Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am not happy to be here, but it is an honor and a privilege to be on the Senate floor representing the people of Louisiana and speaking for constituents around the country on this important subject. It is unfortunate we are here today because of the irresponsible behavior of one group of Members from one party in basically one Chamber. While I most certainly respect my colleague from Maine and think that the proposal she has generally outlined has a lot of merit--and I would add, there would probably be 15, 20, or 25 other Senators from both parties who have worked together to find common ground on many issues who could come up with equally meritorious proposals--it misses a very important point. The point is simply that the House Republicans and a handful of Senate Republicans have forced the government into a shutdown, hurting their own constituents--hundreds of thousands of their own constituents--and small businesses in their districts that do not deserve in any way to be dragged into this fight or to be used as bait in these negotiations. That point cannot be understated, and it cannot be ignored. This whole issue is not caused because neither side can compromise or we cannot find common ground. We have proven that over and over on hundreds of issues. I myself, along with the Senator from Maine and the Presiding Officer--who is new here but not new to government--have been part of dozens of extraordinary efforts when there did not seem to be any way forward to find a way. So we know how to do that. We can do it. The problem is that there is a rump group of Republicans and the Republican House leadership that have made a terrible mistake in shutting the government down and putting government workers and our private sector partners--and I want to underscore ``our private sector partners.'' This government does not work with just Federal employees alone. They do the bulk of the wonderful work--many of them do--that we rely on every day--our neighbors, our relatives, our aunts, uncles, et cetera. But the real power is not just with them, it is with the private sector that helps this government and our nonprofit and not-for-profit sector that joins with us in fulfilling the missions, the important missions of government that have been put at risk. What that rump group did, though, was basically take all of this hostage until they get something. What they want to date is not clear. They want many things, all sorts of different things. One of them is to repeal the Affordable Care Act or to dismantle it in such a way that it cannot work to provide for the first time in the history of America affordable access to health insurance. There are other reasons that have been stated. They do not like the spending levels. They do not like the debt. They do not like Democrats generally. They do not like President Obama. There have been many things I have read about what they have said. But no matter what they have said, their actions are irresponsible, reckless, and neither the President nor the Democrats should enter into negotiation with a gun to our constituents' heads. That is as simple as it is. There is a difference, but it is an important difference. House Republicans cannot get Democrats to any negotiating table unless they put the weapons down. These weapons are being used against their own constituents and their own businesses in their own districts, and it is not fair. I want to read from one of my constituents, who says it better than I could. It is one of the messages that came into our office. We have been closed but functioning with a small staff. This message is from Vicki Cusimano, whose husband Mark is a 13-year military veteran who works on planes as a technician at one of our great air stations in Belle Chasse, LA, which, by the way, would be on high alert today because there is a storm out in the Gulf of Mexico. Thank goodness it is not a hurricane, but it is tropical storm Karen that has put the whole gulf coast a little bit on edge. It is not a huge and powerful storm, but these storms are unpredictable, as the Presiding Officer knows, being from a coastal State himself, how these things can happen. Anyway, Belle Chasse is right there. Vicki is there with her husband Mark, a 13-year veteran. Mark says: They've-- Speaking of Congress-- just pushed us away and said, ``Hey, we're going to fight, and you're going to pay for it.'' Well, they're still getting paychecks. We're not, and now we're trying to figure out how we're going to fend for our families. That is what Mark said. Vicki says: We have bills [to pay], and you can't tell Wells Fargo, ``Sorry. I can't pay my house note today because the federal government has furloughed my husband.'' So I want to clarify because I have been one of the ones saying we do need to negotiate, but we need to negotiate without a gun to our head. We need to negotiate when the House decides and the House recognizes that their reckless behavior cannot be encouraged, that it is wrong. I know it is hard when you make a mistake to admit you are wrong. It is very difficult to do. But this would be a time to do it and then move on to negotiations that we can have over everything, whether it is the Affordable Care Act, whether it is the budget, whether it is appropriations. I am chair of the Homeland Security appropriations bill. I most certainly know how to negotiate a major bill, $42 billion. Dan Coats is my ranking member from Indiana. We have been in negotiations literally on and off for years as partners on the Homeland Security bill. But when we asked, the Democrats and the President--but the Democrats asked to go to the budget conference to work out the differences between the budget in the House, the Ryan budget, and the budget in the Senate, the Murray budget--which, unusually, was cast during the same week. People will not even remember this because it was so long ago. It was sometime in April, sometime in April. The House passed their budget after an open, raucous debate. We passed our budget. I think we stayed on the floor until 5 o'clock in the morning, as I recall. I can remember being very tired and everybody was pretty aggravated. But we stayed here. We got our work done. So when people call for negotiation, the time for negotiation was then, and we can still have this 6-month-delayed negotiation. But the House Republicans--the tea party Republicans and House Republicans-- have to put their weapons down. You cannot negotiate with a gun to your head. It is not fair--not just to us but to our constituents and to our businesses. I am saying to my delegation and to the House Republicans: Do not use these reckless and irresponsible tactics. In addition, do not even threaten--do not even use the threat of not living up to the full faith and credit of the United States of America. You are really playing with fire then. That is what I believe the President is saying. That is what Democrats are saying. Now, we have proven--it is not a matter of conjecture or a matter of guessing or a matter of, well, they say they negotiate, but they really will not. This is the record. Here is the record. This is evidence. This is not something anybody made up. It is in the Congressional Record. I am not going to read the whole sheet here, but I am going to say--what this says is that on 19 separate occasions Senator Reid or Senator Murray or Senator Wyden or one of the Democrats came to the floor--and here are the dates: April 23, May 6, May 7, May 8, May 9, May 14, May 15, May 16, May 21, May 22, et cetera, et cetera, June 19, 26, July, August, and then the latest was October 2. OK. Those are the facts. On every single occasion, there was one out of six Senators who stood on behalf of the others here and blocked it and said: No, we cannot, we will not go to a budget conference. Those Senators were Senator McConnell on May 8, Senator McConnell on May 9, et cetera, et cetera, Senator Paul on May 21, Senator Toomey on June 19, Senator Cruz--who has been the leader of this irresponsible and reckless strategy, which I do not think is getting his party or his future anywhere, but I will have to see about that--Mike Lee on July 17, and then Senator Rubio on August 1.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. So this is the record. When people say Democrats have not been willing to negotiate, that is false, false, false. We have been trying to negotiate for 6 months, and the way you negotiate is going to a budget conference. Even now we are in control of the Senate. People elected us. No one appointed me to be here. The people of this United States elected us in a fair and square election. Some of us won by a lot, some of us only by small amounts, but it was an election by the people of the United States. The people elected the Republican leadership in the House. They passed a budget. We passed a budget. All we have to do is go to conference. Not everyone in Washington is reckless. Not everyone loves to fight over our constituents' misfortune of unemployment and lack of business. There is a small group that put them on the chopping block. They need to take them off. They should not be used as fodder in political fighting and debate. It is not right. That is the argument. When they remove the constituents and re-fund the government and put the government open again, we could then ask to go to conference. This time they should say yes. They just have to not show up. Sit at your desk and do not say anything, do not object. We will go to conference, a budget conference. Then you put everything on the table. Everything. You can talk about anything you want. You can talk about taxes, no taxes. You can talk about how much money you want to spend overall. Most importantly, you can decide how much revenue, how much in taxes you want. What the American people want is a budget. We have not had one for a while. We need to get one. We have had spending limits, but we have not had a budget. We have had spending limits, but we have not had a budget. Let's get a budget. Then those of us who are appropriators--I am one of those, and in charge of helping to try to build the homeland security budget--the chairman then will give us the number that is agreed to by the Democrats and Republicans. They will say to me and Senator Coats: Okay, you have X amount of money to spend. You have lots and lots of requests out there. You have lots of responsibilities. Let me list a few: Securing the entire border of the United States, all airports, all land ports, all river ports. We have to check all the cargo that comes into the country. Our budget funds TSA, not the most popular group. But we try to keep our air travelers safe and support international commerce at every level. Every business traveler who is trying to cut a deal in Germany or in England or in Asia has to get either preclearance or global entry or travel. We support that effort. We want our businesses out there making contracts, bringing jobs to America. We cannot do that if this budget does not get done. So give us a number. We will put the budget together the best we can together. We will live within the restrictions that are given to us--or the guidelines. We will not spend one penny more than what the budget tells us. But we cannot even get there because not everyone is being reckless. Not everyone is being unreasonable. There is clearly an identifiable group, led by the Senator from Texas. One of his colleagues or someone in the press--I am not sure who, but it was a great quote--said that Senator Cruz has led the Republican Party and the tea party into the middle of eight lanes of traffic and walked away. Eight lanes of traffic with traffic coming both ways is a very unsafe and dangerous place to be. They are going to have to find their way to the side of that road. Open the government, and then say yes to a budget conference where all things can be negotiated, and have been for literally hundreds of years. This is not a new process the Senate and the House have been undertaking. This is regular order. I am going to end here. This is day 5. I want to have this printed in the Record, since they are in the middle of traffic now, with very few safe ways out, but we could open the government and get to the negotiating table. I want to have printed in the Record that for businesses, 800,000 workers--I know they passed a bill a little while ago to say those workers could be paid. That is important to do. But, again, it is not just workers. What about the contracts they are supposed to be giving out or the projects? They still do not have authorization even if they come back to work to do that. It is going to affect business. Let me say how much. The Federal Government spends $400 billion in the private sector. That is $1 billion a day. So this reckless behavior has already cost $5 billion; every day $1 billion gone. Is their resolution in the House going to reinstate that $1 billion that small businesses have lost or business generally? I do not think so. I did not read the fine print. I do not think that is in there. Every day, if you say 25 percent of all of our contracts should go to small businesses, that is $240 million a day for small businesses lost. The government roughly makes about 150 loans to small businesses every day. We are in day 5. That is 600 loans gone. I could go on and on with every day how that affects businesses. I am happy to see, in conclusion, that the House, in realizing they are in a bad, bad situation, has sent a lifeline out to the 800,000 Federal employees, their own constituents that they put on the chopping block and took these paychecks as negotiating fodder because they do not like the bill that passed 3 years ago, upheld by the Supreme Court, and being implemented in the majority of States, including States with Republican Governors. That is foolishness, recklessness, and irresponsibility. But that is what they did. We did not do that; they did that. If we open the government, get contracts going again, stop threatening small businesses that have nothing to do with this, then we can go to the budget conference and open everything for negotiation. Maybe we can do the medical device tax. I would like to work on flood insurance, for one. My constituents are going crazy. Flood insurance has gone up tenfold. I cannot even get to a negotiating table. We would like to pass the WRDA bill in Louisiana. I would like to see the Keystone Pipeline negotiated. I am for the Keystone Pipeline. The President is against it. But maybe we can find some way forward. But we cannot go anywhere until we get out of eight lanes of traffic. The only way to do that is to admit you were wrong, open the government, and then go to conference and put everything on the table and let's talk. I see my good friend from Connecticut here. I thank him for joining us on the floor today. