Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator from Florida. The Senator is correct about urgency. As the Presiding Officer knows, in her own home State, we are hearing from people who are stuck literally between a rock and a hard place because they can't get their insurance renewed. They can't afford the premium increases. If they were thinking about selling their home, their home basically has become literally worthless, losing what equity they have-- temporarily we hope because we intend to fix this--because no one can purchase a home if the flood insurance went from $300 a year to $13,000 or $15,000 a year. It is affecting home ownership. This is why I am proud to say--I see the Senator from Mississippi on the floor. I wish to say how grateful I am to the great coalition of Senators who have come together, 24 Senators and 128 House Members. In addition, we have the National Association of Realtors, the National Association of Home Builders, and the Independent Community Bankers of America. I wish to ask the Senator from Mississippi, through the Chair, does the Senator think we have a better chance of getting attention for our bill with the national strong support of the realtors, the homebuilders, and the bankers? What is the Senator hearing from them in his State of Mississippi?

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the distinguished Senator from Mississippi. I appreciate his hard work as well as the staff. It has been a real team effort and without him we wouldn't be where we are today. The Senator from Massachusetts is scheduled next in this colloquy. She has brought a particularly spectacular view, a different view, and a much needed view from the east coast, not only in light of the devastation from Hurricane Sandy but the ongoing challenges to that region. I wish to ask unanimous consent, as it is 12:30 p.m., when we were supposed to end, if each of us takes 4 minutes in the order of Senator Warren, Senator Hoeven, and Senator Merkley, we could then recess for lunch as was required earlier.

Ms. LANDRIEU. What is the Senator hearing at home from the people of Massachusetts about this, and how important does she think it is for us to have the support of the realtors and the homebuilders and other national organizations that understand the dire consequences if we are not able to get some of these fixes in place?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I thank the Senator so much. Senator Hoeven has joined us, and he has been particularly forceful on the issue of basements in a State that doesn't have an ocean anywhere around it but has some serious flooding challenges. I would hope the Senator would take a minute to explain to everyone what he has been telling us and how important this particular piece of this bill is for the basement situation in his State.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, we have all been extremely helpful, of course, as a team in bringing this issue forward and crafting a bill, but literally we would not be here if it were not for the leadership of the subcommittee chairman who has jurisdiction over this issue--if he had not said yes when we asked him for a hearing in his committee to allow us to present the facts in hopes that we could find a way, as all of us have said, to make this program self-sustainable for the taxpayers but helpful to the people who need it. These are twin goals, both of which must be met or there won't be any program because no one will be able to afford to be in it. I thank the Senator for getting to that so quickly. He is the last in our colloquy. Again, what is he hearing from home and can he give us, as chair of the subcommittee, some insight into how he thinks this will affect real estate markets if we are not able to fix this.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Our time has come to an end. In conclusion, I thank the Senator from Oregon again, the subcommittee chair, for his leadership. I also particularly thank Senator Menendez and Senator Isakson, the two lead sponsors of this bill, who have come together to provide the leadership to move this bill forward. They will be looking for a vehicle. We filed it on this bill in the event we have an opportunity for an amendment on the Defense bill. If not, we will be looking for the next possible opportunity. I thank the Presiding Officer for her cosponsorship and her leadership for North Dakota. This is a map of all the counties which have levees. I was surprised when I saw this map. I am very familiar with the levees in Louisiana. I helped to build a lot of them. I am very familiar with the Mississippi River generally because we have so much commerce along the Mississippi. I am generally familiar with Missouri, Illinois, and Arkansas. But what really stood out for me was the levee systems in Montana, Arizona, and California. A lot of these are levees, dikes, and dams that are different from the river levees that we see. But look at Pittsburgh, New York, North Dakota, Montana, Washington. There is not a place in this country--not on the coast, not on the interior--that doesn't have a threat of flooding. Either a levee can break, a dam can break, a river can overflow, or there can be flash flooding because of droughts. Even in Texas where there is a lot of flash flooding. So not only on the coast, but inland as well, in Kansas. The conclusion is this is a real challenge for our whole Nation. We have a bill led by Senator Menendez and Senator Isakson that costs and scores zero. We have written this bill in a way that just postpones these draconian rate increases so we can take a little more time to study it, do some modeling, and get it right. This bill was passed with very good intentions, but prematurely, without the data we need to make smart decisions for our communities. This is giving us time to get it right. There is zero cost the way this bill is structured. Again, I appreciate the courtesies of our leader managing this bill on the floor. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, today I wish to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing one of Louisiana's courageous civil rights leaders, the Reverend Theodore Judson ``T.J.'' Jemison, who passed on November 15, 2013, at the age of 95 in Baton Rouge, LA. Reverend Jemison, the youngest of six children, was born in Selma, AL in 1918. Reverend Jemison attended Alabama State College for his undergraduate degree and received a master's of divinity degree from Virginia Union University. He became a heroic leader in the civil rights movement, served as pastor of Mount Zion First Baptist Church for nearly a half century, and was president of the National Baptist Convention for 12 years. Reverend Jemison orchestrated the Baton Rouge bus boycott of 1953--a model that would later be adopted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montgomery, AL. Reverend Jemison actively pressured the Baton Rouge City Council to ensure equal treatment for African-American passengers who were barred from seating in areas designated White-only. Through this work Reverend Jemison helped expand the civil rights to many of the citizens of Louisiana. Reverend Jemison served as president of the National Baptist Convention, the largest Black Baptist organization in the United States, from 1982-1994. As the organization's president, Reverend Jemison worked to promote the principles of the social gospel. He also oversaw the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, TN. Reverend Jemison worked tirelessly to fight for equality, education, and opportunity not only for African Americans in Louisiana but across the country as well. Reverend Jemison was a true inspiration to all that had the great privilege to know him. I am grateful and honored to have known him. My deepest condolences go out to his family and all of those whose lives he touched. My deepest condolences go out to his family and all of those whose lives he touched. He will be greatly missed.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today I wish to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Mr. Gary Ostroske, who retired on July 1, 2013, as President and CEO of the United Way of Southeast Louisiana. Mr. Ostroske has been an integral part of the United Way Worldwide system for 40 years and has served as President and CEO of the Southeastern region for the past 25 years. Throughout his tenure at the United Way, Mr. Ostroske implemented important changes to a wide breadth of programs to improve the lives of residents of Southeast Louisiana. Mr. Ostroske has worked tirelessly to provide citizens with quality healthcare, education, and human services and has undoubtedly provided many opportunities for residents of Southeast Louisiana to succeed and improve their lives. As the President and CEO of United Way of Southeast Louisiana, Mr. Ostroske worked collaboratively with community organizations and Greater New Orleans leaders to create innovative ways to deliver critical services to Southeast Louisiana residents. Through these community partnerships, Mr. Ostroske strengthened United Way's impact and allowed it to play an integral role in crafting a strong economic agenda for our region. Mr. Ostroske's unwavering leadership in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was truly remarkable. Mr. Ostroske's diligent efforts to rebuild our region after these disasters ensured our region's renewed sense of vitality and economic strength. Upon his retirement, Mr. Ostroske is looking forward to volunteering in our community and spending time with his wife of 35 years, Mary Ann and his family--their son, Peter Ostroske, president of O Look!, an internet company based in Sao Paulo, Brazil and their daughter, Jenny Ostroske Luke, who is a veterinarian, married to Fletcher Luke. Gary and Mary Ann are the proud grandparents to Jenny and Fletcher's children--Ellis and Myles. Mr. Ostroske's service to the people of Louisiana has been truly extraordinary and serves as an inspiration to us all. It is with my greatest sincerity that I ask my colleagues to join me along with Mr. Ostroske's family in recognizing his dedicated service to the people of Louisiana, as well as wishing him well in his retirement.

