Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator from Virginia yield?

Ms. LANDRIEU. I see the lead sponsor of the amendment on the floor, so let me be brief so he can close out. I thank the leadership for accepting this amendment. I know they will fight hard to keep this in conference as we move forward because it really is an important part of our strategic alignment for the future. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their leadership not just today but over time, for doing the right thing by our troops and always being willing to think about new ways of making our military stronger and better.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator yield?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. I do so through the Chair. I first say how much I appreciate the exchange between the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Illinois. I hope we can find a way to move forward on this very important issue because it is so crucial to the security of our Nation, to the security of these Guard and Reserve families. It seems the right thing for us to do. My question to the Senator from Virginia, because he has so much experience in warfighting as the Secretary of the Department of Navy and as the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, is: When we created the Guard and Reserve Force, did we anticipate that so many would be called up for such a long period of time? That is an important answer to have because my sense of it is that we didn't completely anticipate these numbers and these lengths of deployment. I ask the Senator, several decades ago, did we foresee this dependency?

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would add to this discussion that it is important for us as leaders to be open to change and to adopt new strategies. The one thing that is certain about life is change. Those who adapt survive, and those who do not, do not survive. I believe when it comes to creating policies that secure our Nation and support our armed services, we always need to be open to those things that we need to do differently because circumstances are different, because the challenges are different. I would argue this is one of the issues that is at the heart of how we sustain a skilled, able, versatile, agile, and quick-to-deploy force without implementing a draft and having the ability to muster a large and effective force when necessary. This is at the heart of it. That is why Senator Durbin continues to come to this floor and why I come to this floor, why the Senator from Indiana, Mr. Bayh, and others on the Republican side have come to the floor. Because we need to make some changes. We need to adapt to the reality. Let me submit for the Record the reality of this situation. Since the Berlin crisis of 1961 through the Vietnam war, we only called from the Reserve and Guard about 200,000. From 1961 through the Vietnam war, basically to the early 1990s--I know Vietnam was over before then--but basically to the 1990s, we called up 200,000. But as the chairman knows, because he is the great distinguished chairman of our committee, he is correct, since 1990, the Persian Gulf war to the present, we are 150,000 troops strong in Iraq and we have called up 744,000 Guard and Reserve members. As the Senator from Illinois so beautifully pointed out, these are citizen soldiers. They live in the community. Their budgets are based on their civilian jobs. Their children, their spouses, and their families have dreams and aspirations based on their civilian payrolls. They do not enter the military and decide: We are only going to make $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 the rest of our life, but the benefit is we get a discount on food. We get our health insurance. We will move around every 2 years. We get a housing allowance. It is the life we have chosen. We understand the sacrifices we are making, and we budget accordingly. These are business owners, policemen, nurses, doctors, engineers, scientists who answer the call, put the uniform on, and sometimes answer that call in 24 hours, literally, or in just a few weeks. They kiss their children goodbye--maybe the wife is the spouse who is leaving. Maybe it is the husband. They tell everyone goodbye. They leave and they are gone for 18 months. Under our current rules, which are not working, not only does that soldier make the sacrifice but our Government is asking that family in some cases to take a 30- to 40-percent decrease in pay. I just cannot understand it. Nothing about it makes sense. It defies common sense. How can we recruit Guard and Reserve, then send them to long deployments, sometimes without even the equipment they need--which is a whole other issue--but ask their families to take a 30- and 40-percent decrease? I do not understand it. I know we have not done this in the past, but this Senator from Louisiana thinks it is time to do it for the future. I hope we can again take bipartisan action on this Senate floor, as we have done so many times before, to support the amendment offered by the Senator from Illinois, at least in the Federal employ, our own engineers, our own scientists, our own nurses, our own doctors, our own office administrators, when we ask them to put the uniform on and go to the frontline to take the bullets, that as an employer we do not say: And also, by the way, we would like your spouse and your children to live on 30 percent less income while you are away. If the country was in crisis in terms of no money for anyone and we were all on rations and we were all sacrificing financially and we did not have the money, I think these families would say: Look, we are all in the same boat. We are serving the country. We will take the 30- percent cut in pay. But what gets me, what galls me, what makes me so angry is, this Congress is giving other families who do not put the uniform on, other families who are making upwards of $350,000, $400,000, $500,000, tax cuts, and we cannot seem to find the will, the energy, or the focus to help the small group of families that one could argue are bearing the entire burden in some cases--let me repeat, the entire burden of the war on terror. I do not understand it. Senator Durbin does not understand it. Senator Bayh does not understand it. The Senators have voted now unanimously. What happens to this amendment when it goes to the House of Representatives? What should I tell the Guard and Reserve families who went to Iraq, over 6,000 of them--3,000 of them just came home and a third of the ones who just came home came home to no house, no school, and no church. Now I have to go home and say that Congress is going to get ready to pass another spending bill, another tax bill, and I am sorry, yes, you have, once again, been left out. I do not even know how to explain it because it cannot be explained. Senator Durbin's amendment simply says, let the Federal Government be the leader. Let the Federal Government set the pace as an employer. Let us at least do what other States and other employers are doing, fill the gap, stand in the gap for them. They are taking the bullets. They are taking the risk with their lives. Why would we ask our Federal employees to take a serious pay cut? I do not think we should. Again, if we did not have any money at all, if we were just flat broke, then maybe we would have to. We give money away to everybody, but we cannot give it to our Federal employees who are serving this country twice: as public servants so they do not get a very high salary normally, and then they go to the frontlines and take the bullets and get a salary cut even lower, and we think that is perfectly fine. Well, this Senator does not think it is fine. This Senator thinks we can do better. This Senator thinks we need to have better priorities. This Senator believes we need to have different priorities that support our Nation, support our services, support our Guard and Reserve, and it would ultimately support the country. And, frankly, it is the right thing to do. I see the Senator from Michigan.

