James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) indicated, this legislation is in the great spirit of our committee, a bipartisan product. We worked together long and hard to bring to the House a reauthorization of the Coast Guard. I commend the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman LoBiondo), the chairman of the subcommittee, for his dedication, his commitment to the Coast Guard, and for not only legislative reasons but for personal reasons. The gentleman has a long history with the Coast Guard. I concur with the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young). Flashing across television screens, across the country since the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina has been the extraordinary accomplishment of the U.S. Coast Guard in responding to the needs of citizens stranded, devastated by the storm. Some 32 years ago, I took the opportunity to spend a day with the 8th Coast Guard district commandant and his staff and reviewed the entire range of operations of district 8 in their 26-State area of responsibility, not just New Orleans or the gulf. It is 26 States up to Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, the river system for which that district has jurisdiction. The men and women of the Coast Guard are extraordinarily dedicated, skilled, professional, committed to their work. I walked through every stage of their preparation for the homeland security responsibilities that the Coast Guard carries out, as well as the aids to navigation, search and rescue, drug interdiction, immigration responsibilities that the 8th Coast Guard district shoulders and carries out so effectively. On Saturday, August 28, aircraft from air stations in New Orleans, Houston and Mobile flew over the destroyed gulf coast and over New Orleans. They immediately began lifting survivors, transporting them to safety and calling for reinforcements. But as the devastating scope of the disaster became known, every Coast Guard air station around the U.S. began sending aircraft and extra air crews to support the rescue operations. The Coast Guard had equipment 24 hours a day on scene. Cutters and crews were brought in. The buoy tenders were necessary. All aids to navigation were just blown to smithereens: either sunk, devastated, smashed, or some of them blown way inland. The Coast Guard had to go back and redeploy all those aids to navigation. The air station for the Coast Guard in New Orleans was flooded. Its roof, or a great deal of the roof at any rate, was peeled back. The Coast Guard Air Facility Mobile had damage to their roof, lost their operation space, their maintenance space, power, and telephone communications. Station Gulfport of the Coast Guard was destroyed. The Integrated Support Command in New Orleans was flooded and destroyed. Buoys and aids to navigation throughout the region of the gulf just smashed, and pushed way off station in most cases. The vessel traffic service radar in Burwick Bay was destroyed. The Coast Guard even had to evacuate their eighth district headquarters in New Orleans and move to Saint Louis. Nonetheless, the Coast Guard rescued 6,500 people. 6,500 people. Rescue swimmers, and we saw this on our screens, were dropped from helicopters to collect people from houses, to maneuver around power lines, hack through attic roofs with axes, and endure foul and contaminated water. One helicopter crew saved 150 people in one shift; another 100 people in a single shift. The Coast Guard saw that the storm was coming. They have prepared for it year after year after year, for this or any kind of storm. Training for the Coast Guard is not just an exercise on paper nor on computers, as I saw as I walked through each of the stations at District 8. It is real life, day to day. And because of that professionalism, the chairman and I both argued on this floor 3 years ago that the Coast Guard should not be put in the Department of Homeland Security. It ought to be kept in its status within the Department of Transportation with a considerable degree of latitude to carry out their responsibilities. Unfortunately, our commonsense counsel was not heeded in the shaping of the Department of Homeland Security. The Coast Guard, nonetheless, overcame bureaucracy to respond to the needs of people in sharp contrast to the disarray of FEMA, which left Americans startled, stunned, disgusted and, ultimately, the President in a position to recall his director of FEMA and to redirect operations and bring a new leader in. We did not see any of that with the Coast Guard. In fact, the Coast Guard was asked to dispatch an admiral to take over and run the rescue operations in the gulf. We keep adding responsibilities to the Coast Guard, but we do not provide them with sufficient personnel, equipment, and funding; and that is what this legislation will do. It will authorize $8.7 billion for the upcoming fiscal year for the Coast Guard. Of that amount, $5.6 billion is for operating expenses; $1.9 billion for the acquisition, construction and improvement program, part of which is the Integrated Deepwater System to replace their cutters and their aircraft, to keep older ships and aircraft operating; $24 million for research and development; $35.9 million to remove and alter bridges that are obstructions to safe navigation; and $12 million to clean up environmental and pollution problems at Coast Guard facilities. When I was elected to Congress and took office in 1975 and served on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee and on the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, along with the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), who preceded me by a term, that is where we developed our friendship and relationship over these many years. There were 35,000 officers and enlisted personnel in the Coast Guard in that year. Today, and in the intervening years, we have added 27 new functions for the Coast Guard, but there are only now 40,000 Coast Guard personnel. They have increased only 5,000 in the last 31 years. Yet we expect the Coast Guard to carry out all these 27 new functions, plus their historic functions, with this rather limited personnel and limited budget. We make a big step forward today by increasing the funding, providing substantially for the acquisition of equipment that the Coast Guard needs and, hopefully, to support the personnel that they require to carry out their functions. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan).