Ms. LANDRIEU

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to take this opportunity to associate myself with the remarks of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Mikulski, earlier this week. She has really been an extraordinary leader for many years in this Congress. She is truly an expert appropriator. We could have no better person trying to bring this body together--Democrats and Republicans--in my mind than Senator Mikulski. She is trying to get our appropriations bills through the process--which is so important for the country, not just for our agencies and our departments, as the Presiding Officer knows, as a Senator from Massachusetts with thousands in his State and millions of private contractors and nonprofit organizations, not the least of which is one my favorites, the Catholic Church, which delivers so many social services to the people of our State and Nation. It is very hard for anyone to plan anything when the Federal budget is in such disarray. If there is anyone that can figure this out, it is Senator Mikulski. So as one of her subcommittee chairs, I want to be here to support her work. I am the chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, and I add my voice to how important it is for us over these next few weeks to get a budget resolution done. Senator Murray has passed a budget on this side. After the recklessness of a government shutdown, finally everyone has come to their senses, and we are now in conference with the Budget Committee. We have to get that budget number down so that once we agree on what the top-line spending is, the budget for the country, we can then go about building the 12 bills that actually run the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, and the others. The important reason for Congress to adopt a budget resolution would be for us to provide some stability--not just for the next year but the next 2 years, and not only for stability to our agencies but to our many private sector partners, so that we can give some idea of what the outlook for spending and investing is going to be by the Federal Government. It is very important for our overall economic strength. We cannot afford another government shutdown which puts our economic viability at risk and denies assistance to millions of Americans. In my State, I was trying to figure out a way to describe the cost of the shutdown--reckless, and it should have been avoided, and it was not. So I asked, what are some of the things that cost about $92 million in Louisiana? One of the things I found out is that the New Orleans Saints payroll is $70 million a year. That would be like telling the Saints we are not paying you for one whole year. We would never do that in New Orleans. But when we think about not paying the salaries of the players and then the effect that would have on the whole operation, the whole organization, the city itself, the games, we can see the ripple effect; and that was just the impact to Louisiana. The impact to the Nation was extraordinary. We have to avoid it at all costs. One of the missions of the Appropriations Committee is to make sure the Federal Government continues to operate on behalf of the people, the taxpayers we serve, and that we invest in their future, in their opportunities to strengthen families and grow businesses. They need a budget that they can count on just like we do. When the Federal Government is not functioning under normal order and getting our budgets, our appropriations bills, it really does wreak havoc in many communities throughout our country. We need to pass our 12 appropriations bills that set priorities and invest in our future. If we are not able to get to an agreement on the budget and to set top lines for all of our appropriations bills, we will basically punt to a continuing resolution--CR--which I think Senator Durbin said is like running your business for 2014 based on your checkbook receipts from 2013. Why would any smart businessperson do that? No one would run a family budget or business operation using last year's stubs from the checkbook. We want to pay for this year coming up. We want to budget for the future. Anytime we can't pass an appropriations bill and we punt to a continuing resolution, it is like putting the country on autopilot set for last year's weather, not what is coming ahead for next year. It really is a waste of money. It wastes taxpayer money. So I am hoping that cool heads can prevail and we can get a budget number. It is going to take some additional revenues put on the table, as well as some smart cuts and reductions, balancing between the Murray priorities and the Ryan priorities. Then we can be given our numbers to build the Homeland Security budget. That is what I want to talk about now just briefly. Everyone knows how important it is to keep the homeland security of this country intact. We have done a very fine job. It has been expensive. This budget has gone from zero to its current level of $42 billion post-9/11, in the last 12 years, but it has been an investment worth making. We have a lot of threats against our country every day from border intrusions, to cyber security threats, to explosions, as the Presiding Officer knows so well, with the Boston Marathon, which frightened and terrorized an entire community and city. So there are lots of challenges. Throwing money at the problem isn't going to fix them all, but not having enough money to invest will ensure vulnerabilities which we cannot allow. When a homemade explosive device wreaked havoc at the Boston Marathon, we saw how critical it was that law enforcement and first responders had proper training and equipment. That training and equipment is funded through the Homeland Security bill. We have given robust grants over the years. We want to continue to be able to do that. However, if we don't get to a budget, if we don't get to an agreement, grant funding would be reduced to the lowest level since it was formed 10 years ago. I don't think we want to go back to pre-9/11 investments. This is a new world. It is a dangerous world. The threats are evolving, as we saw play out in Boston. We need to be ready for the next attack, and we won't be if we can't get a budget agreement. Our cyber networks are under constant attack. There are 6 million probes on U.S. networks alone. Among the attackers we know are 140 foreign spy organizations. One example: The Syrian Electronic Army defaced the Marine Corps Web site and hacked into numerous print media Web sites. A recent Annual Report to Congress from the U.S. Secretary of Defense documents that China is using its network exploitation capability to support intelligence collections--of course, that is understandable--but hacking into some of our manufacturing and private sector databases to steal U.S. trade and manufacturing secrets. We know this. It has been put into the record before, but it is worth repeating. Also this year, in the wake of serious chemical plant incidents in West Texas and Ascension Parish in Louisiana, we are reminded that people live around chemical plants and industrial sites that are very dangerous. Lots is done to keep them safe, but if that perimeter was ever breached by people who had intentions other than to work there and produce legal products, it could be a disaster. That is ongoing. It is a big country. It is an open country. We have partnerships to build in the private sector, and in large measure that is part of what our budget does. Last week, a Transportation Security officer lost his life, and two others were shot in the line of duty at the Los Angeles airport. So these attacks are real. This budget does what it can with limited resources. We try to be strategic. We try to be as efficient as we can to make sure that we keep our hundreds of airports, land ports, and water ports safe for people to move, for manufacturing and trade, and for our economy to advance. It is a big job. It takes a lot of money to do that, and it takes cooperation. I sure hope in the next couple of weeks we can find it. We continue to face threats of weapons of mass destruction. Dirty bombs being detonated in one of our cities or ports is an ongoing worry. A radiological attack would incite not just harm but mass panic and shut down transportation systems. We just cannot afford not to have a Department of Homeland Security budget that is looking to the future. As these threats evolve, they are ever changing. People say: I just bought a cell phone. Do I have to buy another one? The technology is changing so fast, it is hard for people to keep up. I just got a laptop last year. I need to buy another one. The technology is changing. In the same sense, threats are evolving. We can't budget for what happened 2 years ago. We need to budget for the future, and if we can't get this budget worked out, if we can't get our appropriations numbers, we will either be in a continuing resolution--which is basically funding what happened in the past, which makes no sense and wastes taxpayer money-- or we will be short-changing our constituents. For 4 years in a row the Department of Homeland Security has had to tighten its belt. Everyone has. We have been willing to do that. We have operated at reduced funding. But the impact of the sequester-- which is really a blunt instrument that cuts funding in a not very smart way. They are automatic cuts that were never intended, that were never designed to run the government. They were really designed to motivate us to do a better job of getting to the budget. That seems not to be working. As a result, these automatic cuts that are blunt, that are harsh, and that really are not smart are happening to all of our agencies, defense and nondefense alike. It is time to get rid of that inefficient way of operating and go to a more strategic, forward- leaning planning budget process. I just want to mention an agency that I am very supportive of, the Coast Guard, not only because we build many of the boats in Louisiana but because so many of our people--and Massachusetts as well--are literally saved every year by the Coast Guard. We have lots of water, lots of lakes, lots of important work going on with offshore oil and gas drilling, and we are intercepting drugs that come into the United States. The Coast Guard is on the front line. They are operating their surface and air assets at 25 percent below planned levels because of sequestration--not smart cuts. It has resulted in a 30-percent reduction of drug seizures--people are not happy to hear this; I am not happy to say it--and an 11-percent reduction in the interdiction of undocumented migrants. Under a yearlong CR, Customs and Border Protection would not be able to hire any new officers for our air, land, and sea ports of entry. This is bad news for travel and trade. The Presiding Officer knows, as people come into America they ask: Why do we have to wait so long in line? We just came here to do business. We have to get to New York, Chicago, Boston, Louisiana, California, and