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I am happy to have an opportunity to speak for a minute, particularly following my good friend, the Senator from Alabama. He and I have worked on so many issues. It shows one day you can work together and agree on something and the next day you can have different points of view. He and I worked successfully on the RESTORE Act. We worked on the FAIR Act where we can get a portion of our revenues to bring back to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, from offshore oil and gas production. I have to say I have enjoyed working with him many times over the years we have been in the Senate. Tonight I take issue with some of the things he said. To recapitulate, with much due respect, if everything the Senator said about the Affordable Care Act was actually factual--and it is not--if everything he said about the act was true, this time and method of shutting down the government to prove his point is still wrong. You should not hold Federal employees, the economy of the United States, the governments of the United States--Federal, State, or local which will be affected by this--hostage because you agree or think that the Affordable Care Act is a bad act. It is the wrong method and it is the wrong time for that debate. That is the issue. They are on the floor debating whether the Affordable Care Act is good or bad. This is not the debate we are having tonight. The debate we should be having tonight, whether it is good or bad, is, is it worth shutting down the government of the United States tonight? The answer is clearly no. Secondly, the Senator from Alabama said this bill was passed in the middle of the night. It was passed late one night several years ago. It has been passed by the House and the Senate, signed into law as every bill by the President of the United States. In the case of this law, it was upheld by the Supreme Court and is being implemented by a majority of States in the United States. This bill, law, concept, and approach was debated for 40 years in 20 Congresses. This wasn't debated in 1 night, in 1 week, morning, noon, or midnight, but 40 years across many Presidents, both Republican and Democratic. The question was, How does the richest Nation in the world, the most developed democracy on Earth, a Nation with 1 million-plus workers, provide affordable health care without bankrupting the country and putting too much burden on either individuals or businesses? There were ideas thrown out for the 40 years this was debated--not 1 night, not just on Christmas Eve. There were hundreds of hearings, thousands of documents, millions of pieces of paper and studies done on the subject, and there were about four options: One, Medicare for all--lots of opposition to that. It is expensive-- popular but expensive. The second option was a single-payer system similar to Canada's. It was very popular with some, deemed too socialistic by others. The third option was Medicaid savings accounts, health care savings accounts. Republicans love it. Democrats don't like it, don't think it is fair to the middle class. It would only really help those at the top 2 percent. We said No. So we compromised on an idea that came not out of the Democratic caucus but out of the Republican caucus, not out of a Democratic think tank but a Republican think tank--the Heritage Foundation--and we passed a private sector, market-based insurance choice for all Americans. But that debate is over. At least the bill has passed; the debate will go on for a while--but not about shutting the government down. The debate as far as the bill passing, it is done. It is signed into law. And contrary to arguments made on the other side that nobody is interested in amending anything, I don't know if they have read their Congressional Record. It is right in the Congressional Record. We have already amended the law twice on a vote in the House and the Senate. Remember a year and a half ago we passed the 1099? We repealed that. It was a part of the way we paid for the bill. We reviewed it after we did it and thought that wasn't a very good idea, and we changed it. There has been another change to the law. It is not as if this law will never be changed. But for Republicans--particularly the extremists--every time we come up to a budget debate or the full faith and credit of the United States, to reengage in this debate, it is not fair to the American people, it is not fair to the workers of the United States, and it is not fair to the businesses in the United States. It is just simply not the right way to legislate. So I would like the chairman from Alabama, as the ranking member of the Budget Committee, I wish he would get on the floor and urge his colleagues to go to conference on the budget he was talking about because I do agree with him. We do have a deficit problem. We do have a debt problem. We do have some entitlements that need to be looked at. We have to get our budget in balance. But the way to do it is not to hold the American people hostage, to take their jobs away from them and shut the government down. That is not the way to operate. It is to go to conference. We have tried 18 times to go to conference, and we have been blocked by the Senator from Texas. The Senator from Texas Mr. Cruz has objected to going to conference to debate the budget. Let's debate the budget. Let's debate the appropriations bills. I am an appropriator. I am the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Tomorrow thousands of people are going to be laid off. People who protect our borders, who help navigate international trade, help keep our hospital industry going, passports, et cetera, are going to be impacted. But instead of the Senator arguing and urging us--as the ranking member of the Budget Committee--to go to the Budget Committee to negotiate, they have objected. We can't go to a conference. Senator Murray passed her budget months ago. We passed a budget. The House has passed a budget. They aren't the same budget, but it is their version and our version. Let's go to conference and work it out. But, no, we have to now threaten the shutdown of the entire government of the United States because the Republicans after 40 years of debate feel that was not enough. Forty years of debate was not enough. Two Presidential elections, which they lost, was not convincing enough. The majority of the Senate fell to the Democrats. That was not convincing enough. The people who voted that way, their votes, their actions as a democratic nation are being disrespected by our colleagues on the other side. It is not as though this is a dictatorship. We were elected. I was even elected in a State where this is a difficult issue. It is not clear-cut. I have people for it and against it. But after studying and after soul-searching and after looking at all the options and understanding that I have 800,000 people in my State who are uninsured, that I have hundreds of thousands of small businesses that had been dropping their insurance because they couldn't afford it, and that 85 percent of our market is taken up by one company with virtually no competition, I said there has to be a better way. This may not be perfect, but the status quo is worse. We had that debate, and their side lost. So instead of just trying to fix what they can or suggesting changes or finding a time where we can debate--and we have already changed two things; the President, administratively, has already pushed back one--they want to shut the government down. It is on their shoulders. So I came to the floor--and I will ask for 5 more minutes--to talk about two things because I have hesitated to speak on this big issue because I have been focused for the last year on a real problem--not that this isn't a problem; it is a problem, but this is a real issue that with a little bit of attention from everyone and a lot less rhetoric, we could fix this, and that is helping to amend a bill that did pass and does need to be amended, and that is the Biggert-Waters bill. I am not threatening to shut the government down over this; I am simply asking and raising attention to the fact that at some point we would like to have a debate on this floor and in the House on Biggert- Waters. This was a bill that was passed through here--it wasn't debated for 40 years, it was debated for a very short time. At the time the bill passed--Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 additional minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. The bill passed out of the committee on the Senate side. It never did come to the floor at all for debate. It went to the House, was changed pretty dramatically, and then was put in a conference committee. This happens sometimes. It is not usual, but it does happen. I am not complaining about that except that as a result of that, hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Texas, Florida, North Dakota, New York, and New Jersey, tomorrow morning--as I guess if the government is shutting down, they may not be able to go to work, if they have a government job--they will have a big fat bill coming on their flood insurance because Biggert-Waters, the bill in the House, had several very pernicious provisions. There are about 5 million flood insurance policies in the country. There should be about 17 million, but there are only 5. There will be 17 million, or some such universe as that, but there are 5 million now, and we have many in Louisiana. When a person goes to put their house on the market and they sell it, the act of selling, according to Biggert-Waters, removes their grandfathered status. They then go from that grandfathered status, which was below market rate--and that was done purposely to help people who live in coastal areas--not necessarily in secondary homes, not in condos, not in million-dollar mansions, but people who work on the rivers, who fish, who live in coastal communities, hard-working individuals and small businesses. This allowed them to live where they have lived, in our case, for 300 years. They didn't just move there in the 1980s. They didn't move down there for sunbathing. They have been there for 300 years, and this was to give them an opportunity to live in their homes with reasonable insurance. In the Biggert-Waters bill, that trigger--the act of putting up a ``for sale'' sign or selling your house--eliminated the subsidy, virtually rendering a person's house valueless. And it is not just paying 25 percent more, 100 percent more, or 400 percent more. That would be hard enough, but in some cases it literally will render a house valueless because let's say, for instance, you paid $1,200 a year for insurance, but let's say the real rate is actually $15,000. The trigger mechanism means their flood insurance will go from $1,200 to $15,000 overnight. No one will buy a home that has a $15,000 annual premium for insurance. So if they have $400,000 in equity in their home or $500,000 or $150,000 in equity or perhaps they have $1 million in equity, it is gone because their house will not be able to be sold for virtually any price close to what it is worth. And that is not right. That comes close to a taking. When this bill passed, I put an objection in the record. I said then that we would be back talking about it. There are ways we can fix bills. We need to get Biggert-Waters fixed and changed, and I want to submit that if we don't shut the government down, we can do it. We can negotiate, we can meet in conference and bring amendments to committees, and we can work together. I want to read for the Record for a few minutes. I don't see anyone else on the floor. Many in Congress were led to believe that the flood insurance program was unsustainable, that it consistently paid out more in losses than it collected in premiums, and that the only way to balance the ledger was to eliminate subsidies and raise rates. That simply isn't the case. During 3 of the past 5 years, the program has actually collected more in premium revenue than it paid out in losses. In fact, the program has tabulated an annual surplus 18 times during the 42-year period for which we have data. Now, there were times, after Florida had that terrible year--2004, I think--when four hurricanes hit and of course after Katrina, where the program took a very strong hit, like when our levees broke and caused so much to drain from the fund. But if we look over time, it was about a $19 million average loss per year--not great but not horrible; not enough to generate the kind of bill that was passed here that is so draconian. Continuing to quote: I also think that most Members of Congress would be surprised to learn that 40 percent of all properties which are required to maintain flood insurance do not have an active policy. This violation of the law costs the program hundreds of millions in lost revenue. Stricter penalties under Biggert-Waters for lenders who fail to enforce mandatory purchase requirements will help to address this, but it is difficult to justify these exorbitant rate increases for people who are participating in the program and playing by the rules when millions of property owners are bucking their legal obligation to pay into the program. I also think most Members of the Congress and the general public would be shocked to learn that only 44 percent of the money collected by the program is used to cover flood losses in a given year. In fact, the program spends more money paying the insurance companies and agents who administer the program but don't incur any risk and servicing the debt created by the Corps of Engineers than it spends on annual flood losses. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the complete document from which I just quoted.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, these are several reasons why this bill needs to be amended. Again, I am not threatening to shut the government down. That is not appropriate to get amendments to this bill. There are ways to amend a bill, and we can work on that. Madam President, I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a quote from Michael Hecht. Michael Hecht is the executive director of GNO, Inc. He is leading a great delegation or a group of people--realtors, bankers, gulf coast residents and many others.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, let me read this quote from Michael Hecht. He said: It is irresponsible to introduce drastic reforms that will potentially devastate hundreds of thousands of American homes and business owners before basic questions about forgone revenues and high costs are answered. To proceed otherwise, destroying the wealth of innocent Americans--who have done exactly as the government has told them, maintained insurance and often never flooded--is both economically unwise and morally unjust. I know my time is almost to the end. There is no one else on the floor, so I would like to speak until someone else gets here. But this is what we should be working on. We should be working on fixing the flood insurance. Tomorrow morning, October 1, these rates go up. These trigger mechanisms go into effect. It is devastating for people in our States. But the Texas Senators seem to be more concerned about the Affordable Care Act. I understand in their mind it is a problem and in their heart they are sincere. I understand their constituents are complaining. But it is the law, and we should not shut down the government over this. I wish they would turn their attention to the Biggert-Waters bill, which the House and Senate passed. It needs to be amended. It needs to be fixed, and we need to negotiate a way forward. No. 2, if people do want to fight about changes to the budget--I am an appropriator. We have been negotiating for years with Republicans about how much to spend, how little to spend, what programs to fund, what not. We do that in a budget conference. We do that in the appropriations bills. In fact, on this measure we are debating tonight the Democrats accepted the House number. Talk about negotiate. We just accepted the number they gave us for the continuing resolution. It was below our number. We want to fund the government in this month a little bit higher, but we even accepted their number. We said, fine, we will take your number. We usually don't do that. We usually cut it in half or split the difference or say, you want this, we want this. We just took it. We just said yes. They can't even take yes for an answer because they are so committed to using the Federal Government as a hostage, or the full faith and credit of the United States as a hostage to change a bill they had every opportunity to change and didn't change or couldn't change, didn't have the votes to change. Maybe one day they will. But they don't have those votes in this Chamber tonight and they don't have those votes in the House. If they would let the whole House vote, they most certainly would not. They are just allowing the Republicans to vote. But if they would allow the House to vote in its entirety, representing the country, they would support the position of the Senate and they know that. I end my remarks by saying let us focus on what we can do to fix some bills, the Biggert-Waters flood insurance bill being one of them. Let's not hold the American public and government hostage over a bill that passed, that was signed into law, and upheld by the Supreme Court and is being implemented by a majority of States in America. We can debate it and not shut down the government over it. I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I wish to put something else on the Record as well that is important for us to think about tonight, besides the underlying debate which I have spoken about and the Biggert-Waters reform which unfortunately is going to go into effect tomorrow. We are going to do a press conference tomorrow on it and try to get as much support as we can for Republicans and Democrats to fix it. But there is another issue I wish to bring up to the body tonight while we are waiting for the leader. I think with the consent of both Republicans and the Democrats, we could allow the District of Columbia--which is one city that is going to be more impacted than others should the budget of the United States not be able to be negotiated in the next hour or hour and a half. So what I am hoping by raising this issue is that Members will consider that every city in the United States is going to operate tomorrow morning, every State is going to operate tomorrow morning, even if the Federal Government shuts down. They will be impacted, but they will continue to operate with their own money, on their own steam, under their own laws. I would like the same thing for the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia's budget is 75 percent local and 23 percent Federal. So most of their money is local money raised by local taxes, not the taxpayers of the United States. More impressive than that, they have balanced their budget--unlike us--for 18 years. People may be surprised to know this, but the District of Columbia, which is about 650,000 people, does not have a Senator to speak for them. They have a House Member, but the House Member has no vote. So I wish to speak on their behalf for just a few minutes. They have balanced their budget for 18 years and they have well over $1 billion cash in the bank. So I am raising this to my colleagues to ask for us to consider a unanimous consent resolution that several of us are putting together now. I would love for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to simply allow the District of Columbia to use their own money--even if the Federal money doesn't come forward, to use their own money raised by their own taxpayers to keep their own government operating, because they are under a special provision to us and have been for many years. People argue whether that is right. That is not the point of this. Whether it is right is of no consequence. It is the law. If we can give them some relief, it would be very helpful to the thousands of people who need a signal from us that just because we can't get our budget straight, just because our budget is in deficit doesn't mean we can't honor the fact that the DC budget is in surplus, $1 billion in the bank. It has been balanced for 18 years, and 75 percent of their budget comes from their own taxpayers. We should allow them to use their money to stay open. I hope we avoid a shutdown. It doesn't look we are going to. It could be 1 day, it could be 2 days, it could be 3 weeks, it could be 4 months. Who knows how long it is going to be. I hope it doesn't happen, and I hope it is a very short period of time. But whatever it is, there is no reason in the world for the District of Columbia--as Mayor Gray said: We have balanced our budget for 18 consecutive years. We have well over $1 billion in the bank. Yet we cannot spend our own money to provide our residents with services they have paid for unless we get permission from a Congress that can't even agree to pay its own bills. If we can't agree how to pay our bills, I think it is unfortunate. We should. But this is a big city. It is an important city. It is the Capital of the Nation. They should be able to operate tomorrow morning. I am hoping in the next hours we can find a way. All it takes is a unanimous consent. I know tensions are running high. We can be angry at each other or frustrated, but we should not be angry with the District. They have done nothing wrong. They have balanced their budget. They need to be able to operate. Many people all over the Nation depend on the District government. So let's not shut them down while we are shutting ourselves down. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator for yielding for a question. I appreciate his leadership as an appropriator. Senator Mikulski was on the floor earlier today, the leader of our committee and the debate about how much to spend and what we should spend our money on. Does the Senator understand that that could be done and it is done in the appropriations process? And if we could just get past this manufactured crisis we could actually accomplish what many Senators want to do, which is to discuss the level of spending? We can't even get there because we are stuck in a manufactured crisis by the Senator from Texas. Is that the sense of my colleague as to where we are?

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator, and let me, if I could, Madam President, say a few words about the bill I have the privilege and the responsibility of chairing--the Homeland Security bill. This is a $42 billion appropriations bill. I am very proud to say I have worked with my Republican colleague, the Senator from Indiana Dan Coats over the last 6 months to draft and fashion a bill. In many public meetings, in public forums at the appropriations subcommittee level and at the appropriations full committee level, our bill was negotiated in good faith--Republicans and Democrats compromising over important issues such as: How many border agents should we have, how many security agents should we have on our border, how many detention beds can taxpayers afford, how many do the Republicans want, how many do the Democrats want, what are some of the important aspects of immigration reform and how do we build a technologically superior border that allows trade and commerce but keeps out terrorists and people who are undocumented and who do not have the proper certification to come into the country. That is what we, who ran for public office, wanted to get here to work on, not to sit in an empty Chamber with people who, because they can't get their way 100 percent of the time, all the time, want to shut down the process. So as chair of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, I most certainly can add my voice to the appropriators and to Members who say: It is time to move on. So let us do so. But before I get into the specifics, I wanted to say a word about an issue that is critical to Louisiana and to States such as Texas-- Senator Cruz's home State. You would never know this, because I don't think he said a word about this issue in the 22 hours he was on the floor, but I know a little something about Texas, my neighboring State. I know a lot about Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, from the gulf coast. I have represented my State for now almost 18 years in the Senate and grew up along the gulf coast. I want to make sure everybody understands that in 14 days there are going to be over 1 million people in the United States--many in Texas, many in Louisiana, many in Florida, some in Massachusetts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera--who are going to basically see the value of their home, the equity in their home, go poof--poof. Whether their equity might have been $200,000 this week or $400,000 or $600,000 or $2 million, this is an equal opportunity destroyer. This is because last year Congress passed the Biggert-Waters bill, which was supposed to fix the National Flood Insurance Program. It was supposed to fix it--make it sustainable, make it go from the red to the black, make the deficit go away, help the program to be more sustainable. I understand that. The problem is the way the bill was passed it is going to, in a few days, literally go poof for people who thought they had equity in their home because of a provision in the Biggert-Waters flood insurance bill. That provision basically says this: When you put your home up for sale--when you sell your home--the grandfathered rate that was attached to your home for flood insurance is immediately dispensed with. So anyone selling their home who happens to have a subsidized flood insurance rate, which is lower than the private market, for good reason--which I will explain in a minute--their house becomes valueless. Let me repeat this. This is not about flood insurance going up, this is not about losing your job, it is not about not being able to show up for work because the government shuts down, which is a big problem. But this is a real big problem for 1 million families because the house they have paid for, that they have lived in and thought they had some equity in so they could retire on that equity or send their kids to college is, poof, gone. I would like to focus on fixing that problem. I know there are many people in Texas who would like it fixed as well, because when I go over there, I hear from them. When I go to Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Florida, I hear from people. But we can't even get to a flood insurance bill because we are on the floor talking about an issue that is completely manufactured. This is not manufactured, ladies and gentlemen. The flood insurance issue is real. The flood insurance bill is a bill that actually passed and we have only 14 days to fix a part of it. At 5 o'clock, in 5 minutes, I am going to a meeting in Senator Merkley's office, who is chair of a subcommittee, and we are going to try and work on this. But to do this we need cooperation. We need cooperation from all of our Members to say: Well, that might not be a problem in my State, but I can understand what Senator Landrieu is saying and I can understand what some of the Republicans are saying. Let's see what we can do to fix this so people's equity does not vanish into thin air and cause lots of pain and suffering. But as I say, we can't even talk about real issues because we have to talk about a manufactured crisis. I see some of my colleagues on the floor, and I know they understand the chairman asked us to come and talk for a few minutes about our appropriations bills, so I will try to do this in 4 minutes, because when Senator Mikulski asks you to do something, you need to go ahead and do it. So I need to put this in the Record for my Homeland Security bill. As I