Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent for 30 additional seconds.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee and the ranking member, Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman. They made a statement on the floor of the Senate in a colloquy with this Senator when the Energy bill was on the floor, and those two Senators kept their word. It had to do with drilling off the coast of Florida. I have said to those Senators how much I appreciate what they, in fact, have done, under considerable pressure in the conference committee. I want them to know personally how appreciative I am that they held fast and prohibited, in the conference committee, for an issue to be injected that was neither in the House bill nor the Senate bill that would cause the drilling off the coast of Florida. Why is this important to us? This Senator has made this statement many times, but there is a new wrinkle that I wanted to explain to the Senate, not having to do with geology that shows that there is not much oil and gas off of Florida, not having to do with the delicate ecosystem, not having to do with the $50 billion-a-year tourism industry that depends on pristine beaches, but a reason for the preparation of our U.S. military in a time when we are at war. We have these ranges that are off the coast of Florida. Is it any wonder that, in fact, when Vieques was shut down off the coast of Puerto Rico, they sent most of that training off of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida, because of this Joint Gulf Range Complex. It is joint with all branches of Government. It involves land-, sea-, and air-coordinated training. If drilling were allowed in what is known as lease sale 181, that is what would happen. Smack-dab in the middle of that restricted airspace, that training area that is 180,000 square miles in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Smack-dab in the middle of it would be the drilling for oil and gas. This portion in red was already agreed to back in 2001. This portion in the red hatch is the additional 4 million acres that would be added smack-dab in the middle of our military training complex. The significance of it is that it has 724 square miles of additional land range. It has 3,200 square miles of airspace over adjacent land area. It has 17 miles of Government shoreline, with connected prohibited and restricted water areas. The combination of air, land, and water is the best location for the United States for extremely long-range precision weapons testing, such as the high-performance combat aircraft live-fire testing and training and large-scale complex joint training exercises and experimentation. Given the thrust of DOD's recent BRAC recommendations, there will be more testing, training, and operations in the eastern Gulf, not less. So oil drilling in the eastern Gulf, as proposed by the administration, is the greatest encroachment threat to the Nation's largest unrestricted air and sea space for weapons testing and combat training.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Oil drilling is not compatible with weapons testing and combat training. Military leaders have been fighting this for years. Yet here we go again. The encroachment this time is even more serious because we are at war. This Senator, on behalf of the people of Florida--and, I hope, on behalf of the U.S. military establishment--will continue to oppose this. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their holding fast in the conference committee.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Jim DeMint as we introduce the OTC Medicine Tax Fairness Act of 2005. Health care costs are continuing to climb across America and the medical expense deduction is becoming increasingly popular as Americans spend more out-of-pocket for health care. The OTC Medicine Tax Fairness Act of 2005 is designed to help make medicine more affordable by allowing consumers to include over-the-counter, OTC, drugs as a deductible expense for people who itemize their deductions. Under the OTC Medicine Tax Fairness Act of 2005, OTC medicines would be allowed as tax deductible medical expenses. Under current law, taxpayers who itemize income tax deductions may deduct out-of-pocket expenses for medical care not reimbursed by health insurance, provided it exceeds 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Eligible expenses under the tax code currently include non-reimbursed costs for doctor visits, bandages, crutches, acupuncture, chiropractic care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses. The code also allows the costs of drugs, but only prescription drugs and insulin; OTCs are not included in the deduction currently. This legislation recognizes that OTC medicines may be a big cost for some individuals and families and that tax treatment of prescription and non-prescription drugs should be equal in this area. The medical expense deduction is particularly helpful for low income taxpayers with high health care expenses. Taxpayers in the lower income brackets use the medical expense deduction more frequently than higher income earners. According to the IRS website, over 3 million taxpayers with incomes of $20,000 or less used the medical expense deduction in 2001. This bill would help low income people with high medical expenses by allowing them to deduct the cost of OTCs. This legislation would also provide much needed fiscal relief for many seniors. According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, seniors purchase more OTC drugs than any other age group. This bill would help those elderly Floridians, as well as all elderly Americans, who use OTCs and take the medical expense deduction. American consumers are currently paying extraordinary prices for their medications. It is time for Congress to help make medicine more affordable. One thing we can do is to make sure that as more drugs become available without