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), an admirer of the Coast Guard.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I agree with the chairman about not reaching back. We confronted this issue in aviation in the legislation implementing the recommendations of the Pan Am 103 Commission requiring 10-year criminal background checks but not going further than that and having consideration of amnesty for those who paid their dues to society. We faced that. But what we are dealing with here, as we did in the Maritime Security Act, the Port Security Grants Act, as we know it, is to allow the Secretary to go back for espionage, for sedition, for treason, for items that are related to security matters. The law applies to felonies in which the Secretary decides the individual is a terrorism security risk. If the chairman is saying withhold on the amendment this time and we will work to include this language with these limitations in the conference, I will take the chairman at his word.

Mr. OBERSTAR. The airline provisions, yes; and the HAZMAT section as well.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Alaska.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of my amendment is to square what we are doing in the Coast Guard reauthorization for background checks with what we have already done in the Transportation Security Administration with respect to felony convictions of personnel to be hired by the agency in the TSA legislation concerning governing aviation. There is no limitation on the authority of the Secretary of Homeland Security to go back beyond 7 years into the job applicant's background for convictions relating to espionage, sedition, treason, murder, conspiracy to attempt crimes; and we ought to have the same provisions in the Coast Guard security responsibilities and not prohibit the Secretary to go back beyond 7 years to look for violations that relate to espionage, sedition, treason, and crimes listed in our Homeland Security Act that relate to terrorism or State laws that are comparable.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. OBERSTAR. If the gentleman will further yield, that is generally what our concern is, that they should not shoulder all these additional costs. I think there should be some way that we can reach accommodation when we go to conference with the other body on accommodating the gentleman's concern.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is proposing a very thoughtful amendment and making a very reasonable request, that the Secretary reimburse local port authorities, facility operators, State and local agencies when the security threat goes above green, if it goes to yellow, orange or red, and there are additional costs shouldered by local governments, that the Federal Government should pick up 50 percent of that cost. Is that the thrust of the amendment?

