Mississippi has not sat down, and Alabama has not sat down. But what has happened is this administration and some parts of this Congress have sat down on the job of helping Louisiana and this energy coast protect itself from the kinds of storms that we have seen.

How? By not investing in the wetlands restoration, which serves as a natural barrier to the great city of New Orleans and its surrounding areas and by not investing in the critical infrastructure of levees and navigation channels and appropriate dredging that would help manage water.

Water can be a very powerful force for good. You can see here the mighty Mississippi River. Our country, in large measure, became a nation because of the securing of the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Louisiana Purchase by President Jefferson--when he made a very smart strategic investment. He did not waste his money on things that would not return a benefit to our country, but made the Louisiana Purchase for 3 cents an acre, the best real estate deal ever done. But we purchased the mouth of this river, secured it for national security but also secured it for commerce.

Mr. President, it is impossible to get grain out of Kansas, your State, or Nebraska, or throughout the great Farm Belt in the Midwest of the United States, without using the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Yes, we can manage to get some of it over here to the east coast and out to our trading partners to the east, but moving it out here, down south to our trading partners in the south and also trade routes to the east and the west would be impossible without the Mississippi River.

You would think this Congress would pay attention, particularly this administration that talks about energy independence would pay attention to this energy coast.

In addition to an energy coast, you can see here the red dots are our ports. These are parts of the largest port system in the country--two of the largest. All of the south Louisiana ports and Houston. If you combined all of the ports in Louisiana from New Orleans to the Baton Rouge port, to south Louisiana, that port and the other ports, our port system is larger than any port system in the North American Continent and one of the largest port systems in the world. You would think that we would pay attention to infrastructure such as this and invest wisely and take some of the money out of this Treasury and invest in protection of the wetlands and in a strong and robust levee system.

But we have not done that. In fact, we have done the opposite. This chart is a startling summary. It is startling to me. It is hard to grasp. This is ``Civil Works Capital Investment as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product,'' since 1929 to the year 2001. When we in America, the America I grew up in, talk about the great investments after the war, you can see what we are talking about. You can see a Nation that was focused on its future. Why? Because it was investing in roads and bridges and levees and dams and infrastructure necessary to lay down the framework for the greatest explosion of entrepreneurship and scientific discovery that before had not been seen in the world; almost unequaled in its breadth and its scope. But what happened? Look here. Starting in the 1980s, there were new priorities set in Washington. They have been very damaging priorities, indeed--slashing critical investments in infrastructure, cutting back on ``nonessentials,'' trying to ``conserve.'' This is not conservation. This is akin to taking a gun and shooting yourself in the head, when you take money out of civil works projects, away from cities, away from suburbs, away from communities, and spend it on either tax cuts for people who do not need them or on other priorities that are not as important or on wars that we cannot win. It is this low line here, right down here to the lowest percentage, under one-half of 1 percent of the GDP, that results in devastation such as this.

You do not have to have a Ph.D. in economics to understand this. This is not complicated. I am going to show it to you again. This is 20 years of disinvestment, disengagement, pretending that these problems do not exist, pretending we have surpluses when we do not, and underfunding critical infrastructure. When that happens, this is the result.

The 450,000 people who lived in the city of New Orleans at one time and the 450,000 people who lived in Jefferson Parish and the 200,000 people who lived in St. Tammany Parish and the 60,000 people who lived in St. Bernard and the 30,000 people who lived in Plaquemines Parish-- and that is not mentioning the other parishes along the western part of our coast, Cameron, that is completely destroyed, and Calcasieu Parish, that suffered, and Washington Parish, that had not every tree fall but every house collapsed or destroyed in some way or affected in some way by the falling of the trees--

ask these people whom I represent, was it smart to cut off investments? I don't think so.

The sad thing is, we have had an answer. I am not coming to complain. I am coming to offer a solution which our delegation has offered, now, decade after decade. We have pleaded, we have held hearings, we have had field trips to Louisiana, we have done fly-overs, we have formed a national alliance, we built a coalition of 4,500, an alliance of industry and environmentalists. We have done it all. But what we cannot seem to do is get the attention of this administration and enough members of the Republican leadership to understand that smart investments make a difference: They save lives, they build hope, they build communities, and they make a nation stronger. What I have asked for and my delegation has asked for--and I know my time is running out, and I will take 2 more minutes--what we have asked for is to redirect a portion of offshore oil and gas revenues that have been generated off of our coast, off of this coast where all these people have been injured.

