Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to offer for the record the Budget Committee's official scoring of H.R. 2055, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, and H.R. 3672, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2012. H.R. 2055 includes the conference report to accompany Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012, as well as legislation for the eight remaining appropriations bills. H.R. 3672 provides disaster relief funding and additional program integrity funding. H.R. 2055 is divided into nine divisions, one for each of the appropriations bills it contains. Each division will be considered separately for budget enforcement purposes. Each of the divisions of H.R. 2055 is within its respective subcommittee's allocation for budget authority and outlays. The bill is within security and nonsecurity budget authority limits established by the Budget Control Act. In addition to regular funding, H.R. 2055 includes $126.5 billion that has been designated as being for Overseas Contingency Operations. H.R. 3672 includes $8.1 billion in funding designated as being for disaster relief and $483 million in additional program integrity funding. Pursuant to section 106(d) of the Budget Control Act, an adjustment to the Appropriations Committee's 302(a) allocation and to budgetary aggregates has been made for these amounts in budget authority and for the outlays flowing therefrom. Section 1401 of Division G of H.R. 2055, Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2012, makes a change to a mandatory program that results in an increase in direct spending in years following the budget year, 2013-2021. This provision is subject to a point of order established by Section 314 of the 2009 Budget Resolution. H.R. 2055 is not subject to any other budget points of order. H.R. 3672 is not subject to any budget points of order. I ask unanimous consent that the table displaying the Budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I previously filed committee allocations and budgetary aggregates pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Today, I am further adjusting some of those levels, specifically the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal year 2012. Section 101 of the Budget Control Act allows for various adjustments to the statutory limits on discretionary spending, while section 106(d) allows the Chairman of the Budget Committee to make revisions to allocations, aggregates, and levels consistent with those adjustments. The Senate will soon be considering the conference report to accompany H.R. 2055, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012, as well as H.R. 3672, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2012. I previously made adjustments pursuant to the Budget Control Act to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and to the spending aggregates for items contained in H.R. 2055 and H.R. 3672, including funding designated for overseas contingency operations, disaster relief, emergencies, and program integrity. I am now revising those prior adjustments to reflect the final amounts contained in the two pieces of legislation. When compared to my previous adjustments, the combined effect of H.R. 2055 and H.R. 3672 is to increase budget authority by $2.302 billion and lower outlays by $0.286 billion in 2012. With these revisions, I have now made adjustments to budget authority in 2012 pursuant to the Budget Control Act of $137.48 billion. That total breaks down as follows: $126.544 billion for overseas contingency operations, $10.453 billion for disaster relief, and $0.483 billion for program integrity initiatives. I ask unanimous consent that the following tables detailing the changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I have some sympathy for the position I hear the Senator enunciating--that the issue of the pipeline ought not to be the thing that prevents us from moving forward. I personally think the pipeline is absolutely in the national interest. It will help us reduce our dependence on foreign energy--at least foreign sources that are hostile to our interests. The big question is--at least for this Senator--would the language permit a rerouting of the line within the State of Nebraska so that the question of the Ogallala aquifer would not be addressed? Is it the Senator's understanding that the language that has come to us from the House would permit Nebraska to reroute the line to avoid the aquifer?

Mr. CONRAD. If I could just say to my colleague, Canada is going to develop this resource. This oil is going to go somewhere. It is absolutely in our national interest for that oil to come to our country. If the language is, as the Senator represents, that it permits the rerouting of the line within Nebraska to avoid the issue with the Ogallala aquifer, then I, for one, on this side, would hope this could be part of the final package. I hope this is something we can work through in the coming hours. This should not be the thing that prevents us from reaching across the aisle, reaching across the divide between the two Chambers and achieving a result that is critically important for the country. I thank the Senator for allowing me to ask this question.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I wanted to come to the floor to discuss the question of extending the payroll tax cut, dealing with unemployment insurance, dealing with compensation for doctors who treat Medicare patients, and also addressing the question of the alternative minimum tax and, of course, the other tax extenders as well. This is a key moment for the country. As I expressed earlier--as Senator Thune was addressing the body--I personally do not believe the Keystone Pipeline should hold us back. This is something upon which I think we could get broad agreement, especially if the language is as the Senator has represented and as Senator Hoeven has assured me--that it permits the State of Nebraska to reroute that line so that the Ogallala aquifer is not in danger. In my judgment, it is entirely in the national interest to get the Keystone Pipeline advanced. So that should not be the issue that hangs us up. As we look at things that are holding back the economy, unemployment remains far too high, the housing crisis continues, and we have weak consumer confidence and demand. That really is at the heart of our ongoing economic weakness. Personal debt is still near record levels. We have tightened borrowing standards for businesses and consumers. I hear very often that even good businesses with good track records at paying back loans can't secure the credit they need to expand. And we have State and local budget cutbacks that are continuing. As we look at the private sector jobs picture, there is some good news because we have now had many months of expansion of private sector payrolls. In fact, if we go back to 2010, in March of the year, ever since then we have seen private sector payrolls increasing to the tune of millions of jobs. So there is progress being made. When we look at the reason there has been progress, I believe two of the most distinguished economists in the country gave us a background to understand why we are seeing this progress after one of the greatest financial debacles in our country's history. Alan Blinder, the former Deputy Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Zandi, who was an economic adviser to the McCain campaign, did an analysis of the Federal Government's response to the financial crisis and the recession. Here is what they found, and they are speaking of TARP and the stimulus: We find that its effects on real GDP, jobs, and inflation are huge, and probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0. When