to other places where people come to do international business. We can't shift assets from the past to the front line with a sequester. We can only do it with a rational budget that will help cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans and Miami to grow. This is important to business. It is important to the Chamber of Commerce. So I urge my colleagues, let us work very hard together in a bipartisan way to come to some agreement on our budget, so that we can have direction as appropriators to design bills--whether it is for the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce--to fashion budgets that meet future needs, that are not funding tired past priorities but are funding investing in the real future and real-time needs, present and future, of our citizens and of the great country that we believe in and want to see get stronger. Under a year-long CR, DHS would not be able to implement safeguards to prevent unauthorized release of classified information. Vulnerabilities in the existing system were highlighted in the Wikileaks releases and the more recent disclosures by Edward Snowden. There was no funding in fiscal year 2013 to stop this type of activity so DHS's classified data will not be adequately protected without fiscal year 2014 funding. Critical infrastructure protection efforts would be hindered. For example, without the $34 million above the fiscal year 2013 sequester level, inspections of chemical plants to prevent weaponization by terrorists will be delayed. Funding to better coordinate Federal chemical programs in the wake of the West, Texas facility explosion will not be provided. Increases to prevent catastrophic impacts to critical infrastructure during manmade or natural disasters will be eliminated. Because of these impacts, it is critical that we conference our fiscal year 2014 Senate bills with our House counterparts so that we can address the weaknesses that continuing to operate at sequestration levels would entail. A conference would also permit a necessary delay to flood insurance rate increases for properties that were formerly grandfathered into affordable rates since the House and Senate Homeland Security bills contain identical language on this issue. This is one small step in a larger effort I have been working on to fix flood insurance so that it is affordable, accessible and self-sustainable. Time and time again, Senators have heard from their constituents about the skyrocketing increases in flood insurance rates. Many homeowners throughout the United States will see their rates rise to unaffordable levels. For example, up to 2.9 million policies nationwide could see their previously grandfathered rates become absolutely unaffordable. One resident in my State of Louisiana could see rates increase from $633 to over $20,000 per year. That makes homeownership unachievable for many Americans and traps others in houses that they cannot sell. We must get our work done. We need to agree on a budget for fiscal year 2014. Then we need to finalize our fiscal year 2014 bills so that our agencies have the appropriate funding for their critical missions-- instead of lurching from one funding crisis to the next. This is a hard task but one I believe that is achievable. This is exactly what we were elected to do. I thank Senator Mikulski for her leadership. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank my colleagues who led this effort on this nondiscrimination bill, which is historic, and I am pleased we had a bipartisan vote to make America more accepting and a just place. It is a work-in-progress, and I am very pleased we could find the support on this floor to do that. Now the bill goes to the House, and I urge my colleagues in my congressional delegation and others to look at this bill with an open mind and an open heart and end discrimination in the workplace. I urge them to support this bill. (The further remarks of Ms. Landrieu pertaining to the introduction of S. 1642 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.)

Ms. LANDRIEU. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to speak about a bill I plan to introduce in a few moments, and hopefully we will have a chance or an opportunity in the future to debate it because it is a very important fix, if you will, to the Affordable Care Act. We debated this bill for literally years--months in committee for hours and hours, in daylight and during the evening sessions. There were hundreds of amendments. This bill was built with Democratic input and support and Republican input. The Republicans did not vote for the bill, but they most certainly had a tremendous amount of impact in the amendment process. Building a new health care system for this Nation has been very difficult, but it holds a great deal of promise. The Affordable Care Act--and the easiest way to explain it--was somewhere between what some people on the left wanted, which was a government-run system, something like Medicare for all--it is appealing, but it is very expensive. We couldn't figure out a cost-effective way to provide that. Members on the right, the more conservative-leaning in this body, wanted to provide savings accounts. This works beautifully for people who have money to save in the account, but people who live paycheck to paycheck and have no money to save would never get any account to be able to provide for their health insurance. Between those two bookends, we debated for a long time about how to provide a market-based approach to insurance. No nation in the world has attempted this. This is a big effort, but it is an important effort because we are a developed nation. We need to have a healthy workforce. It is about as simple as that. We can't be No. 1 in the world and we can't be the strongest economic power in the world if our people are sick and weak. It is as simple as that. We can't be the strongest economic power in the world if our health care system is sapping so much money out of our economic power--19 percent of the GDP, when Japan is 8 percent. We can't expect to beat Japan in economics if we are paying almost twice as much for health care and getting less results. We had to change. We did, and we built a market-based approach, contrary to what all of the opponents of the Affordable Care Act say. We built a market-based approach that basically said that if people are over 65, they will be on Medicare. We are continuing to reform and strengthen Medicare. There are some very good parts of it, and then there are some weaker parts or difficult parts that need to be corrected. Over time we will continue to streamline, save money, provide better service, more choice, et cetera. People who are among the poorest members of our country--133 percent of poverty, which is an income of about $15,000 or less--potentially may not be able to find a good-paying full-time job or perhaps didn't receive the education others received, perhaps have some disability, they would go on Medicaid. Then everyone in between the lowest income and under the age of 65 is in a private health care system, which is a market-based system, with competition driving prices down. The idea would be that there would be 20, 30, 40 health care plans offered in every State. People could choose what they want with a minimum bronze, silver, or gold plan with many choices. That is the promise; that is the hope; that is the idea. The great promise of this is that if someone has cancer, they can't be dropped. If they have diabetes, they can't be turned away. Everyone is covered, the risk is spread, the price comes down, and the free market operates. We would never know that based upon the criticism we hear on television and radio all day long, but this is the truth. One of the important components of that bill that many of us talked about was the fact that if someone had individual insurance on the market, they could keep it. What is happening now, unfortunately, because of the grandfather provision in the Affordable Care Act, in my view--this may not be shared by everyone on the floor--it was not written as tightly as it should have been, as clearly as it should have been. The bill I am introducing today, Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act, will clarify this grandfather clause in the Affordable Care Act so that it will clearly say that if a person has an insurance plan they like, if it is what they want and can afford, they can keep it. This bill, if it passes, will help anywhere from 5 to 7 million people who are getting notices in the mail every day like the one I will read into the Record, which was sent to someone in my State. Thank you for your support of Vantage Health Plan, Inc. ("Vantage'') over recent years. It has been our pleasure to serve you and we hope that you have been satisfied as a Vantage member. In light of recent changes in the health insurance industry, Vantage will be discontinuing our offering of Grandfathered Individual plans, effective January 4, 2014. This discontinuance will affect your policy. Vantage is pleased to announce the availability of several new individual products in 2014: Beginning in January 2014, you will have the option to enroll into a new plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace (or the Exchange). Members enrolling into Individual plans through the Marketplace may be eligible for premium and/or cost sharing subsidies. This is because everyone in Louisiana with a family income of up to $90,000 a year will have some sort of premium support, which will be a great help to many of our middle-class families. Continuing: Many of the Marketplace plans will provide you with more generous coverage than your current Grandfathered Individual plan. We invite you to visit Vantage online at www.VantageHealthPlan.com/marketplace to review our Exchange plan offerings. You may also enroll online at www.Healthcare.gov, by calling (800) 318-2596 or by contacting your agent or broker. In addition to the Exchange plan offerings, Vantage will have several new plan offerings available outside of the Exchange for 2014. These plans are similar to your current Freedom or High Deductible plan. We will have more information on those plan options later this Fall. This is the letter thousands of people are receiving. This letter should have never gone out. We said to people that if they have insurance they like, they can keep it. We didn't say that if they have insurance they like that doesn't meet the standards or that meets the minimum standards, they can keep it. We said and the President said over and over that if people have insurance and they like the insurance they have, they can keep it. That is my bill. That is the single focus of my bill. It is not to undermine the Affordable Care Act; it is to strengthen it and to keep our promise to the millions of Americans to whom we said if they have insurance, they can keep what they have. If they don't, there is a new marketplace where they and their families can