There it is. With the oil and gas being drilled--and has been drilled since 1955--off of this coast, we are generating about $6 billion a year that comes into the general fund. It would be a smart thing and a wise thing right now, a wise action and a smart action, to redirect a portion of those revenues to invest in a levee system, in the restoration of this Gulf Coast area and the wetlands that protect the Nation's great energy port and trade port.

That is my message. We can do better. We must do better. We must make smarter investments with the money that is in the National Treasury. We do not have to raise additional taxes to do this. We have to redirect some of the taxes already flowing into the Treasury to invest to protect the people along the gulf coast. If we needed to share those revenues with other coastal communities--since by the year 2020, two- thirds of the continental United States will live within 50 miles of the coast--we most certainly are able to do that. But for Heaven's sake, let's get our priorities straight.

We can do better. We can make better decisions. That is what this effort is about. We are going to continue on, not complaining but offering solutions. We are not offering to raise taxes but to redirect some of the taxes that we have to make better choices to build a stronger Nation and stronger communities. I ask my colleagues to join us in this effort because I know we can get this job done. I thank the Senator from Illinois for yielding some time this morning for me to discuss this important issue.

Will the Senator yield?

I know the Senator is wrapping up his remarks, but I would like to ask the Senator, is he aware that a complementary amendment we have worked on for a couple of years, giving a tax credit to employers who are filling that pay gap, is the Senator aware that has still not passed this Congress?

I thank the Senator from Illinois. I ask him, is there any reason he could believe or think the American people wouldn't put the Guard and Reserve at the top of the list for a tax cut or a tax credit? Is there any other group you can think of that is more deserving than the men and women who leave their homes, put on the uniform, leave their jobs, leave their businesses, and go to the frontline to take the bullets? Would the Senator be able to identify any other group that would be more worthy of a tax credit or a tax cut if we had extra money to give?

I thank the Senator from Illinois. I would just like to add my few remarks to support his amendment.

Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois has come to the floor again this afternoon and has spent literally hours over the last 2 years, in particular, speaking about the importance of supporting our Guard and Reserve.

Mr. President, I will be happy to yield to the chairman.

I would like to ask the Senator from Virginia a question before he leaves the floor.

Will the Senator from Virginia yield?

I do so through the Chair. I first say how much I appreciate the exchange between the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Illinois. I hope we can find a way to move forward on this very important issue because it is so crucial to

the security of our Nation, to the security of these Guard and Reserve families. It seems the right thing for us to do.

My question to the Senator from Virginia, because he has so much experience in warfighting as the Secretary of the Department of Navy and as the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, is: When we created the Guard and Reserve Force, did we anticipate that so many would be called up for such a long period of time? That is an important answer to have because my sense of it is that we didn't completely anticipate these numbers and these lengths of deployment.

I ask the Senator, several decades ago, did we foresee this dependency?

I thank the Senator from Virginia. I would like to add to that comment.

Mr. President, I would add to this discussion that it is important for us as leaders to be open to change and to adopt new strategies. The one thing that is certain about life is change. Those who adapt survive, and those who do not, do not survive. I believe when it comes to creating policies that secure our Nation and support our armed services, we always need to be open to those things that we need to do differently because circumstances are different, because the challenges are different.

I would argue this is one of the issues that is at the heart of how we sustain a skilled, able, versatile, agile, and quick-to-deploy force without implementing a draft and having the ability to muster a large and effective force when necessary. This is at the heart of it. That is why Senator Durbin continues to come to this floor and why I come to this floor, why the Senator from Indiana, Mr. Bayh, and others on the Republican side have come to the floor. Because we need to make some changes. We need to adapt to the reality.

Let me submit for the Record the reality of this situation. Since the Berlin crisis of 1961 through the Vietnam war, we only called from the Reserve and Guard about 200,000. From 1961 through the Vietnam war, basically to the early 1990s--I know Vietnam was over before then--but basically to the 1990s, we called up 200,000. But as the chairman knows, because he is the great distinguished chairman of our committee, he is correct, since 1990, the Persian Gulf war to the present, we are 150,000 troops strong in Iraq and we have called up 744,000 Guard and Reserve members.