all is said and done, the financial and fiscal policies will have cost taxpayers a substantial sum, but not nearly as much as most had feared, and not nearly as much as if policymakers had not acted at all. If the comprehensive policy responses saved the economy from another depression, as we estimate, they were well worth their cost. Madam President, we have a debate going on in this country about economic policy, and our friends on the other side believe that they have the answer, that they have the prescription. I would just remind those who might be listening that it was their policy and their prescription that led this country to the brink of economic collapse. They controlled the economic policy of this country for 8 years, and they put in place a series of policies that they said would dramatically expand job opportunities in this country and strengthen the economy. But we know what happened. At the end of 2008, I was in the meeting here in the Capitol with the Bush administration's Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman of the Federal Reserve. They told us they were taking over AIG, the big insurance company, the next morning, and they told us that if they did not, they believed there would be a financial collapse within days. Going back to the same tired, failed economic policies that put us in that position is a mistake--a profound mistake. Hopefully we would learn from history. I believe what is needed now is for America to take steps to strengthen the economy in the short term but to combine that with fiscal discipline over the mid and longer term so that we can get back on track and face up to this debt threat. Two of the more distinguished economists in the country, in addition to the two I have already cited, have just concluded work for the Peterson Institute for International Economics. These are the Reinharts--Dr. Carmen Reinhart and Dr. Vincent Reinhart--and this is what they concluded following severe financial crises. They found that economic recoveries are shallower and take much longer. Here is what they said in their analysis: Real per capita GDP growth rates are significantly lower during the decade following severe financial crises. In the 10-year window following severe financial crises, unemployment rates are significantly higher than in the decade that preceded the crisis. The decade of relative prosperity prior to the fall was importantly fueled by an expansion in credit and rising leverage that spans about 10 years; it is followed by a lengthy period of retrenchment that most often only begins after the crisis and lasts almost as long as the credit surge. What they are reporting to us, after looking at a long period of economic history and dozens of countries, is that after a financial crisis, recovery takes much longer than is typical from a standard recession. We now have a bill that was sent over from the House that I believe has serious defects. I believe that bill is a nonstarter. First of all, the House leaders included extraneous provisions making it a partisan bill. President Obama has said he will veto it. Even the Senate GOP won't vote on it. So we have the curious circumstance where we have a bill sent to us by the House of Representatives, controlled by the Republican Party, and the Republican Party in the Senate won't permit a vote on the Republican bill. One might ask, why would that be? Perhaps the reason is they know there aren't many votes for it in this Chamber, just as there weren't many votes for it when it was previously offered on this side. So more than just extending the payroll tax cut is at stake. We also need to extend unemployment insurance, and we need to fix the cut that is about to happen to doctors who treat Medicare patients. That is the so-called doc fix. We need a compromise, not just partisanship, from both sides. Both sides need to find a way to come together. I have tried to indicate on this side a willingness to cross the partisan divide with respect to the Keystone Pipeline. Some on the other side have said that is important for their support for this legislation. I have said--at least speaking for me--that I am prepared to support the Keystone Pipeline because I do believe it is in the national interest. As we look at the effect of allowing the expiring payroll tax cut to die, this is what Goldman Sachs said to us: Should [the payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits] expire at the end of the year, fiscal drag will be intense in 2012. In other words, because there will be a reduction in demand in the economy, we will see lower economic growth, we will see lower job creation, we will even see a risk of returning to recession. This is from Goldman Sachs, the U.S. Economic Analyst, ``What Turns a Stall Into a Slump?'' They are telling us one way to turn a stall into a slump is to fail to extend the payroll tax cuts and to extend unemployment insurance benefits to those who have been out of work for extended periods of time. That is not just the view of Goldman Sachs. I wrote a letter to the Congressional Budget Office--that is nonpartisan--and I asked them which of the policy initiatives we could take would give us the biggest bang for the buck. What they told us is No. 1 would be extension of unemployment insurance. Why? Because the people who receive those benefits are most likely to spend the money. That means there would be increased demand in the economy, and that would give additional lift. Let me be swift to add: For those who are concerned about deficit and debt, I am with you, absolutely, because our long-term threat is this growing debt. But CBO has told us in testimony before the Budget Committee there is no contradiction between taking steps in the short term to give lift to the economy and taking steps in the medium term and the longer term to rein in deficits and debt.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 3 minutes.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair and I thank my colleagues. This is what JPMorgan Chase has said on expiring payroll tax cut and emergency unemployment benefits: For 2012, the more important issue is what happens to expiring stimulus measures. . . . Together, [the payroll tax cut and the emergency unemployment benefits] have lifted household disposable income by about $150 billion this year. If they expire as scheduled, consumption growth early next year would be challenged. . . . In our baseline view, the drag from tightening fiscal policy [including expiration of the payroll tax cut and emergency unemployment benefits] could subtract 1.5%-2.0% from GDP growth next year. Since GDP growth is only forecast at 2.5 to 3 percent, a reduction of 1.5 to 2 percent would be a dramatic reduction. This is what Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's Analytics, said: If policymakers do nothing here, if Congress and the administration just sit on their hands and they do nothing, the odds are very high we'll go into recession early next year. . . . We have a payroll tax holiday, all of us. . . . We'd be in recession right now without it. . . . If they don't [extend] that, at the very minimum, we'll likely go into recession. I hope very much that colleagues are listening. I hope very much that we are able to proceed to address this matter of extending the payroll tax cut and of extending unemployment insurance. I think I want to end as I began. If we had not had the government response in TARP and stimulus, Zandi and Blinder--two of the top economists in this country, one who was an adviser to the McCain campaign, one who was the Deputy Chairman of the Federal Reserve--have said we would be in a depression today. We would be in a