go and choose among a variety of different plans. Depending on their income, they may have support from their community or from the government. If someone is extremely poor, we can provide options for them through Medicaid. It is not as desirable as through private insurance, but many Governors, including some Republican Governors, are being very creative with their Medicaid plans and actually changing them into more of a private-like insurance model. There is great flexibility in how Governors who have good hearts and good intentions are using their Medicaid dollars wisely. Having said that, having reread the grandfather clause, having looked at it very closely, I have determined that this is the best course to introduce this bill, which I will do later this evening to actually file it. Again, it has two simple directives: No. 1, all insurance companies shall continue to offer grandfather plans that were in effect prior to a certain date. No. 2, every insurance company that provided those grandfather plans has to explain to those policyholders how their current plan falls short of the new standard on the market and what might be available to them that is better, but they are not forced to buy it. So I hope we can debate this. Unlike many on the other side who want to tear the act down and repeal it, to defund it--they even took the whole Federal Government hostage and the whole economy of the United States hostage because of it--or that is what they tried to do. They failed, thank goodness, and the hostages have been released. The government is back up and operating. There are some of us who are sincere about supporting the concepts of this bill, the promise of this bill, which is extraordinary and historic. We recognize there are some pieces of it that need to be fixed or tightened or tweaked to make sure it is going to work in the future as we have said. Again, that is simply what my bill does. I am happy to introduce it. I have one cosponsor, Senator Manchin of West Virginia, but many others have expressed their interest in working with me, and I look forward to bringing this before the committee for full debate and hopefully to the Senate floor in some way in the near future for debate and hopefully for passage.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to speak about a bill I plan to introduce in a few moments, and hopefully we will have a chance or an opportunity in the future to debate it because it is a very important fix, if you will, to the Affordable Care Act. We debated this bill for literally years--months in committee for hours and hours, in daylight and during the evening sessions. There were hundreds of amendments. This bill was built with Democratic input and support and Republican input. The Republicans did not vote for the bill, but they most certainly had a tremendous amount of impact in the amendment process. Building a new health care system for this Nation has been very difficult, but it holds a great deal of promise. The Affordable Care Act--and the easiest way to explain it--was somewhere between what some people on the left wanted, which was a government-run system, something like Medicare for all--it is appealing, but it is very expensive. We couldn't figure out a cost-effective way to provide that. Members on the right, the more conservative-leaning in this body, wanted to provide savings accounts. This works beautifully for people who have money to save in the account, but people who live paycheck to paycheck and have no money to save would never get any account to be able to provide for their health insurance. Between those two bookends, we debated for a long time about how to provide a market-based approach to insurance. No nation in the world has attempted this. This is a big effort, but it is an important effort because we are a developed nation. We need to have a healthy workforce. It is about as simple as that. We can't be No. 1 in the world and we can't be the strongest economic power in the world if our people are sick and weak. It is as simple as that. We can't be the strongest economic power in the world if our health care system is sapping so much money out of our economic power--19 percent of the GDP, when Japan is 8 percent. We can't expect to beat Japan in economics if we are paying almost twice as much for health care and getting less results. We had to change. We did, and we built a market-based approach, contrary to what all of the opponents of the Affordable Care Act say. We built a market-based approach that basically said that if people are over 65, they will be on Medicare. We are continuing to reform and strengthen Medicare. There are some very good parts of it, and then there are some weaker parts or difficult parts that need to be corrected. Over time we will continue to streamline, save money, provide better service, more choice, et cetera. People who are among the poorest members of our country--133 percent of poverty, which is an income of about $15,000 or less--potentially may not be able to find a good-paying full-time job or perhaps didn't receive the education others received, perhaps have some disability, they would go on Medicaid. Then everyone in between the lowest income and under the age of 65 is in a private health care system, which is a market-based system, with competition driving prices down. The idea would be that there would be 20, 30, 40 health care plans offered in every State. People could choose what they want with a minimum bronze, silver, or gold plan with many choices. That is the promise; that is the hope; that is the idea. The great promise of this is that if someone has cancer, they can't be dropped. If they have diabetes, they can't be turned away. Everyone is covered, the risk is spread, the price comes down, and the free market operates. We would never know that based upon the criticism we hear on television and radio all day long, but this is the truth. One of the important components of that bill that many of us talked about was the fact that if someone had individual insurance on the market, they could keep it. What is happening now, unfortunately, because of the grandfather provision in the Affordable Care Act, in my view--this may not be shared by everyone on the floor--it was not written as tightly as it should have been, as clearly as it should have been. The bill I am introducing today, Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act, will clarify this grandfather clause in the Affordable Care Act so that it will clearly say that if a person has an insurance plan they like, if it is what they want and can afford, they can keep it. This bill, if it passes, will help anywhere from 5 to 7 million people who are getting notices in the mail every day like the one I will read into the Record, which was sent to someone in my State. Thank you for your support of Vantage Health Plan, Inc. ("Vantage'') over recent years. It has been our pleasure to serve you and we hope that you have been satisfied as a Vantage member. In light of recent changes in the health insurance industry, Vantage will be discontinuing our offering of Grandfathered Individual plans, effective January 4, 2014. This discontinuance will affect your policy. Vantage is pleased to announce the availability of several new individual products in 2014: Beginning in January 2014, you will have the option to enroll into a new plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace (or the Exchange). Members enrolling into Individual plans through the Marketplace may be eligible for premium and/or cost sharing subsidies. This is because everyone in Louisiana with a family income of up to $90,000 a year will have some sort of premium support, which will be a great help to many of our middle-class families. Continuing: Many of the Marketplace plans will provide you with more generous coverage than your current Grandfathered Individual plan. We invite you to visit Vantage online at www.VantageHealthPlan.com/marketplace to review our Exchange plan offerings. You may also enroll online at www.Healthcare.gov, by calling (800) 318-2596 or by contacting your agent or broker. In addition to the Exchange plan offerings, Vantage will have several new plan offerings available outside of the Exchange for 2014. These plans are similar to your current Freedom or High Deductible plan. We will have more information on those plan options later this Fall. This is the letter thousands of people are receiving. This letter should have never gone out. We said to people that if they have insurance they like, they can keep it. We didn't say that if they have insurance they like that doesn't meet the standards or that meets the minimum standards, they can keep it. We said and the President said over and over that if people have insurance and they like the insurance they have, they can keep it. That is my bill. That is the single focus of my bill. It is not to undermine the Affordable Care Act; it is to strengthen it and to keep our promise to the millions of Americans to whom we said if they have insurance, they can keep what they have. If they don't, there is a new marketplace where they and their families can go and choose among a variety of different plans. Depending on their income, they may have support from their community or from the government. If someone is extremely poor, we can provide options for them through Medicaid. It is not as desirable as through private insurance, but many Governors, including some Republican Governors, are being very creative with their Medicaid plans and actually changing them into more of a private-like insurance model. There is great flexibility in how Governors who have good hearts and good intentions are using their Medicaid dollars wisely. Having said that, having reread the grandfather clause, having looked at it very closely, I have determined that this is the best course to introduce this bill, which I will do later this evening to actually file it. Again, it has two simple directives: No. 1, all insurance companies shall continue to offer grandfather plans that were in effect prior to a certain date. No. 2, every insurance company that provided those grandfather plans has to explain to those policyholders how their current plan falls short of the new standard on the market and what might be available to them that is better, but they are not forced to buy it. So I hope we can debate this. Unlike many on the other side who want to tear the act down and repeal it, to defund it--they even took the whole Federal Government hostage and the whole economy of the United States hostage because of it--or that is what they tried to do. They failed, thank goodness, and the hostages have been released. The government is back up and operating. There are some of us who are sincere about supporting the concepts of this bill, the promise of this bill, which is extraordinary and historic. We recognize there are some pieces of it that need to be fixed or tightened or tweaked to make sure it is going to work in the future as we have said. Again, that is simply what my bill does. I am happy to introduce it. I have one cosponsor, Senator Manchin of West Virginia, but many others have expressed their interest in working with me, and I look forward to bringing this before the committee for full debate and hopefully to the Senate floor in some way in the near future for debate and hopefully for passage.