prescriptions that their costs can still be included in tax- deductible health care expenses. If we can do that, we will have done a great deal. Mr. President, I request unanimous consent that my statement be included in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Jim DeMint as we introduce the OTC Medicine Tax Fairness Act of 2005. Health care costs are continuing to climb across America and the medical expense deduction is becoming increasingly popular as Americans spend more out-of-pocket for health care. The OTC Medicine Tax Fairness Act of 2005 is designed to help make medicine more affordable by allowing consumers to include over-the-counter, OTC, drugs as a deductible expense for people who itemize their deductions. Under the OTC Medicine Tax Fairness Act of 2005, OTC medicines would be allowed as tax deductible medical expenses. Under current law, taxpayers who itemize income tax deductions may deduct out-of-pocket expenses for medical care not reimbursed by health insurance, provided it exceeds 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Eligible expenses under the tax code currently include non-reimbursed costs for doctor visits, bandages, crutches, acupuncture, chiropractic care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses. The code also allows the costs of drugs, but only prescription drugs and insulin; OTCs are not included in the deduction currently. This legislation recognizes that OTC medicines may be a big cost for some individuals and families and that tax treatment of prescription and non-prescription drugs should be equal in this area. The medical expense deduction is particularly helpful for low income taxpayers with high health care expenses. Taxpayers in the lower income brackets use the medical expense deduction more frequently than higher income earners. According to the IRS website, over 3 million taxpayers with incomes of $20,000 or less used the medical expense deduction in 2001. This bill would help low income people with high medical expenses by allowing them to deduct the cost of OTCs. This legislation would also provide much needed fiscal relief for many seniors. According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, seniors purchase more OTC drugs than any other age group. This bill would help those elderly Floridians, as well as all elderly Americans, who use OTCs and take the medical expense deduction. American consumers are currently paying extraordinary prices for their medications. It is time for Congress to help make medicine more affordable. One thing we can do is to make sure that as more drugs become available without prescriptions that their costs can still be included in tax- deductible health care expenses. If we can do that, we will have done a great deal. Mr. President, I request unanimous consent that my statement be included in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. At the Senator's great pleasure, 10 minutes.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator from Florida will ask for the yeas and nays. If the chairman of the committee, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, is persuasive in talking to the Republican majority leader not to bring the motion for cloture to cut off debate so that amendments like this to help widows and orphans might fall, maybe we can get it to a vote. It is the least we can do for Americans who have given their lives, or their best years, in defense of our country. We simply cannot allow this situation to continue. We need to restore fair benefits to these folks. I am going to continue my fight for these people who have given their all to their Nation and especially to the loved ones whom they have left behind. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. So the answer, I say to the Senator from Illinois, it could well be knocked off if cloture is brought on this Defense authorization bill.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator asked a good question. I ask the Presiding Officer, would the Nelson amendment, with its 22 cosponsors, be considered germane following a successful cloture motion?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Under the Survivors Benefit Plan it does. However, there is another part of the law that says survivors shall receive a second benefit, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, to attempt in one small way to make those survivors whole for all the sacrifice their loved one has given. But, no, because of a problem with the current law, they cannot get both. One offsets the other, the long and short of which is that a young widow of a private or corporal or sergeant can't make it with what the U.S. Government is going to give her unless we rectify this inequity in the law.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Let me tweak it a little bit for the Senator, and I thank the Senator for the compassion coming out of his heart and expressed on his face as he asks this question. This Senator from Illinois is right on. In the first place, in current law the soldier does not actually have to make an affirmative purchase. Under current law we enroll the survivors of any service member who is killed in the Survivors Benefit Plan. However, for a private, a corporal, a sergeant, that is not a lot because of their base pay.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to talk about widows and orphans. I call up amendment No. 762, which is filed at the desk.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I yield.