Ms. LANDRIEU

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

Ms. LANDRIEU

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

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, thank you very much. I appreciate the leaders providing me with an opportunity to speak, briefly, about this amendment. There have been very important amendments that have been offered and debated throughout the day. As the managers have expressed, we will be voting probably into the night and tomorrow to try to finish budget reconciliation. But one of the amendments I have brought today to speak about is one of the most important things we are going to need as a foundation for the recovery of the gulf coast. We have had many discussions about the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita--two major hurricanes that have hit the gulf coast. And, of course, Wilma hit Florida recently. And there was the subsequent breaking of a levee system that just devastated a major American city and region--one we are still reeling from, as our local officials, our business leaders, our university presidents, our general community struggles to try to provide a framework for rebuilding. We are in the midst of that great debate. The reason it is so difficult--as you can imagine from your own experience as a leader, I say to the Presiding Officer--is that when this has never happened before, there is no textbook. The tragedy is of such magnitude and is unprecedented in nature that there is no textbook you can go to, to say: Here is step one, step two, step three, as to how to rebuild south Louisiana, southern Mississippi, parts of Alabama and Texas. We have had some expedience with hurricanes before. I am not suggesting we have not. But we have not had the experience of a devastation, the kind we are experiencing right now in the New Orleans metropolitan area region--including Saint Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, Saint Tammany Parish, Jefferson Parish, Washington Parish, Tangipahoa Parish--and all along the southern part of Mississippi, and the southwestern part which was hit by Rita. I am going to be showing some pictures of it in a moment so that my colleagues can continue to see--not just hear, but to see--pictures of the devastation. So I come to the floor today to offer an amendment for this body to consider that will move some money we have identified in reconciliation to our coastal restoration program. In the last Energy bill, by a bipartisan vote of the House and the Senate, with the support of the administration, we were able to secure a downpayment, if you will, on a new coastal plan that will help not just Louisiana, but the producing States that generate so much money for the general fund through oil and gas production off of our shores. It was a significant step in the right direction. It happened a few weeks before Katrina and Rita hit, and it gave a spark of hope to people in our part of the country that Congress was listening and understood that the Federal Government had to provide not just mandates, not just plans, not just studies, but real money to help us secure better coastal protection. I only wish we had done this 20 years ago because maybe we could have prevented some of the damage from Katrina, but we didn't. And we can talk about why we didn't and what the consequences are, but it is more productive to talk about what we can do now. As we debate how to prioritize our money through reconciliation--some for increased investments, some for tax cuts, some for deficit reduction--I wanted to come to the floor to offer an amendment that would provide an additional billion dollars for coastal restoration. In Louisiana, we are the hub of the oil and gas industry, along with Texas and Mississippi. This is a picture of one of the major pipelines that comes off of our shore through the marshland. I am not sure if this pipeline is oil or gas, but it is one or the other because they have to be in separate pipelines. They are laid down through our marsh. These are the lifelines, if you will, to light up the country, whether it is Chicago or New York or California. The price of gas is extremely high. The price at the gas pump is high. We don't have enough of these pipelines in the country, and we are not conserving enough. We are working on both--increasing production and conserving more. But right now, this pipeline exists. As you can see, when the hurricane struck, the levee systems of this pipeline were broken and water started moving and gushing into this marsh. Saltwater comes in and the marsh starts fading away. It is basically eaten up by saltwater coming in. We need to