depression today, with 16-percent unemployment and 8 million fewer people having jobs. We ought to pay close attention to that advice. We ought to act on it, and we ought to do it together. We ought to find a way for principled compromise on both sides. This body is bigger and better than we are demonstrating at this hour. We have the chance to prove to the American people that we are worthy of their confidence and that we are able to respond and do the urgent business of the Nation. I hope we don't disappoint them. I thank the Chair and my colleagues for the courtesy of the additional time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the period for morning business be extended until 7:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I agree with the Senator from New Hampshire on some of what she said with respect to facing up to our deficit and debt. This debt does present a clear threat to our country, and it must be confronted. I agree with her entirely on the question of the importance of that and the priority of it. I disagree entirely with respect to this amendment that is before us. I came to the Senate floor to address this balanced budget amendment because I believe it would be a profound mistake for this country. In fact, I believe if this amendment were in force today we would be in a depression. I believe adopting this amendment would have and could have disastrous consequences for the economy and for the future strength of this Nation. I would like nothing more than to have a balanced budget. I believe in balanced budgets. I believe this debt represents a clear threat to the country. But I do not believe a constitutional amendment is the way to achieve it. I believe the way to achieve it is for us to make the decisions to balance the budget, to cut the spending, to raise the revenue, to actually balance the budget--not leave it to a constitutional amendment or to unelected judges or to the States but to make those decisions here and now. I have been part of the fiscal commission where 11 of 18 of us agreed to a plan to get our debt under control. I have also been a part of four Democrats and four Republicans who have produced a plan that would get us back on track. Here are the key provisions in the proposal before us. First, it would require the adoption of a balanced budget each year unless two- thirds of the House and the Senate voted to waive the requirement. Second, it would cap spending at 18 percent of the prior year's gross domestic product, again, unless two-thirds of the House and the Senate voted to waive the requirement. We have not had a spending level of 18 percent of GDP in as long as I can remember. So that is a formula I think that goes against the reality of the needs of this country--not only the need for support for education but also for our national defense. It would prohibit passage of any bills that increased revenue unless two-thirds of the House and the Senate voted to waive the requirement. The Senator just showed a chart that showed revenue at the lowest level it has been in 60 years as a share of our national income. Again, revenue is the lowest it has been in 60 years. This constitutional amendment would say it would take a two-thirds vote to change it. Really? Revenue is the lowest in 60 years, and we are going to have a two-thirds vote to change it? Boy, that is a guarantee we are not going to have the necessary revenue to balance the budget anytime soon. It would require a three-fifths vote in the House and Senate to increase the debt limit. Here are what I see as the key problems with this proposal. First, most important, it would restrict our ability to respond to economic downturns. It would effectively block the implementation of countercyclical policies. This would only compound economic declines and possibly throw us into a recession or even into a depression. Two of the best known economists in this country did a review of what would have happened absent a Federal response after the events of late 2008. Alan Blinder, former deputy head of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Zandi, the head of Moody's Economics, a former campaign adviser to John McCain, did an analysis of what would have happened in this economy absent the Federal response--the TARP and the stimulus. Their conclusion is that had we not had that Federal response, we would be in a depression today. We would have 16 percent unemployment. We would have 8 million more people unemployed. This amendment would have prevented that response. What a mistake, what a profound mistake. Further, this amendment uses Social Security funds to calculate balance and subjects the Social Security Program to the same cuts as other Federal spending. Further, it shifts ultimate decisions on budgeting to unelected and unaccountable judges. Finally, The State ratification process for a balanced budget amendment could take years to complete. We don't have years. We need to act now, and we don't need an excuse for inaction by saying: Oh, we passed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that will not take effect for God knows how long. Here are some additional problems that are specific to this proposal. The 18 percent of GDP spending cap is Draconian and unrealistic, particularly given the retirement of the baby boom generation and rising health care costs. The restriction on legislation that raises revenue would effectively prevent any increase in revenue, even if it is part of a bipartisan, balanced debt reduction plan. What a profound mistake that would be. Again, I repeat: Revenue as a share of our national income is the lowest it has been in 60 years. Spending as a share of our national income is the highest it has been in 60 years. So this proposal would absolutely handcuff us on the revenue side of the equation, locking in deficits for God knows how long. It doesn't make sense. Making it more difficult to raise the debt limit, this proposal increases the likelihood of default. We saw the turmoil created by our near default this summer. Why would we want to make an actual default far more likely to occur? We can also see that on our current course, by 2021, spending on Social Security, Defense and other nonhealth care spending and interest alone will reach more than 18 percent of GDP. What is missing? Medicare. If we stay on our current course, under this balanced budget amendment, Federal spending on Medicare would have to be completely eliminated. Let me repeat that. On our current course, by 2021, spending just on Social Security, Defense, nonhealth care spending, and interest alone will reach more than 18 percent of GDP. What is missing? Medicare. Medicare would have to be completely eliminated if we aren't to change what we are doing with Social Security, not to change what we are doing with Defense and other nonhealth care spending. Obviously, we can't do anything about the interest expense. That has to be paid. It is notable an 18-percent spending limit is so unrealistic that even the House Republican budget would violate this restriction in every single year. Let me repeat that. This 18-percent restriction on spending is so unrealistic that even the House Republican budget would violate this provision in each and every year of its life. Norman Ornstein, a respected scholar at the American Enterprise Institute--a Washington think tank--described a balanced budget amendment as a very dumb idea. In a column in Roll Call earlier this year, he wrote: Few ideas are more seductive on the surface and more destructive in reality than a balanced budget amendment. Here is why: Nearly all our states have balanced budget requirements. That means when the economy slows, states are forced to raise taxes