As the Senator from Illinois so beautifully pointed out, these are citizen soldiers. They live in the community. Their budgets are based on their civilian jobs. Their children, their spouses, and their families have dreams and aspirations based on their civilian payrolls. They do not enter the military and decide: We are only going to make $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 the rest of our life, but the benefit is we get a discount on food. We get our health insurance. We will move around every 2 years. We get a housing allowance. It is the life we have chosen. We understand the sacrifices we are making, and we budget accordingly.

These are business owners, policemen, nurses, doctors, engineers, scientists who answer the call, put the uniform on, and sometimes answer that call in 24 hours, literally, or in just a few weeks. They kiss their children goodbye--maybe the wife is the spouse who is leaving. Maybe it is the husband. They tell everyone goodbye. They leave and they are gone for 18 months.

Under our current rules, which are not working, not only does that soldier make the sacrifice but our Government is asking that family in some cases to take a 30- to 40-percent decrease in pay. I just cannot understand it. Nothing about it makes sense. It defies common sense. How can we recruit Guard and Reserve, then send them to long deployments, sometimes without even the equipment they need--which is a whole other issue--but ask their families to take a 30- and 40-percent decrease? I do not understand it.

I know we have not done this in the past, but this Senator from Louisiana thinks it is time to do it for the future. I hope we can again take bipartisan action on this Senate floor, as we have done so many times before, to support the amendment offered by the Senator from Illinois, at least in the Federal employ, our own engineers, our own scientists, our own nurses, our own doctors, our own office administrators, when we ask them to put the uniform on and go to the frontline to take the bullets, that as an employer we do not say: And also, by the way, we would like your spouse and your children to live on 30 percent less income while you are away.

If the country was in crisis in terms of no money for anyone and we were all on rations and we were all sacrificing financially and we did not have the money, I think these families would say: Look, we are all in the same boat. We are serving the country. We will take the 30- percent cut in pay. But what gets me, what galls me, what makes me so angry is, this Congress is giving other families who do not put the uniform on, other families who are making upwards of $350,000, $400,000, $500,000, tax cuts, and we cannot seem to find the will, the energy, or the focus to help the small group of families that one could argue are bearing the entire burden in some cases--let me repeat, the entire burden of the war on terror. I do not understand it. Senator Durbin does not understand it. Senator Bayh does not understand it. The Senators have voted now unanimously.

What happens to this amendment when it goes to the House of Representatives? What should I tell the Guard and Reserve families who went to Iraq, over 6,000 of them--3,000 of them just came home and a third of the ones who just came home came home to no house, no school, and no church. Now I have to go home and say that Congress is going to get ready to pass another spending bill, another tax bill, and I am sorry, yes, you have, once again, been left out. I do not even know how to explain it because it cannot be explained.

Senator Durbin's amendment simply says, let the Federal Government be the leader. Let the Federal Government set the pace as an employer. Let us at least do what other States and other employers are doing, fill the gap, stand in the gap for them. They are taking the bullets. They are taking the risk with their lives. Why would we ask our Federal employees to take a serious pay cut? I do not think we should. Again, if we did not have any money at all, if we were just flat broke, then maybe we would have to. We give money away to everybody, but we cannot give it to our Federal employees who are serving this country twice: as public servants so they do not get a very high salary normally, and then they go to the frontlines and take the bullets and get a salary cut even lower, and we think that is perfectly fine.

Well, this Senator does not think it is fine. This Senator thinks we can do

better. This Senator thinks we need to have better priorities. This Senator believes we need to have different priorities that support our Nation, support our services, support our Guard and Reserve, and it would ultimately support the country. And, frankly, it is the right thing to do.

I see the Senator from Michigan.