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it is an honor for me, on behalf of some folks who have not been treated with fairness and equity, to rise on the floor of the Senate to try to obtain it for them. There will be attempts to strip this amendment from the bill. But I offer it tonight, whether or not cloture is invoked on the overall bill, with the hope that we are going to get an up-or-down vote. It is important that widows and orphans in this country, whose husbands and fathers died as a result of their military service, can know where the Senators stand on this important issue. It is an honor for me to offer this amendment, and it is going to correct two important inequities faced by our military widows and our military retirees. There is an unfair and painful offset of the Defense Department's Survivors Benefits Plan, offset against the Veterans Affairs Dependency and Indemnity Compensation. What is Survivors Benefit Plan? When servicemembers die on active duty, their survivors receive a benefit to recognize their sacrifice. You also have 100-percent disabled military retirees who actually go out and purchase this survivors benefit so their loved ones will have this when they have passed on. Yet that survivor benefit is today being taken away unfairly from our military widows and orphans. Fixing that is what my amendment is all about. If you go back into the Good Book, you will find that one of the main things that we are admonished is to look out for the widows and orphans. With our Nation now in a violent struggle with brutal and vicious enemies, and Americans being lost every day, we simply must not forget that the families left behind by those courageous men and women, those families, bear tremendous pain. Their survivors' lives are forever altered. Their future is left unclear. They have made the ultimate sacrifice and our Nation expects us to honor that sacrifice. It reminds me of President Lincoln, who during the midst of the Civil War, said: As God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan. The immortal words of President Lincoln. Since the beginning of this session we have considered and adopted increased death gratuity benefits for the survivors of our troops lost in this present war. But the survivors of those killed in action are entitled to automatic enrollment in the survivors benefit plan. That is a change we made in the law, but it is not complete. We now see the pain caused. At the same time a widow or a widower is enrolled in the Survivor Benefit Plan, and in many cases paid for it, another set of laws under the Department of Veterans Affairs says they are also entitled to dependency and indemnity compensation. However, under current law one offsets the other--they can't get both. Widows instantly recognize the injustice of this offset. It deeply wounds their sense of the value of their sacrifice. It is wrong, the way we treat these families. This offset is no less painful for the survivors of our 100-percent disabled military retirees because it is a purchased plan, yet they cannot get what they have purchased because it is offset by Dependency and Indemnity Compensation. Survivors of service members killed on active duty are entitled, in law, to automatic enrollment in the Survivor Benefit Plan, and 100- percent disabled military retirees can purchase the survivors benefit plan. Survivors stand to lose most or even all of the benefits under that plan because they are offset by a second benefit to which they are also entitled, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation. That is not right. I have 22 cosponsors of this amendment. They are from both sides of the Senate. This amendment is going to remedy these inequities. It is going to honor our commitments to military retirees and servicemembers who are killed in the line of duty, and their surviving widows and dependent children. We have sergeants and corporals losing their lives. Their base pay determines the benefits for their surviving spouse. The base pay of a corporal isn't very much, and their survivors are supposed to live off even less; yet, in fact, in another part of the law, they are due something as the widow of a veteran, and we are saying under the current law: You cannot get both benefits you are entitled to. Is this what we want to do for these young families who lost a loved one in Iraq or elsewhere? Will the Nation not stand tall to support them? This is not what the law intended. We ought to change it.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to speak on the Defense bill to point out a major national asset with regard to our military preparation. What I am about to say actually involves some subterranean negotiations that are going on outside of the light of day on another bill, on the Energy conference bill, but it relates directly to what we are doing here. I want to point it out. One of the great national assets we have is off the coast of Florida called restricted airspace. As you can see, off the northeast coast of Florida from Cape Canaveral north all the way to Savannah, GA is a considerable bit of restricted airspace. You will also notice on this map of the peninsula of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico that almost the entire area of the Gulf of Mexico off of the State of Florida is restricted airspace. It is not any puzzle to understand when the Atlantic fleet, U.S. Navy training, was shut down on the island of Vieques off of Puerto Rico, that most of that training came here to northwest Florida. Not only because of the major military facilities at Pensacola, Whiting, Eglin Air Force Base, Tindale Air Force Base, where, by the way, we have been talking about the FA-22, the training for the pilots is at Tindale Air Force Base right here. The training for the pilots for all branches of Government for the new F-135, the joint fighter, is done at Eglin Air Force Base. Why? Because we have the restricted airspace in which that training can occur and where land, sea, and air exercises can be coordinated. That is a major national asset. Alas, people, certain interests, want to come out here and drill for oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. You can't be conducting these military maneuvers, this training that is so essential to our mission in the Department of Defense, you can't be doing that if you have to worry