Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, next Friday, May 31, is my friend's-- Marie C. Johns--last day as the Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She has served the SBA and our country's small businesses with distinction since 2010, and I will miss working with her. Her appointment to serve as the Deputy Administrator came at a critical time for U.S. small businesses, when the economy was recovering from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The SBA needed great leadership, and she brought to the agency an impressive family history of entrepreneurship and professional accomplishments. As she said during her confirmation hearing on May 19, 2010, `` the spirit of entrepreneurship has been at the core of my professional and personal life.'' She described the landscaping business her grandfather owned in Indianapolis, IN. And then later, after her uncle earned his degree in pharmacy at Howard University, her grandfather built a community pharmacy so that her uncle could practice as a pharmacist and serve the African-American community in Indianapolis. Marie built her own career in DC, starting as a first-level manager in telecommunications and retiring as the president of Verizon DC. During her 20 years in communications, she held numerous leadership positions, helping small businesses and entrepreneurs. To name just one, she served as the chair of the Small Business Committee for the DC Chamber of Commerce, helping small businesses obtain technical assistance and mentoring from larger firms. During her time as the SBA Deputy Administrator, Marie and I have enjoyed a strong working relationship, which has allowed us, alongside Administrator Karen Mills, to achieve a number of substantial accomplishments. Most significantly, we passed the landmark Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 that provided billions of dollars of loans and investment capital to America's entrepreneurs. In 2011 and 2012, the SBA issued its first and second rounds of State Trade and Export Promotion, STEP, grants to 47 States and four territories. These STEP grants have maximized the Federal, State, and local resources to help small businesses export, which in turn has contributed to both business growth and job creation. And finally, we persevered and improved the women's contracting program to put women-owned small businesses on the same playing field with other contracting programs so that contracts to women are no longer capped at artificially low amounts. Recently, on May 8, marking her last time to testify before the Senate Small Business Committee, Marie testified on the important issue of minority women entrepreneurs and how essential they are to the larger economy. The testimony from that hearing was moving and educational and helped raise awareness of this growing segment of job creators. It has been an honor to work with Marie to provide help and support to the more than 28 million small businesses in this country. During her tenure, the SBA became a more effective Federal champion of small businesses by assisting these businesses to secure financing, technical assistance, training, and Federal contracts. Ms. Johns now leaves the SBA with a strong performance record. This Nation's small businesses are in a better position because of her work. Her dedication to the improvement of the health of small businesses in the United States will always be appreciated. I thank her for her work and wish her well as she returns to her many civic duties.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship will meet on May 22, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 428A Russell Senate Office building to hold a roundtable entitled ``Bridging the Skills Gap: How the STEM Education Pipeline Can Develop a High- Skilled American Workforce for Small Business.''

Ms. LANDRIEU

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. While we have some down time on the floor to wait for the 2:30 hour--I believe we are going to have some action on the WRDA bill, which is very important--I thought I would take this time to talk about an amendment I have pending on the WRDA bill. It is an amendment that I offered for myself, Senator Vitter, Senator Schumer, and Senator Menendez. Several other Senators have expressed their strong support over the weekend on both sides, Republicans and Democrats. There are many States in the Union, and Louisiana is only one--the State of Florida, the State of California, the State of Mississippi, the State of Alabama, other coastal States and, yes, some inland States--that are going to be terribly disadvantaged if the Landrieu- Vitter amendment does not pass on the WRDA bill. What is going to happen because of a reform bill--parts of it were necessary, but there were some parts that, in my view and in the view of many Senators, should never have passed as part of the flood insurance reform bill. The reason some of us are fairly exercised about this is the bill itself, the reform bill to reform the Flood Insurance Program of the United States, never came to this floor for debate. It came out of the Banking Committee, and then it was basically tucked into a larger omnibus bill, which happens sometimes. This is not the only or the first time it has happened. It is very unfortunate that it happened with this bill. In our haste and in our good intentions to try to put national flood insurance on a more even financial keel, we have put the ability, unfortunately, in this bill for flood insurance rates to go up 20 percent a year on hundreds of thousands of first homes in this country--not second homes, not vacation homes, but first homes. The Landrieu-Vitter amendment doesn't try to solve this whole problem on the WRDA bill. It is going to take