I see the lead sponsor of the amendment on the floor, so let me be brief so he can close out. I thank the leadership for accepting this amendment. I know they will fight hard to keep this in conference as we move forward because it really is an important part of our strategic alignment for the future. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their

leadership not just today but over time, for doing the right thing by our troops and always being willing to think about new ways of making our military stronger and better.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Louisiana and particularly thank the leadership of Senator Stevens and Senator Domenici and so many who have joined the effort. It has been a great effort. We thank our colleagues.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2366.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, thank you very much. I appreciate the leaders providing me with an opportunity to speak, briefly, about this amendment.

There have been very important amendments that have been offered and debated throughout the day. As the managers have expressed, we will be voting probably into the night and tomorrow to try to finish budget reconciliation. But one of the amendments I have brought today to speak about is one of the most important things we are going to need as a foundation for the recovery of the gulf coast.

We have had many discussions about the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita--two major hurricanes that have hit the gulf coast. And, of course, Wilma hit Florida recently. And there was the subsequent breaking of a levee system that just devastated a major American city and region--one we are still reeling from, as our local officials, our business leaders, our university presidents, our general community struggles to try to provide a framework for rebuilding. We are in the midst of that great debate.

The reason it is so difficult--as you can imagine from your own experience as a leader, I say to the Presiding Officer--is that when this has never happened before, there is no textbook. The tragedy is of such magnitude and is unprecedented in nature that there is no textbook you can go to, to say: Here is step one, step two, step three, as to how to rebuild south Louisiana, southern Mississippi, parts of Alabama and Texas.

We have had some expedience with hurricanes before. I am not suggesting we have not. But we have not had the experience of a devastation, the kind we are experiencing right now in the New Orleans metropolitan area region--including Saint Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, Saint Tammany Parish, Jefferson Parish, Washington Parish, Tangipahoa Parish--and all along the southern part of Mississippi, and the southwestern part which was hit by Rita.

I am going to be showing some pictures of it in a moment so that my colleagues can continue to see--not just hear, but to see--pictures of the devastation.

So I come to the floor today to offer an amendment for this body to consider that will move some money we have identified in reconciliation to our coastal restoration program.

In the last Energy bill, by a bipartisan vote of the House and the Senate, with the support of the administration, we were able to secure a downpayment, if you will, on a new coastal plan that will help not just Louisiana, but the producing States that generate so much money for the general fund through oil and gas production off of our shores.

It was a significant step in the right direction. It happened a few weeks before Katrina and Rita hit, and it gave a spark of hope to people in our part of the country that Congress was listening and understood that the Federal Government had to provide not just mandates, not just plans, not just studies, but real money to help us secure better coastal protection. I only wish we had done this 20 years ago because maybe we could have prevented some of the damage from Katrina, but we didn't. And we can talk about why we didn't and what the consequences are, but it is more productive to talk about what we can do now.

As we debate how to prioritize our money through reconciliation--some for increased investments, some for tax cuts, some for deficit reduction--I wanted to come to the floor to offer an amendment that would provide an additional billion dollars for coastal restoration.

In Louisiana, we are the hub of the oil and gas industry, along with Texas and Mississippi. This is a picture of one of the major pipelines that comes off of our shore through the marshland. I am not sure if this pipeline is oil or gas, but it is one or the other because they have to be in separate pipelines. They are laid down through our marsh. These are the lifelines, if you will, to light up the country, whether it is Chicago or New York or California. The price of gas is extremely high. The price at the gas pump is high. We don't have enough of these pipelines in the country, and we are not conserving enough. We are working on both--increasing production and conserving more. But right now, this pipeline exists.

As you can see, when the hurricane struck, the levee systems of this pipeline were broken and water started moving and gushing into this marsh. Saltwater comes in and the marsh starts fading away. It is basically eaten up by saltwater coming in. We need to be constantly vigilant about maintaining proper levee systems. Some of this work has to be done by the private companies that laid down the pipelines, but the Federal Government has a great role to play in investing wisely and strategically to help keep this marsh healthy. It protects the city of New Orleans and, most importantly, it protects the whole region and, most importantly, it protects the mouth of the Mississippi which serves as such a trading hub for the Nation.

This is another picture that shows the devastation of the wetlands loss that was in National Geographic. It is particularly moving. This is a man who is holding up a picture of a camp that his grandparents-- right off of Empire, LA--used to have when he was a child. This is probably 40 to 45 years ago, maybe a little bit longer. It is small, but you can see the healthy marsh that once existed behind this home.