be constantly vigilant about maintaining proper levee systems. Some of this work has to be done by the private companies that laid down the pipelines, but the Federal Government has a great role to play in investing wisely and strategically to help keep this marsh healthy. It protects the city of New Orleans and, most importantly, it protects the whole region and, most importantly, it protects the mouth of the Mississippi which serves as such a trading hub for the Nation. This is another picture that shows the devastation of the wetlands loss that was in National Geographic. It is particularly moving. This is a man who is holding up a picture of a camp that his grandparents-- right off of Empire, LA--used to have when he was a child. This is probably 40 to 45 years ago, maybe a little bit longer. It is small, but you can see the healthy marsh that once existed behind this home. This is what it looks like now. You can't see marsh for miles and miles. It has been eaten up. We have been here now year after year saying: Every investment that we can make, we can restore this marsh. We can't restore every acre we have lost, but we know that our scientists and our engineers can restore a lot of this marshland. The marshland serves--south of Louisiana, south of New Orleans, and in the southern part of our State--as a great protective barrier. It protects not just people and businesses, but the energy infrastructure, the pipes, the refineries that exist to help our Nation continue to grow. Investments of this nature are quite important. Without a continuing affirmation from this Congress that we understand investments in coastal protection are important and we are giving real money to it, I am afraid anything we do will be for naught to rebuild the New Orleans region. Because people have told me--poor, middle income, and wealthy, business people and workers--Senator, I cannot bring my family back. I won't bring my family back. I can't build my business back unless I have some security or sense that the administration and this Congress are going to help us build a levee system so we don't wash away again. Think about that. Why would someone who lost their home or their business, even if they received an insurance check--which some people have, not all people, and we are working on that--even if they received a $250,000 insurance check to rebuild their building, why would they, if they think this is what their house or their neighborhood might look like? This is a little dramatic because, of course, this is not what New Orleans looks like. This is outside of the city, but this is what Plaquemine and St. Bernard look like. Why would someone take an insurance check? To be clear, we wouldn't give someone an insurance check to build a house such as this in this area because we are going to build smarter, better, and higher. There will be some places people can't go back and rebuild. But in the middle of the metropolitan area, in a neighborhood that never flooded before, people have checks. And they are saying: I am afraid to rebuild my house. What if a big rainstorm comes or another hurricane and washes us away. Anything we can do, whether it is a half a billion, a billion, next year coming back with some more--we are not expecting $20 or $40 billion in one shot. We know that is a lot of money. But we have to get a little bit every year so we can give people hope that this can be done. Basically, that is what the amendment does. We have had great support from Chairman Domenici, from Ranking Member Bingaman. We have had good support from Senator Stevens, an understanding from Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye on the Commerce Committee, because they share jurisdiction, although the Energy Committee has jurisdiction over the Outer Continental Shelf. Most certainly, the Commerce Committee understands the importance of coastal because it is under their jurisdiction. That is basically what the amendment does. We will be voting on it tomorrow. I am hopeful we can get good support for the amendment and lay an additional downpayment on top of that money that we did for energy and get that done. Amendment No. 2352 I see my colleague Senator Kennedy here. We wanted to speak for a moment on another amendment that is pending. I yield a minute to Senator Kennedy to speak on the education amendment of Senator Enzi. How much time do we have left, please?

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his strong advocacy and support. Without his leadership and that of Senator Enzi, we would not be where we are today on the Enzi-Kennedy- Alexander-Landrieu amendment. How much time do I have remaining?