understand it, this government shutdown could happen because, as has been explained, we have two or three or four or five--not many-- Senators who have decided to manufacture a crisis about the continuing resolution and paying our bills, which we owe. Every responsible, nondeadbeat person in the world pays their bills, and I don't know why we can't. But anyway, because of that, the Homeland Security bill we have worked on, which has been negotiated, may I say, without disagreement--I mean, this is kind of unheard of. Let me say, we had disagreements, but we worked them out. There were different views but we worked them out. We had big things to work out, such as this big new project being built in Kansas. I was not very supportive of it, but I had to listen a lot, I had to think, I had to negotiate, and I ended up putting a big project in this bill that I didn't 100 percent go along with, but I was convinced by colleagues for different reasons--and the White House weighed in, and others--to compromise. The bottom line is I have a $42 billion bill that supports our borders, that keeps commerce going, and that keeps FEMA going. We have a terrible flood to deal with in Colorado, and I see the Senator from Colorado and the Senator from Minnesota are both here, and they absolutely know what floods are all about. FEMA is trying to operate there. What do we tell people there on Monday? Sorry, we can't come help you get back into your home, get your children in school, get this hospital built again? We have phones to answer, we have people to serve, we have borders to secure, we have trade to move next week, and shutting down the government is simply not what we should be doing. We should be fixing it, making it more efficient, saving money where we can, and serving the 350 million people in this country and around the world who depend on the American government to function. In conclusion, let me say this. I had Marriott Corporation tell me today--Marriott, an excellent company, but conservative leaning from their top--Senator, would you please say, when you can, that the government is our biggest customer? When people think of government, they think only of government jobs. The Federal Government is the largest customer of Marriott Corporation, one of the largest corporations in the country. We buy a lot of goods and services from them. When we shut down, when we hesitate, when we don't operate with confidence, it affects every business in the world. If Marriott is going to take a big hit, imagine the hit smaller companies take, that can't take that hit or that break? So on behalf of Marriott and on behalf of other companies that are going to get hit, please realize the government has a lot of impact on the private sector, and it is not fair to hurt our economy or any business--large, small, conservative, liberal, or moderate. Last week, Mark Zandi of Moody's testified that a 3-4 week shutdown would reduce real GDP by 1.4 percent. This would be a devastating step backwards. In the second quarter of 2013, our GDP grew by 2.5 percent, more than doubling the 1.1 percent growth in GDP in the first quarter of 2013. And numerous studies have reported that, based on past experience, ``turning out the Federal government's lights'' would cost us $100 million each day. The hostage-taking approach of the House majority threatens such a shutdown and puts our economic viability at risk. We must do better. A government shutdown would have devastating consequences on hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana. Of the 31,000 Federal employees in my State, 18,000 would be temporarily furloughed by a shutdown. That is 58% of the Federal employees in my State that would be out of the job. More than 24,000 active Louisiana military and civilian personnel and 320,000 Louisiana veterans could see much needed paychecks and benefits delayed. Social Security services would also be significantly disrupted, which would have major implications for the 860,000 social security beneficiaries in Louisiana. New claims wouldn't be processed and the social security help line, which many of our seniors rely on, would not be able to take calls. In just 4 days during the 1995 shutdown, 112,000 claims for Social Security retirement and disability benefits were not taken and 800,000 callers were denied service on the Social Security Administration's 800 number. Constituents of mine, like Susan Crandall, rely heavily on the Social Security Offices in Louisiana. Ms. Crandall uses the Social Security Office in Alexandria as a lifeline. A government shutdown would force her to search for help elsewhere. For her and others living in my State, this just isn't feasible. A shutdown would also harm Louisiana students. More than 7,800 Louisiana students rely on work-study programs and 4,600 receive Federal loans to help pay for school. If there is a government shutdown, colleges and universities across Louisiana would not be able to disburse these funds to students. The Small Business Administration would stop processing new loans, preventing nearly 420,000 small businesses in Louisiana from getting the credit they need. The Federal Housing Administration has helped almost 10,000 mortgage holders in Louisiana thus far this year. If we allow a shutdown to happen, the FHA would not be able to process new loans, leaving aspiring homeowners out in the cold. Many potential homeowners in Louisiana are already hesitant to purchase because of the fear of flood insurance going up, and this will only add to their stress. One of the core missions of the Appropriations Committee--and of Congress at large--is to make sure our Federal government continues to operate soundly. By adopting the continuing resolution that the House passed last week, with its poison pills that defund the Affordable Care Act and play favorites with which bills we pay, we would be failing the American people. We need to do our work to make sure the Federal government remains open and continue to fund implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It is the law of the land. Anything less is ill conceived. And let me just say this. Operating the government on continuing resolutions is a failure in itself. I am disappointed, as I know Senator Mikulski is too, that we find ourselves in this position. When we pass CRs, we put the Nation on autopilot and fly blindly. Instead of passing the 12 appropriation bills that set priorities and invest in America's future, we fund yesterday's priorities instead. As the chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I hear every day * * * firsthand how important it is to keep our country safe and secure are at stake. Within the past year, our Nation has experienced a substantial rise in diverse attacks. If DHS continues to be funded at the 2013 post sequester level, we would not be able to adequately address or respond to these events. For example: While we were all horrified by how simple, homemade explosives could wreak such havoc at the Boston marathon this year, we saw how critical it was that law enforcement and first responders have the proper training and equipment to respond to these incidents. Years of robust grant funding for our first responders paid off in this instance. However, under sequester, grant funding would be at the lowest level since DHS was formed 10 years ago. If a government shutdown were to occur, all activity intended to help build State and local resiliency would cease. Our cyber networks are under constant attack. There are 6 million probes or attacks on U.S. government networks each day, and among the attackers are 140 foreign spy organizations. Let me share some recent examples. Earlier this month the Syrian Electronic Army defaced the Marine Corps website and hacked into numerous print media websites. We also heard news reports of large- scale espionage acts perpetrated by a group of highly sophisticated hackers for hire operating in China. Cyber attacks breach our government, military, and private networks to steal information, including valuable corporate secrets. All of our combined Federal resources are needed to strengthen safeguards on our data and detect these malicious efforts before they can disrupt critical government and financial networks. Without the $108 million increase requested in fiscal year 2014 for cybersecurity, DHS would defer implementation of the intrusion detection system for civilian Federal programs, known as Einstein, by 1 year; and delay expansion of cyber-attack information- sharing with States, leaving 19 without access to timely data. A shutdown or continued sequester will threaten progress in this area. In the wake of serious chemical plant incidents in West, TX and in Ascension Parish, LA, this summer, we are reminded that chemical safety and security is imperative, for citizens and first responders. In the hands of terrorists, chemical attacks could cause widespread devastation and loss of life. The DHS inspection program to prevent wrongdoers from gaining access to harmful chemicals has reduced risk by 40 percent. But there are still 4,300 facilities for which DHS has the responsibility to ensure a security program is completed and maintained. We cannot afford to delay this important work by underinvesting in it, but that is exactly what would happen under a sequester level. The existence of thousands of poorly secured commercial radioactive sources globally poses an ongoing challenge to our national security. We continue to face the threat of a weapon of mass destruction or dirty bomb being detonated in one of our cities or ports. A radiological attack would incite mass panic, shut down our major transportation systems, and cause severe economic damage. We cannot afford to stand meekly by. The Department of Homeland Security program called Securing the Cities, which is a partnership with State and local governments, is designed to detect and prevent a nuclear attack in our highest risk cities. New York has been the test bed for this program over the past few years; but it is now expanding to other major cities--Los Angeles being the next location. We need to ensure that this expansion is funded, not suspended. For 4 years in a row, the Department of Homeland Security has had to tighten its belt and operate with reduced funding. The impacts of sequestration have made it worse. Let me highlight just a few examples of why sequestration has been harmful and why it will be particularly damaging to DHS under a long-term continuing resolution: The Coast Guard has operated its surface and air assets 25 percent below planned levels under sequestration. This has resulted in 35 percent reduction in drug seizures and a 22 percent reduction in interdiction of undocumented migrants. Customs and Border Protection would not be able to hire any of the new officers for our air, land, and sea ports of entry requested in the fiscal year 2014 budget. This is bad for travel and trade. Travel volume to the U.S. is up 12 percent since 2009, and is expected to grow 4-5 percent in each of the next 5 years. In 2011, international travelers to the U.S. generated a trade surplus of $43 billion--that set a U.S. travel and tourism record. Without these new officers, we could once again see spikes in wait times during the spring at gateway airports such as New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, and Miami. In fiscal year 2013 under sequester, wait times for arriving passengers at these airports rose over 4 hours on multiple occasions. We must ensure the United States is open for business, or else travelers will take their business elsewhere. Similarly, CBP would not be able to sustain current operations in fiscal year 2014 because the agency will not have access to $110 million in fees collected under the Colombia Free Trade agreement. Without these funds, CBP would have to, No. 1, rely on furloughs of up to 16 days per employee to close the gap; No. 2, likely be forced to commence an agency-wide hiring pause for front-line personnel; and No. 3, fall below the Congressionally mandated staffing levels for CBP officers and Border Patrol agents. This will have the negative impact of longer lines at our ports, slower processing and inspection of food and other products entering our country, and fewer illegal aliens being apprehended and removed at our borders. 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 for 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. And lastly, on the administrative side, just last week DHS Undersecretary for Management, Rafael Borras, testified in front of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management about the difficulties of managing multiyear acquisition programs under a never-ending string of continuing resolutions. While I agree that is challenging, what is worse than a short-term spending bill at sequester levels, would be a government shutdown. Even a short lapse in funding has the potential to drive up costs across the entire DHS acquisition portfolio. Because of these impacts, it is critical that we conference our fiscal year 2014 Senate bills with our House counterparts that we can address the weaknesses that continuing to operate at sequestration levels would entail. A conference would also ensure a necessary delay to flood insurance rate increases since the House and Senate Homeland Security bills contain identical language on this issue. 