Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I think the Senate, in my question to the Senator from Louisiana, better take note of the passion and the intensity of the Senator from Louisiana. I would ask the Senator from Louisiana, Why is it that certain members of the leadership on the other side of the aisle are blocking your attempt to help the National Guard and Reserves on a House bill that has already been sent here from the Ways and Means Committee, that is a very logical, underlying piece of legislation because it gives a tax break by allowing people to take money out of their IRA to help them with their expenses as a member of the Guard and Reserves, with paying the 10-percent penalty? Why in the world would somebody be blocking the Senator doing that? There is no guarantee it is going to pass when it gets down to the other end of this Capitol. So at the end of the day they might still kill it. Why in the world would they be blocking such a logical thing, to help out the National Guard and the Reserves?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the windstorm impact reduction bill, a bill included in the earthquake bill before the Senate for consideration today. The windstorm bill, supported in the Senate by me and Senator Hutchison and by Representatives Moore and Neugebauer in the House, sets up a national program to reduce the loss of life and property due to windstorms. It is an understatement to say that the four hurricanes that hit Florida--Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne--in the last 6 weeks demonstrate the great need for this legislation. More than 70 lives were lost, and homes, businesses, roads and bridges were devastated by the hurricanes. It is estimated that the losses from these hurricanes will surpass the $20 billion in losses from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the costliest hurricane ever. It is imperative that the amount of destruction suffered by the State of Florida never be repeated again. This bill will give us the tools to protect our communities from future material losses and to reduce human suffering. An interagency working group consisting of representatives of the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be responsible for planning and managing this program. The program will have three goals: No. 1, improved understanding of windstorms; No. 2, windstorm impact assessment; and No. 3, windstorm impact reduction. We will achieve these goals through data collection and analysis, outreach, technology transfer, and research and development. As a result of this program, we will translate existing and future information and research findings into cost-effective and affordable practices for design and construction professionals, and State and local officials. And this Interagency group will provide biennial updates of their progress to Congress so we know what progress has been made and what more needs to be done. We'll also get a broad cross-section of interests involved through an advisory committee--so that real life issues are addressed and on-site expertise is utilized. Any my hope is that the devastation of Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne will never be experienced again in my State of Florida or in any other State.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is the absolute least I can do for the gracious Senator from Maine who recognized the common sense of this amendment. She, along with Senator Lieberman, have made it possible to be accepted. I certainly yield.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the leaders for the tremendous job they have done in handling this legislation. Anyone who can pass legislation in such a contentious atmosphere has to be Merlin, the Magician. My hat is off to the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Connecticut. Two other very timely topics, timely in the sense of an emergency, after having been hit by four hurricanes in Florida, with the tremendous debris that is left over, part of the moneys we have passed here for FEMA is for debris cleanup of which FEMA then reimburses the local governments that go out and, either with their own crews or by contracting out, arrange for the removal of debris. This is not only clearly getting one's life back in order but it is also a health question, a safety question. I was going through some of this debris on Sunday at a mobile home park for senior citizens called Palm Bay Estates in my home county of Broward. All of the aluminum, particularly on carports, was whipped up and twisted by the wind and now is in piles, with razor-sharp edges. So it is a safety as well as a health question. The debris accumulates in canals, in waters, in estuaries, particularly if it is of an organic nature. Then it starts to become a health hazard as well. We simply need to have it picked up. But that is not the question. FEMA is taking the position that they are not going to reimburse the local government unless it is picked up from a public right-of-way. Yet FEMA has the authority, if it involves the health and safety of the people, to allow the repayment for the pickup from private rights-of-way. Why is that important in Florida? Because we have huge senior citizen complexes with thousands of senior citizens. But they are not public rights-of-way, they are private rights-of-way. That debris has to be picked up for health and safety reasons. Yet who is going to pay for it? FEMA has the authority to do that. Since the local governments are not going to be able to bear the cost of all that pickup, especially after four hurricanes, the only other alternative is to assess the residents of that area for the pickup. Senior citizens on fixed income