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I wish to follow up on the words of my distinguished colleague from Hawaii and also comment on a few points that the Senator from Wyoming Mr. Enzi made in this important debate that is happening in Washington today--actually a debate that is happening all over our country. First, I wish to associate myself with the effort underway by Senator Collins from Maine and Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, Senator Pryor from Arkansas, and others on both sides of the aisle who have been working throughout the evening, the night, early morning hours-- talking, trying to find a way forward. I thank both Leader Reid and Leader McConnell for blessing that effort and trying to find a way forward because, as the Senator from Hawaii said, this is a very dangerous situation. Despite the fact that there are Members on the other side of the Capitol in the Republican Party--not in the Democratic Party, in the Republican Party--who continue to doubt that there will be any ramifications from default, I hate to say it, but they are going to be sorry they uttered those words. This is a very serious situation. The U.S. Treasury bond is the safest investment in the world today. Let me repeat, the safest investment in the world today. Think about it. If you had a little bit of money, would you invest it in Russia? Would you invest it in Saudi Arabia? Would you invest it in China? Where would you invest it? The Government of the United States is not perfect but, relatively speaking, in all aspects of the world what is the safest, most sure group that is likely to pay their debts? That would be the United States, and it has been that way for over 225 years. But the Republicans in the House have decided to put that on the line because they do not like the Affordable Care Act or they put all of that on the line because they don't like the way the budget process is working. They then doubled down and said not only are we going to put the full faith and credit of the United States at risk, we are going to shut down the government while we do that until we get our way on a specific piece of legislation. I know there are principles underlying the Affordable Care Act that are worth debating how big the size of government should be, how much the Federal Government should spend, how much local government should spend, what level of revenues should be required to pay for it and who should put up those revenues, individuals or businesses. Those are important issues to decide. We try to make those decisions every day. But a group of 80 Republicans--3 of whom are in my own State, I am sorry to say, 3 Representatives--signed a letter saying: If we don't get exactly what we want on the Affordable Care Act--which, by the way, passed the Congress, was upheld by the Supreme Court, and is being implemented in a majority of States--we are going to put the full faith and credit of the United States at risk. Literally, the ramifications are too massive to describe. We have only a few days. I wouldn't even say we have a few days. We are already feeling the results of this hostage-taking by a few Republicans in the House of Representatives. I am praying and hoping that my colleagues in the Senate will live up to the great hope of the Senate, which was at times such as these to walk back from the ledge, reason together and find a way forward. I see my good friend from Tennessee. I think if there is anyone who could help us do that, he would be one who could, along with Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others who have been mayors, who have been elected officials for a long time, who understand how you can get wound up and that it is important to calmly wind down and figure this out. I will yield for a minute to the Senator if he has a question. But I do want to say, because my argument is not with him, that when Senators come to the floor to say that Democrats have not wanted to go along with the regular process, I want to say again as an appropriator, because I came to the floor yesterday, I want to say the first step in an appropriations process is to get a budget. The Democrats, amazingly, were able to get a budget. We have not for 4 years in the Senate. So we got a budget. Republicans got a budget. These are two completely different approaches to how the government should be funded, what should be spent, how much money should be raised--two different approaches. But you know what. It is two different parties. We have a Democrat Party controlling here, the Republican Party controlling there. That is the first step, two budgets. They are very different. We need to go to conference on that budget. But the Democrats here have asked our Republican colleagues who sit right across the aisle, please let us go to the Budget Committee, 21 times. I have put this in the Record. We started on April 23, Senator Reid requested unanimous consent; Senator Toomey from Pennsylvania objected. I am not going to read them all. Let's fast forward to 5/14, May 14. Senator Warner asked unanimous consent to go to conference. Senator McConnell blocked it. Then go into June, June 4. Senator Murray asked unanimous consent. Senator Rubio blocked it. Then go to July 17, Senator Murray asked again, Senator Mike Lee blocked it. They blocked going to budget conference because the tea partiers in this party, the small group of Republicans, said we will go to conference, but you cannot talk about raising any revenues in the budget conference. We will go to a budget conference to try to solve the budget problems of the United States, but you Democrats cannot talk about raising revenues. That is because the only thing we want to talk about is cutting--cutting, cutting. That is all. They will cut anything: Head Start, education, EPA--don't like the EPA very much myself, but that is all they want to do is cut. We said you cannot solve a problem with just one side of that equation. We don't know where the revenues might need to come from, but there has to be a balance and we have to start paying down our long- term debt. That is one thing I wish to say again. I don't want anyone in this government or the world or my State or the Nation to think Democrats are not concerned about the debt. We are concerned about the debt. We do not like the debt being this high. We want to try to find ways and we have reduced--with our Republican colleagues--spending trillions of dollars. The Senator from Tennessee, to his credit--because I have not been in those negotiations. I was not part of the group of 8, but I supported a lot of what they have done. I was not on Simpson-Bowles, but I supported a lot of that. To his credit, he has tried to come up with a grand bargain to get our country to pay down our long-term debt but in a smart way that strengthens our economy and does not pull out the rug from underneath it. But because the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cruz--through the Chair, Senator Cruz from Texas, because Senator Lee from Utah, said: No, we cannot go to budget unless you Democrats agree before you ever get to the negotiating table that we cannot raise any revenue--that was what the fight was about, so we never went to conference. When you don't go to the budget conference, then you cannot start negotiating the individual bills. My responsibility is to negotiate Homeland. I want to say I am very proud of my colleague Senator Coats. He and I were given a number by our leadership and we have completely put our bill together with virtually no disagreement on a lower number than we had last year. We had to cut a lot of things out. I might say, we were asked by some Republican leaders to add a $700 million project that I had to absorb into my budget because of something the Republicans asked for--and the President supported, I want to be honest. I was not a big fan of it, but the President and the Republicans wanted it, so I had to compromise and put it in my bill without any additional money and take some things out to make room for it. That is what we do around here--that is what we used to do around here. We are not doing it much right now. For anyone to come to the floor to say to Democrats you are not the ones who want to go to regular order--we will go to budget. Patty Murray, the Senator from Washington, could not be working any harder. She is one of the most respected Members in this whole body, and I am not just saying that. She is very humble. She is very smart. She is very much willing to negotiate. The Senator from Maryland Ms. Mikulski is probably one of the most popular Senators who has ever served in the Senate. Literally everyone likes her. She is not difficult to work with. She is tough. She is not difficult to work with. So we have two extraordinary people trying to work through this. Yet we are not so much being blocked by our side on the Senate--even though they have blocked 21 times--they are being run by a group of extreme, radical party members on their side who have now gotten the Republican Party in complete disarray. That is not good for them. It is not good for the Democrats. It is definitely not good for the country. Now we have to figure out our way forward. I know I have run into my 10 minutes. I don't know if the Senator wants to speak or if he wants me to yield for a question. I am happy to wrap this up and I will in a minute. But to recap, I am willing to be part of the common ground to find a solution, but I will not allow--as long as I am on this floor today and I will be here for a couple of hours--for anyone to suggest that Democrats have been holding up the process, we have been trying to get to a budget conference for 6 months. We have been trying to negotiate appropriations bills. But we will not be held hostage, nor the Federal employees or the businesses or nonprofits or our States and mayors and cities because Republicans cannot even go to the negotiation until they get 100 percent of their way or until the government is shutdown, it cannot open, or until we default on our debt. We cannot negotiate under those terms. We can negotiate on terms where the hostages are freed and we sit down like grownups and work this out. I am hoping we can do that.