or slash spending at just the wrong time, providing a fiscal drag when what is needed is countercyclical policy to stimulate the economy. In fact, the fiscal drag from the states in 2009-2010 was barely countered by the Federal stimulus plan. That meant the Federal stimulus provided was nowhere near what was needed but far better than doing nothing. Now imagine that scenario with a Federal drag instead. Mr. Ornstein has it exactly right. A balanced budget amendment would have a devastating impact on our economy at the worst possible time. Mr. Ornstein is not alone in that sentiment. Macroeconomic Advisers, a leading economic forecaster firm, had this to say in a company blog posted in October: If actually enforced in fiscal year 2012, a balanced budget amendment would quickly destroy millions of jobs while creating enormous economic and social upheaval. The effect on the economy would be catastrophic. Let me repeat that. The effect on the economy would be catastrophic. Continuing the quote: No model could capture the ensuing chaos and uncertainty, which would make matters far worse. Macroeconomic Advisers went on to conclude that enforcing a balanced budget amendment in 2012 would result in 15 million fewer jobs. Let me repeat that: 15 million fewer jobs. That is largely in line with the Blinder and Zandi analysis of what would have happened absent the Federal response to the economic downturn. Here is what Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan administration economic adviser, wrote in a New York Times online column in November: The idea of mandating a balanced budget through the Constitution is dreadful. And the proposal that Republican leaders plan to bring up is, frankly, nuts. The truth is that Republicans don't care one whit about actually balancing the budget. If they did, they would want to return to the policies that gave us balanced budgets in the late 1990s. Of course, no Republican favors such policies today. They prefer to delude voters with pie-in-the-sky promises that amending the Constitution will painlessly solve all our budget problems. We must absolutely address the Nation's deficit and debt. Our friends on the other side have that exactly right. Our economic future depends on our ability to put the budget back on a sound long-term path. That is why I believe what is actually needed is for us to put our energy and effort into writing a budget that actually balances, cutting the spending, raising the revenue, making the tough choices. That is the best way forward. A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is not the answer, and this balanced budget amendment is particularly troubled. It would restrict our ability to respond to economic downturns, it would impose a Draconian and unrealistic spending cap, and it would effectively prevent any increase in revenue, even if it is part of a bipartisan balanced deficit reduction plan. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment. On a separate matter, let me just say when my colleague said we don't have a budget, we do have a budget. I sometimes think our colleagues missed out on what happened on August 2. We passed the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act provided a budget for this year and for next year. That is the budget we are operating under. It was passed in the Budget Control Act on August 2. So when they put up these signs that say we haven't had a budget for 958 days or 858 days, that is not right. We do have a budget. They may not particularly like the budget. They certainly may not like the way it was done because it wasn't done through the regular process. It wasn't done as a budget resolution. It was done as a law. Budget resolutions are not signed by the President of the United States; they are purely a congressional document. The Budget Control Act is actually a law. It imposed a budget for this year and next year and 10 years of spending caps. That is the law of the United States. That is a budget. For my colleagues to stand and say we don't have a budget, it almost makes me wonder, did they miss out on the debate and the passage and the signing of the Budget Control Act? I tell my colleagues, that is our budget. It is in law. It is not just a resolution, it is the law of the land. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I previously filed committee allocations and budgetary aggregates pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Today, I am further adjusting some of those levels, specifically the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal year 2012. Section 101 of the Budget Control Act allows for various adjustments to the statutory limits on discretionary spending, while section 106(d) allows the Chairman of the Budget Committee to make revisions to allocations, aggregates, and levels consistent with those adjustments. The Senate will be considering the conference report to H.R. 2112, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012. That conference report includes funding designated for disaster relief. In total, the amount of such designations is lower than amounts passed by the Senate earlier this month. Consequently, I am lowering adjustments made previously to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and to the aggregates by a total of $847 million in budget authority and $79 million in outlays. I ask unanimous consent that the following tables detailing the changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, as the chairman and ranking member of the Transportation-HUD appropriations subcommittee are aware, I, along with Senators Hoeven, Leahy, Sanders, Blunt, Menendez, Lautenberg, Gillibrand, Baucus and Scott Brown have filed an amendment, Senate amendment No. 839, to add $600 million in supplemental community development block grant, CDBG, funding. We deeply appreciate the inclusion of $400 million in supplemental CDBG funds to aid communities impacted by disasters this year. However, given the magnitude of the damage just in my State of North Dakota from flooding this year, I am deeply concerned that this level of funding will not meet the needs. As many of my colleagues know, the city of Minot, ND, was devastated by a historic flood that impacted more than 4,100 homes and forced the evacuation of 11,000 people. The road to recovery will be long. CDBG offers an important component of the flood recovery effort to assist with buyouts and assistance to homeowners and businesses to repair the damage. My State alone has identified a need of at least $235 million for CDBG funds. We would like to work with the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee in conference to make sure there are sufficient resources for CDBG to meet the needs that exist in my State as well as others most impacted by this year's disasters.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their support. We look forward to working with them to ensure our communities have the resources necessary to recover from these devastating disasters.