about oil rigs on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico below. That is the same right over here on the east coast, a battle I had to wage 15, 20 years ago when it was proposed to drill from Cape Hatteras, NC all the way south to Fort Pierce, FL. Ultimately, we won that battle with the recognition by the DOD and NASA that you can't have oil rigs where you are dropping the solid rocket boosters from the space shuttle and where we are dropping the first stages of the expendable booster rockets coming out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force station. We took on this fight a month or so ago when the Energy bill was here and we won this fight, thanks to the agreement of the chairman and the ranking member of the Energy Committee that they would not support any amendments that would allow drilling out here in the eastern gulf. Speaking of that, just so you can see how dramatic it is that the eastern gulf does not have this drilling, I want you to look at this particular map of the gulf coast--Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. You will notice the drilling, as represented by the green, is where the oil is. The geology shows that there is no drilling in the eastern gulf. There is no oil there. But there is another reason there are not rigs there, besides the dry holes they came up with, and it is all of that area is restricted air space. Now, all well and good. Mr. President, we have just intercepted an e-mail from the White House, and it is an e-mail sent to energy conference conferees-- something that has some significance to the occupant of the chair. Attached is the administration's proposal. The proposal would allow for new leasing activities in the eastern gulf. They define it in Louisiana waters as defined by the use of seaward lateral boundaries. They go on in this White House e-mail to say: Interior and the Office of Management and Budget have signed off on this language. Well, let's sound the alarms because here is what they plan to do. We went through this drill a couple months ago when the Energy bill was here. Why? We got the chairman of the Energy Committee and the ranking member to agree to oppose these amendments--this is in the Congressional Record--because this line, which is the Florida-Alabama line, beyond which there is no leasing in any of the waters of the gulf, well, suddenly, they are going to draw the line of the State of Louisiana, which is over here, to be a line that comes out here and goes into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, under the fiction that that line would be the waters of Louisiana and, thus, giving a pretext to invade the waters off of Florida, including the waters underneath the restricted airspace, to allow oil and gas drilling. The administration is pushing a proposal in the conference between the House and the Senate that does not have such a provision in either bill. To the contrary. The House took a position against drilling in the eastern gulf, and the Senate did likewise in the agreement of the chairman and the ranking member. So I want to alert the Senate. I hope this is not going to be the case because we are down to a week before everybody wants to go home for the August recess and do all of their town hall meetings, and so forth. I know there is the interest in passing an energy conference bill, if they reach agreement. Clearly, I don't want to slow up the energy conference bill if they reach agreement. But, of course, if the representations and the agreements that were made in good faith are broken--in fact, that were made on the floor of the Senate and are part of the Congressional Record--if those agreements are broken, this Senator from Florida will have no choice. This would represent a reversal of administration policy because this administration has pledged to uphold the moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf from drilling until the year 2012. Although a portion right there is not included within the moratorium, nevertheless, the line they have drawn clearly includes other portions of the moratorium. It is a reversal of administration policy. It would also give this area, called lease-sale 181, to the State of Louisiana. If lease-sale 181 is part of the State of Louisiana, off of the coast of Florida, then why did the administration negotiate in 2001 to cut back lease-sale 181 from 6 million acres to a million and a half acres, so it would not go over the Florida-Alabama line? There are all kinds of inconsistencies here. It is purely--call it what it is; it is an intent to drill for oil and gas off of the coast of Florida. I can tell you that 18 million people in Florida don't want oil rigs off their shores. In the first place, the geology shows, along with many dry holes, that there is not much oil and gas. In the second place, we have an extraordinary $50 billion a year tourism industry that depends on what? It depends on what is depicted in this picture. This other picture is not what we want. This is a photograph from a month and a half ago when we had the Energy bill on this floor of 100 pelicans that were killed as a result of an oil spill off of Louisiana--that is a recent photograph--and another 400 were severely damaged. We don't want that. We want the other. The third reason is one I had explained at the outset. This is what we want for the defense of our country. We want to continue to do our training. We want all of that training that has come from Puerto Rico to go unhampered off of the coast of Florida, where land, sea, and air military exercises can be coordinated without the threat of interference from oil rigs below. The fourth reason is the coast of Florida has something besides our natural beauty and beaches. It has some of the most pristine and ecologically sensitive estuaries, rivers, and bays that come into the gulf. That is a very important place to keep so that the balance of nature can occur with the oceans. For all of these reasons, I wanted to share with the Senate that I hope I don't have to be out here later this week making these speeches again because I took it at face value and in good faith that the representations that were made here were going to stick. If they do not, then the Senator from Florida will have to judge accordingly. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mike Dodson, a fellow in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor during the consideration of amendment No. 1357.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, may I just make one further comment? It is interesting at the very time we are talking about space, we have America's true national hero on the Senate floor, a former colleague of the Senate, John Glenn, who blazed the trail for everybody. When he climbed on that Atlas rocket, he knew there was a 20-percent chance that it was going to blow up. Yet that is the kind of risk that he took so that all of us in America that followed could have these wonderful benefits. I want to note the presence on the floor of former Senator Glenn. (Applause.)

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I join with my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Texas, who serves as the Chair of our Science and Space Subcommittee and of which I have the privilege of being the ranking member. The timing of this amendment is propitious because the problem on the shuttle has been found and the count will start shortly. Next Tuesday morning at 10:39 a.m., if all goes as well as we certainly hope, we will see the space shuttle launch into the Florida sky after having been down for 2\1/2\ years after the mistakes that should not have been made that took down Columbia, and that 18 years earlier had taken down Challenger. We have a new leader, Michael Griffith, and he is doing a good job. I can tell you that the team is ready and they have scrubbed this orbiter and this stack as it has never been scrubbed before. Even though spaceflight is risky business, they are ready to go. It is an acceptable risk because of the benefits we gather from it. What this amendment does--and I want to say a word about our two colleagues who lead our Armed Services Committee who I think will accept this amendment--it simply says: It is the sense of the Senate that it is in the national interest of the United States to maintain uninterrupted preeminence in human spaceflight. Why? Why are we saying that? Because we could be in a posture that if the space shuttle is shut down in 2010, which is the timeline, and if we did not soon thereafter come with a new vehicle to have human access to space, the new what is called the crew exploration vehicle, which will be a follow-on--it may be in part a derivative of the shuttle stack vehicle, but it will be more like a capsule harkening back to the old days where you have a blunt end that has an ablative heat shield that will burn off in the fiery heat of reentry--that if we don't watch out and we have a hiatus between when we shut down the space shuttle and when the new vehicle flies, one originally that was planned by NASA to be 4 years, which meant it was going to be 6, 7, or 8 years, then we don't have an American vehicle to get into space. If that is not bad enough, who knows what the geopolitics of planet Earth is going to be in the years 2011 to 2018. We may find that those vehicles we rely on to get today, for example, to the space station, when we are down with the American vehicle, may be aligned with somebody else. That is why we want to make sure we have that other vehicle ready about the time we shut down the space shuttle so we will have human access to this international space station and reap the benefits, once it is fully constructed, of all the experimentation and the processing of materials we can uniquely do in the microgravity of Earth's orbit. That is the importance, in this Senator's mind, of this resolution. Before I turn back to my colleague, I want to say a word about our leadership on the Armed Services Committee, and I want the Senator from Virginia to hear this. I want him to know what a great example he and the Senator from Michigan set for the rest of us in the way these two Senators work together so problems that could be so thorny are usually ironed out, especially in dealing with such matters of great importance to our country, such as the defense interests of our country. The way they have worked this is nothing short of miraculous. I would call them Merlin the Magicians. I thank them for the leadership they have shown us. I associate myself with remarks made earlier on the TRICARE amendment for the Guard and Reserves. So often my colleagues have heard me speak with such great pride about the Florida National Guard. They were first into Iraq. They were in Iraq before the war started because they were in there with the special operations troops. For us to give them the health care through TRICARE is exceptionally important. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask the Senator if we can see that photograph of the airplane, the C-130. Would the Senator be more amenable to this situation if he realized that the aircraft called Commando Solo has to fly all the way from Harrisburg, PA, to the Florida Keys on Saturdays to do the broadcasts, and what the Broadcasting Board of Governors is proposing is instead to buy a small aircraft that would be located in the Florida Keys so it would be close by and the broadcasts could be much more frequent? Would the Senator recognize that might be a wise thing?