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

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I will respond. I thank the Senator for his interest in helping out in this extraordinary circumstance with 370,000 children displaced. I wanted the Senator to know, of course, I have been in and out of the city many times. I spoke to one of my relatives and asked, how is the neighborhood looking? She said: Mary, it is so strange. There are no children anywhere in the city of any age. You don't see any children. As Senator Kennedy said, the reason is because we have no school system. Three-hundred and seventy thousand children have moved to other public and private systems, grateful to anyone who would take them in. I thank our colleagues for coming together in this bipartisan way-- Senator Enzi, Senator Kennedy, Senator Alexander, Senator Dodd--to put together an amendment that is not a voucher program, not a traditional ``help public schools only.'' It truly is a bipartisan compromise to try to help in an extraordinary situation. I hope tomorrow, when we have this vote, we will get a positive vote. I thank the Senators for allowing us to offer the coastal amendment. We have a lot of support for this. Again, it will add to the money we already have. We will need more over time, but every little bit at this point helps to give people hope that they can come back to this region, live safely and securely with floods and rainstorms, hurricanes, and other disasters. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, now that we have the amendment offered and the time straight, I wish to thank the Senator from Arkansas for her extraordinary leadership on this issue because this is not the first time she has come to the Senate floor. She has spent hours on the Finance Committee and hours on this floor trying to describe to our colleagues the critical nature of this situation. She comes from a State that was not directly hit by the hurricane but was, nonetheless, impacted, as so many other States were that had the goodness, the graciousness, the wherewithal, and the inclination to take on thousands and thousands of people from Louisiana and Mississippi, truly tens of thousands of people who fled for safety, for security, for food, and for shelter. It has been 64 days since Katrina hit and about 50-some-odd days since Rita hit, two of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. But it was not just the storms that did us in, not just the category 4 or category 5 storms of 175-mile-an-hour winds that did us in. It was the 17 levee breaks in one of the largest cities and metropolitan areas in the United States. And not just any city--an international city, an international region, the heart of the energy coast, the city that secures the mouth of the Mississippi River and, may I say, the parishes that surround the great city of New Orleans--Jefferson, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and to the south we have parishes such as Vermillion, and along the southwestern part of the State, Calcasieu, and Cameron that were hard hit by Rita. There were over 2 million people displaced because of the storms and the subsequent levee breaks. It was the largest catastrophe, natural disaster in the history of the Nation. Our frustration--the Senator from Arkansas, the Senator from Montana, and other Senators from the Democratic side, and even Senator Grassley--is that it has been very difficult for people in Washington, particularly members of the administration and the majority party, to understand the desperate and unprecedented nature of this disaster and what it has done to people--poor, middle income, and wealthy. Let me share a statistic in terms of doctors that is quite startling. Doctors are not usually in a poor category, nor are they really in any government program in a sense. Most doctors make a considerable amount of money, and most doctors live in very nice homes. They have studied hard, and they have worked hard. Most doctors would not be in a Government program. But just to give a sense of the displacement, there were 6,000 active patient care physicians in this region before the storm. Sixty-five days ago, there were 6,000 active patient care physicians. Over two-thirds, 4,486 have basically been displaced out of 3 central New Orleans parishes that were evacuated. Not only do we not have hospitals or clinics, our doctors are gone and our nurses are gone. The system is literally collapsing as we speak. That is why Senator Lincoln has been here not just today but almost every one of these 64 days trying to get this body and Congress to understand the magnitude of the disaster, the unprecedented nature of the disaster, and why it is important for us to provide a few billion dollars to help us keep the lights on, get our doctors back, our nurses back, keep what hospitals we can standing up, because an unprecedented number of people have not just lost their homes but have lost their jobs and, as a result, have lost whatever health care, whatever access to good care they needed. Let me make one other point. The point I want to make in my short time--the ranking member of the Finance Committee is here--as Senator Lincoln said, this is about choices. I believe we as a Congress can make better choices. We can do better. We can do better by the people we serve. The reason I say that is because the majority party is in a position to write the rules. We are writing a rule today that basically says we are going to provide $70 billion for tax-cut extensions. Some of them may be good, but we are deciding as a Congress that we are going to give $70 billion in tax cuts for 5 years. That is $14 billion a year. Yet when Senator Lincoln and Senator Baucus come to the floor to say we need $6.2 billion to just help people who have lost their homes, lost their churches, lost their schools, lost their neighborhoods, and lost their jobs, to just give the poorest of the poor access to health care so they can take care of their cancer or diabetes or even desperate mental health