This is what it looks like now. You can't see marsh for miles and miles. It has been eaten up. We have been here now year after year saying: Every investment that we can make, we can restore this marsh. We can't restore every acre we have lost, but we know that our scientists and our engineers can restore a lot of this marshland. The marshland serves--south of Louisiana, south of New Orleans, and in the southern part of our State--as a great protective barrier. It protects not just people and businesses, but the energy infrastructure, the pipes, the refineries that exist to help our Nation continue to grow.

Investments of this nature are quite important.

Without a continuing affirmation from this Congress that we understand investments in coastal protection are important and we are giving real money to it, I am afraid anything we do will be for naught to rebuild the New Orleans region. Because people have told me--poor, middle income,

and wealthy, business people and workers--Senator, I cannot bring my family back. I won't bring my family back. I can't build my business back unless I have some security or sense that the administration and this Congress are going to help us build a levee system so we don't wash away again.

Think about that. Why would someone who lost their home or their business, even if they received an insurance check--which some people have, not all people, and we are working on that--even if they received a $250,000 insurance check to rebuild their building, why would they, if they think this is what their house or their neighborhood might look like? This is a little dramatic because, of course, this is not what New Orleans looks like. This is outside of the city, but this is what Plaquemine and St. Bernard look like. Why would someone take an insurance check? To be clear, we wouldn't give someone an insurance check to build a house such as this in this area because we are going to build smarter, better, and higher. There will be some places people can't go back and rebuild.

But in the middle of the metropolitan area, in a neighborhood that never flooded before, people have checks. And they are saying: I am afraid to rebuild my house. What if a big rainstorm comes or another hurricane and washes us away.

Anything we can do, whether it is a half a billion, a billion, next year coming back with some more--we are not expecting $20 or $40 billion in one shot. We know that is a lot of money. But we have to get a little bit every year so we can give people hope that this can be done.

Basically, that is what the amendment does. We have had great support from Chairman Domenici, from Ranking Member Bingaman. We have had good support from Senator Stevens, an understanding from Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye on the Commerce Committee, because they share jurisdiction, although the Energy Committee has jurisdiction over the Outer Continental Shelf. Most certainly, the Commerce Committee understands the importance of coastal because it is under their jurisdiction. That is basically what the amendment does. We will be voting on it tomorrow. I am hopeful we can get good support for the amendment and lay an additional downpayment on top of that money that we did for energy and get that done.

Amendment No. 2352

I see my colleague Senator Kennedy here. We wanted to speak for a moment on another amendment that is pending. I yield a minute to Senator Kennedy to speak on the education amendment of Senator Enzi.

How much time do we have left, please?

Shall I yield some time to Senator Kennedy of that 5 minutes? I am happy to yield about 3 minutes to him.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his strong advocacy and support. Without his leadership and that of Senator Enzi, we would not be where we are today on the Enzi-Kennedy- Alexander-Landrieu amendment.

How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, I reserve that time. There may be opposition. I am hoping not. I would be happy to yield back all the time if the manager wants to move on.

Mr. President, I will respond. I thank the Senator for his interest in helping out in this extraordinary circumstance with 370,000 children displaced. I wanted the Senator to know, of course, I have been in and out of the city many times. I spoke to one of my relatives and asked, how is the neighborhood looking?

She said: Mary, it is so strange. There are no children anywhere in the city of any age. You don't see any children.

As Senator Kennedy said, the reason is because we have no school system. Three-hundred and seventy thousand children have moved to other public and private systems, grateful to anyone who would take them in.

I thank our colleagues for coming together in this bipartisan way-- Senator Enzi, Senator Kennedy, Senator Alexander, Senator Dodd--to put together

an amendment that is not a voucher program, not a traditional ``help public schools only.'' It truly is a bipartisan compromise to try to help in an extraordinary situation.