cannot afford that. FEMA has it under its authority, but FEMA is not doing it. We want to give them a little encouragement. I have spoken to the chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. That bill is now in conference with the House. I have suggested some language that will give FEMA some help to recognize that this is in the public interest, particularly in the State of Florida, after four hurricanes, and that they should be so directed. I am hopeful the conferees will accept that language. Voter Registration in Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I commend and thank the chairman of the committee, the Senator from Maine, and the ranking member, the Senator from Connecticut, because they have already approved and passed last evening an amendment I had offered which will be very helpful as we try to meet this threat of terrorism. Indeed, we have a watch list. Recent news stories say the watch list is not necessarily being implemented as it should by the Department of Homeland Security. Nevertheless, we try. That watch list has been specifically targeted to commercial aviation. The watch list needs to be expanded because there is plenty of opportunity of mischief, as I have said in this Chamber many times, with regard to the securing of our seawater ports and, specifically, in addition to cargo, the cruise ship industry and the thousands of people who vacation on a cruise ship. This is particularly important to my State of Florida because we have the three largest cruise ports in the world: the Port of Miami, Port Canavaral, and Port Everglades, all on the east coast of Florida and all of which have these gigantic cruise ships that sail to the great delight of the passengers. These are cruises that are sometimes only a day but usually they are 4 to 7 days in duration. It is certainly a place for a wonderful vacation for people to cruise to the Bahamas in the midst of this floating hotel, a cruise ship. Because there are several thousand people located in one place and they are treated as passengers on an airline, checking their baggage and their persons for all kinds of weapons and other destructive materials, is it not logical that the watch list for avowed terrorists, given to commercial airline companies and to TSA, should not be administered by TSA as they check the baggage of people on cruise ships? The answer to that is common sense. Yes, it should be. Because of the very professional manner in which the Chair and her ranking member of this committee have handled this legislation, they understood that and they have agreed to the amendment. They were very kind to pass the amendment last night. I cannot imagine this would become an issue in the conference committee. I give credit where credit is due, to the cruise industry. The cruise industry recognizes the possibility for mischief. It makes sense. I thank the cruise industry for stepping up. I am compelled to speak about two more matters not directly related to this but which are very timely in the consideration of the Senate. Did the Senator from Maine have a question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the last item I want to talk about is of grave concern. Yesterday was the final day for voter registration in the State of Florida. As one can imagine, there were huge lines at all of the registration points in Florida's 67 counties. But there is a subtle administrative order that could be directing extreme mischief in denying people the right to vote; for a directive, according to the supervisor of elections in one of our counties-- specifically in Volusia--has come out from the secretary of State's office, division of elections, in the capital city of Tallahassee, that says if any piece of information on this Florida voter registration form is missing, this voter registration is to be treated as null and void. Why am I concerned about that? Because they specifically say in the directive that if the box on line 2 that states, ``Are you a U.S. citizen?'' is not checked yes, they are to discard it, when in fact the oath that is signed specifically states, ``I do solemnly swear or affirm that I am a U.S. citizen. I am a legal resident of Florida.'' And the voter registration applicant signs that form. This is a clear intent--hopefully, not an intent--it is a clear manifestation of disenfranchising people, of not allowing them the right to vote, if on a technicality, because on line 2 they have not checked the box of being a U.S. citizen, but on line 17 have sworn under oath that they are a U.S. citizen, they are saying that they are going to discount the voter's registration application. I hope we don't have to go to court again. I hope we don't have to do what CNN did, go to court to strike down a law that said they were going to strike 48,000 convicted felons but would not release that to the public so that the public could see if those names were accurate. And lo and behold, when the Miami Herald got hold of the list, they found over 2,000 who were legitimate registered voters and not convicted felons. Why do we have to keep going back to the courts to enforce this when what is at stake is the right of people to vote, which is absolutely a part of the constitutional foundation of this country? The people should have the confidence and the knowledge that if they are eligible, they will be able to register and then, if registered to vote, that they will have the right to vote and to have that vote counted as they intended. We are only about 4 weeks away from an election. I don't want to see a repeat in Florida of what happened 4 years ago when there was so much dissension and uncertainty. The whole electoral process has to work. It is important that it works for the sake of our democracy. A good place for us to start is for the secretary of State's office, the division of elections of the State of Florida, to stop issuing such edicts and directives to the election supervisors in Florida's 67 counties that would cause a voter trying to register to be thrown out on a silly omission, which is covered by their solemn oath. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to give a report to the Senate on the aftermath of our State having been hit by four hurricanes and the recovery efforts that are coming along, and, since the Senate is planning to recess at the end of this week for some number of weeks until after the election, when we will come back in a lameduck session, it is all the more important that we get appropriated the $10.2 billion that has been requested by the White House for emergency hurricane relief so that all of this emergency relief that is going on can continue. That is what I want to report to the Senate, having been in Florida this weekend, having been with the volunteers, with FEMA, with the State people, and with the local governments. It is amazing how everybody is pitching in and working together. Yet the hard reality of some parts of our State having been hit by three hurricanes, and especially along the Middle Eastern coast, what is called the treasure coast of Florida, having been hit at almost identically the same place by two major hurricanes, having winds sustained at 120 miles per hour when it hit the coast, with gusts up to 135 miles an hour, naturally people are reeling, they are tired and, in some cases, their patience is running out. For example, in several mobile home parks I visited this weekend, there are people who cannot inhabit their home. The home is literally destroyed. So where are they staying? Some people are literally staying in tents in their front yards because the temporary housing that is supplied by FEMA is being delayed in the delivery. Once the temporary house is delivered, and it is usually in the form of a small trailer, it is set up usually in the driveway of the home so the homeowner can oversee the complete dismantling of the destroyed home and its removal, or the rebuilding and repair of the home if it is salvageable. In many other cases, people are staying with friends or with family, but they are being delayed in the process of rebuilding their lives until FEMA gets in the trailers. I was told in one place that was hard hit--it is in south Brevard County, right at the Brevard County-Indian County river line, near the Sebastian River. It is a huge mobile home park called Barefoot Bay. Brevard County is my home county. One can image what 120-mile-an-hour winds do to a bunch of mobile homes. Let me tell you what it did. One could surely see the difference between the mobile homes constructed after the new standards imposed after the monster hurricane, Hurricane Andrew, hit Florida 12 years ago, and one can see what 120-mile-an-hour winds do to a mobile home that was not built according to those standards. The little pieces of wood that form the ceiling of a mobile home are not very thick or wide. Does anyone think those old construction standards for mobile homes, with a little piece of wood that is a truss for a roof, is going to withstand 120-mile-an-hour winds whipping around when the ceiling is not very thick or very wide? It did exactly what one would expect--it absolutely ripped them up. Another one of the lessons we are learning is that the new building codes are working. As I flew in helicopters across the barrier islands, when that wall of water came, as well as the 145-mile-an-hour winds on the first hurricane, Hurricane Charley, from that Army National Guard helicopter looking down at the barrier islands, one could clearly see what was constructed according to the new building codes because it was standing and relatively intact and what was old construction because it was history. That scene was replicated after the third hurricane, Hurricane Ivan, that hit the barrier island up in Pensacola beach. It was the same scene out of the window of an Army National Guard helicopter: The new building codes are working. My message to the Senate, my plea, my begging is that by the end of this week when we leave Washington, we have to have passed at the bare minimum the $10.2 billion request which is not only for FEMA and all of the personal loans and grants, the Small Business Administration low-interest loans so people can rebuild their lives as well as their businesses, but also the money that will go to our military bases to repair the devastation that has occurred at the Kennedy Space Center with NASA. All of that is in this money, and we have to be able to rebuild our lives in Florida for the sake of people and for the sake of this country. There is something FEMA can do, in addition to getting the temporary housing people are impatiently waiting for. FEMA can also address a chronic problem that does not happen just after one hurricane but gets magnified after multiple hurricanes within a 6-week period, and that is the accumulation of debris. As I traveled through the mobile home park of Bombay Estates, it was because people from the Mormon Church came there over the weekend to clean up that debris and stack it in areas so those people could get back to their lives. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army--all of these private organizations are doing such a tremendous job, and yet FEMA is taking the position that it will not reimburse local governments for picking up debris unless the debris is on public right of way. That defies reality in Florida. In Florida, we have many huge senior citizen complexes where the roads in them are private roads, and yet they are still citizens, they are still part of the community, and the debris is accumulating, and FEMA says it will not pay for the pickup of that debris. Who is going to pay for it? That is part of what FEMA's disaster relief is for. Is the local government to pay for it? The little cities and towns cannot afford all of that expense. So what are they going to do? Assess a fee on all of the senior citizens in this huge senior citizen residential complex? On fixed incomes, the senior citizens cannot afford it. Yet FEMA is taking the position that they will not pay for the pickup of the debris, but it is not a legitimate position. Listen to what section 206.224 of the Code of Federal Regulations states. It states that FEMA may provide assistance to remove debris from privately owned lands and waters when it is in the public interest. What is in the public interest? It is in the public interest to eliminate a threat to public health and safety. How many canals and water reservoirs did I see littered with debris? If that debris is not picked up, it becomes a hazard for all kinds of pestilence, not even to speak of the danger. As I went through some of that debris yesterday, a lot of those carports in the mobile home parks were just twisted and flung by 120-mile-an-hour winds. They have sharp edges by which people can get really hurt. So I hope we do not have to direct FEMA to do this by putting language in the Department of Homeland Security funding bill on FEMA's particular funding. We should not have to do that. FEMA has the authority already. It is just an interpretation of the law, and I think this is clearly a case, in the interest of the public safety and welfare, that FEMA should recognize this is not one hurricane but this is four hurricanes within 6 weeks in one State. That is my plea to the Senate, to the House of Representatives, and especially to FEMA. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, while I agree with the provisions of Senator Byrd's amendment, No. 3845, that seeks to provide greater congressional oversight of the national intelligence authority, my objections to provisions in the amendment that would require the National Intelligence Director to relinquish budget authority make it necessary for me to oppose the amendment and vote in favor of the motion to table the amendment.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent from rollcall vote No. 193. On the motion to table amendment No. 3795, to S. 2845, I would have voted ``aye.'' This would not change the outcome of the vote. I was necessarily absent from rollcall vote No. 194. On the motion to table amendment No. 3802, to S. 2845, I would have noted ``no.'' This would not change the outcome of the vote.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if I take 1 minute per hurricane in Florida, that would be a total of 4 minutes.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, to the distinguished Senator from Maine, it will not be necessary for 10 minutes, but the Chair of the committee is very gracious. It seems all I talk about on the floor of the Senate is the hurricanes that have ravaged Florida. I would like to say to the leadership of the committee, I support their legislation. I am looking forward to voting for it. They have done a magnificent job. It is very timely, and I hope the wisdom they have displayed will be displayed by the House of Representatives so we can get a quick agreement and a conference and go about the process of reforming our intelligence apparatus. My congratulations. Florida Hurricanes It does seem that I have spoken over and over about hurricanes and about the need for disaster assistance. Indeed, I am making that plea again. When we passed the Department of Homeland Security funding bill 2 weeks ago, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee had committed, in a colloquy on the Senate floor, that he would address it. I take him at his word, and I am sure his word is good. Now that the President has requested additional funds, the question for us and Florida is speed in enacting this legislation quickly so that money can get to the people who desperately need it in direct, outright FEMA grants. They need assistance to rebuild their homes. They need Small Business Administration loans so that they can rebuild their lives and their businesses. Then there are a myriad of Federal disaster assistance programs to local governments so that we can rebuild our communities, so that we can pick up the debris. There is one part of Florida where debris is all over our communities from three hurricanes that have hit the same place. We need to rebuild our roads and bridges, our airports, our military facilities, and NASA at the Kennedy Space Center. So time is of the essence, and I implore our leadership to get that message through to the White House and to the leadership at the other end of this Capitol to get these funds. It is the intention of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who just told me this a few minutes ago, to attach this money to the Homeland Security bill, but if that bill gets hung up for whatever reason, then this emergency funding needs to come out of here like a rocket taking off at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station so that it can get to our people. Needless to say, after two hits, one wonders just what is in store, and how they are going to pick up the pieces of their lives. But when three hit, and then four, one can imagine how distressed our people are. Help us. We need speed. We need action now. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the fourth hurricane has visited my State, and that is the subject of my remarks. I am compelled to respond to some of the statements the majority leader has made about the condition of medical malpractice in the country. One of the great privileges of being a part of the Senate, it being the greatest deliberative body in the world, is out of the discussions of ideas, hopefully truth can ultimately be achieved. A number of the statements the majority leader has made are giving his point of view, one side of the argument. Indeed, it is absolutely no secret that there is a medical malpractice insurance crisis in the country. As the majority leader would have it characterized, it is all as a result of lawyers and excesses. Are there excesses? Yes, there are. And those ought to be reformed in the system. But in outlining how you want to solve the problem of bringing down the insurance premiums for doctors to protect themselves with medical malpractice, what is proposed by the majority leader leaves the main entity out of the solution, and that is the insurance company. The doctors have characterized this--indeed, some lawyers--as a fight between doctors and lawyers. But they have left out the main party, if we are going to reach a solution. I speak from a little bit of experience, having been the elected insurance commissioner of Florida for 6 years. I found myself, interestingly, as insurance commissioner, denying rate decreases for insurance companies that were medical malpractice companies because they were wanting rate decreases so they could get additional market share, but it was not financially prudent. It was not actuarially sound. This was during the 1990s, when the stock market was robust. Insurance companies make money in two different ways: One, with regard to their premiums, which ought to be actuarially sound for the risk they are insuring; and two, by investing those funds in prudent investments. And in the decade of the 1990s, those investments were paying off handsomely for the entire business community, including insurance companies. But what happens when the stock market turns south and the return on their investments is not there? Then an insurance company is supposed to have its premiums so that it can be actuarially sound so it can pay its claims due to the risk it has assumed. Well, a lot of those companies started getting in difficulty because they were not getting the returns on their investment. So they had to start yanking their premiums up. All of this is to say that if we want a real solution to this problem, we have to get doctors and hospitals, lawyers and insurance companies all in the room in order to solve the problem. The majority leader made reference to the State of California as if it were just a cap on lawyers' fees. That is not the history of the State of California. California not only did that, but they also put a limit on the increases on insurance premiums as well. So when we have a discussion, we should have a discussion of an overall comprehensive way to solve this problem. That is what I would like to see--this being less partisan, less ideological, less special interests, and talk about a solution where we can bring all parties in and get something done. That should be done at the State level. What we have seen from it is that States that have taken up legislation like that do not bring all of the parties to the table to find a viable solution. I felt compelled to respond to the majority leader's comments because in the debate that ought to occur in this body, it ought to be a comprehensive debate showing all sides to the argument.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I came here because, as most everybody in the country knows, an unusual meteorological phenomenon has occurred in my State where it has now been battered by four major hurricanes. Part of the State now has been battered in the same area-- namely, south of Orlando, southeast of Lakeland. In that area, it has been traversed now by hurricane strength winds from three hurricanes-- first Charley, then Frances, and now this last one. The third hurricane, Ivan, took off for a different part of the State. It hit west Florida in the Pensacola area, as well as eastern Alabama, with such force of not only 138 mile per hour winds but also with that surge of water called a tidal surge, which was so significant that it went all the way up Pensacola Bay and, in fact, lifted up sections of the Interstate 10 bridge--huge, heavy concrete sections--lifted it up by the pressure of that water and deposited it on the bottom of Pensacola Bay. That is the kind of force and fury of Mother Nature that has been visited upon my State. So what do we need to do? Well, there is one reason for the Federal Government, other than the protection of the national defense of this country, and that is also to provide during times of disaster. FEMA ran out of money several weeks ago. We came in here and we passed an emergency appropriations bill of $2 billion to try to fill up their coffers. But since then, we have passed several things appendaged to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, plus receiving several acknowledgements and commitments to, in particular, this Senator from Florida from the esteemed chairman of the Appropriations Committee of adding additional funds in the conference that is now occurring on the Department of Homeland Security funding bill. But as of yet, we have seen an appropriation request come from the White House that is just not going to solve the problem. For example, the Commissioner of Agriculture of Florida said that for the first two hurricanes, we are going to have $2 billion of losses just in agriculture. Yet all we have announced out of that $2 billion requested by the Commissioner of Agriculture--who happens