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on October 20, 2011, I filed a statement regarding a revision to committee allocations and budgetary aggregates pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Specifically, I adjusted the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal year 2012. Two of the tables detailing the changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates that are customarily provided for such an adjustment were inadvertently omitted and are provided here. I ask unanimous consent that the following tables be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we are now considering the nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. We need to confirm this nominee. The Deputy Director position has been vacant for 19 months. The Senate received Ms. Higginbottom's nomination papers in January, and she was reported favorably out of both the Budget and Government Affairs Committees in the spring. Ms. Higginbottom is fully qualified for this position. She served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House. She also previously served as legislative director for Senator Kerry. So she brings with her a broad knowledge of Federal policy and the operations of the government. It is important to note that Ms. Higginbottom was personally selected by Director Lew as the individual he wants as his Deputy. His selection of Ms. Higginbottom speaks volumes about her ability and the respect she has attained from her colleagues in the administration. Director Lew needs to have the Deputy Director of his choice working with him at OMB. I know some have questioned this nominee's qualifications. They are wrong to do so. Ms. Higginbottom is absolutely qualified for this job, and she is as qualified as other individuals who served in this position during Republican administrations. I hope the Senate joins me in voting to confirm this nominee.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I previously filed committee allocations and budgetary aggregates pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011. I am further adjusting some of those levels, specifically the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal year 2012. Section 101 of the Budget Control Act allows for various adjustments to the statutory limits on discretionary spending, while section 106(d) allows the chairman of the Budget Committee to make revisions to allocations, aggregates, and levels consistent with those adjustments. Senator Lautenberg has offered Senate amendment No. 836 to the appropriations bill for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies. That amendment includes $365 million in 2012 funding that is designated for disaster relief pursuant to the Budget Control Act of 2011. CBO estimates that budget authority would result in $18 million in outlays in 2012. In addition, Senator Gillibrand has offered Senate amendment No. 869 to the Agriculture appropriations bill. That amendment includes $110 million in 2012 funding that is designated for disaster relief pursuant to the Budget Control Act of 2011. CBO estimates that budget authority would result in $44 million in outlays in 2012. Therefore, in total, I am revising the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and to the budgetary aggregates by $475 million in budget authority and $62 million in outlays. I ask unanimous consent that the following tables detailing the changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I wish to offer for the Record the Budget Committee's official scoring of H.R. 2112, the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2012, as reported. The bill, as considered by the Senate, includes the text of two other committee-reported appropriations bills: S. 1572, the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2012; and S. 1596, the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2012. The bill is divided into three divisions, each representing the reported legislative text from a subcommittee. Each division, therefore, will be considered separately for budget enforcement purposes. Division A of the bill--Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies appropriations--provides $1.8 billion in security discretionary budget authority and $18.3 billion in nonsecurity discretionary budget authority for fiscal year 2012, which will result in new outlays of $14.7 billion. When outlays from prior- year budget authority are taken into account, discretionary outlays for division A will total $23 billion. Division A of the bill includes a total of $266 million in budget authority designated as being for disaster relief for the Emergency Conservation Program, the Emergency Forest Restoration Program, and the Emergency Watershed Protection Program. Pursuant to section 106(d) of the Budget Control Act, an adjustment to the Appropriations Committee's 302(a) allocation has been made for this amount in budget authority and for the outlays flowing therefrom. Funding in division A of the bill matches the subcommittee's section 302(b) allocation for security and nonsecurity budget authority and for overall outlays. No budget points of order lie against division A of the bill. Division B of the bill--Commerce, Justice, Science and related agencies appropriations--provides $78 million in security discretionary budget authority and $52.8 billion in nonsecurity discretionary budget authority for fiscal year 2012, which will result in new outlays of $37.7 billion. When outlays from prior-year budget authority are taken into account, discretionary outlays for division B will total $63.5 billion. Division B of the bill includes a total of $135 million in budget authority designated as being for disaster relief for the Economic Development Administration. Pursuant to section 106(d) of the Budget Control Act, an adjustment to the Appropriations Committee's 302(a) allocation has been made for this amount in budget authority and for the outlays flowing therefrom. Funding in division B of the bill is $6 million below the subcommittee's section 302(b) allocation for security budget authority but matches the allocation for nonsecurity budget authority and for overall outlays. No budget points of order lie against division B of the bill. Division C of the bill--Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies appropriations--provides $57.6 billion in nonsecurity discretionary budget authority for fiscal year 2012, which, when combined with transportation obligation limitations in the bill, will result in new outlays of $46.4 billion. When outlays from prior-year budget authority and transportation obligation limitations are taken into account, discretionary outlays for the division C will total $122.7 billion. Division C of the bill includes a total of $2.3 billion in budget authority designated as being for disaster relief including $1.9 billion for the Federal Highway Administration's Emergency Relief Program and $400 million for the Community Development Block Grant Program. Pursuant to section 106(d) of the Budget Control Act, an adjustment to the Appropriations Committee's 302(a) allocation has been made for this amount in budget authority and for the outlays flowing therefrom. Funding in Division C of the bill matches the subcommittee's section 302(b) allocation for nonsecurity budget authority and is $196 million below the subcommittee's allocation for overall outlays. No budget points of order lie against division C of the bill. I ask unanimous consent that the table displaying the Budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, this is the Statement of Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation for S. 1721. Total Budgetary Effects of S. 1721 for the 5-year Statutory PAYGO Scorecard: net decrease in the deficit of $24 million. Total Budgetary Effects of S. 1721 for the 10-year Statutory PAYGO Scorecard: net decrease in the deficit of $24 million. Also submitted for the Record as part of this statement is a table prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, which provides additional information on the budgetary effects of this act. The information follows.