I hope tomorrow, when we have this vote, we will get a positive vote. I thank the Senators for allowing us to offer the coastal amendment. We have a lot of support for this. Again, it will add to the money we already have. We will need more over time, but every little bit at this point helps to give people hope that they can come back to this region, live safely and securely with floods and rainstorms, hurricanes, and other disasters.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, now that we have the amendment offered and the time straight, I wish to thank the Senator from Arkansas for her extraordinary leadership on this issue because this is not the first time she has come to the Senate floor. She has spent hours on the Finance Committee and hours on this floor trying to describe to our colleagues the critical nature of this situation.

She comes from a State that was not directly hit by the hurricane but was, nonetheless, impacted, as so many other States were that had the goodness, the graciousness, the wherewithal, and the inclination to take on thousands and thousands of people from Louisiana and Mississippi, truly tens of thousands of people who fled for safety, for security, for food, and for shelter.

It has been 64 days since Katrina hit and about 50-some-odd days since Rita hit, two of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. But it was not just the storms that did us in, not just the category 4 or category 5 storms of 175-mile-an-hour winds that did us in. It was the 17 levee breaks in one of the largest cities and metropolitan areas in the United States. And not just any city--an international city, an international region, the heart of the energy coast, the city that secures the mouth of the Mississippi River and, may I say, the parishes that surround the great city of New Orleans--Jefferson, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and to the south we have parishes such as Vermillion, and along the southwestern part of the State, Calcasieu, and Cameron that were hard hit by Rita. There were over 2 million people displaced because of the storms and the subsequent levee breaks. It was the largest catastrophe, natural disaster in the history of the Nation.

Our frustration--the Senator from Arkansas, the Senator from Montana, and other Senators from the Democratic side, and even Senator Grassley--is that it has been very difficult for people in Washington, particularly

members of the administration and the majority party, to understand the desperate and unprecedented nature of this disaster and what it has done to people--poor, middle income, and wealthy.

Let me share a statistic in terms of doctors that is quite startling. Doctors are not usually in a poor category, nor are they really in any government program in a sense. Most doctors make a considerable amount of money, and most doctors live in very nice homes. They have studied hard, and they have worked hard. Most doctors would not be in a Government program. But just to give a sense of the displacement, there were 6,000 active patient care physicians in this region before the storm. Sixty-five days ago, there were 6,000 active patient care physicians. Over two-thirds, 4,486 have basically been displaced out of 3 central New Orleans parishes that were evacuated.

Not only do we not have hospitals or clinics, our doctors are gone and our nurses are gone. The system is literally collapsing as we speak. That is why Senator Lincoln has been here not just today but almost every one of these 64 days trying to get this body and Congress to understand the magnitude of the disaster, the unprecedented nature of the disaster, and why it is important for us to provide a few billion dollars to help us keep the lights on, get our doctors back, our nurses back, keep what hospitals we can standing up, because an unprecedented number of people have not just lost their homes but have lost their jobs and, as a result, have lost whatever health care, whatever access to good care they needed.

Let me make one other point. The point I want to make in my short time--the ranking member of the Finance Committee is here--as Senator Lincoln said, this is about choices. I believe we as a Congress can make better choices. We can do better. We can do better by the people we serve.

The reason I say that is because the majority party is in a position to write the rules. We are writing a rule today that basically says we are going to provide $70 billion for tax-cut extensions. Some of them may be good, but we are deciding as a Congress that we are going to give $70 billion in tax cuts for 5 years. That is $14 billion a year. Yet when Senator Lincoln and Senator Baucus come to the floor to say we need $6.2 billion to just help people who have lost their homes, lost their churches, lost their schools, lost their neighborhoods, and lost their jobs, to just give the poorest of the poor access to health care so they can take care of their cancer or diabetes or even desperate mental health situations just for a few months or a year, we are told that we cannot afford that.

It is about choices. It is about the choices we are going to make on spending and tax cuts. We are basically told: I am sorry, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The only thing you rate is $1.8 billion for health care. That is all you rate, and that is all this will do, is take care of just the Medicaid Program that was only in the 13 parishes.

But what I have to explain to people is, because New Orleans is the largest city in Louisiana, because this region is the largest economic contributor--it is a profit center to the State--our State budget is now struggling with a $1.5 billion to $3 billion shortfall in the State general fund. As a result of the loss of revenue due to this catastrophic event, our entire program is struggling, not just in the parishes in which the hurricane hit, where the wind blew, the waters rose, the trees fell, and the homes collapsed, but our whole State is struggling. That is why Senator Lincoln and Senator Baucus come to the floor and say: We thank you for the $1.8 billion, but it is not enough to keep our program up and running this year.