to be in the same party as the President--all we have seen is the Secretary of Agriculture offer a package that is only one quarter of what the Commissioner of Agriculture of Florida has asked for. That is just not going to do it. Since the first two hurricanes, we have been hit by a third hurricane and, a day ago, by a fourth hurricane. In that third hurricane, there is going to be a big loss of the cotton and peanut crops up in the panhandle. With the fourth, what was left of the citrus crop across central Florida is going to be all gone because these ferocious winds are going to drop to the ground any fruit that was remaining. This is an election year, but this should not be partisan. People are hurting and they need help, they need it now. I ask the White House, this administration, the Department of Agriculture, and all those myriad of agencies to come forward and help us. We need that help right now. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for 7 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if it were not bad enough that Florida has been hit by three hurricanes in a row--my family has lived in Florida for 175 years, and I cannot remember where two huge hurricanes hit the State back to back, much less do I think that the history books would record that three major hurricanes have hit any State in succession. But if that were not enough, there is now a hurricane out in the Atlantic named Jeanne that has killed already well over 1,000 people in the nation of Haiti, when it was only a tropical storm. It took a northward turn into the Atlantic, has looped around, and is now taking a westward path directly for the peninsula of Florida. If this hurricane continues at 100 miles an hour, albeit in terms of what we have already experienced with the first one--Hurricane Charley was 145 miles an hour coming right off the Gulf of Mexico up Charlotte Harbor to ground zero at Punta Gorda, and we know what the magnitude of those winds can do, nevertheless a hurricane at 100 miles an hour coming back on to the coast of Florida, which has already been racked by two other hurricanes, from the southwest, Charley, and from the southeast, Frances, one can imagine the additional misery that our people are going to suffer. So this leads me to my point. Last week we were on the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. I battled to get recognition for what had not been requested by the White House, which was for Florida agriculture to be compensated. Thanks to the chairman of the committee, he finally accepted my amendment for $70 million for the Red Cross. The Red Cross has been doing a marvelous job, as has the Salvation Army, but the Red Cross ran out of money. They had to go out and borrow $10 million. So we still have that working in the conference committee on homeland security before we can bring it to final passage, but we are going to have to have plenty more funds. I just received a shocking report on the destruction to the Pensacola Naval Air Station by Hurricane Ivan that was not only hit with winds sustained at 138 miles an hour coming off the Gulf of Mexico but also a tidal surge. We have all seen those pictures on TV. The tidal surge went way up Pensacola Bay and was so high and so fierce that it lifted up sections of Interstate 10 off of pilings and dropped them into Pensacola Bay. That same kind of storm surge and high winds has wreaked considerable havoc on the Pensacola Naval Air Station. The first reports from the Department of Defense--and I am going right now to our Senate Armed Services Committee to talk to the Secretary of Defense about this--the first estimate is the damage just to structures at Pensacola Naval Air Station is well over half a billion dollars. That does not include all the equipment. Yet to show how the U.S. Navy can respond and recoup, they are starting pilot training at Pensacola NAS tomorrow, despite all of that devastation and destruction around them. This voice from Florida is going to continue to ring out, calling for action and pleading for help. I hope the President will request it. In these closing weeks of the session before we adjourn before the election, we cannot let any of these needs go unmet for the sake of our people and for the sake of the Nation. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, we are at ``no fooling time'' with regard to our intelligence activities. Because the only thing that is going to prevent another terrorist attack, of which there are many attempts, is the accuracy and quality and the timeliness of the intelligence information we get. In dealing with a secretive nation such as North Korea, which in this Senator's opinion is one of the gravest threats to the interests of the United States because of their outspoken attempt to acquire nuclear capability, we simply have to penetrate a secret society such as that with our intelligence apparatus more than we have been doing. Therefore, who is going to lead this administrative apparatus on intelligence gathering and intelligence analysis and intelligence coordination, with the multitude of agencies all dealing with intelligence, is extremely important. That is why I am standing here speaking on behalf of my fellow Floridian and my friend Porter Goss. This Congress will have a monumental task before it very shortly on the reorganization of the intelligence apparatus as well as the reorganization of putting our own house in order as we exercise that oversight or give direction to the executive branch of government. And that needs to be done better than we have in the past. But the task before us right now is to exercise our constitutional duty in confirming or rejecting an appointment by the President to lead the