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, we have been through this only a few weeks ago on another appropriations bill. This is the identical amendment that was offered then. It was defeated by a very strong vote of 65 votes against it and 35 votes in favor of it. Senator Dorgan, who is one of the fiscal watchdogs of this Chamber, is clearly well motivated in his attempt to find waste, but I want to lay out why I do not think this is a good place for him to look. Cuba successfully jammed TV signals before, when we were beaming them from a tower located in the Keys or when we were beaming them off of the ionosphere coming down where the Castro government could get a fix on the signal. Likewise, they were successful in jamming it when they could get a fix on a signal coming from a satellite. That is the reason the airplane is so useful. They cannot get a fix on the signal because the airplane is moving. That is why I asked the Senator from North Dakota my question earlier: why is it not reasonable to think that we could save money, which is what the Broadcasting Board of Governors wants to do, instead of flying this C-130 all the way from Pennsylvania to off the coast of Cuba every Saturday? Let us have a smaller aircraft stationed nearby so that it can go more frequently and at much lower cost. Is there any reason why Castro wants to jam the broadcast? He wants to keep the information from getting in, but the Cuban people are hungry for this information. My position on this goes back to when I was 17 years old, when I was sent by this country as a representative of its youth to speak to young people behind the Iron Curtain on Radio Free Europe. We know the success of that program. We know that they tried to jam the broadcast, but some broadcasts got through and were the lifeline for those people who ultimately--we know the story. The Iron Curtain came down. Eliminating this funding would eliminate the Broadcast Board of Governors' radio and TV broadcast operations. With a dictator in Cuba who is trying to keep his people's minds enslaved, as well as their bodies, this is not the time to end these broadcasts. I hope our colleagues will defeat this amendment even more strongly than they defeated the last one. Let us see how our broadcasts operate under this new system. Let us see how, under the new leadership and administration of Radio and TV Marti and all other forms of U.S. outreach and support to the island, this can demonstrate our commitment to the Cuban people and to all the oppressed people around the world. If we were to end our support now we would be turning our backs on the dissidents who have been so brave to sign the petition in the Varela project, a petition signed by over 11,000 courageous Cuban citizens demanding greater freedoms. They made this petition in accordance with Cuban law, and yet were ignored by the Cuban Government. So I urge our colleagues, on behalf of my colleague from Florida and this Senator from Florida, to oppose this amendment.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield?

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, to follow up on one of the things we did accomplish in the Senate, passing last night the Department of Homeland Defense appropriations bill, I want to call to the attention of the Senate three amendments this Senator from Florida had attached to the bill which were passed. They regard FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This, of course, has been extremely important to the Nation, but particularly to my State of Florida, having gone through the experience of four hurricanes last year within a 6-week period. Originally, FEMA did a very good job. A lot of that was as a result of the lessons we had learned from a decade previously from the monster hurricane of 1992, Hurricane Andrew, when one level of Government was not talking to another level. Those lessons learned were applied. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of those four hurricanes that hit Florida within that 6-week period, FEMA responded, and responded well, working with the State of Florida and the local governments, which in this case for those four hurricanes included most of the counties of Florida. Little did I know, going into August a year ago, I was going to end up visiting almost every emergency operations center in the State of Florida. But that is the fate that befell our State. But then, in the long run, FEMA started dropping the ball. It was not because they did not have enough money. We appropriated $13.5 billion-- that is with a ``B''--for hurricane relief. Of that $13.5 billion, $8.5 billion went to FEMA. It was not that it did not have enough money. But they started sending it to the wrong places. They sent over $30 million to Miami-Dade County, when in fact the hurricane winds never blew in Miami-Dade County. So one of the amendments has to do with them being required, under law, to report back to the committee in the Senate and the committee in the House on all of the changes they have made in response to the recent inspector general's report that named all of these deficiencies in FEMA. One of them was sending millions of dollars into a county where the hurricane winds did not blow. Another example was they paid for over 300 funerals, but the number of deaths directly attributable or even indirectly attributable to the hurricane was about 125. Why are we paying for that? Over and over--I cannot tell you how many county commissioners and mayors were calling us, pleading: Why won't FEMA reimburse us for the debris removal? Over and over we had people saying: FEMA is not sending us any relief. What is the purpose of FEMA? It is to help people when they are in a time of need and it is authorized under law. Well, lo and behold, do you know what the most recent one is? It is exactly the reverse. Just a month ago, FEMA sent out $27 million in payments to people; and now, as of 2 weeks ago, it is demanding the people send it back. They said they made a mistake, that they were not eligible for that--$27 million? Well, thank goodness the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Senate, at my request, had an investigation and a hearing. They allowed the senior Senator from Florida to be the leadoff witness. Of course, I chronicled a number