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. While data for each homeowner is still incomplete, 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. Exacerbating the damage caused by irresponsible funding levels under the sequester is the looming threat of a politically-motivated Federal government shutdown. While most--about 84 percent--Department of Homeland Security employees are deemed mission-essential during a shutdown, because they are military or law enforcement personnel or deal with critical safety or security issues, DHS like all other Federal agencies would be operating at a greatly reduced capacity. For example: The Department of Homeland Security would not be able to maintain and operate E-Verify, the Internet-based system that allows employers to voluntarily determine the eligibility of prospective employees to work legally in the United States. Vital research and development would be delayed. For example, funding to develop next generation screening technology for TSA would dry up. This means funding for the development of technologies to improve detection, lower false alarms, and decrease wait times at airports would end. Funding would also end for the development of countermeasures to biological and nuclear threats. Preventative measures and pre-emptive planning efforts with State and local governments for natural and man-made events with FEMA and critical infrastructure experts will cease. This leaves communities less able to respond to catastrophic events in the middle of hurricane season, not to mention for no-notice events like earthquakes or bombings such as those at the Boston marathon. A lack of preparedness will cost the Federal government more money in recovery efforts and lead to unacceptable and unnecessary loss of life. Under a shutdown, law enforcement training would cease, including training conducted through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the Secret Service's J. Rowley Training Center. This would impact CBP, ICE, Secret Service, the Federal Air Marshal Service, and would delay their ability to bring new officers and agents into operational service. And as I noted earlier, while the majority of the frontline law enforcement personnel such as CBP's Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's investigative and detention officers, Transportation Security Administration aviation passenger screeners, FEMA disaster response personnel, and the U.S. Coast Guard will continue working under a shutdown, many of these employees live paycheck-to-paycheck. Since their biweekly paychecks would be stopped during a Federal funding hiatus, these women and men may not be able to pay their rent or mortgage or may have to reduce purchases of food or medicine for their families. An unnecessary government shutdown breaks faith with our heroes on the front lines, adversely impacting their morale and distracting them from their important and often dangerous duties. No one wants that. We need to get our work done. We need to pass a clean continuing resolution that keeps the Federal government open and fully funds the Affordable Care Act. After that is done, we need to move to the harder task at hand--agreeing on a budget for fiscal year 2014 and finalizing bills so that our agencies have the appropriate funding for their critical missions--instead of lurching from one funding crisis to the next. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the distinguished teacher and agricultural scientist, Dr. Milton C. Rush. Dr. Rush devoted his career to his students, his research, and his tireless efforts to protect and enhance one of our most important sources of nutrition. Dr. Rush began his career in rice pathologies in 1970 as a professor at Louisiana State University after receiving a doctor of philosophy degree in plant pathology from North Carolina State University. For the next 40 years at Louisiana State University, Dr. Rush has provided the agricultural community with invaluable research on rice pathology that has greatly benefited farmers throughout the State of Louisiana and the Nation. Under his leadership, the LSU rice program experienced its greatest years of agricultural research expansion and development. Through his years of service as an educator and pathologist, Dr. Rush created enduring changes in a wide breadth of research and direction to impact and improve the lives of countless students, rice growers and consumers within and throughout his community. Perhaps Dr. Rush's greatest accomplishment came in his development of a new rice variety, which he named after his beloved wife, Blanca Isabel. This new high-yielding, early harvest, long-grain rice variety was the culmination of decades of research focusing on the epidemiology and control of rice diseases, rice tissue transformation, and the breeding of disease-resistant rice strains. This new purple rice is bred in Louisiana and contains anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. His outstanding development of a more healthful and nutritious variety of rice will continue to provide unparalleled benefits to the citizens and communities of Louisiana and the Nation, delivering an improved alternative for generations to come. Dr. Rush has been honored frequently during his distinguished career. Among these honors are the Florence Avalon Daggett Professorship in Rice Pathology, the LSU AgCenter's Distinguished Service Award, the Sedberry Award for outstanding graduate professorship, memberships to the American Phytopathological Society, the Rice Technical Working Group, the Germplasm Advisory Committee, and two terms as president of the Louisiana Plant Protection Association Constitution Committee. Dr. Rush's career leaves a legacy of accomplishment and dedication to his family and all those who are a part of the agricultural communities that his tireless work impacted. Dr. Rush has been and continues to be an inspiration to all those who have benefited from his decades of service to the field of rice pathology. It is with my heartfelt and greatest sincerity that I ask my colleagues to join me along with Dr. Rush's family in recognizing the life and many accomplishments of this incredible mentor, professor, and agricultural scientist, as well as his lasting impact throughout the Nation.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I understand that Members can speak for up to 10 minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to speak about an issue completely separated from the international concerns we all share because closer to home there was an action taken today by the House of Representatives that has me extremely concerned as the senior Senator from Louisiana and a leader in our delegation and is an issue I have worked on literally since the first day I came to the Senate now almost 17 years ago. Today, the House of Representatives, unfortunately, in presenting their WRDA bill, which was a bill that was negotiated at great length with great skill by Senator Barbara Boxer, the chair of the committee of jurisdiction, and the ranking member, Senator Vitter, who did an outstanding job for the country and for Louisiana, negotiated quite skillfully a bill that was very balanced. It contained no earmarks, as have been eliminated by the majority of the Congress. It did give a green light for projects that had received a positive Chief's report, which is the signal to go forward with the project for flood protection or navigation or dredging under the jurisdictions of the Corps of Engineers. Unfortunately, for unexplained public reasons today, which we will find out as soon as we can and report, the House of Representatives, the leadership, decided to drop probably the most important project in the bill for Louisiana, and that project is Morganza to the Gulf. The saddest part about all of this, the House removing this project, this project has already been authorized three times in the last 15 years by the Senate and twice by the House of Representatives. The people who would be benefited by this project, about 200,000 people who live in south Louisiana, Lafourche Parish and Terrebonne Parish, the same area that was battered by Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, and the oilspill, the same people who have suffered through flood after flood after flood, the same people who have taxed themselves, gotten $200 million of their own money to build phase 1, have now been told no by the House of Representatives. For what reasons I cannot understand. They have gone through all of the processes required. They have waited in line, a line that should never have been there because they were given a yes. But as the Presiding Officer knows, under the Corps of Engineers' rules, they can say yes to your project initially and then it takes so long to get to your project because we have a very inefficient system. If the estimates then come in at 20 percent over the original estimate, the law kicks you out and you have to start all over. So they started all over. That is the tragedy of this action. We were furious they had to start all over, but that was the law. So they did. They got a positive Chief's report in June. The House of Representatives just arbitrarily decides, even with a positive Chief's report, they are taking Morganza to the Gulf out of the bill. I am calling on the Louisiana delegation to stand, particularly members who are in the study committee. I think we have a leader of that committee, Congressman Steve Scalise, who was my partner in the RESTORE Act and has been a very able leader in our delegation, to absolutely put their foot down on this WRDA bill moving any further in the House of Representatives until we can get justice for this project. Our people are doing everything we can to elevate our homes, to fight for fair flood insurance, to tax ourselves to build levees. We have traveled all over the world to find the best engineers in the Netherlands because we do not seem to have enough engineers in Washington who understand that you can live safely below sea level. Sometimes you have to because that is where the ports are. We do not have the luxury of living on tops of mountains. We are running the Mississippi River. We are not running a ski lodge in Vail. So our people have to live there. They are not living in mansions. They are not living in condos. They are living in fishing villages and fishing camps and in very middle-class neighborhoods, trying to make a living for themselves, their families, their communities and keep this country operating. We are running the biggest oil and gas operations out of Houma, LA, the town the House of Representatives has just literally made defenseless. They have no levees. New Orleans now, after Katrina, and Jefferson Parish, and Saint Bernard Parish have $14 billion of taxpayer money invested. That is a lot of money. I know some people in the country get very aggravated about that. Why did they get $14 billion? The country should have given us $1 billion 10 years ago and we could have saved them 14. But the Congress decided not to do that. We asked. We begged. We pleaded. No. No. No. No. So one day the levees broke. Then the bill came due. It was a big bill, $14 billion. Wait until the next bill comes through. In that whole timeframe, that whole timeframe where our people are begging, drowning, houses going underwater, begging for help, the government keeps telling us no, no, we sent $161 billion to this Treasury from off our shore, from offshore oil and gas--$161 billion. We come up here and try to get $1 billion for this levee, $2 billion for that. We are told: We cannot afford it. I tell you, I do not have the power to do this. I do not. But if I did, and if I were the Governor, I--and I do not think he has the power--but if I could, I would shut down every rig in the Gulf of Mexico until this Congress gives the people of Louisiana the money we need to keep ourselves safe from drowning, from flooding. I would turn the lights off in Washington and in New York and in Maine. We are tired of it. The people in our State cannot survive without levees. The country cannot survive without our people living where we do, to run the maritime, to run the oil and gas industry. Houma, LA, does not deserve this. Terrebonne Parish does not deserve it. Lafourche Parish does not deserve it. Our delegation is not going to stand for it. So my message to the Speaker of the House and my delegation in the House and the House is that bill will never see the light of day unless Morganza is put back. I do not know who is going to do it or how they are going to do it. Please do not tell me there is not enough money. We send alone, Louisiana--forget Texas, forget Alabama, forget Mississippi--Louisiana alone every year sends about $5 billion to the Federal Treasury just from oil and gas severance taxes, not counting sales tax, income tax, property taxes, other taxes--property taxes would not come here, but income taxes would come here, corporate income taxes would come here. That is not even counting that. I am tired of begging for nickels and dimes. So the House of Representatives better put Morganza to the Gulf back into that bill. No. 2, I have not read the whole bill. I was just informed about it. So I may have to take this back off the record. But I was told also what they did is say: We are not going to approve projects that had a Chief's report after our committee meeting in June. Then they put some language in that says something like: No project can go forward until they have a committee meeting of the House of Representatives. So they are basically engaging in earmarks again. In other words, having voted to take earmarks out--I was not for that. I did not go along with that, but they did, the leadership of the House, take earmarks out. They are now trying to put earmarks back in. So the only way you get back in is if you go through their committee and get your project approved, which is earmarking in a different way. So on two fronts I think the House is wrong. I think they were wrong to take Morganza out, wrong to put this new system in. The third and final thing I am going to say about this, which is the saddest thing, because Morganza has to go back in, there are some other projects they might have taken out that I am simply not aware of. But I know that the bill that left this Senate was very fair. It was without earmarks. It was based on the science and the process of the Corps of Engineers. But to all of my friends in the Senate, even when I get Morganza back in there, and our delegation does, the problem for all of us is that there is still going to be $60 billion of authorized projects for all of our States. The total budget of the Corps of Engineers next year that Senator Feinstein chairs--and I serve on the appropriations committee for the Corps of Engineers--will have only $1.6 billion for new construction. The total Corps budget is only about $5 billion. So think about it. Is this not the silliest thing? We have $40 billion of already authorized WRDA projects. The WRDA bill now has $20 billion minus Morganza to the Gulf, which they just took out for no good reason, after 20 years of our people suffering. So they are going to add that 20 plus Morganza which will get back in there. Then we are going to have $60 billion, and all we have is a few billion to fund it. It is a system that is so broken and so unfair. Every State feels this. It is not just Louisiana. What people hear is my strong voice, I hope, for the people of Louisiana. We feel it the most. We feel it most frequently just because of our geography. But every community in the country is suffering from this. We do not have enough infrastructure, water infrastructure. Our ports are not where they need to be. Our rivers are not dredged to the depths they need to be. We do not have enough to maintain our maritime industry in this country. This is undermining our economic strength and our international competitiveness, besides being terribly unfair to people who happen to live along the coast, which is 60 percent of our population. So I am just sending a little warning signal to the House of Representatives: There is no way, no way, that this WRDA bill is going to go anywhere without the Morganza to the Gulf in it. It is not happening. This is one of those sort of do or die kind of issues for the Louisiana delegation. We have waited 20 years for this project. It is justified from every angle, shape, form. It has been studied to death. The local people have put up $200 million of their own money. I am not going home to tell them they are not going to get the project. So I would strongly suggest our House delegation, particularly our leader Steve Scalise, the Congressman from Jefferson Parish, who is the chairman of the Republican study group, go have a long talk with the chairman of the committee and figure out how to get this project back in the bill.