a little bit of work, which we can do, working together in good faith on behalf of our constituents. This is big government at its worst--passing a reform bill and making the cure worse than the disease. In this case, for my constituents and for constituents in Florida, Mississippi, California, and New Jersey, we would have taken the disease as opposed to the cure. The cure is going to kill us. We weren't sure about the disease, but the cure is going to kill us. Our papers have been editorializing for days since this issue has come to the surface on the WRDA bill. Our largest newspaper or second largest newspaper editorialized this morning and spoke about a quite senior woman--in her eighties--who lives with her daughter, who is in her sixties, in Plaquemines Parish. It is very typical to have families of different generations living together. They were in Plaquemines Parish before the flood insurance measure was ever passed. We were living in Louisiana before this Nation was a nation. Our people have been down there a long time living on this water. They built their houses centuries--not this couple, but we had houses built centuries before this bill was ever passed. Now, what the law--the cure that is going to kill us--says is that this is their choice: They can elevate their home 18 feet, which probably would cost $50,000, which they don't have, or their flood insurance will go up to something on the order of $15,000 or $20,000 a year, which they can't pay. One may say: That is too bad. Let them sell the house. Their house has no value. This is a dilemma not just for the people of Louisiana but for people from Mississippi, Alabama, California, and New York. We have a solution. The solution I have offered is temporary until we can be smart and think about how to fix this, and it doesn't cost anything. I am begging Members to allow us this short period of time to get this cure corrected. We can find a way to make this program balance. We don't have to do that today, at this moment. Give us a little breathing room to figure this out. I believe this program could be self- sustaining. I am not an expert on insurance, but I am very fortunate to serve with colleagues who are. I am sure we can put our heads together and come up with something better than what is coming down like a firehose out there on lots of people in communities in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. My understanding is--the managers are not on the floor--that there are about eight or nine amendments that have been worked out, hopefully, on both sides of the aisle. One of them is the Landrieu- Vitter fix, the flood insurance amendment that has zero cost to the taxpayer--zero. It is a temporary reprieve of rates going up for grandfathered homes, which affects many people in Florida, Louisiana, and in other States as well. It has a zero score. The CBO has testified. We have letters from CBO. Please give our people this breathing room. I promise that I will work in good faith. There are probably a few other things that need to be fixed in this flood insurance bill as we find a better way to lower costs to the taxpayer and to provide opportunities for people to live on a mountaintop if they choose, in a valley or on the coast, but to be safely sustainable. We all need to work together as a country. We can find an affordable way for our people--and not just millionaires--to be able to live on the coast. We have to make room for our fishermen, our agriculture, our farmers, and our aquaculture folks who have invested a good amount of money in helping to build more sustainable fisheries for our Nation. We have people who have to live near the water for commerce and trade. Not everybody lives by the water to vacation. Some people live by the water to work, which is an essential part of the work to keep this country moving forward. We have to figure out a way to allow them to do that in an affordable manner without completely undermining the coastal counties of our country. Senator Schumer is on the floor now with some others who also have been working. I thank them for working over the weekend. Let's help them get this list of amendments cleared. One of those amendments will be the Landrieu-Vitter amendment on fixing temporarily--giving some reprieve to thousands of homeowners who are desperate for a signal from us that we get it, we understand. We didn't correct this appropriately. We are going to respond, as a democracy should, and give them a little signal today that as the WRDA bill moves forward, we can fine-tune and modify this flood insurance reform. I understand we are ready for action on WRDA. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I wish to clarify through the Chair that the Senator from Pennsylvania is not objecting to the long list of amendments as described by the chairman of the committee, he is only objecting to amendment No. 888 and objecting to a vote on amendment No. 888 by myself, Senator Vitter, Senator Schumer, Senator Menendez, Senator Lautenberg, and others; is that correct? Is the Senator objecting to a vote or to the amendment?

Ms. LANDRIEU. So it is my understanding, Madam President, through the Chair, that the Senator is objecting to a vote on the amendment. He is certainly entitled, in my view, to vote against the amendment. That is what debate on the floor is all about. But he is not expressing his objection to that. He is objecting to having a vote on the amendment; is that correct?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I am just trying to get clarification through the Chair from the Senator from Pennsylvania. I understand he objects to my amendment. That is not what I am asking him. I would just like a yes or no answer; is he objecting to a vote on the amendment?