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I would like to respond for 5 minutes, and then I will have to take the Chair and relieve the Presiding Officer. Let me again say how much I respect the Senator from Tennessee. No one on his side of the aisle--except perhaps the good Senator from Alabama--has spent more time on budget issues because that is actually the job of the Senator from Alabama. The Senator from Tennessee has taken it upon himself to be a leader. I agree with him that we are on right page, the right chapter, and in the right book to talk about some fiscal issues. I don't agree that the strategy to get us here was the right strategy, but we are here. There is no sense in pointing fingers. I do agree that the Senate needs to try to find our way forward because--the Senator from Tennessee is correct--where we are now, there are no winners and losers. It is just about doing what is right for the American people. I want to do that for the State of Louisiana, and he wants to do that for the State of Tennessee. We have lots of people who are counting on us to try to lower our temperatures and find a way forward. Secondly, I also agree with him that whatever we can come up with here has to be broadly supported on both sides--or at least core- supported on both sides--because it is going to have to be something we can bring to the House and say, look, this is the best we can do and we cannot go over this cliff. Thirdly, I want to make a point. On this Budget Control Act, that is law. Let me say the Affordable Care Act, in lawyers' terms--and I am not one--would say it is not settled law. It is law that has passed and been upheld by the Supreme Court, but there have not been enough court tests. I will take the Senator's word for it, but it is settled as far as we are concerned because it passed. The Budget Control Act is as well. But this is the point I would like to make to my good friend from Tennessee: The House is willing to take the sequester, which is the lowest number, but what they do--which is very disingenuous and what the Democrats will not be for--is basically take the lower number overall, but keeping Defense at a very high number, and therefore cutting the heck out of everybody else. There is no agriculture money, no education money, no health care money, no nothing, but they want to keep Defense whole. That is what the House is trying to do. I realize that is not what my colleagues on the Republican side here want to do. As the Senator from Tennessee knows, that is our problem. It is not about just taking the lower number, but how that number is going to be allocated across appropriations. That is how the Defense appropriations bill is put together. It absorbs all the money and leaves all the other budgets starving. I know Defense is important. I am a Democrat who supported a strong defense. I have stood against irresponsible cuts to the Defense budget. But to take a lower number in the whole budget and then say, OK, we will take the lower number, but we are going to give it all to Defense, and then we can't fund anything in health, education, and social services, which is so important--that is not right either. One more point is this: The Senator from Tennessee has been very brave. There are not that many brave people around here. He has been one of the brave ones around here who said we may need to raise a few revenues around here; we can't solve the whole problem by cuts alone. In the last big deal we did, we were able to figure out how to raise some revenues and also make some cuts so we could have a good and steady way to balance our budget and not pull the rug out from underneath this very promising economy. I have 5-percent unemployment in Louisiana. I am not talking as a State that doesn't have jobs. Our problem is we have so many jobs, we need people to fill them. It breaks my heart we are ready to pull the plug on that, and we are close. I know how much my people are counting on us to get this done. I want to thank the Senator, but I hope he will also stand up to some of the other voices over there who say we can solve this problem by cutting, cutting, cutting, and we can cut mandatory problems and cut entitlements, that is all we have to worry about, and I think he knows that is not correct. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I come to the floor today to add my voice to the voices that have spoken since 11:00 our time about the importance of opening this government and sending a strong signal that the Congress will not default on its debt; that we will pay our bills and we will honor the commitments we have made not only to bondholders outside of our country but to our own constituents who hold Treasury bonds in their pension funds and their 401(k)s, who use it to balance their investments in their businesses because they know they can count on those notes being paid. Until just a few days ago it seemed as if that would happen. Recently, in the last 48 hours, there is a real question as to whether a small group of Republicans in the House understands how high this cliff is and how close we are to it. This problem is completely manufactured by a group of people elected to office to do this exact thing--shut the government down at any expense and, as the Senator from Virginia just said, burn the whole house down with the children inside. They came here with that express purpose. They are wrong, and they are pushing this country to a terrible place. Leader Reid has explained it. Senator Schumer from New York has explained it. Mark Warner, the senior Senator from Virginia, who is literally one of the finest Governors we have had in the last 50 years in America--and I say that respectfully and honestly; we all know what a great Governor he was--he is now joined by another great Governor from Virginia, Governor Kaine--these men are Senators, but they understand our Governors now are at risk, every Governor, Republican and Democrat, and all the leaders of the State governments and the thousands of cities and villages. Yesterday we received a letter signed by the Governors Association, Democrat and Republican Governors, saying open the government. Do not let the government default. Why? Because in our system of government, which is the best in the world--it is not perfect, but it is the best in the world ever created by men and women. We are frail human beings. We make a lot of mistakes. We made so many mistakes in the creation of our country and we still continue to do it, but we are trying to build a model of democracy, the best the Earth has ever known. There is a group of people in the House who decided that for some reason they do not like the democracy. I do not know what they want to go back to, but it has taken us 230-plus years to get here. I don't think anybody wants to go back to a place where the world had no democracy. There were elections. People won those elections. President Obama won his election. He did not carry my State, but he won his election fair and square. He campaigned on providing middle-class families for the first time in America a way to purchase health insurance--not a single- payer system, not the government system--to purchase health insurance so they would not be one accident away from financial ruin. ``Shame on President Obama. Shame on him for suggesting something so radical that moms and dads could go to sleep at night knowing that if an accident happened the next day they would not have to take bankruptcy or choose between a child disfigured or a child who needed to go to college. Shame on President Obama. How dare he suggest such a thing.'' If they do not like the bill, they can change the bill. We did not wake up one morning and declare this the law. The people of the United States declared this through us as their Representatives. If they do not like it, they can unelect us. Believe me, they will have a great chance because I am up for reelection right now. They will be able to do that. But that is the way you do it. You do not threaten to shut down the government. I am going to run for reelection. I am standing in this election as a supporter of the Affordable Care Act--not because it is a perfect law but because it is much better for all the people I represent than what we had before--the wealthiest people, the middle-class people, and the poor people. We argued and fought in public, in meetings for 40 years on how to do this. This was not a last-minute, behind-the-scenes deal that nobody read. Have they lost their minds? We debated this for 40 years through every kind of President you can think of, conservative, liberal, different kinds of Congresses. I know we have devoted 10 minutes, and I know other people want to speak, but I will take just a few minutes. Contrary to popular belief and what FOX News said, people here read the bills. For 40 years we read the bills. But we did not have to read the bills; all we had to do was look at the faces of kids dying of cancer who had no way to get cured. All we had to do is talk to people who came to our office every day who said: Senator, can't you do something? My insurance is going up. I can't afford it. I want to get out of my job. I worked for GE my whole life. I have a better idea. I want to get a better job, but I can't leave because my wife has cancer. I don't need to read a bill. I listen to my constituents. That is what this is about. Then when they decide they are going to shut down the government because they can repeal this law--now they are deciding that did not work so well. That is not making a lot of sense to people. Now we are going to negotiate on we don't know what, but we have to get something out of this. How dare they? How dare this group of radicals, led by the Senator from Texas--how dare they take the greatest democracy on Earth hostage? Who gives them that right? Do they think they are divined by God? They are not--none of us here are. God could run this world perfectly, but he doesn't run it. He is in Heaven. Until then we, as imperfect as we are, have to figure out His will through the democratic process. But they have decided that is not good enough. I don't know anything on Earth that is better. Maybe they can figure it out in the next 48 hours. People have been thinking about that for 6 or 7 or 8,000 years or longer. I don't think 48 hours is going to help them. Anyway, we are here today. What I would like to say is that I agree with everything my Senate colleagues have said. I urge our colleagues to vote to open the government, to not hold the U.S. Government and the world and all the kids in the world, all the adults in the world, all the businesses in the world hostage over their antics. In Louisiana, let me say, we have 400,000 people who need us to fix flood insurance. They are truly hurting. We have 200,000 people who live in Houma who have been waiting for a levee around their city for 25 years. Then they were told by the Corps, yes, they will build it. Then they didn't; yes, they will build it. Then they didn't. I need to get on that. We have permits in the Gulf of Mexico, I say to Senator Boxer. I see my friend from California. I am going to turn it over to her. We have a little different view on this, Senator Boxer and I, but people in Louisiana would like to drill for oil. We would like to get our permits to do that. But because this ideological group has shut down the government, there are no permits being issued to produce the oil and gas necessary to keep our country strong. I could go on. Let us reason together. We can find many issues to negotiate about. I am open to many negotiations, as are the Democrats, but to threaten the core of this democracy, fought for so long and hard over decades by men and women, is beyond the pale. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I know the Members of the Senate are going to be retiring to caucuses to try to figure out how we are going to move forward, and I am confident, with the good work of the people in this Chamber, we will find a way. Senator Johanns and I have been working, along with many of our colleagues, to try to come to some resolution about funding a city in the United States, the District of Columbia, that is not an agency of the Federal Government that happens to be the city that the seat of government sits in. While I am not going to ask for consent now, I want to, through the Chair, ask Senator Johanns to express, if he could, a few views about this, as we try to work our way forward for sometime maybe later this afternoon.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, as we exited the Chamber to go to our Democratic caucus, I am certain my Republican colleagues and friends were talking among themselves as well, trying to find a way forward. A reporter stopped me and said: What do you think the Senate is going to do? I don't know the specifics, but I am most certainly hopeful and remain cautiously optimistic that the Senate will step up to the job at hand and fulfill the promise and hopes of our Founders, who created the Senate to operate at times just like these where there seems to be no way forward, to find a way forward; where the political winds have gotten so bitter and cold, for the 100 of us to find a way forward to help keep our economy whole and operating and functioning well, not just for our Nation but for the world, which is important; to help support and bolster the recovery that is underway; to set aside the bitterness and the rancor and try to find a way forward. I am very encouraged despite the fact that the vote was very divisive--all Republicans on one side and all Democrats on the other. I am confident because I know Members of this body well and I have been here long enough to know that the many people of good will on both sides of the aisle can try to find a way forward. And I know the President of the United States is open to negotiation. Maybe we can find resolution within the political parties, but that is not what is important. What is important is finding a resolution in the Senate of the United States for all of the people of the United States. We do not represent narrow districts with narrow ideologies. We represent States--big ones, such as California, medium-sized ones, such as Louisiana, and small ones, such as Delaware. But inside of Delaware, inside of Louisiana, and inside of California, there are people of all different political persuasions. As Senators, when we run for office we have to listen and take all of that in and then try to make the best decisions we can. It is an honor to serve in the Senate even though it is tough, it is hard, and it is very difficult at times. I have been proud to serve here for 18 years and be among many groups that have found compromise and the middle ground, that have tried to work to understand where the other side is coming from and move our country forward. It has not always been perfect, and none of us are perfect here, but I am proud I have at least been one to say: Count on me to try to see what we can do to resolve the situation. I want to say that today for my constituents. That is what they want me to do. That is what they sent me here for 18 years ago and what I know they want me to continue to do. I do feel strongly on their behalf that the government should open and the 21,000 of them who have been wrongly laid off by the actions of a minority--the government needs to open, and the debt of the United States most certainly needs to be honored so this economic recovery can continue. But there are plenty of things we can negotiate. The debt of the country is too high. We do need to have some earned benefit and potential entitlement reform--not necessarily cutting benefits from people who count on them but for the government to do its part to meet people halfway. There are always efficiencies that can be created if we work together. So on behalf of my constituents, I am very hopeful that we can find a way forward. I think Senator Reid has been providing extraordinary leadership, and hopefully we can find a way forward. I would briefly mention that there have been some very good conversations going on about funding for the city of Washington--not a part of the Federal Government--which has not been resolved yet, but Republicans, Democrats, and the White House are working together to find a way so the District of Columbia, the city of Washington--with its own mayor and city council, its own budget, its own local funds-- does not have to be caught up in a very tough circumstance that is not of their making. They are not part of the Federal Government, and neither is New York, Chicago, New Orleans, or Baltimore. They are separate cities, and they should be treated that way. We haven't found a way yet, but we are working on it. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to speak for about 10 minutes. I understand there may be other Senators coming to the floor. I wanted to express my concerns about a few issues that are really important to the people of Louisiana. I understand that the meeting with the President and the Republicans in the Senate--our friends--has just concluded. I am hoping there will be some positive steps forward from that meeting so we can open this government, remove the threat of an economic collapse, and get to the bargaining table to which we have literally been trying to achieve for 6 months. We voted 21 times in the Senate to get to the negotiating table in the budget conference, which is the first starting point to agree on numbers and revenues and spending limits. As an appropriator--I would know this as chair of the Appropriations Committee--the next step in regular order is for each individual committee to negotiate with our Republican counterparts about how we allocate the money given to us through that budget process. None of that has been able to happen--none. It is not because Democrats have been unwilling to go to the negotiating table, but because some friends on the other side have taken hostage innocents-- Federal employees, the economy generally--and demanded things that are way beyond their ability to use their political leverage. So instead of using it correctly, they have held innocent hostages. It is very troubling, and I think it is very wrong. Hopefully, we are going to find a way forward. Flood Insurance I wanted to spend my time this afternoon talking about what I am hearing from the people in Louisiana, such as: Could you all get back to work because we have some serious problems that need to be solved. One of the problems--Mr. President, maybe your State is affected by this because the Presiding Officer has a coastal area, as do we--is fixing this very broken flood insurance system. In our State it is referred to as Biggert-Waters. It was named after the two Members of Congress who led this ``reform effort.'' Maxine Waters has subsequently completely disassociated herself with the legislation and said it was not the right thing to do. She has made several public statements. She has urged, as the leader in the House, with Republicans and Democrats, to get this fixed. For the people of Louisiana, this is our No. 1 problem and challenge right now because a year and a half ago the Federal Government passed a law that was supposed to cure something. But the cure is worse than the disease. The disease was we had a flood insurance program that spent more money than it had taken in. And, yes, premiums were probably too low to sustain the program, but it was giving people at least some option and hope when they had a flood, so they could get some of the equity in their home protected and recovered. This bill came along and was never debated on the Senate floor. It was stuck in a conference committee report, and now it is being implemented, and it is a disaster. We have 400,000 flood insurance policies in Louisiana, Texas has 700,000, Florida has over 2 million, Pennsylvania has over 75,000, and Virginia probably has between 40,000 and 50,000. I don't have the list in front of me. The problem is that the law that passed had stated one goal: to make the program sustainable. But it left out an equally important aspect: to make it affordable. You can sustain a program all day long, but if nobody can afford to be in it, A, how long will it sustain itself? Not long at all. And, B, we are hurting the people we are trying to help the most. A group of us have been working for quite some time on fixing this. These new regulations went into effect on October 1. We are going on 11 or 12 days--I forget the date, but we are past October 1. These new rates have gone into effect, and some people are seeing rates quadruple--or tenfold. Some of these rates are going up from $300 a year to $3,000. In some cases we have heard $1,500 to $30,000. I am not exaggerating or making this up. This is all in the record. We have a way to fix it. The good news I wanted to share on the floor today is that we had 24 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, come together this week and send a ``dear colleague'' letter to our leadership--to the Republican leadership and the House leadership--to say that we are very close to a compromise that will do two things: It will give us time to get the affordability study that was supposed to be done actually done. It will allow FEMA to potentially--with some oversight from Congress--set rates that would keep the program functioning but not jeopardize people's equity in their homes. It would, of course, remove the automatic trigger provision that has been very detrimental in the law, which basically says: The rates will stay low, but the minute people put a house up for sale or sell a house, whatever grandfathered rate they had is gone. And it doesn't go up 25 percent a year, it goes up to where it should be. In some cases that is a move from $1,000 a year to $30,000 a year. It makes their house worthless, and that is what is happening to thousands of people. They have lost equity in their home. It is one of many problems this Congress has to fix. We can't fix any of them if we can't get back to work. We need the officials that have been laid off at FEMA to go back to work. One point I want to make today is let's find a way forward to negotiate. I hope part of the negotiation could potentially be a fix to Biggert-Waters. I want to thank Senator