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I previously filed committee allocations and budgetary aggregates pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Today, I am adjusting some of those levels, specifically the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal year 2012. Section 101 of the Budget Control Act allows for various adjustments to the statutory limits on discretionary spending, while section 106(d) allows the chairman of the Budget Committee to make revisions to allocations, aggregates, and levels consistent with those adjustments. The Committee on Appropriations recently reported three bills that are eligible for adjustments under the Budget Control Act. Consequently, I am making adjustments to the 2012 allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and to the 2012 aggregates for spending by a total of $11.896 billion in budget authority and $5.108 billion in outlays. Those adjustments reflect the sum of $2.3 billion in budget authority and $513 million in outlays for funding designated for disaster relief, $8.703 billion in budget authority and $3.821 billion in outlays for funding designated as being for overseas contingency operations, and $893 million in budget authority and $774 million in outlays for program integrity initiatives. The two program integrity initiatives for which adjustments are in order under the Budget Control Act are continuing disability reviews and redeterminations and health care fraud and abuse control. I ask unanimous consent that the following tables detailing the changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am here to speak about disaster aid and the acute need we have in my State for assistance to deal with a disaster that occurred earlier this summer in Minot, ND. These are pictures from the valley in Minot, ND. Minot is constructed on two hills, with a valley in between, with the Souris River flowing through. We have just had the worst flood ever in history, by a long margin. The Corps of Engineers was in yesterday to see me. They calculate that this was a 430-year flood. A flood of this magnitude would only come every 430 years. Certainly, it is beyond anything we have ever seen in recorded history. They say the volume in this flood was three times the previous record; the volume of water was three times the previous record. These are just a handful of the homes in Minot that were inundated; and 4,000 families lost their homes. These are modest, middle-class families, and the homes averaged $160,000 or $170,000 in value. Yet they are devastated, because all they are eligible for is FEMA assistance. As the occupant of the chair knows well, FEMA was never designed to be a stand-alone program to recover from disaster. FEMA was designed to work in concert with insurance programs--homeowner's insurance, flood insurance. In this case, with a flood, homeowner's insurance doesn't help you at all. You get nothing on your homeowner's insurance. Then the burden falls to flood insurance. In this entire town of 40,000 people, there were less than 400 flood insurance policies. Some may say, why didn't they have flood insurance? That is a reasonable question to ask. The answer is very simple: No one thought they needed flood insurance. Flood insurance was not required because they were behind a levee that was supposed to protect against a hundred-year flood event, and actually something more than that. In addition, new dams, since the last major flood, have been built in Canada to prevent such flooding--dams that were, in part, paid for by the United States. There was no reason for people to believe they needed flood insurance. As a result, very few had it. The bottom line is that the most these people, who have had their homes destroyed, can get--and believe me, these homes are destroyed. Most of the 4,000 families who lost their homes had 10 feet of water on their homes for weeks. I have been there. I have seen these homes, and I have smelled them. It is horrific. To restore these homes, you have to take them down to the studs and start over again--with $30,000 at the most. If you are a young couple starting out, and you have a $170,000 home and a $140,000 mortgage, and the house is destroyed, and it costs $140,000 to rebuild, and you have $30,000, you have a big problem. Maybe you are like my cousin and her family, who had just sold their home, and then it was flooded--but it flooded before closing. So guess what. They had gone and bought a new home because they sold their existing home. Then their existing home was flooded and, of course, the person never goes to closing. So now they have two homes, two mortgages. This is a neighborhood of middle-class and lower middle- class families. They are devastated. The question is, are we going to help? In the past, we have. In Katrina, we not only provided FEMA disaster funding, we also provided CDBG additional emergency funding. That is precisely what we did in the 1997 flood in Grand Forks, ND, a 500-year flood. We provided additional CDBG funding. For that town alone, we provided over $170 million of CDBG emergency funding to help deal with the catastrophic situation there. We have provided much more than that to Katrina victims. What we are asking here is not unprecedented, and it is not something that hasn't been done before. It is absolutely needed. This is the headline from the Fargo Forum, the biggest newspaper in our State, about what is happening in Minot, ND: ``11,000 People Forced Out of Their Homes.'' It may not sound like many in a State such as California or New York, but in North Dakota that is one-sixtieth of the entire State's population. That is over a quarter of the population of this city, Minot, ND. ``The Rising Souris Moves Up Evacuation Time.'' Eleven thousand people were forced out of their homes. When they came back, they found an absolutely unmitigated disaster. This ran in the Minot Daily News this year: ``Projection: Devastation. Minot Residents Evacuate as Historic Rise in Souris River Approaches.'' This shows some of the preparation. The people tried to get out of town and out of these homes before it hit. Then we have this headline from June 21: ``It's a Sad Day.'' It is a sad day because the crest was increased, in 48 hours, by 10 feet. In other words, the city was protected to a certain level, and then Canada lost control of their major reservoir. Their Premier told our Governor that the floodgates are wide open, there is a wall of water coming your way. Indeed there was. They increased, in a 48-hour period, the projection of how high water levels would be by 10 feet. There is no way humanly possible to build up defenses by 10 feet in 48 hours. It cannot happen. There is no possible way. With miles and miles of levees, can you imagine trying to build that up 10 feet in just a matter of hours? It was a sad day, Mr. President. Here is the result--massive flooding, flooding that represented an unusual flood in the sense that usually when you have a flood, the water comes and goes. In this case, the water came and the water stayed. This is downtown Minot, ND. This is home, by the way, to one of the two Air Force bases that are home to the Nation's B-52s. It is also the home to 150 Minute Men III missiles, which are an important part of the deterrence of the United States. You can see that this downtown area was devastated by floodwaters. The flood came--and stayed and stayed and stayed and stayed. Here you can see rooftops, in a picture taken by Brett Miller of the North Dakota National Guard while flying over Minot, ND. I have been to the schools that have been flooded, and two of them were absolutely destroyed. They have to be rebuilt. You can't possibly rehab them in any kind of cost-effective way. In many cases, all you see are roofs here, because a majority of the 4,000 homes that were destroyed had 10 feet of water on them. For weeks and weeks, many of these homes had 6 to 10 feet of water on them. Anybody who knows what water can do when it sits