Ms. LANDRIEU. He did not answer the question clearly, but since he will not answer the question, which is unfortunate, I wish to make it clear for the record that the Senator from Pennsylvania is objecting to a vote on the Landrieu-Vitter amendment. He most certainly is entitled to vote no on our amendment. Other Senators may vote no. But I want the record to show he is saying, no, we cannot even have a vote. If I could have 5 more minutes. I will take 3 more minutes. I want to say how disappointing it is to me because the Senator is unfortunately wrong on several counts. No. 1, this floor never voted on the Biggert-Waters bill. As I said a dozen times, the bill came out of the Banking Committee with broad bipartisan support. A different bill was passed by the House. Then these two bills that were very different and tried to ``reform the flood insurance program'' were tucked into a conference committee report. I want the record to show this floor never voted on the reform, and the cure that came out of the conference committee is worse than the disease. Second, I want to tell the Senator from Pennsylvania I think this is going to come back to haunt him because the people of his own State are going to be negatively affected by his actions today. There are 74,000 people in Pennsylvania--4,000 in Philadelphia alone but 74,000 people in Pennsylvania who pay flood insurance rates. Under the proposal that never came to this Senate floor, those rates in some cases can go up 20 or 30 percent in 1 year. For the record, I want to put in: In Florida, 2 million people are affected; Texas, 645,000; Louisiana, 486,000; California, 256,000; New Jersey, 240,000; South Carolina, 205,000; New York, 178,000; North Carolina, 138,000--I am not going to read all of this--Virginia, 116,000; and in Pennsylvania, 74,000. I could go on. I ask unanimous consent this list be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Second, I have a letter from the National Association of Home Builders--not a liberal-leaning organization and most certainly not a group that just works in Louisiana. People build homes all over America including in Pennsylvania. They sent a strong letter urging us to adopt the Landrieu-Vitter amendment which will just temporarily put a hold on raising rates 20 to 40 to 60 to 80 percent on grandfathered homes that were around before the flood insurance program was ever invented by Members of this body, well before I was even a Senator. What this says is the program should be widely available, it should be affordable, so people can live in many different places of America. This is one big great country with lots of different kinds of neighborhoods. That is what the National Association of Home Builders said, and I am going to submit their letter. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Evidently, the Senator from Pennsylvania doesn't understand this. That is fine. We have disagreements and I respect him. He should vote no. But to stop a vote? The third and final argument I am going to make in my 30 seconds left, we worked so hard on this amendment that it doesn't even cost anything. We have a zero score--zero. It does not cost one dime, not one dollar, and still the Senator from Pennsylvania, with 74,000 people in his State who could be affected, is objecting to even voting on giving people a chance. We are going to be on this issue again; it is going to come back. I praise Senators Boxer and Vitter for their work on WRDA. It is a shame that we cannot even get a vote to postpone this issue to try to see if we could make it more affordable. It doesn't cost anything. I say to the Senator from California that I am sorry for holding this up. I thought this was important. We worked on it all week. Everybody is cleared except for one Senator from Pennsylvania. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship will meet on May 16, 2013, at 10:30 a.m. in room 428A Russell Senate Office building to hold a roundtable entitled ``The Impact of Mandatory E-Verify on America's Small Businesses.''

Ms. LANDRIEU

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up as pending amendment No. 802.

Ms. LANDRIEU. If there is objection, I can talk about the amendment now. I will talk about the amendment now and then attempt to call up the amendment later in the day. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, the amendment I am trying to get pending for the WRDA bill would delay the increase in flood insurance rates for people in this country who are going to be suffering in unbelievable ways. And I am not just speaking of homeowners or business owners but communities across America. This isn't a Louisiana issue. It is not a Louisiana- Texas issue. It is a national issue, as this chart will show. These are all the States in the country that have flood insurance policies. Starting with Florida, which has the most, there are over 2 million flood insurance policies in the State of Florida. Texas is second with 645,000. Louisiana has 486,000 policies. California, the fourth State, has 256,000. New Jersey has 240,000. South Carolina has 205,000. New York has 178,000. North Carolina has 138,000. Virginia has over 100,000. Georgia has close to 100,000. Mississippi has 75,000. Time and time again, I have been on this floor, warning about affordability problems in the National Flood Insurance Program and offering proposals to address this. Despite my advice and objections, last summer Congress made a mistake and passed the Biggert-Waters bill which contained huge rate flood insurance rate increases for many homeowners and businesses. Our families and entrepreneurs across the Nation are beginning to see the disastrous consequences of that vote now. Some already see their premiums rising by 25 percent a year and many more will see these changes over the next 2 years. These rates must be stopped until an affordability study can be conducted and Congress can react to those