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. I wish to move to another subject. I wish to offer at this time two amendments to the underlying bill that we are trying to debate, which is a very important bill on energy efficiency. I know we cannot debate any amendments, but I think I can offer two amendments. I wish to tell my colleagues, the first I am offering with Senator Wicker and Senator Pryor. It would ensure that the Green Building Rating System, which is adopted by GSA currently, and new ones under this bill that are put forth by Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman--I support the bill--do not put at a disadvantage the materials that meet the new standard of energy efficiency in the underlying bill. There was some question about the way the bill was initially worded when it came out of the Energy Committee that it would disqualify some domestic materials that meet the energy efficient standards from being included. This would have a very devastating effect on our lumber and forestry industry, as well as others. I will send that amendment to the desk when I am able and hope that we will get through this skirmish over health care and get to some very important amendments that will help us create jobs in America, Louisiana, and help our industries. Secondly, I wish to speak about an amendment Senator Wicker and I will offer that would ensure that small companies are excused from the requirements to submit their products for expensive third-party testing to achieve ENERGY STAR certification. This is really a small business issue. I think this is acceptable to all parties. I am not sure there is any opposition, actually, to either one of these amendments, which is good. We have worked very hard with the parties who might have a different view to see if we can find some common ground, and I think we have. I have spoken about these amendments which I will submit for the Record when possible, and I hope we can get to the bill of Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman. They have worked very hard, and they have built a great coalition. Again, this is a bill that could create many jobs and opportunities for our people. While there are a lot of Members talking about how so- and-so should focus on jobs and he or she should do this or that, we have a bill whose essence is to create very good jobs in America and to save us energy costs and to reduce costs to taxpayers and consumers. I believe this bill was voted unanimously out of the energy committee and, if not, it had overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats. Ron Wyden, the chairman our committee, who was a very able and centrist leader on these matters, has worked very hard. I am very familiar with the benefits of this bill. I am sorry it has become caught up in the politics of health care, but it is important that we get to this Energy bill. It is most important that the House of Representatives fix a terrible thing for Louisiana which happened just a few hours ago when they stripped, now for the 20th year in a row, a project that has been certified, stamped, sealed, and approved by the Corps of Engineers. For whatever reason they did this, I do not know. I hope they will fix it. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today I wish to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, LA. The students, faculty, staff, school leaders, alumni and community members are celebrating 100 years of excellence in education and service to the New Orleans community. Warren Easton High School is the oldest public high school in Louisiana. Named after a local superintendent of schools in New Orleans, Warren Easton represents what excellence in education should look like. The school has transitioned from when it opened as an all- boys high school in Uptown New Orleans, then a new location on Canal Street in 1913, to a co-educational setting in 1952 and racial integration in 1967. However, perhaps Warren Easton High School's most profound transformation came in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. After the storm that devastated so many lives, infrastructures, and a way of life in New Orleans, Warren Easton was forced to close its doors for 1 year. Fortunately, thanks to the strong and spirited history of this school, Warren Easton was opened as a charter school by a group of alumni. Even in the face of challenge, the leaders and alumni created an institution that would not only honor the history of Warren Easton and its previous success, but will continue to create new opportunities for the students of New Orleans. Since its opening in 2007, Warren Easton High School has seen tremendous growth. During the last school year, 925 students attended school there. For the past 2 years, the school has celebrated a graduation rate of 100 percent. Student performance has also dramatically increased since the reopening of Warren Easton High School with a school performance score of 64.7 in 2007 and 133.9 in 2012. Further, the 2012 graduating class received over $6.2 million in scholarships from more than 20 colleges and universities. Warren Easton is a leading example of excellence in education. Its leaders, alumni, and students continue to be an inspiration to their community. It is with my heartfelt and greatest sincerity that I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, LA, and its long-time alumni community as they celebrate 100 years of success.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak for a few minutes about an exciting new area of collaboration between the United States and Israel, our critical ally and friend in the Middle East. Especially given the current state of affairs in the Middle East, the United States' clear and unyielding support for Israel is more important now than ever before. For the past few years, I have been a leader in the effort to enhance US-Israel collaboration on energy development, which is why I am excited today to introduce a bill that will expand this critical relationship, along with Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski. In December 2010, Israel made the largest natural gas discovery in the world in the past decade off its coast in the Mediterranean. The discovery, known as the Leviathan field, is estimated at 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, bringing Israel's total natural gas reserves to an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet. This will likely be able to satisfy Israel's domestic gas demand with enough left over to export for years to come--in fact, it is estimated that if only half of this natural gas was produced, Israel would have 100 years of its natural gas needs met. Not only is the Leviathan discovery a game changer for Israel, both economically and geopolitically, but it is also an incredible chance for the U.S. to share our energy expertise to support a critical ally while creating economic opportunities here at home. The Gulf Coast, which provides one third of all domestically produced oil in the nation, arguably has the most advanced offshore energy industry in the world; Israel, until very recently has had almost none. With limited domestic production capacity, a non-existent regulatory framework, and a lack of related academic programs, Israel can greatly benefit from collaboration with the U.S., and we are uniquely qualified to lead this effort to help Israel successfully develop this natural resource. As Israel is a leader in the research and development, hi-tech and startup spaces, enhanced collaboration between the two countries can be mutually beneficial. The United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Enhancement Bill recognizes the important relationship and potential for further collaboration between the United States and Israel on energy development, including natural gas and alternative fuels, and seeks to bolster that relationship by encouraging increased cooperation in the academic, business, governmental, and other sectors. The bill first recognizes energy collaboration with Israel as a strategic interest of the United States and officially encourages collaboration between the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Israel Science Foundation. It then further encourages cooperation between both countries' academic communities in energy innovation technology, technology transfer, and analysis of the geopolitical implications of new natural resource development. It also urges business development engagement in the private sectors and regular engagement between the two countries' relevant agencies, departments and ministries to share best practices. Additionally, the United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Enhancement Bill expands two already existing joint grant making programs, the Binational Industrial Research and Development Program, BIRD, and the Binational Science Foundation, BSF. Under the bill, these two programs would now include projects focused on natural gas, which are expected given Israel's recent discoveries, as well as entrepreneurial development and the advanced hi-tech sector. The legislation also reauthorizes the BIRD and BSF programs through fiscal year 2024. Finally, the bill allows for the authorization of a United States- Israel Offshore Technology Center to further academic and technology research and development collaboration. This is the direct result of numerous conversations, meetings, and visits I have had over the past few years, and I am especially excited about the potential of this type of formal academic collaboration. Israeli universities have some of the world's leading engineering departments, but have no petroleum engineering faculty. Imagine the synergy if we could combine Israeli engineering expertise with our universities, who have the leading petroleum engineering departments in the world. This bill builds off of my previous efforts to enhance collaboration between the United States and Israel on energy development and exploration. For several years, I have been working to strengthen the relationship between our two countries and to help our domestic energy industry. In October 2011, with the help of the Department of Commerce and the Southwest Louisiana Economic Development Alliance, I organized the first ever oil and gas trade mission to Israel and brought 12 Louisiana oil and gas companies to the region. The mission was such a success that the Department of Commerce and I ran another trip in October 2012 that brought 15 American companies and universities. Additionally, in June of 2012, I hosted a delegation of 10 high-ranking Israeli officials in Washington and Louisiana to meet with US industry experts and federal officials, including then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. The delegation also attended the Central Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale in New Orleans and visited Port Fourchon and the Liquified Natural Gas, LNG, facility in Cameron Parish. By seeing our work first-hand and learning about the US regulatory framework, they left with a keener understanding of our industry. The United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Enhancement Bill will continue to advance this important goal. Through energy collaboration, academic cooperation, and continued government dialogue, we will create jobs for our domestic oil and gas industry and support a critical ally in the Middle East in its quest for energy independence and security. I thank my colleagues Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski for their leadership on this issue and for cosponsoring the bill, and I urge my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak for a few minutes about an exciting new area of collaboration between the United States and Israel, our critical ally and friend in the Middle East. Especially given the current state of affairs in the Middle East, the United States' clear and unyielding support for Israel is more important now than ever before. For the past few years, I have been a leader in the effort to enhance US-Israel collaboration on energy development, which is why I am excited today to introduce a bill that will expand this critical relationship, along with Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski. In December 2010, Israel made the largest natural gas discovery in the world in the past decade off its coast in the