This is not just any program. This is not a program that Louisiana thought about. This is a Federal program. It is in the essence of a Federal-State partnership, as you know, Mr. President, from your work in Tennessee. The Federal Government puts up 70 percent, and the State government puts up 30 percent. What I am here to tell you is the State partner has experienced a great setback. The State partner is going to have a very hard time, if not impossible time, putting up the 30- percent match to keep our children and our poorest citizens, as well as those who are vulnerable, in health care for the year.

So we come here 65 days after the storm, when we are spending money on everything we can imagine--from new programs, expansion of programs, tax cuts--to say, please consider a basic service of health care, not just for the parishes that were affected and the counties in Mississippi but for the whole States of Louisiana and Mississippi that are struggling.

Particularly in Louisiana's case, we were harder hit, we had more levees break, our major city was flooded. Jackson was not flooded. New Orleans was flooded. Our major economic base, from our ports to our energy industry, have been directly impacted and revenues have fallen off precipitously.

Let me share one other statistic and then I am going to wrap up. I asked my staff to give me something so I can explain to people what the losses are. They went back to 2003. Now, this is only 2 years. This is an average of people who are unemployed in Louisiana. We work hard just like everyone else. We averaged about 135,000 people unemployed in June of 2003. Let us pick June of 2004: We had 119,000 people receiving unemployment. Let us go to January 2005: We had 119,000 people. Right before the storm in August of 2005, we had 122,000 people unemployed.

So I think one can say over the last 2 years we have had roughly an average of 120,000 people unemployed. In one month, our number jumped from 122,000 to 227,000 people--100,000 people in one month are seeking unemployment. That is how desperate people are. It has never happened in these 2 years. I bet if we went back and looked at it for the last 20 years, the only spike that one would find like this is maybe in the 1980s when the oil industry collapsed and almost everybody in Louisiana lost their livelihood. We have not seen this in so long, we do not remember a time such as this.

I do not know why we are having a hard time explaining this to an administration and to the majority about how desperate the situation is. We are not ungrateful for the steps that have been taken. We are not ungrateful for the FEMA money that is slowly getting to us. What we are saying is we need to do better.

Today, how do my colleagues think I felt watching the President of the United States stand up and tell everybody that he was going to allocate $8 billion for the avian flu? I do not know where he is getting the $8 billion for the avian flu. All we are asking for is $6.2 billion to keep a health care system of the whole State standing up until we can figure out what we might need to do because we do not have all the answers. It has only been a few weeks. Our system has basically collapsed. It is going to take us a little bit more time to figure out what the long-term solution is.

For the people that Senator Lincoln talked about that stayed on their refrigerator for 3 days, for Mr. Albert Bass, who was a painter in the ninth ward, who went to the hospital with a 104-degree fever, his Medicaid application has been denied; he needs help now. For Ms. Stewart, who lives in Jefferson Parish, she was a teacher; she has been denied Medicaid. She is 51. She is married. Her husband receives Social Security. She was diagnosed with cancer. Her cancer is back. Her health situation is worsening. She has no more income. I need to tell Mrs. Stewart what her outlook is.

What I am going to tell her is, we are going to find money for the avian flu, we are finding money for Iraq, we are finding money for a tax cut, we are going to raise $4 billion more by selling off spectrum, but I am sorry, we cannot get you into a hospital.

The final thing I am going to say, maybe the majority does not like that it is a Government program. So Senator Lincoln, Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley come up and say, well, let us have some way for the businesses that had people on unemployment--I mean insurance, the businesses have collapsed, but these businesses are valiantly trying to keep people on their insurance program because they know the desperate situation of their employees.

I cannot say what most businesses are going through. Business owners are taking money out of their own pocket, going into their own savings account, trying to pay their employees with no money coming in the front door. These businesses have been in business 30

years. These employees have been loyal to them. They have showed up for work every day. Talk about public-private partnerships. This amendment is an $800 million fund that is not a new program. It goes to our insurance commissioner to try to help work with small businesses and businesses so that people can keep their health insurance, so that they do not fall onto the Government payroll, so they do not become wards of the State.