results. FEMA has never done an affordability study--it cannot even quantify how strong an impact these exorbitant rates will have on our citizens. In the bill last summer, Congress required FEMA to conduct an affordability study. Don't you think we should wait for that and know if these rate increases are affordable before we start such rapid increases? Congress can't possibly have asked FEMA to conduct this study and not want to use those results to make an informed decision on how best to structure rate changes. I can tell you that the 480,000 policy holders in Louisiana are already telling me the rates are not affordable. Families and businesses in Louisiana are already paying exorbitant rates for flood insurance and some could see those rates go up dramatically under these proposals. Eliminating grandfathered rates, as the--Biggert-Waters bill did, means their property values will plummet. If people cannot afford flood insurance policies, they will drop out of the program. When future disasters hit, they will be entirely dependent on federal aid to help them rebuild. I agree that the National Flood Insurance Program needs to be self- sustaining, but not on the backs of Louisiana families and businesses and not on the backs of all 5.5 million policies holders in the National Flood Insurance Program. This is not the right way. Flood insurance is not just about business and commerce; it is about culture; it is about a way of life; it is about preserving coastal communities; it is about being resilient in storms. We must make the flood insurance program resilient without endangering the financial future of our coastal residents. This is a very serious issue, and I thank the chair, Senator Boxer, who has worked so hard on the underlying WRDA bill, which is so important. I also thank those Members who came to the floor last night. I understand Senator Menendez gave a very fiery and passionate speech about the problem he faces in New Jersey. I thank Senators Schumer, Gillibrand, and Lautenberg for cosponsoring this important amendment. We want to work with the chairman and the ranking member to pass a WRDA bill. There is no State that benefits more from the WRDA bill than Louisiana, and I am extremely grateful for her leadership not just on this bill but on the RESTORE Act, which she helped shepherd through, which has helped the gulf coast in immeasurable ways, and her support of the FAIR Act on revenue-sharing, which will help the gulf coast get the revenues we need--just as interior States have--to build our own levees and not have to be such a drain on the Federal Treasury. We can and are willing to do our own work. But the flood insurance bill, known as Biggert-Waters, never passed the Senate, and I wish to call that fact to Senators' attention. The bill was never brought to the Senate floor. The flood insurance bill that is called Biggert- Waters came out of the Banking Committee with a bipartisan vote--a similar bill. That was a House bill, and so a similar bill came out of the Senate, but it never came to the Senate floor for a vote. None of us ever got to debate it on the floor. If you are not on the Banking Committee, wake up because this bill is going to affect your State, and if you are not on the Banking Committee, please listen to what I am about to say. The bill never came to the Senate floor although some of us protested that at the time. There are statements in the Record that show the protests any number of us made at the time. The bill then sort of went dark. The next time it appeared, it was tucked into the Transportation bill, which had the RESTORE Act in it and the Biggert-Waters flood insurance, which might have passed the House of Representatives--I am not sure. Maybe it just came out of the House committee. I am trying to get clarification on whether this bill ever was passed by either body, and I will get that clarification in a few minutes. But it most certainly never came to the Senate floor, so no one here, except members of the Banking Committee--which Senator Vitter is a member of, and so he knows this issue very well--voted on this. So while it is not a surprise to me, it may be a surprise to others to find out that flood insurance rates based on the reform bill that was tucked into the Transportation bill and into the RESTORE Act bill are now going to raise rates by 25, 50, or 100 percent on home owners. And when the grandfather clause expires--which was put in the bill to grandfather many property owners--my constituents tell me their properties will become worthless. One can understand that a property worth even $1 million or $\1/2\ million or $250,000 has a flood insurance premium attached to it of a reasonable amount of money--$500, $600, $700. And that is still a lot of money, but people who live along the coast understand that we have to pay a little higher flood insurance rates and we have to build smarter and better, which we are doing as fast as we possibly can with the monies we have. There is not a coastal community in America that is not fully awake after Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, and Sandy. Trust me, from the east coast, to North Carolina, to the entire gulf coast region, we are awake. We are understanding what is happening, and we are trying as hard as we can to make our communities as resilient as possible. We are not completely to blame for the increased frequency of the storms or the rising sea levels. We all have a share of that, and it is happening, and we are on the frontline. Our communities have been devastated. Our people are literally drowning. We lost 1,800 people in Katrina--2,400 between Louisiana and Mississippi--from drowning and literally dying through these storms. We lost several hundred people in Sandy. So we understand what is happening, and we are doing everything we can. This flood insurance bill that never passed this Senate--and I am not sure it passed the House, but it did come