and is there for weeks. When you come back, you have mold everywhere. The only possible way to get it out is to take the house down to its studs. Mr. President, let me just close on this photo from June 24 of this year. Again, the Minot Daily News headline: ``Swamped.'' Indeed, we were absolutely swamped. Water starts to inundate the valley. ``The Corps Says Souris Flows to Double by Saturday.'' These are the headlines people were coping with in Minot, ND. This devastation will not be addressed for months to come. People are already moving in to temporary FEMA trailers. Those FEMA trailers-- which are welcome because without them people would have no shelter--it should be understood, are going to be tough to live in during a North Dakota winter. The people living in those trailers are going to have a tough time in a North Dakota winter. So we need help. Yes, we need to replenish the FEMA fund, absolutely. But more than that, we desperately need additional emergency CDBG funding. That is what was used effectively for Katrina, and that was used effectively in the horrible flood that hit Grand Forks, ND, 1997. So we are asking our colleagues to do what we have done for them in disaster after disaster. We stood with them, we joined with them, we supported them, and we are asking that for our people at this time. Senator Hoeven and I have an amendment for $1 billion of CDBG funding. We have a markup occurring in the Appropriations Committee this afternoon, and I understand they are going to agree to $400 million. But that is nationwide. The need in North Dakota alone is $235 million, according to our State's Governor. The need for emergency CDBG funding in my State alone is $235 million, and the Appropriations Committee is about to agree to a level of funding nationwide of $400 million. Mr. President, there is a chasm--a chasm--between the need and the resources available. We are going to have to do better than this, or these 4,000 families in North Dakota who have had their homes destroyed are going to have a pretty miserable Christmas and a pretty miserable new year. We are better than that. We have proven so repeatedly. I hope we are able to prove it again. I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we charge time during the quorum call equally between the two sides.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair, and again I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I previously filed committee allocations and budgetary aggregates pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Today, I am adjusting some of those levels, specifically the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal year 2012. Section 101 of the Budget Control Act allows for various adjustments to the statutory limits on discretionary spending, while section 106(d) allows the chairman of the Budget Committee to make revisions to allocations, aggregates, and levels consistent with those adjustments. The Committee on Appropriations reported three bills last week that are eligible for adjustments under the Budget Control Act. Consequently, I am making adjustments to the 2012 allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and to the 2012 aggregates for spending by a total of $117.885 billion in budget authority and $59.677 billion in outlays. Those adjustments reflect the sum of $302 million in budget authority and $136 million in outlays for funding designated for disaster relief and $117.583 billion in budget authority and $59.541 billion in outlays for funding designated as being for overseas contingency operations. I ask unanimous consent that the following tables detailing the changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, last week, pursuant to section 106 of the Budget Control Act of 2011, I filed new committee allocations, new budgetary and Social Security aggregates, and a revised pay-as-you-go scorecard. Today, I am adjusting some of those levels, specifically the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations for fiscal year 2012 and the budgetary aggregates for fiscal years 2011 and 2012. First, as specified under section 106(b)(1), I filed new allocations to the Committee on Appropriations. For 2012, that allocation was set consistent with the sum of the two limits on discretionary spending set forth in the Budget Control Act. Section 101 of the Budget Control Act establishes a limit of $684 billion in new budget authority for the security category and $359 billion in new budget authority for the nonsecurity category, for a total of $1,043 billion. To match the divisions provided by the Budget Control Act, I am subdividing the initial allocation of $1,043 billion in budget authority provided to the Committee on Appropriations into two separate amounts, $684 billion for security funding and $359 billion for nonsecurity funding. Second, section 101 of the Budget Control Act allows for various adjustments to the statutory limits on discretionary spending, while section 106(d) allows the chairman of the Budget Committee to make revisions to allocations, aggregates, and levels consistent with those adjustments. The Committee on Appropriations reported three bills last week that are eligible for adjustments under the Budget Control Act. In total, I am making adjustments to the 2012 allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates of $5.769 billion in budget authority and $1.157 billion in outlays. Those adjustments reflect the sum of $5.511 billion in budget authority and $0.958 billion in outlays for funding designated for disaster relief, $0 in budget authority and -$0.007 billion in outlays for funding designated as an emergency, and $0.258 billion in budget authority and $0.206 billion in outlays for funding designated as being for overseas contingency operations. Finally, I am making technical adjustments to the 2011 and 2012 budgetary aggregates. These adjustments are being made to remove amounts that the Senate allocates to the Appropriations Committee each year but does not count as part of the spending aggregates. A similar adjustment will be made at the time the Congress clears the relevant appropriations bills, such that the adjustments do not change the total amount of room that is available to the Senate under the aggregates in either year. I ask unanimous consent that the following tables detailing the changes to the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budgetary aggregates be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I come to thank my colleagues as well for this strong vote to move forward on disaster relief. In almost every corner of America we have had unprecedented natural disasters this year, and my State has not been exempt. I represent North Dakota, and we have had flooding unprecedented since records have been kept on the Souris River that goes through Minot, ND, the Missouri River that goes between Bismarck and Mandan, ND, the place where I come from. We have seen absolute devastation, water levels that changed virtually overnight. I can remember the forecast being raised 10 feet from Minot, ND, in a period of 48 hours, a higher water level than we have seen in over 100 years of recorded history. The same is true in the Missouri Valley Basin, with runoff the highest it has ever been. This has led to incredible flooding. This is a picture from Minot, ND, where 11,000 people had to evacuate, 4,000 homes flooded. These are middle-class neighborhoods, and virtually no one had flood insurance. There were only 340 or 350 flood insurance contracts in this entire community of over 40,000 people because they had a Corps-certified levee protecting them that was supposed to be good for a 100-year flood. They had new dams that had