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. My colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo) a moment ago cited the plight of elementary and secondary schoolchildren and the need to invest in education requirements to help them through this traumatic period. My area in our Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is the highways, the bridges, the water and sewer systems, the port facilities, the Coast Guard and, indeed, FEMA itself. We should understand, as I said last Friday on passage of the first increment, that this is a down payment. That $10.5 billion was a down payment. This $52 billion is a down payment on the needs of the gulf, the need for restoration of the wetlands, the buffers that slow the advance of storms, that prevent the erosion of the coastline. But there is also a need to restore the buoys in the harbor, to replot the sandbars and the channels in the harbor and the riverway. There is a need to invest more in the Corps of Engineers to reevaluate the levees and the protective systems, the riprap along the coast of the river banks of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. The causeway is under severe difficulty. The roadways throughout the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama gulf areas are in serious difficulty. The storm surge has taken those out. We are going to need a huge investment in highways, bridges, water and sewer and sewage treatment facilities in the city of New Orleans and in other communities. Our committee stands ready to address those issues, but we will need a comprehensive plan to address these issues, and I urge the Committee on Appropriations and the Office of Management and Budget to address that very issue of laying out a plan, so we think constructively into the future. Parallel to the tragedy of human and physical disruption in the aftermath of Katrina, is the obvious disarray of the Federal Government's response. FEMA should have been in charge--but they didn't seem to be. For a long while, no Federal agency appeared to be in charge, coordinating the recovery efforts. I predicted that this would happen when the Department of Homeland Security was created, with FEMA included in it. I argued against the inclusion of FEMA and offered an amendment to delete FEMA from the proposed new department during floor consideration of the DOHS bill. I include at this point in the Record my remarks from the Record of July 25, 2002, in support of my amendment. Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, the Brookings Institution studied this proposal for a Department of Homeland Security and reached the same conclusion as former FEMA Director James Lee With with this observation: ``There is very little day-to-day synergy between the preventive and protective functions of the border and transportation security entities in the Department and the emergency preparedness and response functions a consolidated FEMA contributes. There is, therefore, little to be gained in bringing these very different entities under the same organizational roof. And the costs are not insignificant. ``FEMA,'' the report says, ``would likely become less effective in performing its current mission in case of natural disasters, as time, effort, and attention are inevitably diverted to other tasks within the larger organization.'' Prior to the time when we enacted the Stafford Act which statutorily established FEMA in 1979, after we had shed its disaster, civil defense role, the Federal Government had had no coordinated or effective response to natural disasters, but FEMA became that response agency. Now, if we move this really effective agency into a big bureaucracy, we know what happens. We all know in this Chamber what happens when a small agency gets into a big department and the big appetite for more money to be shuffled around with fungible dollars that can go from one agency to the next and suddenly, FEMA's will just dissipate and fritter away. Mr. Chairman, I am in the enviable position of rising in support of the unanimous position of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in reporting out our responsibilities toward homeland security, and that is the committee reported out recommendation to keep FEMA as an independent agency. All right. This is July 2002. Let us fast forward to July 2003. The majority has prevailed. FEMA is a box in the mammoth bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security. Flood waters are swirling around your city. You call for help. You get the Department of Homeland Security. The switchboard sends your call to the Under Secretary's office which looks up ``disaster'' on their organizational chart and sends you to the Congressional Liaison Office, which then promises to get a message back to you in 24 hours. Eventually, they find FEMA, by which time you are stranded on the roof of your house waving a white handkerchief and screaming for help. FEMA, the word comes back, sorry, is looking for suspected terrorists some place in the hinterland of America and will get back to you as soon as we can. This Department of Homeland Security is a bureaucracy in search of a mission. Do not give them FEMA's mission. It is too important to waste on this misguided department. There is that old barnyard saying, ``if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' FEMA ain't broke. Don't fix it by ruining it and sending it into the Department of Homeland Sccurity. It is nimble, quick, lean, effective as an independent agency today. Keep it that way. Help your city, help your State, help yourself, help your firefighter by keeping FEMA as an independent. agency where it belongs and has been effective.