out of both committees, different versions of it--is now known as Biggert-Waters. I understand Mrs. Biggert is no longer a Member of Congress, but Congresswoman Waters is here. So the bill was pushed as a way of getting the Flood Insurance Program on a financially sound footing. I understand that. We most certainly don't expect all the people of America to subsidize coastal communities, some of which may be second homes, et cetera. But in my communities, we are not talking about second homes; we are not talking about vacation properties, in large measure. We are talking about primary homes of fishermen, of dock workers, of people who work on the river, of boat captains, of industries such as the oil and gas industry, the roughnecks, the engineers who have to work, by the nature of their work, near the coast, which is where the trade and commerce of this Nation comes from. If we could operate our trade and commerce only on railroads and highways, maybe we could all go live in Oklahoma or in Nevada. But, Mr. President, you are from Hawaii. You understand we have coastal communities all the way from Oregon to California to Texas to Louisiana to Mississippi; and, yes, there are some lovely vacation spots along the coasts. But there are also communities like those I represent, such as in Terrebonne Parish and Lafourche Parish and Jefferson Parish, where people wake up before the Sun and do not come home until it is dark. They are working at coastal businesses that are very important to the entire economic strength of this Nation. This bill, Biggert-Waters, puts the entire burden of supporting coastal communities on the people who live on the coast, while some people who have a lot of money and can afford a mountaintop view go on the top of the mountains in other States. I am not picking on Colorado and Utah, but those come to mind--multimillion-dollar homes with beautiful views that look out across lots of land. Maybe they are not mindful of the work that is done on our coasts. This is an issue that is important for the whole Nation. To have this bill pass--and I knew it when it happened. Mark Pryor, I understand, put something in the Record at the time, but now we are on the water resources bill, a very important bill for coastal communities. It is an opportunity for us to fix this bill or to get a reprieve for a short period of time until we can find a better approach for thousands of properties along the coast--whether it is in Texas or California or Florida or New York or New Jersey that was battered badly by Sandy-- rather than to put additional stress on these communities. While I do not have the specific answer as to how to fix it in the long term, my amendment would simply hold off these rate increases for a year. It does not repeal the bill. It will just hold off these rate increases for a year, giving these Members in Congress time and an opportunity to fix what is terribly broken and to try to find a better, more affordable way to do so. There are 480,000 policy holders in Louisiana who are already complaining about the flood insurance rates as they are today. When I go home now--and I go home often, very frequently--this is all people are talking about. There are other important issues that are going on, but I do not blame them, and I certainly understand it as a homeowner in Louisiana. Our delegation understands this. People are saying they are getting notices from their company that their insurance is going to go up hundreds if not thousands of dollars. What happens with respect to the grandfather clause, which is about to happen in October of 2014? This flood insurance issue is a very important issue for the people in Louisiana, as I said, in Texas, in Mississippi, and in Florida, and that is what my amendment will address. My amendment is not pending, but I filed an amendment. We are waiting for a CBO score. We most certainly want to offset this if we can find the revenue it will take to offset this temporary reprieve. I ask both the Republican and Democratic leaders to work with me and work with the other Senators who are interested in finding a solution to send a signal to these coastal areas that Congress understands the pressures of flood insurance in our low-lying areas--that would be in Maryland or Virginia or New York or New Jersey--that we hear them. We understand what is about to happen, and we would like a chance to try to adjust it, to fix it, et cetera, et cetera. I am going to be working with the leadership. I know there are other Members who have amendments important to the WRDA bill. It is not my intention to stop this WRDA bill. It is a bill I certainly support. Louisiana can be greatly benefited. I thank Senator Vitter for his strong work as the ranking member of the EPW Committee on WRDA. We have some very important authorizations. Let me also say something about this WRDA bill in relation to actual dollars. I sit on the Appropriations Committee for energy and water. I appreciate serving on that committee. Our job is to actually find money and direct funding to build some of these water resource projects. Just yesterday, Senator Feinstein held a hearing--she chairs our committee; Senator Lamar Alexander is our ranking member--on the budget for the Corps of Engineers. I see my good friend Ben Cardin here and others who are very interested in projects on the WRDA bill, but they will be shocked to know when we asked--I asked--Jo-Ellen Darcy, the leader of the Corps of Engineers, the civilian leader of the corps, what was the number of backlogged projects, new construction projects that were backlogged and how much money was in the bill to build them this year, the first number was $1.6 billion. That is how much is in the appropriations bill roughly to build new water projects in the country, $1.6 billion. It sounds like a lot of money until you hear the second answer. Then I asked her how many projects are in the queue for funding, ready to