been constructed in Canada and dams that had been enhanced in North Dakota. We hadn't had a major flood in 40 years. FEMA is absolutely essential to helping these people get back on their feet. That funding is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Anybody who thinks we are going to get well on just FEMA funding does not understand the FEMA program. FEMA was designed to work in conjunction with insurance--homeowners insurance, flood insurance. But if there is a flood, homeowners insurance doesn't cover it. I can tell you, in a community that didn't have flood insurance--or almost no one did--if all they have is FEMA, it is important, it is essential, but it is not enough. Nobody knows that better than the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu. I don't think in my entire time here I have ever seen anybody fight more doggedly, more persistently, or more effectively for their home State and their home community than Mary Landrieu did when they were hit with Katrina. Mary Landrieu is a hero because she would not take no for an answer. I saw it time after time after time in the caucus, on the floor of the Senate, in committees. Do you know what. She delivered something that those people desperately needed. Good for her, and good for the people to have sent somebody here who would fight for them in their time of need. Madam President, I am here representing a State at its time of need because we had thousands of people desperately affected--not as many as in the State of Louisiana; it is a much bigger population there. But in my State, when 11,000 people are evacuated in one town, that is a big deal. Eleven thousand people were forced out of their homes. They weren't just forced out overnight, they weren't just forced out over a weekend, they weren't just forced out over a couple of weeks, they have been out of their homes for months, and they are not getting back in their homes until sometime next year. Now, that is reality. Talk about a tough reality. With FEMA they qualify for $30,000--and thank God for it because without it they would have nothing. That is it. That is it. These are people who have lost homes that were worth $150,000, $160,000, and they had a mortgage on them. What do they do? They are going to get $30,000. Do they rehab the home? Do they rebuild the home? What do they do? Thirty thousand dollars when a home has been underwater for 6 weeks, for 8 weeks, thousands of homes that had 10 feet of water in them for weeks and weeks and weeks? When the water recedes, as it has done now, they are left with a pile of muck. I have been there. I have seen it, I have smelled it, and it is not a happy circumstance. These people deserve some additional help. Do you know what we did in Louisiana? We passed emergency supplemental appropriations for CDBG. I predict if that is not done now in this disaster, these communities will have a difficult time ever recovering because with homeowners insurance, they are not going to collect on that in a flood. Very few people had flood insurance because they thought they were protected by the dams. They are left with $30,000 to recover. It doesn't add up. We have to have additional CDBG funding because that is what was used in the floods of North Dakota in the 1990s that helped us recover. That was what was used in Louisiana to help them recover. That is what is going to be needed here in cases where flooding occurred. Here is the headline from the Minot Daily News: ``Projection: Devastation.'' When they were told the water level was rising as rapidly as it was, there was no time to defend the town. They had levees that were supposed to be good for a 100-year flood, but Canada lost control of one of its major dams. Their provincial leadership told our Governor: The floodgates are wide open. We have lost control of the dam, and that wall of water is coming your way. That meant, in a short period of time the projections for the height of the water in Minot, ND, went up 10 feet in 48 hours. There is no way to raise miles and miles of levees 10 feet in 48 hours. That is humanly impossible. What was the result? Everywhere you look, flooding. The Minot Daily News headline: ``It's a sad day''. Boy, it was a sad day. ``The crest could be 10 feet higher than June 1.'' In just a matter of days that wall of water was headed toward this community, and they had no time to raise their defenses. Here is the predictable result: That is Minot, ND, downtown. Water is everywhere-- in every residential community in the valley, the business community. You can see, this water is not like the typical flood where the water comes and goes. Here, the water came and stayed and stayed for days and days and weeks and weeks and months. It wasn't until just recently that the floodwater receded. This is a picture, again, from that community. In many cases all you can see are the rooftops. Again, I want to say to those who might be listening because they need to understand, they need to understand: The FEMA assistance that we believe is now going to be on its way--in our case, some of it has already been received and we deeply appreciate it--it is not going to be enough. When someone has lost a $160,000 house, $30,000 is not going to touch the problem. That is the reality, and the only way they are going to make meaningful inroads on that problem for people who didn't have flood insurance, through no fault of their own because they thought they were protected by new dams, by a levee--but, unfortunately, they faced something that has never been seen in history. It has never been seen in history. These are middle-class families, and they are devastated-- there are over 4,000 homes destroyed in a community of 40,000 people. If we don't get some additional help through additional funding for CDBG, those people's lives will be devastated. That is the reality. We did better for the people in Katrina. We did better for the people who were victims of the floods back in the 1990s because we passed emergency supplementals for CDBG to help people who were devastated, who needed a helping hand. We need to do it again. I am pleased to say we have circulated a letter--and we have bipartisan signatures on it--to the leadership asking for CDBG funding on an emergency basis for the communities not just in my State but all across the country: the people in Joplin who were devastated by a tornado with wind speeds, I am told now, some of them up to 300 miles an hour; the people who have just been devastated by Irene; others who were affected by Lee; and others whom we can fairly anticipate will be hit as we go through the hurricane season. We have seen natural disasters I think declared in all the States but two. Yes, we need to replenish FEMA. We need to do it on an urgent basis. But we also need to add to CDBG funding so that people are not left devastated, with no chance to rebuild their lives. I end with this headline: ``Swamped.'' That is what happened in Minot, ND. That is what happened in other cities in my State as well-- Bismarck, Mandan, my hometown area, and many other communities. Of course, we have the ongoing situation in Devils Lake, ND, where the lake has gone up 30 feet in the last 17 years. That is now three times the size of the District of Columbia and is within 3 feet of going over. That will be a major calamity for all of eastern North Dakota if it is not prevented. I implore my colleagues: Yes, let's replenish FEMA funds on an emergency basis. That is essential. But let's not stop there. Let's also provide meaningful funding for CDBG because without it, families will have a very difficult time ever recovering from these devastating blows. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.