Merkley from Oregon, Senator Menendez from New Jersey, Senator Wicker from Mississippi, and Senator Vitter from Louisiana. Senator Isakson has been giving us some good input. I want to thank the realtors and the bankers because they realized that we made a mistake and that the law we passed was not a good one. Sometimes that happens. We have to fix it. We don't have to fix the whole of it, but we are working on some pieces that must be amended so that it accomplishes the goal of having a program and so that taxpayers do not have to pick up a big tab every year. It will allow real estate markets to function, people to be able to retain equity in their home, and to pay their fair share. It will also encourage smart growth and development. Also--and very importantly, which is part of the problem with Biggert-Waters--the bill we are trying to fix didn't even recognize levees. I don't know if the Presiding Officer has a lot of levees in Virginia, but we have to have them in Louisiana because we are below sea level. We have been that way for 300 years. We moved there below sea level. We had to be there to create the Port of New Orleans. Thomas Jefferson leveraged the whole Federal Treasury to buy us for 3 cents an acre, if I remember correctly--the bulk of 19 States. It was the greatest real estate purchase in the history of our country. Alaska may argue, but we think the Louisiana Territory is equally as valuable, if not more so, and our State is proud to carry that name. People understand the history of this. Why would Thomas Jefferson leverage the whole Treasury of the United States to buy something that was not worthwhile. Of course it is worthwhile. It was worthwhile then, and it is worthwhile now. People live there because we run the biggest port system in the world, and we need to continue to live there with all of the industries--oil and gas, and fisheries, et cetera. This Biggert-Waters bill undermines our region's ability to function. We produce 17 percent of the GDP for the country, so this is not a small parochial issue to the Southern States: Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, et cetera--but it also affects interior states. We have seen what happened in Colorado. We have seen what happened to the east coast States, with New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, et cetera. Let's get to the negotiating table. Let's work together, as we know we can, and let's put on the top of that agenda a potential fix for Biggert-Waters. Again, I thank my colleagues for working so cordially together even in this difficult time. Let me move to another subject for a minute and put into the Record, in the event that my colleagues--do I have to ask for an additional 3 minutes?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter that I received. I think all of the Members received this letter that was addressed to Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, Speaker Boehner, and Representative Pelosi from the National Governors Association that came yesterday. Governor Mary Fallin and Governor John Hickenlooper signed the letter on behalf of all the Governors, and it says: The nation's governors urge Congress and the Administration to quickly reopen the federal government. The fiscal health of states is inextricably linked to the fiscal stability of the federal government, and while state economies have improved, a failure by our national government to secure a solution to the current government budget issues undermines our states' recovery and endangers the U.S. economy. It goes on to say: States have thus far managed to avoid closing or suspending most programs and services by using carry-over funds or, in some cases, by using state spending to fill in missing federal dollars. However, states are not in the position to be the bank for the federal government. As a former Governor, the Presiding Officer understands this. I was a former Treasurer. I most certainly understand that the budget of Louisiana is almost 70 percent Federal funding. So when the Federal Government cuts off that funding, it starts to affect the way States-- and the 300-plus cities in my State--operate, and it affects our private sector partners that work with us to provide State-level and community services. It affects nonprofits such as Catholic Charities, who are running some of our low-income housing, our justice programs in some of our neighborhoods and communities. This shutdown is just bad. It is bad all around. It should not have happened. We need to get this government open and operating, which will help our States and their economic recovery plans to start focusing on fixing things. We need to fix things like Biggert-Waters and repeal that old insurance reform bill so we can find a better way forward. I might also mention two other things quickly. What is also happening in our State today--I got news this morning--is that permitting in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil and gas drilling is now shut down. Right at the time when America is about to overtake Russia as the largest domestic producer of gas and oil, right when we are about to take first place, the Republican tea party has shut the government down and shut down permitting in the gulf. Ever since the Deepwater Horizon, we have been fighting to get that back up and going. Now we find it has been shut down again. The people I represent cannot take another shutdown of permitting. We have levees to build. We have a big problem in our river parishes, as we call them, along Lake Pontchartrain. We have Morganza to the gulf, which is an important levee project for Houma, which is one of the centers for oil and gas production. This not only helps the people of Houma and Terrebonne Parish, but it helps the whole region and the whole country. It is sort of like a little Houston, if you will. Houma is like a little Houston. We don't have all of the corporate structures, but we have all of the know-how, the goods and services, the providers, the boats, the planes, the ships, and the helicopters. They might have the gleaming office towers in Houston, but we have a lot of the hard workers in Houma. The levee that protects them and their homes is now basically--the plans for it are shut down along with this tea party shutdown. National Governors Association, Washington, DC, October 10, 2013. Hon. Harry Reid, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. John Boehner, Speaker of the House, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Majority Leader Reid, Senator McConnell, Speaker Boehner, and Representative Pelosi: The nation's governors urge Congress and the Administration to quickly reopen the federal government. The fiscal health of states is inextricably linked to the fiscal stability of the federal government, and while state economies have improved, a failure by our national government to secure a solution to the current budget issues undermines our states' recovery and endangers the U.S. economy. States have thus far managed to avoid closing or suspending most programs and services by using carryover funds or, in some cases, by using state spending to fill in for missing federal dollars. However, states are not in a position to be the bank for the federal government. As this impasse continues, we call on Congress and the Administration to commit to fully reimbursing states and territories for the federal expenses they absorb during the shutdown. These expenses include funding for programs, state employees who are paid through federal funds and any other outlays that would normally have been supported by federal funds. As governors, our citizens expect us to work together to balance our budgets and make government work. We will do whatever we can to serve our citizens and deliver the core services they need and expect during this uncertain time. In return, we ask our federal partners to quickly find a path forward that reimburses states for incurred federal expenses; restores certainty in the federal budget process; creates long-term stability; and strengthens the fiscal condition of the nation for the benefit of all citizens. Sincerely, Governor Mary Fallin. Governor John Hickenlooper. It is time to open our government. It is time to get back to work, solve real problems, and negotiate in good faith without taking innocent hostages. There are too many innocents being harmed, whether it is children with cancer, whether it is businesspeople who have put everything on the line for their business and through no fault of their own now have no customers coming in the front door and can't pay their note--and the banks aren't going to wait until we get our act together. I thank the Presiding Officer. I wanted to, if I could, take 1 more minute to speak on behalf of the people who don't have a Senator here; that is, the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia is technically not a part of the Federal Government. They are not an agency of the Federal Government. They are not a department of the Federal Government. The District of Columbia is the district in which the Federal Government resides. Contrary to popular belief, they raise most of their money through their own tax revenue generated--about 75 percent local. Twenty-five percent of the budget of the District of Columbia--which has about 750,000 people, which is a pretty big city as cities go--comes from the people who live here. They have been caught up as if they were an agency of the Federal Government. Let me argue on their behalf to my colleagues and suggest that they are a group of innocents--a city. Baltimore's budget is not shut down, Richmond's budget is not shut down, New Orleans' budget is not shut down, Chicago's budget is not shut down, New York's budget is not shut down, San Francisco's budget is not shut down, but the DC government is shut down because of this threat. They have gotten caught up. They should be let go, and we can then negotiate on all other things. I think the President understands this. I know majority leader Harry Reid understands this. I am hoping minority leader Mitch McConnell will give his support so this can be done in a bipartisan way, recognizing this is the Nation's Capital--not asking for any special preference for them, just allowing them to use their own money and operate their own city while we try to figure out how to get the rest of the government open and operating. I hope we can do that today. We have been working across the aisle. I thank Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for her leadership. The District of Columbia does not have Senators, so a few of us have to stand and speak for the people of the District, and I am happy to try to do that on occasion when I, of course, believe strongly in what they are asking. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 11, 2013, at 1 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will conduct a hearing entitled, ``The Impacts of the Government Shutdown on Our Economic Security.''