go, meritorious projects, urgently needed new construction. She said $60 billion worth. We have $1.6 billion in the budget to spend, and we have $60 billion worth of projects. We follow these numbers pretty closely because many of those projects are in Louisiana. So while it is important to get the WRDA bill passed, which is authorizing not only new projects, but it is also putting in some very important corps reforms to expedite the way some of these projects are built, the real problem and the real dilemma is closing the gap between what we have authorized and what we can actually afford to build. Again, there is only $1.6 billion in the corps budget for new construction, and pending, even without this WRDA bill, is $60 billion worth in backlogged, authorized, important programs in all of our districts. With this WRDA bill there are an additional $23 billion in authorizations. So, yes, I support new authorizations. Yes, I support the WRDA bill. Yes, I most certainly support the reforms to the Corps of Engineers that are embedded in the language of this WRDA bill, but I cannot allow this to move forward, at least without raising a red flag and asking for some reprieve on the flood insurance issue. I want to be flexible. I want to be open. I want to be a team player. This is not the time for my way or the highway. I have tried as much as I can to avoid that kind of politics because it is very difficult for all of us to move forward together. I have so much respect for Senator Boxer and a good bit of respect for Senator Vitter who is the ranking member. But this is the only way I know right now to raise this issue and to say we cannot, in Louisiana, with 480,000 flood insurance policies, manage to build our communities, to recover. We are doing beautifully. We would like to go faster, but you have not heard a lot of complaints coming from us. Our people are working hard, rolling up our sleeves. Our communities are coming back. We are using the insurance money. We are using the community development block grant money to build as smart and quickly as we can. We have created the Water Institute. Every single one of our parishes has gone through what we call charrettes and community meetings to see how we can elevate our homes and build them more resiliently. This is a huge and very tough burden to lay on the shoulders of the people in our coastal communities, not just in Louisiana but in Terrebonne and Lafourche, in Cameron, Calcasieu, Saint Mary Parish, and the river parishes, Saint John, Saint James, Saint Charles and Jefferson Parish. It is hurting north Louisiana as well. We have flood insurance policies all the way up in our State. We would have flood insurance. Why would we have flooding? Because we have the Mississippi River. We are happy to have the Mississippi River, but the Mississippi River does not belong only to us. May I remind everyone that the Mississippi River, the Missouri River, the Ohio River are the spine, the backbone of our commerce for the whole Nation? Why should the people of Louisiana, who drain the entire continent--the mouth of the river runs right through New Orleans--why is it the people who live in south Louisiana have to pick up 100 percent of that risk? That is the way this bill is structured, to put on us the burden, 100 percent, instead of spreading it to everyone, to the whole country, in a reasonable and responsible way. The way this bill is structured is to say we have to be self- sustaining in our flood insurance policies. We are sorry, but the people who live at the mouth of the Mississippi River, which provides commerce and wealth and creates huge amounts of wealth and jobs for all of us, have to take the water and pay for it ourselves. That is not going to work for us. It is not working for us. That is why I am standing on this floor. I want to work this out. I am open to a number of suggestions. I hope the Senators who have lots of flood insurance issues, such as the Senators in Missouri and Illinois and the Senators in other States, will give us some suggestions about how to move forward. If this bill had passed the Senate and it was the will of the Senate and I had been on the losing side of that, I would not be standing here today. This bill never came before the Senate. It never came before the Senate. It was tucked into a bill that we had no chance to amend--none. You cannot amend a bill coming out of conference. There was no chance to amend this, no chance to fix it, which is why I hope my colleagues will understand and be patient with me. This is not about losing an issue last year and coming back and crying about it. This is about we never got a chance to even talk about this on the Senate floor. This is a water bill. It has everything to do with the subject matter. It is not ``not germane'' to the subject matter of this bill. I would like to have a vote on my amendment or a vote in some way to declare that we are acknowledging this problem; that we might not have a solution today, but we most certainly are willing to work on it because this is devastating for coastal communities all over the country. It is not fair for our working coast--whether it is fisheries or oil and gas or wind or manufacturing--for our coastal communities, our commerce and trade, to pick up the entire burden of this Flood Insurance Program. Let's try to be reasonable. I am going to be as patient as I can. I understand how important this bill is to everyone. I am most mindful of how important it is to my State. We have been trying to get a WRDA bill out here on the floor for several years, and we finally have one. I am going to leave my amendment as it is. It is not pending. It has been filed. I am going to ask for this vote to be worked out, and until then I will object to any other amendments coming up for a vote until we get some way forward. Again, I want to be flexible, I want to be open, and I would like eventually to see the WRDA bill passed.