of these instances. So we attached to the legislation that passed last night--the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill--amendments that will require FEMA to report back to these committees on the changes that have been made in response to these deficiencies that were noticed by the Inspector General's report. But we also put on an amendment that will require FEMA to issue consistent and uniform guidelines for the local governments regarding their reimbursement for hurricane debris removal. This was what was so frustrating to our local governments because in one county FEMA would reimburse the local government for the debris removal and in another county it would not. You had this inconsistency. So in our oversight of the executive branch, it is our responsibility to make it. I am happy to say we passed this on this bill. The third amendment was just a commonsense amendment. Do you know what happened? Last year, they were hiring inspectors to go into homes. The inspector general's report pointed out that those inspectors did not have very much training. Therefore, they were just writing checks left and right, not knowing what they were doing. They would write, for example, a reimbursement for a demolished house and all the accoutrements and complete furnishings, but, in fact, that house did not have any furnishings. If the inspector had asked, FEMA would have known. Well, that is going to be dealt with, with the amendment, with them coming back and reporting on the inspector general's report. But do you know what else happened? FEMA allowed inspectors to go in, examine a house, and make a determination. But, lo and behold, they then came back, and those inspectors bought those houses at bargain basement prices, when the homeowner was desperate for cash, at below fair market value. The inspector was profiting as a result of the inspector having been hired, representing the U.S. Government, FEMA, to go in there and help the people, and then coming around and taking advantage of the people in their depleted condition. So we added an amendment, last night, that is going to prohibit those inspectors from entering into contracts with people when they inspect their property. It is common sense. There is one thing more I want to inform our colleagues in the Senate. When I arrived at the emergency operations center in the State of Florida Sunday afternoon, just before the hurricane hit--at the time when it was about 3 hours out from landfall, it was a category 4--we thought the poor people of Pensacola were going to be absolutely devastated again from the effects they had 10 months ago with Hurricane Ivan, when it hit with such ferociousness. Well, in those intervening hours, by landfall, it had come down from a category 4 to a category 2. By the way, the differential between 145 miles an hour and 125 miles an hour does not sound like much--that is 20 miles an hour--but the differential is exponential in its destructive force. When I arrived at the emergency operations center--and we were so apprehensive-- immediately, several people in the State of Florida EOC came up to me and said: Senator, we want to thank you for standing up and opposing legislation that has been filed in the Senate. It is legislation that was referred to our Senate Commerce Committee, legislation that would require the National Weather Service to take their Web site off the Internet, under the legislation filed, if there is a competing weather service offered by a commercial entity. In this particular legislation, it is a commercial entity in the State of the Senator who offered the legislation called AccuWeather. What those people in the Florida EOC wanted me to know was that AccuWeather, on Saturday before the hurricane hit on Sunday, had been predicting it was going in to New Orleans or Mississippi, whereas the National Weather Service, through the National Hurricane Center, had that track coming straight to an area between Pensacola and Ft. Walton Beach, exactly the track where the hurricane hit. If we had not had the National Weather Service accuracy available to the public of Florida--and they were getting their information from this other entity--the people of the gulf coast of Florida would have let down their guard and then, all of a sudden, they would have gotten hit. There was a lot less destruction this time and, thank the good Lord, no loss of life because people heeded the warnings: Get out. The day before the hurricane, there was a massive evacuation, very orderly. We did not lose one life. Here again is another reason why we can be thankful we do have such experts. And never, under the guise of privatization, should we say a governmental service that often is the difference between life and death in my State of Florida should be knocked off the Internet. To the contrary, I can tell you last year, the National Weather Service Web site got 9 billion--that is with a ``b''--hits in that 6-week period. It is a governmental service I am proud of, and I am proud of all the people at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. I have called Max Mayfield, the director, to tell him how proud I am of all those people. They were right on. We never want to focus on that centerline of the track because Mother Nature has a mind of her own. We want to focus on that cone of possible landfall. But in this case, the National Hurricane Center was right on track. My congratulations to them. I thank my colleagues for the passage of these amendments regarding FEMA last night on the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I have been advised by my colleague from North Dakota that he would like to follow me, so I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from North Dakota follow me for a period of 20 minutes. And then it is my understanding that the Senator from Ohio is in the queue, the Senator from Ohio being Mr. DeWine. So I ask unanimous consent that be the order.