This is self-help. This is partnership. This is self-reliance. With all of that, we have been told, no, come back later.

We are going to continue to come back because while we are grateful for the $1.8 billion, it is so far short of what we need to stabilize our health care system. For a State that is 4.5 million people, that has literally been punched in the gut and is rolling back, this administration has got to do better by the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and the gulf coast. Charity starts right at home. Strength begins right at home. Our war is right at home in the Gulf Coast States. When one is fighting cancer, it is about as tough as it gets. When one has their son or daughter dying of a fatal disease, it is about as tough as it gets. That is a private war that people are going through. We keep walking away from it, pretending that it is going to go away. Well, it is not going to go away. I am not going to go away. The Louisiana delegation is not going to go away.

Finally, we will realize that this is not a regular hurricane. This was an unprecedented catastrophe that has taken a major economic center to its knees, and it is going to take more than whitewashing and press conferences and a little bit of money drabbed here and there to stand us up so that we can continue to be the great region we are, pay taxes to this country and contribute to the economic benefit.

As I said, we are not a charity case. We have contributed billions of dollars to this Government and will continue to. In our hour of need, we have to come and ask for pennies on the dollar. So I hope that we can do better. We must. We can. There is most certainly room in this budget on the spending side or the tax side to do better.

We are grateful for the $1.8 billion, but we need Senator Lincoln's amendment, we need the leadership of Senator Baucus. I thank Mr. Grassley, the Senator from Iowa, the Republican leader of the Finance Committee, who has been a champion on this issue. If he had a little more support from his caucus and from the administration, we might get more than a Band-Aid, because we are hemorrhaging.

Mr. President, we have several amendments to consider this evening. I will be very brief.

I ask unanimous consent to call up three amendments, to talk about them in 5 minutes, and then to set a vote whenever it is within the purview of the managers: amendment Nos. 2248, 2250, and 2249.

I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading.

Mr. President, first of all, all three of these amendments are small in number but important in scope. Each seeks to take money that is already appropriated in the underlying bill and direct and target it, if you will, to the gulf coast area for some extraordinary needs. We have been struggling to find a way to provide for the unprecedented natural disaster that has occurred in the Rita- Katrina areas of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

There are many important programs in this bill that seek to send important aid around the Nation. There are three programs I have chosen to bring to the attention of the Senate tonight in very small amounts that could provide great help to the people of our region.

One is the TRIO Program, which has been extremely successful in helping first-generation college students to pursue a degree. Of course, we know 80 percent of all jobs in the future will require some college. This TRIO Program is federally funded but locally led and has been extremely effective, with great support from Republicans and Democrats, the House and the Senate.

The purpose of my amendment is to target $5 million of the money in here toward Katrina-related areas--Katrina-Rita--to make sure our universities and the thousands of students who have been displaced can have a little extra funding to help them at this time.

The second amendment has to do with community health centers that are going to see, because of the good work of the ranking member and the chairman, an increase of $105 million in a competitive grant-- additional money for community health centers. One of these amendments takes just 10 percent of the increase of $105 million and directs it to Katrina-Rita areas, as we have to stand up a new health care system for the region. It would be given out by the Department. Again, it is another way to not add money but to just direct and target money that we are already spending--not taking it away from anyone but targeting some of the increase to our region.

Finally, the third amendment would do the same thing for mosquito abatement. We are hopeful we will not get the avian flu that seems headed our way. For those in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, we worry about the disease that can be spread--West Nile--by mosquitos. Our health officials say the mosquito populations, because of the extraordinary flooding, have increased by 800 percent. Since October 18, there have been 81 cases and 6 fatalities. Again, my amendment takes money that is already designated and sends $5 million of the $40 million to the Katrina-Rita areas.

I ask my colleagues to look favorably on these three amendments. Again, they are small amounts of money, but they could go a long way. They do not add money to the deficit. They do not take money away from anyone else because we are taking a portion of the increase. That portion is based on our population in the region.

It is quite reasonable. I hope the managers will accept them. If not, we can have a vote sometime tomorrow.

I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 2265, as Modified