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

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise today to present to this Chamber the nomination of Shelly Deckert Dick as a nominee for article III judge on the U.S. Middle District Court of Louisiana. I was pleased to recommend Ms. Dick to President Obama, and I am happy that he sent her name to the Senate and that the committee has unanimously recommended her for confirmation. She is equipped with decades of Federal court litigation experience. She brings with her a thorough understanding of the Federal court system, having practiced for years before the court. From all indications from her peers and colleagues, she is fair and evenhanded. I think her temperament is appropriate for the bench. She is a current resident of Baton Rouge but was born in El Paso, TX. She earned her bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin and graduated on the dean's list with honors. She brings with her years of experience, not just in the private sector. She has worked as a lawyer before the Federal bench. She has also been extremely active in community affairs. She graduated from Louisiana State University law school, where she was a member of the Law Review. Demonstrating her commitment to public service early in her legal career, she served as a law clerk to a woman who went on--and was actually mentored by the first woman of our Supreme Court--Kitty Kimble, who went on, of course, to become chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Following law school, at an early age, she became an associate attorney at the firm of Gary, Field, Landry & Bradford before going on to become a full partner in one of our strongest and best law firms in Baton Rouge, LA. She has extensive experience, as I said, in Federal court representing both plaintiffs and defendants as well as government and nongovernment clients. She has a well-rounded legal career and is very active in the community, in her church, and has done missionary work for many years throughout the world. She is also very active in the American Bar Association, the Louisiana State Bar Association, the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel, and the Baton Rouge bar. She was admitted to practice in the district courts of the Western, Middle, and Eastern Districts, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. She has written numerous articles for legal publications and presented at legal seminars on a wide range of topics. I have known Ms. Dick for a few years. She is a friend now. She was not a close friend when my search committee went out and looked for the most qualified individuals to step up and serve on our bench. She and her credentials were brought to my attention by many members of the community, and I am very happy to nominate Ms. Dick. Ms. Dick will be the first woman to serve in the Middle District of Louisiana. I think it is high time, after a couple of hundred years, that we have women now qualified and stepping up to assume these leadership positions. I have been very proud to help bring diversity and excellence to our bench both at the prosecutor level and as judges in the courts in Louisiana. As I said, Shelly has also volunteered for international missions overseas, particularly in Cambodia, South Africa, and Kenya. She has worked with her church and other nonprofit organizations. I think she is perfectly suited to be a judge with all the prerequisite experience and legal degrees and academic degrees required. Most importantly, she is enthusiastic and excited about serving. I am sorry it has taken us so long to get her to this point where the Senate will hopefully confirm her--if not acclamation--by a strong and overwhelming vote. I know of no opposition to her nomination. These days it seems that these nominations seem to be going a lot slower than they should. I thank her and her family for their patience as they have waited and waited for this day to come. Hopefully she will be able to put on that robe and get to that bench in the Middle District and do a fine job for us both in Louisiana and around the country. I yield the floor. The junior Senator from Louisiana may want to add a word.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I wish to follow up on the comments made by my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter. I am pleased he will accompany many of our elected officials to the FEMA office this afternoon. I had a chance to meet with the FEMA officials yesterday. At my request, they came to the Capitol to meet with me. We are both very hopeful that there are some things within the new mandates and new authorizations that FEMA can do to mitigate against the projected 25-percent increases annually for some of our policyholders--not the majority but for some of them. I am anticipating that some of these issues are not going to be addressed administratively and that it is going to take a change of law. Again, the reason I am pushing this issue and pushing this bill is because this new law that we are talking about, expressing frustration about, and questioning never came to this floor for a vote. I am still not clear at this point whether this bill was ever voted on by the full House. This bill, the flood insurance reform bill of last year, was tucked into a larger bill, the national transportation bill, at the last minute. The national transportation bill was widely supported. It funds billions of dollars' worth of projects for everyone's district. It is a very popular bill. This relatively small but significant flood insurance bill was tucked into a conference report, which is really not that usual, particularly if the bill itself had not passed one body. There are lots of times when things are put into a conference committee that have not passed the Senate, but it passed the House, or it passed the House but not the Senate, and there is an indication of broad support. We have to move legislation, and sometimes we have to use an expedited means. I am still waiting to get clear from the staff whether this bill ever got a vote in the House of Representatives. I know it didn't get a vote here, and it would probably, in its current form, not pass because the delegations from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, California, and any numbers, would have insisted on some amendments and some procedures to help our people who are going to be affected by these very significant increases in flood insurance, to give them more time to meet their obligations. I know we are on a judgeship so I am going to yield the floor, but I am hoping we can continue to work on this issue. I thank Senator Vitter for his support, as well as Senator Boxer, as we are continuing to work on the language of this amendment. I yield back all time on the nominations.