intelligence apparatus, right now as symbolized by the Director of the Central Intelligence. That is why I am here to speak on behalf of Porter Goss. It has already been said before many times that he started in 1960 as an Army intelligence officer, right out of school. Having gone into the CIA from that, with a distinguished career, he ended up back being a city councilman and a mayor in a little town on the southwest coast of Florida. Then-Governor Graham, now my senior colleague in the Senate, when three vacancies occurred on the Lee County Commission--they had occurred for whatever reason, but they were there--then--Governor Graham chose Porter Goss to fill one of those vacancies. Then his public service expanded, and he later ran and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. We have known of his public service through his capacity as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Now, has Porter said some things he probably wishes he would not have said? Yes. But who among us has not made those kinds of mistakes? This Senator knows him to be, in this political cauldron of highly charged partisan politics, one of the most bipartisan of all Members of Congress that I have had the pleasure of knowing. It is my understanding that he made a commitment to the Intelligence Committee, and specifically to questions propounded by the vice chairman of that committee, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Rockefeller, that he would not engage in a partisan manner, which is the least that can be expected of the Director of the CIA. The stakes are too high for this country for any of that kind of nonsense. I believe Porter is a man of his word to the Senate Intelligence Committee. I believe, given the circumstances of where we are now, with so much at stake and having to have the right kind of leader, this is the leader the President has nominated. We are now in the process of advising and probably consenting, and with the admonitions he has received, with the exceptional educational background he has had, with the breadth of his experience, not only as an agent but as the chairman of the committee, I think it is the constitutional duty of the Senate to render a verdict. I think that verdict ought to be for the approval of Porter Goss as Director of Central Intelligence. Mr. President, that is my effort to lend to this debate. It is short and sweet. This Senator, as well as my senior colleague from Florida, will be voting in favor of Porter Goss. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, my family has been in Florida for 175 years, and I do not remember in all of the history books where major hurricanes have happened back to back. It has happened with lesser hurricanes, but I think the record book was shattered when three large, major hurricanes in a row have battered our State over the course of a 6-week period: first Charley, then Frances, and now Ivan. As I flew in a National Guard helicopter last Friday with the Governor over the Barrier Islands, I saw there were no sand dunes anymore in the Barrier Islands of Pensacola Beach. The sugary white sand of the beaches and those sand dunes had been washed across the entire Barrier Island from the Gulf of Mexico to Pensacola Bay. And from the air, it appeared as if the entire Barrier Island was washed in white. There were structures standing, but the structures were usually the newer ones built according to the new building codes. And as we are hearing in the reports out of Alabama, those structures were even uprooted on their foundations and have to be destroyed. If it was an old structure, that old structure is history. For not only the howling winds of 138 miles an hour, but the tidal surge of the water that came with the hurricane winds--water that then washed up into the very large Pensacola Bay, even taking out major sections of the Interstate 10 bridge--we did some quick mathematical calculations and figured that a wall of water at least 40 feet high would have had to hit that bridge, positioned some 12 miles from the gulf up Pensacola Bay. It would take 40 feet of water to have enough pressure to raise the sections of Interstate 10's bridge off of the pilings and deposit them in the bottom of Pensacola Bay. And in many other sections of the bridge, the same effort moved it 3 and 4 feet on top of the pilings. Even at the end of Pensacola Bay, some 20 to 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, the wave of water was so fast and so furious that as to the four-lane highway, US 90, that rings the shore of Pensacola Bay on that far northern end, two lanes of those four lanes were washed out at the bridgeheads and thus, is complicating the rescue efforts, the rebuilding efforts because of traffic not being able to get to Pensacola, with only two-way traffic open on one of those lanes that had been spared. We are finding out once again, because we keep coming with emergency appropriations for Federal disaster relief, that hurricanes can be quite costly, as we have known over the years. It was my freshman year in the Congress in 1979 that I voted for my first disaster relief, which was in response to the eruption of Mount St. Helens in the State of Washington covering so much of that State with soot and ash. But that is in part what a Federal Government is for--to respond in times of emergency and disaster. So, too, we have seen the President request $2 billion for the first hurricane and disaster relief--that won't take care of all of the relief for Charley--and another $3.1 billion was requested for Charley and Frances. That certainly won't take care of those two storms because there is another billion dollars of agricultural relief that is going to be needed that