situations just for a few months or a year, we are told that we cannot afford that. It is about choices. It is about the choices we are going to make on spending and tax cuts. We are basically told: I am sorry, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The only thing you rate is $1.8 billion for health care. That is all you rate, and that is all this will do, is take care of just the Medicaid Program that was only in the 13 parishes. But what I have to explain to people is, because New Orleans is the largest city in Louisiana, because this region is the largest economic contributor--it is a profit center to the State--our State budget is now struggling with a $1.5 billion to $3 billion shortfall in the State general fund. As a result of the loss of revenue due to this catastrophic event, our entire program is struggling, not just in the parishes in which the hurricane hit, where the wind blew, the waters rose, the trees fell, and the homes collapsed, but our whole State is struggling. That is why Senator Lincoln and Senator Baucus come to the floor and say: We thank you for the $1.8 billion, but it is not enough to keep our program up and running this year. This is not just any program. This is not a program that Louisiana thought about. This is a Federal program. It is in the essence of a Federal-State partnership, as you know, Mr. President, from your work in Tennessee. The Federal Government puts up 70 percent, and the State government puts up 30 percent. What I am here to tell you is the State partner has experienced a great setback. The State partner is going to have a very hard time, if not impossible time, putting up the 30- percent match to keep our children and our poorest citizens, as well as those who are vulnerable, in health care for the year. So we come here 65 days after the storm, when we are spending money on everything we can imagine--from new programs, expansion of programs, tax cuts--to say, please consider a basic service of health care, not just for the parishes that were affected and the counties in Mississippi but for the whole States of Louisiana and Mississippi that are struggling. Particularly in Louisiana's case, we were harder hit, we had more levees break, our major city was flooded. Jackson was not flooded. New Orleans was flooded. Our major economic base, from our ports to our energy industry, have been directly impacted and revenues have fallen off precipitously. Let me share one other statistic and then I am going to wrap up. I asked my staff to give me something so I can explain to people what the losses are. They went back to 2003. Now, this is only 2 years. This is an average of people who are unemployed in Louisiana. We work hard just like everyone else. We averaged about 135,000 people unemployed in June of 2003. Let us pick June of 2004: We had 119,000 people receiving unemployment. Let us go to January 2005: We had 119,000 people. Right before the storm in August of 2005, we had 122,000 people unemployed. So I think one can say over the last 2 years we have had roughly an average of 120,000 people unemployed. In one month, our number jumped from 122,000 to 227,000 people--100,000 people in one month are seeking unemployment. That is how desperate people are. It has never happened in these 2 years. I bet if we went back and looked at it for the last 20 years, the only spike that one would find like this is maybe in the 1980s when the oil industry collapsed and almost everybody in Louisiana lost their livelihood. We have not seen this in so long, we do not remember a time such as this. I do not know why we are having a hard time explaining this to an administration and to the majority about how desperate the situation is. We are not ungrateful for the steps that have been taken. We are not ungrateful for the FEMA money that is slowly getting to us. What we are saying is we need to do better. Today, how do my colleagues think I felt watching the President of the United States stand up and tell everybody that he was going to allocate $8 billion for the avian flu? I do not know where he is getting the $8 billion for the avian flu. All we are asking for is $6.2 billion to keep a health care system of the whole State standing up until we can figure out what we might need to do because we do not have all the answers. It has only been a few weeks. Our system has basically collapsed. It is going to take us a little bit more time to figure out what the long-term solution is. For the people that Senator Lincoln talked about that stayed on their refrigerator for 3 days, for Mr. Albert Bass, who was a painter in the ninth ward, who went to the hospital with a 104-degree fever, his Medicaid application has been denied; he needs help now. For Ms. Stewart, who lives in Jefferson Parish, she was a teacher; she has been denied Medicaid. She is 51. She is married. Her husband receives Social Security. She was diagnosed with cancer. Her cancer is back. Her health situation is worsening. She has no more income. I need to tell Mrs. Stewart what her outlook is. What I am going to tell her is, we are going to find money for the avian flu, we are finding money for Iraq, we are finding money for a tax cut, we are going to raise $4 billion more by selling off spectrum, but I am sorry, we cannot get you into a hospital. The final thing I am going to say, maybe the majority does not like that it is a Government program. So Senator Lincoln, Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley come up and say, well, let us have some way for the businesses that had people on unemployment--I mean insurance, the businesses have collapsed, but these businesses are valiantly trying to keep people on their insurance program because they know the desperate situation of their employees. I cannot say what most businesses are going through. Business owners are taking money out of their own pocket, going into their own savings account, trying to pay their employees with no money coming in the front door. These businesses have been in business 30 years. These employees have been