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to speak for a few minutes in morning business to thank the leader for the remarks he has made and thank him and his staff for working with us throughout today, this afternoon, to try to mitigate against some of the difficulties that are being imposed not only on people in Louisiana but in many coastal States as these insurance rates rise because of new requirements in a bill this body never got to vote on because it never came to the Senate. I wish to correct something I said in the Record earlier. I am sorry. If the leader needs to finish his business, I will yield.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Of course. I thank the leader.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to continue and again thank the majority leader for his kind comments and assure him I am working with the Republican leadership as well to try to find a way forward to minimize the impact on many businesses and homeowners who will be negatively affected by the new requirements of the Federal flood insurance program. I have an amendment which has been filed. It is amendment No. 888. I will be offering it for myself and Senator Vitter. Senator Schumer and Senator Lautenberg are also cosponsors of this amendment. Hopefully we can get a vote. I do not mind trying to meet the 60-vote threshold. I understand that would be a requirement should we be able to move to a vote next week on this amendment. We will be working very hard over the weekend to get additional cosponsors on the first amendment I filed, which had a multimillion- dollar cost to it. We had 62 people who had committed to vote. So we have a strong network of Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who are very supportive of the effort Senator Vitter and I are leading to try to mitigate some of the harshest provisions of this bill that passed last year. The bill never was voted on in this Chamber. It came out of the Banking Committee. A separate bill came out of the House with a strong bipartisan vote. Then what happened was both bills never went to a formal conference. It got pushed inside of a larger bill. A few things did not get pushed in the correct way, at least from the perspective of those of us who believe that, yes, our flood insurance program should be cost-effective, should be affordable, and should not run at deficit levels any longer. But there are certain ways to do that that are more equitable and fair than others. So my amendment now--we have worked all throughout the day. I thank Senator Crapo. Senator Johnson's staff has been helpful as well. We are not quite there yet, but we are working on a fix to delay the implementation of some of these rate increases to give our communities--this is not just for Louisiana. Texas is affected, Florida is affected, the east coast is affected. California is No. 3 in terms of policies that are related to flood insurance. It will give us some time to give our people a little bit more breathing room until we can get our levees constructed, until this new mapping can be put into place, as not to shock homeowners and owners of commercial real estate with these very high premiums we hope to be able to avoid. Again, it is amendment No. 888. There is no score attached to it. We will accept a 60-vote threshold. I hope my colleagues will look at this. I thank Senator Vitter for his leadership. It is a Landrieu- Vitter amendment, again with Senator Schumer and Senator Lautenberg and their staffs giving us plenty of help and assistance throughout the day. We will work on it over the weekend. Hopefully, we can come to a final resolution early next week, and then get to the passage of the WRDA bill which is so extremely important to people in Louisiana. I am very grateful for Senator Boxer's leadership. Senator Vitter is the ranking member. This bill came out of the EPW Committee with a fairly strong bipartisan and overwhelming vote. We have millions of dollars of projects that are authorized in this bill. We have corps reform. It is important for us to be able to build our levees more quickly, more efficiently, to avoid some of the terrible devastation that has happened. It is very important to get the WRDA bill passed. I am going to ask any colleagues, if you can join in helping on this flood insurance bill, please do. I look forward to working with people over the weekend on it. I yield the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, would the Senator yield for a question? Is a question in order?

Ms. LANDRIEU. Reserving the right to object--which I am not going to do, but I just want to clarify the Senator's motion--the Senator is simply asking us to move the budget which she passed after a heroic effort on the part of many to pass a budget so we could move to regular order. The Senator's consent is only asking us to move with all due speed to a conference to resolve the differences between the House budget and the Senate budget. Is that the Senator's understanding?

Ms. LANDRIEU. One more question: Are not there Republicans represented on that committee? In fact, would the Republicans have the majority representation from the House?

Ms. LANDRIEU. No. I am asking a question.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, can I be heard for 3 minutes on this subject?