Mediterranean. The discovery, known as the Leviathan field, is estimated at 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, bringing Israel's total natural gas reserves to an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet. This will likely be able to satisfy Israel's domestic gas demand with enough left over to export for years to come--in fact, it is estimated that if only half of this natural gas was produced, Israel would have 100 years of its natural gas needs met. Not only is the Leviathan discovery a game changer for Israel, both economically and geopolitically, but it is also an incredible chance for the U.S. to share our energy expertise to support a critical ally while creating economic opportunities here at home. The Gulf Coast, which provides one third of all domestically produced oil in the nation, arguably has the most advanced offshore energy industry in the world; Israel, until very recently has had almost none. With limited domestic production capacity, a non-existent regulatory framework, and a lack of related academic programs, Israel can greatly benefit from collaboration with the U.S., and we are uniquely qualified to lead this effort to help Israel successfully develop this natural resource. As Israel is a leader in the research and development, hi-tech and startup spaces, enhanced collaboration between the two countries can be mutually beneficial. The United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Enhancement Bill recognizes the important relationship and potential for further collaboration between the United States and Israel on energy development, including natural gas and alternative fuels, and seeks to bolster that relationship by encouraging increased cooperation in the academic, business, governmental, and other sectors. The bill first recognizes energy collaboration with Israel as a strategic interest of the United States and officially encourages collaboration between the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Israel Science Foundation. It then further encourages cooperation between both countries' academic communities in energy innovation technology, technology transfer, and analysis of the geopolitical implications of new natural resource development. It also urges business development engagement in the private sectors and regular engagement between the two countries' relevant agencies, departments and ministries to share best practices. Additionally, the United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Enhancement Bill expands two already existing joint grant making programs, the Binational Industrial Research and Development Program, BIRD, and the Binational Science Foundation, BSF. Under the bill, these two programs would now include projects focused on natural gas, which are expected given Israel's recent discoveries, as well as entrepreneurial development and the advanced hi-tech sector. The legislation also reauthorizes the BIRD and BSF programs through fiscal year 2024. Finally, the bill allows for the authorization of a United States- Israel Offshore Technology Center to further academic and technology research and development collaboration. This is the direct result of numerous conversations, meetings, and visits I have had over the past few years, and I am especially excited about the potential of this type of formal academic collaboration. Israeli universities have some of the world's leading engineering departments, but have no petroleum engineering faculty. Imagine the synergy if we could combine Israeli engineering expertise with our universities, who have the leading petroleum engineering departments in the world. This bill builds off of my previous efforts to enhance collaboration between the United States and Israel on energy development and exploration. For several years, I have been working to strengthen the relationship between our two countries and to help our domestic energy industry. In October 2011, with the help of the Department of Commerce and the Southwest Louisiana Economic Development Alliance, I organized the first ever oil and gas trade mission to Israel and brought 12 Louisiana oil and gas companies to the region. The mission was such a success that the Department of Commerce and I ran another trip in October 2012 that brought 15 American companies and universities. Additionally, in June of 2012, I hosted a delegation of 10 high-ranking Israeli officials in Washington and Louisiana to meet with US industry experts and federal officials, including then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. The delegation also attended the Central Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale in New Orleans and visited Port Fourchon and the Liquified Natural Gas, LNG, facility in Cameron Parish. By seeing our work first-hand and learning about the US regulatory framework, they left with a keener understanding of our industry. The United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Enhancement Bill will continue to advance this important goal. Through energy collaboration, academic cooperation, and continued government dialogue, we will create jobs for our domestic oil and gas industry and support a critical ally in the Middle East in its quest for energy independence and security. I thank my colleagues Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski for their leadership on this issue and for cosponsoring the bill, and I urge my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, today I honor and celebrate the life of an extraordinary American: Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs, who we all knew as ``Lindy.'' She was a remarkable national leader, trailblazer for women everywhere, wife, mother, and a friend. Lindy taught me--and an entire generation of Louisianians, both men and women, through her example--to answer the call of public service. With her death last Saturday, July 28, 2013, our entire State is in mourning but we are also celebrating a life well lived. Throughout her life, she shaped the world to become a better and more just place. When she was born in 1916, women could not vote and segregation reigned supreme. But she refused to accept the world as it was and set about to change it. She lived through both World Wars and the Great Depression. Despite all of these daunting obstacles, Lindy--a graceful woman with a strong, passionate calling to serve others--was not deterred. Like many women of her time, she married a man of great promise--and ultimately great power--Hale Boggs. But when he was lost in a tragic plane accident in Alaska, she--unlike many--stepped up and into his shoes, trusting God to lead her forward. She was elected to succeed her husband in Congress on March 20, 1973, and became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives from our State. At the time, there were only 15 women in the U.S. House of Representatives and none in the U.S. Senate. But Lindy never let the novelty of this, the pressure of work and family, or any other challenge she faced throughout her career stand in her way or deter her from serving her State and her country. Her keen political mind, iron will and graceful Southern charm helped her become one of the most formidable forces Congress has ever known. She was known for bridging the gap between Republicans and Democrats and convincing her colleagues to do what was right with poise, kindness and reason. As her colleague Bill Frenzel, a Republican from Minnesota said of her: ``It was impossible not to like Lindy. She liked everybody. She was nice to everybody. She achieved more with less huff and puff and bluster than any of the rest of us did.'' She used her formidable influence to help lead the fight for civil rights, pay equity for women and the right for women to hold a mortgage on her own home without the necessity of a husband's signature. As a member of the Banking Committee she inserted a provision barring discrimination over sex or marital status into the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. She did not tell her colleagues before she did it and simply told them: Knowing the members composing this committee as well as I do, I'm sure it was just an oversight that we didn't have `sex' or `marital status' included. I've taken care of that, and I trust it meets with the committee's approval.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I regret having missed the July 31, 2013 vote on the confirmation of Byron Jones, of Minnesota, to be Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the confirmation of Mr. Jones. I also regret having missed three votes on August 1, 2013. The three votes that I missed are as follows: the nomination of Raymond Chen to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Federal Circuit; cloture on S. 1243, Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations; and the nomination of Samantha Power to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of all three votes.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to my home state of Louisiana: disaster preparedness. As you know, along the Gulf Coast, we keep an eye trained on the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season. This is following the devastating one-two punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005 as well as Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008. Unfortunately, our region also has had to deal with the economic and environmental damage from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 and more recently Hurricane Isaac. For this reason, as Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, ensuring Federal disaster programs are effective and responsive to disaster victims is one of my top priorities. While the Gulf Coast is prone to hurricanes, other parts of the country are no strangers to disaster. For example, the Midwest and Southeast have tornadoes, California experiences earthquakes and wildfires, and the Northeast sees crippling snowstorms. So no part of our country is spared from disasters--disasters which can and will strike at any moment. This certainly hit home when the northeast was struck by Hurricane Sandy in October of last year and when Moore, Oklahoma was hit by a massive tornado earlier this summer. With this in mind, we must ensure that families have the resources they need to be better prepared the next time disasters strike their communities. In order to give families in tornado prone areas more resources to protect lives and property, I am proud to file the Tornado Family Safety Act of 2013. Representative Tom Cole from Oklahoma is filing the House companion bill today as well. I want to thank him for being my partner in this effort as his district has seen firsthand how destructive these tornadoes can be to homes and businesses. In particular, our bill would allow U.S. Small Business Administration, SBA, disaster home mitigation loans to go towards the construction of tornado safe rooms. Under current law, SBA can increase the size of a home disaster loan by 20 percent of the total damage to decrease future disaster risk. The Small Business Act lists out examples of mitigation activities such as ``. . . retaining walls, sea walls, grading and contouring land, relocating utilities and modifying structures . . .'' The bill would add safe rooms as an eligible activity so homeowners would have access to these low-interest loans. It does not replace or duplicate other programs, but instead provides a backstop for families in disaster prone areas. Under guidelines from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, and the International Code Council, ICC, a safe room should withstand 250 mph winds and the impact of a 15-pound plank hitting a wall at 100 miles per hour, according to the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, IBHS. Safe rooms designed to the FEMA and ICC standards are recommended for both tornadoes and hurricanes. For individual homes, a safe room could range anywhere from $3,000 to $12,000. The concept for the bill came about after discussions with the FEMA and the SBA on recent disasters. We learned that safe rooms are not allowable under FEMA preparedness grant programs. Safe rooms would be considered construction and FEMA only allows for limited construction under the preparedness grants for very specific items, such as communications towers, as specified in the appropriations acts. Safe rooms are an eligible activity under the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, HMGP. States decide how they use their HMGP, and reimbursing safe room construction for homeowners could be eligible. However, given the larger cost involved in reimbursing individual homeowners, HMGP funded safe rooms are oftentimes community-owned not residential. As I have indicated, FEMA Individual Assistance does not allow the construction of safe rooms. FEMA does allow HMGP grants for safe rooms and states can decide to reimburse safe room construction for homeowners. However, most are typically community-owned not residential since HMGP funds both single and multi-use facilities--schools, community centers, etc. For example, according to FEMA data, out of 21 states funding safe rooms, only four states, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, represent the bulk of residential safe rooms, appproximately 21,600 of the 21,880 funded. But let me give you an example of how the needs for these types of structures are often outpacing the resources currently available. Following the May 20, 2013 tornado there, Moore, OK, Mayor Glenn Lewis proposed a requirement that all new homes built in the city include a safe room. Oklahoma Governor Fallin also told the Associated Press that only 100 of the 1,752 public schools in Oklahoma have a safe room. In a subsequent June 9, 2013, interview, Albert Ashwood, Director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, estimated that putting safe rooms in 1,000 Oklahoma schools, via traditional FEMA grant programs, would cost between $500 million to $1 billion alone. So in the near future, there is likely to be less, not more, Federal funding available at the State level for these types of residential safe rooms. Our bill would allow a backstop to homeowners in the event that other Federal/State funds are not available for safe rooms for that particular disaster. In closing, I believe that this commonsense disaster reform will greatly benefit homeowners impacted by future tornadoes and other disasters. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to my home state of Louisiana: disaster preparedness. As you know, along the Gulf Coast, we keep an eye trained on the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season. This is following the devastating one-two punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005 as well as Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008. Unfortunately, our region also has had to deal with the economic and environmental damage from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 and more recently Hurricane Isaac. For this reason, as Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, ensuring Federal disaster programs are effective and responsive to disaster victims is one of my top priorities. While the Gulf Coast is prone to hurricanes, other parts of the country are no strangers to disaster. For example, the Midwest and Southeast have tornadoes, California experiences earthquakes and wildfires, and the Northeast sees crippling snowstorms. So no part of our country is spared from disasters--disasters which can and will strike at any moment. This certainly hit home when the northeast was struck by Hurricane Sandy in October of last year and when Moore, Oklahoma was hit by a massive tornado earlier this summer. With this in mind, we must ensure that families have the resources they need to be better prepared the next time disasters strike their communities. In order to give families in tornado prone areas more resources to protect lives and property, I am proud to file the Tornado Family Safety Act of 2013. Representative Tom Cole from Oklahoma is filing the House companion bill today as well. I want to thank him for being my partner in this effort as his district has seen firsthand how destructive these tornadoes can be to homes and businesses. In particular, our bill would allow U.S. Small Business Administration, SBA, disaster home mitigation loans to go towards the construction of tornado safe rooms. Under current law, SBA can increase the size of a home disaster loan by 20 percent of the total damage to decrease future disaster risk. The Small Business Act lists out examples of mitigation activities such as ``. . . retaining walls, sea walls, grading and contouring land, relocating utilities and modifying structures . . .'' The bill would add safe rooms as an eligible activity so homeowners would have access to these low-interest loans. It does not replace or duplicate other programs, but instead provides a backstop for families in disaster prone areas. Under guidelines from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, and the International Code Council, ICC, a safe room should withstand 250 mph winds and the impact of a 15-pound plank hitting a wall at 100 miles per hour, according to the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, IBHS. Safe rooms designed to the FEMA and ICC standards are recommended for both tornadoes and hurricanes. For individual homes, a safe room could range anywhere from $3,000 to $12,000. The concept for the bill came about after discussions with the FEMA and the SBA on recent disasters. We learned that safe rooms are not allowable under FEMA preparedness grant programs. Safe rooms would be considered construction and FEMA only allows for limited construction under the preparedness grants for very specific items, such as communications towers, as specified in the appropriations acts. Safe rooms are an eligible activity under the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, HMGP. States decide how they use their HMGP, and reimbursing safe room construction for homeowners could be eligible. However, given the larger cost involved in reimbursing individual homeowners, HMGP funded safe rooms are oftentimes community-owned not residential. As I have indicated, FEMA Individual Assistance does not allow the construction of safe rooms. FEMA does allow HMGP grants for safe rooms and states can decide to reimburse safe room construction for homeowners. However, most are typically community-owned not residential since HMGP funds both single and multi-use facilities--schools, community centers, etc. For example, according to FEMA data, out of 21 states funding safe rooms, only four states, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, represent the bulk of residential safe rooms, appproximately 21,600 of the 21,880 funded. But let me give you an example of how the needs for these types of structures are often outpacing the resources currently available. Following the May 20, 2013 tornado there, Moore, OK, Mayor Glenn Lewis proposed a requirement that all new homes built in the city include a safe room. Oklahoma Governor Fallin also told the Associated Press that only 100 of the 1,752 public schools in Oklahoma have a safe room. In a subsequent June 9, 2013, interview, Albert Ashwood, Director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, estimated that putting safe rooms in 1,000 Oklahoma schools, via traditional FEMA grant programs, would cost between $500 million to $1 billion alone. So in the near future, there is likely to be less, not more, Federal funding available at the State level for these types of residential safe rooms. Our bill would allow a backstop to homeowners in the event that other Federal/State funds are not available for safe rooms for that particular disaster. In closing, I believe that this commonsense disaster reform will greatly benefit homeowners impacted by future tornadoes and other disasters. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Reserving the right to object, I am not going to object, but I wanted to ask the majority leader, as you know, we have lost a great American, Ambassador Lindy Boggs. Senator Begich and I just wanted 10 minutes on the floor sometime today or tomorrow to honor her. Could we include that in some agreement for tomorrow?

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today I wish to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Tom Ed McHugh, who will retire as executive director of the Louisiana Municipal Association. Mr. McHugh will step down on December 31, 2013, after 13 years of dedicated service. Mr. McHugh began his career in public service in 1966 as a teacher in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System after receiving a Bachelor's degree in education from Louisiana State University. In 1989, Mr. McHugh was elected mayor-president of the City of Baton Rouge and Parish of East Baton Rouge and served three terms in this position. Under his leadership, East Baton Rouge Parish experienced its greatest years of growth and prosperity. Through his years of service as an elected official, Mr. McHugh created enduring changes in a wide breadth of programs to impact and improve the lives of every individual within and throughout his community. Mr. McHugh has worked tirelessly for 13 years as executive director of the Louisiana Municipal Association to maintain and promote the independence and self-sufficiency of Louisiana's municipalities while strengthening the relationship between the local, State, and Federal levels of government. He created municipal structures in which all people are taken care of, no matter their situation in life. Mr. McHugh had a vision to reach the lives of the citizens he vigorously worked to improve through dynamic enhancement models that provided quality management and services at all levels of government. Mr. McHugh also worked continuously to build a strong economic agenda to ensure the prosperity of Louisiana's municipalities and communities for generations to come. Mr. McHugh's distinguished career includes many prestigious recognitions. Among them are memberships to the United States Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, and the governing boards of the Louisiana Conference of Mayors and the Louisiana Municipal Association. Mr. McHugh's career leaves a legacy of accomplishment and dedication to his family and all those who are a part of the educational systems and municipalities that he served. Together with his high school sweetheart, Betty Schilling McHugh, Mr. and Mrs. McHugh are the proud parents and grandparents of three children and eight grandchildren, all of whom have continued to inspire Mr. McHugh as a professional, a father, and a grandfather. Mr. McHugh has been and continues to be an inspiration to all of those who have been impacted by his tireless efforts. It is with my heartfelt and greatest sincerity that I ask my colleagues to join me along with Mr. McHugh's family in recognizing the life and many accomplishments of this incredible leader and his impact in so many communities.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today I wish to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing September 6, 2013, as Coach Alton ``Red'' Franklin Day in the State of Louisiana. On this date, Coach Franklin's 35 years of leadership and service to the football program at Haynesville High School as head coach will be honored in a ceremony to rename Haynesville High School Memorial Stadium to Red Franklin-Memorial Stadium. Coach Franklin's talent and leadership in athletics grew in high school where he lettered each year of his career in football, baseball, and basketball. After receiving a scholarship to play football at the University of Alabama, Coach Franklin transferred to Louisiana College where he met his beloved wife, Beth Langford. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, who have been together 50 years, are the proud parents of three sons who played football under Coach Franklin's leadership and grandparents of seven grandchildren, all of whom continue to inspire him as a coach, father, and grandfather. Coach Franklin began his coaching career in Marksville, LA, in 1961. He later became an assistant coach at Haynesville High School. He was then promoted to head coach in 1967, and served in that position for 35 years. During his career as head coach, Coach Franklin accumulated 366 wins, 8 ties, and only 76 losses in a total of 450 games, earning the rank of second place for Louisiana's best all time, all-class, head coaching record. Throughout his tireless professional efforts, Coach Franklin also devoted much of his time to the youth in his community and the State as an educator, leader, and role model. Coach Franklin's distinguished career includes many awards, honors, and decorations. Among them are State Coach of the Year for 6 years, District Coach of the Year for 23 years, Region Five Coach of the Year for 2 years, and inductions into the Louisiana Sports, Louisiana College, National Federation of State High School Associations, and North Louisiana Chapter of the National Football Foundation Halls of Fame. Coach Franklin's career leaves a legacy of accomplishment, service, and dedication to all those who are a part of Louisiana's strong communities and football tradition. Coach Franklin has been and continues to be an inspiration to those who have been impacted by his legendary coaching tenure. It is with my greatest sincerity that I ask my colleagues to join me along with Coach Franklin's family in recognizing the hard work, devotion, and many achievements of this incredible leader.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the 9th and 10th (Horse) Cavalry Association of the Buffalo Soldiers, who on July 22-28, 2013, will celebrate their 147th Anniversary Reunion in New Orleans, LA. The cavalry association will honor allied members who have demonstrated tremendous work and leadership in the association, their community, or the United States through their exceptional service. On July 28, 1866, the 29th Congress passed the Army Organization Act, creating two cavalry and six overall regiments of African-American troops. The 9th Cavalry was activated in New Orleans, LA, and the 10th was called into service at Fort Levenworth, KS, beginning the Buffalo Soldiers' rich heritage of professional service to their communities and the Nation. The cavalry units of the Buffalo Soldiers played an integral role in the settlement and development of the West in the crucial years that followed the Civil War, serving courageously and victoriously on the frontier from Texas to Montana. Buffalo Soldiers wear the name proudly and respectfully, sharing a common passion for the historical significance and contributions of those who have served before them. The Buffalo Soldiers performed admirably in and out of battle, assisting in the economic growth and cultural development of Western territories and communities. Today, the Buffalo Soldiers honor their heritage through mentorship, community service, and volunteerism. In this capacity, the soldiers work tirelessly to provide education and support services in numerous communities throughout the Nation. Their outstanding leadership in these endeavors and services they perform continue to provide unparalleled contributions to the citizens and communities impacted and will benefit generations to come. In 2001, at the 135th Anniversary Reunion of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Association, Mr. George Jones, along with nine members of the cavalry association, was awarded a national charter to form the Greater New Orleans Area Chapter #22. This chapter was the first in the State of Louisiana to receive a chapter charter from the national office. The Greater New Orleans Area Chapter has embodied the values and mission embraced by the 9th and 10th Cavalry for 147 years, and has continuously educated Louisiana's communities on the invaluable traditions and contributions of the Buffalo Soldiers in the service of the United States. The 9th and 10th (Horse) Cavalry Association of Buffalo Soldiers has been and continues to be an inspiration to all those who have been impacted by their tireless service. It is with my greatest sincerity that I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the hard work, dedication, and many accomplishments of these incredible leaders.