loyal to them. They have showed up for work every day. Talk about public-private partnerships. This amendment is an $800 million fund that is not a new program. It goes to our insurance commissioner to try to help work with small businesses and businesses so that people can keep their health insurance, so that they do not fall onto the Government payroll, so they do not become wards of the State. This is self-help. This is partnership. This is self-reliance. With all of that, we have been told, no, come back later. We are going to continue to come back because while we are grateful for the $1.8 billion, it is so far short of what we need to stabilize our health care system. For a State that is 4.5 million people, that has literally been punched in the gut and is rolling back, this administration has got to do better by the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and the gulf coast. Charity starts right at home. Strength begins right at home. Our war is right at home in the Gulf Coast States. When one is fighting cancer, it is about as tough as it gets. When one has their son or daughter dying of a fatal disease, it is about as tough as it gets. That is a private war that people are going through. We keep walking away from it, pretending that it is going to go away. Well, it is not going to go away. I am not going to go away. The Louisiana delegation is not going to go away. Finally, we will realize that this is not a regular hurricane. This was an unprecedented catastrophe that has taken a major economic center to its knees, and it is going to take more than whitewashing and press conferences and a little bit of money drabbed here and there to stand us up so that we can continue to be the great region we are, pay taxes to this country and contribute to the economic benefit. As I said, we are not a charity case. We have contributed billions of dollars to this Government and will continue to. In our hour of need, we have to come and ask for pennies on the dollar. So I hope that we can do better. We must. We can. There is most certainly room in this budget on the spending side or the tax side to do better. We are grateful for the $1.8 billion, but we need Senator Lincoln's amendment, we need the leadership of Senator Baucus. I thank Mr. Grassley, the Senator from Iowa, the Republican leader of the Finance Committee, who has been a champion on this issue. If he had a little more support from his caucus and from the administration, we might get more than a Band-Aid, because we are hemorrhaging.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, we have several amendments to consider this evening. I will be very brief. I ask unanimous consent to call up three amendments, to talk about them in 5 minutes, and then to set a vote whenever it is within the purview of the managers: amendment Nos. 2248, 2250, and 2249.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, first of all, all three of these amendments are small in number but important in scope. Each seeks to take money that is already appropriated in the underlying bill and direct and target it, if you will, to the gulf coast area for some extraordinary needs. We have been struggling to find a way to provide for the unprecedented natural disaster that has occurred in the Rita- Katrina areas of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. There are many important programs in this bill that seek to send important aid around the Nation. There are three programs I have chosen to bring to the attention of the Senate tonight in very small amounts that could provide great help to the people of our region. One is the TRIO Program, which has been extremely successful in helping first-generation college students to pursue a degree. Of course, we know 80 percent of all jobs in the future will require some college. This TRIO Program is federally funded but locally led and has been extremely effective, with great support from Republicans and Democrats, the House and the Senate. The purpose of my amendment is to target $5 million of the money in here toward Katrina-related areas--Katrina-Rita--to make sure our universities and the thousands of students who have been displaced can have a little extra funding to help them at this time. The second amendment has to do with community health centers that are going to see, because of the good work of the ranking member and the chairman, an increase of $105 million in a competitive grant-- additional money for community health centers. One of these amendments takes just 10 percent of the increase of $105 million and directs it to Katrina-Rita areas, as we have to stand up a new health care system for the region. It would be given out by the Department. Again, it is another way to not add money but to just direct and target money that we are already spending--not taking it away from anyone but targeting some of the increase to our region. Finally, the third amendment would do the same thing for mosquito abatement. We are hopeful we will not get the avian flu that seems headed our way. For those in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, we worry about the disease that can be spread--West Nile--by mosquitos. Our health officials say the mosquito populations, because of the extraordinary flooding, have increased by 800 percent. Since October 18, there have been 81 cases and 6 fatalities. Again, my amendment takes money that is already designated and sends $5 million of the $40 million to the Katrina-Rita areas. I ask my colleagues to look favorably on these three amendments. Again, they are small amounts of money, but they could go a long way. They do not add money to the deficit. They do not take money away from anyone else because we are taking a portion of the increase. That portion is based on our population in the region. It is quite reasonable. I hope the managers will accept them. If not, we can have a vote sometime tomorrow. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 2265, as Modified

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator yield?