the President did not request. But we haven't even gotten to the third hurricane, Hurricane Ivan. As we speak, those calculations are being made. This Congress is going to have to respond. Last week I had a colloquy with the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the distinguished Senator from Alaska. He assured me and gave me his commitment that he would proceed on the agricultural relief with regard to Hurricane Frances and Hurricane Charley in the conference on the Homeland Security Appropriations bill. Huge parts of the $65 billion-a-year agricultural industry in Florida have been destroyed--citrus, both orange and grapefruit; the nursery industry, including the fern industry, of which Florida is one of the major growers of ferns; vegetables; fruits; cattle; dairy cows that dried up because they could not be milked since there was no electricity to operate the automatic milking machines. You can go on down the list of all the agricultural commodities that were hit as well as the equipment those farmers owned. But now with Ivan in the panhandle, we are going to have additional agricultural losses, particularly from cotton and peanuts. I dare say that will be shared with the State of Alabama, perhaps with Georgia, as Ivan raced across the southern United States after it had made landfall at the Florida-Alabama border. It is interesting that in our State, having been put in hurricane mode for 6 weeks, people began to recover from one blow and then here comes another blow. In fact, the people in the center part of the State on the first two storms were hit twice where the two storms passed and happened to cross--Charley from southwest to northeast, Frances from southeast to northwest. And they crossed their paths in the center of the State. Then along comes Ivan. At one point we even thought the State of Florida might be spared. It looked as if it was going to be bearing down on, Lord forbid, New Orleans, which is lower than sea level, or Mississippi where so many of the establishments there, including the gaming industry, are on floating boats. You can imagine the wreckage that would have caused. But it shifted to the east, bearing down on the Florida-Alabama line, with the winds coming off in a counterclockwise rotation off of the Gulf of Mexico, in its most fierce fury, on to the shores of that southern Alabama coastline and northwestern Florida coastline. That is a part of our State that has a great deal of the national assets of our U.S. military. Ninety percent of the buildings at the Pensacola Naval Air Station had severe damage. At Whiting Field, where Navy pilots and Marine pilots and Coast Guard pilots and Air Force pilots, both fixed wing and helicopter, are trained, all of the hangars sustained major roof damage with the roofs being ripped off of those large structures. So, as we have responded after the other two hurricanes with special appropriations to fix up those military facilities so they can get back in the business of training our young men and women so they can defend this country, so, too, we are now going to have to address those particular needs even as far east on that Florida panhandle as Eglin Air Force Base which had its major tower completely taken out of commission. The Senate will hear me, over and over, advocating and trying to articulate the needs for a State that is in crisis, a State that has been hit not once but three times by the hard and savage blows of Mother Nature. Floridians are a hardy lot. Floridians have endured hurricanes before. Floridians will do it this time. In the meantime, let's have the Government do one of the things that it does best--respond to the needs of its people when the needs of the people are so desperate. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that time charged under the quorum call be divided equally.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I will yield to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I say to the Senator that sadly Mr. McCollum, former Congressman, who ended up second in the Republican primary, a fellow I have known since high school and who has some very high principles, because he announced that he was in favor of the hate crimes bill, was labeled, as reported in the St. Petersburg Times, as ``the new darling of the homosexual extremists'' as a means of trying to cut him down in a Republican primary. This has absolutely gotten out of control and I am afraid we are going to see more of the same as we come into the general election. It is exasperating. It is not the American way. We have seen this time after time. My goodness, what do we have to expect in the Presidential race in the next 6 weeks? That is my response to the Senator.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the Senator for yielding. The Senator has accurately described a political season where meanness is the order of the day. He has pointed out this element in the race in South Dakota. I have seen it in my State of Florida recently, interestingly, in the Republican primary, meanness where the truth doesn't matter, where you can be opponents, but you don't have to be enemies, and it is there nevertheless. It is time for the people of this country to say that is enough. We are killing our own democratic institutions with the smut and dirt and untruths, and it is time to stop.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, would the Senators from Texas and California be willing to engage me in a colloquy?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter from Lieutenant General Steven Blum, Chief of the National Guard Bureau to me regarding funding for hurricane damage repair for National Guard facilities in Florida be printed in the Record.