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, 10 days ago Hurricane Katrina slammed into America's Gulf Coast. The devastation we have seen is unprecedented. While the Federal Government's response to this devastation has itself been a management catastrophe, I have been heartened by the overwhelming response of our fellow Americans to the victims of Katrina. People have opened their homes and their hearts to their victims. They have donated food, clothing, and money. The goodness of our citizens to one another, especially in their time of need, should make all Americans proud. With a heavy heart, but with confidence in a better future, I join all my colleagues today in expressing my personal deep sense of sorrow and offering the condolences of a nation to all the victims of Hurricane Katrina. All who have watched these tragic events unfold before us on TV are inspired by, and in awe of, the resilience of the New Orleanians, their courage under adversity, their extraordinary self-sacrifice in mutual assistance, their love of their city, and their determination to rebuild their lives. I pledge my enduring efforts--and I know that my colleagues on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure join in this pledge--to provide New Orleans and the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, the resources necessary for the reconstruction efforts. Today we must remain focused on the recovery from the devastation wrought by Katrina. However, in the coming weeks and months, this Congress must investigate the Government's disastrous response to this disaster. To begin that process, Congresswoman Norton and I have introduced a bill, H.R. 3659, to reestablish FEMA as an independent agency outside of the control of the bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security. The Government's first priority must be to protect its citizens. It has failed to honor that responsibility, and we must insure that such failure never happens again.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the emergency supplemental appropriations for hurricane disaster relief. The $10.5 billion that we have acted upon today will be a downpayment, and we must recognize it as such, a downpayment on a much longer-term investment that we will have to make to restore the communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. I commend the leadership, majority and minority, of both the House and the Senate, for this timely response, as we did in reacting to the attacks of September 11, 2001. I especially appreciate the persistence of our minority leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), in pressing for action by Congress this week, not waiting until after return from the Labor Day recess. The massive disaster unfolding before the Nation's eyes on television has both statewide and personal dimensions. In my family, it is very personal. My wife, Jean, is a member of the third generation of a long- standing New Orleans family. Her brothers, Charles and Edward Denechaud, live there, their homes inundated by water, perhaps irretrievable. Jean's classmates and dearest friends, still in New Orleans, all are experiencing inexpressible loss. My heart goes out to our House colleague and our colleague on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, my good friend, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), whose home in Mississippi is devastated, just kindling, and to the former majority leader of the Senate, Trent Lott, a good friend of mine, whom I have known since he came to Congress. His home, likewise, was devastated. It shows that the hurricane respects no status and no condition of existence, but has treated rich and poor, famous and infamous, alike, terribly, drastically; that recovery will take years and most damage will be irreparable because of the destructive effects of water standing for days, perhaps even weeks, and toxic polluted water at that. There are inspiring stories of humanitarian response, such as my good friend from Duluth, a businessman, Jeno Paulucci, who has sent truckloads of thousands of bottles of desperately needed water to the disaster area. I want to put this issue in another context, a larger context, of natural disasters in the United States. Over the last 20 years, from 1980 through 2000, this Congress has appropriated $35 billion, $35,668,000,000 to be exact. Insured losses totaled an additional $115 billion, for a total of $150.6 billion in FEMA-insured disaster assistance for hurricanes and earthquakes and other similar tragedies. But what is most striking is that the period of 1993 through 2000, in just 7 years, the figure is $28.4 billion in disaster assistance. It suggests that we are going to continue to see disasters of enormous proportions, increasing in cost and intensity over the years ahead. The city of New Orleans is divided into 13 levee districts by the Corps of Engineers to provide flood protection from the Mississippi River to the south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north, as well as protection from hurricane and storm damage from frequent smaller-scale storms. Two portions of these levees failed, for reasons yet unknown, during Hurricane Katrina, which has caused significance flooding of six of the levee districts and minor flooding of the remaining seven. Once the water entered the Orleans Parish, the flood waters from Lake Pontchartrain were able to move through the streets to other portions the city relatively quickly; and the Corps of Engineers, as soon as the breaches are sealed, will be able to begin pumping the water at a rate of one-half inch of water per hour. In addition to levee protection, the City of New Orleans also contains a system of pumping stations which enable the City and the Corps of Engineers to dewater portions of the city when necessary. However, the lack of electricity in the City and surrounding regions has made the majority of these pumps inoperable, further complicating the issue of flooding in the region. Currently, the Corps of Engineers is attempting to perform two tasks--to close up the two breaches in the levee system, and to restore power to the City to operate the pumps. Once the breaches have been sealed, and the pumps are operable, the Corps expects that it can dewater the region at a pace of roughly \1/2\ inch of water per hour. The Corps may also purposefully breech non-vital sections of the levees surrounding the City to aid in the dewatering process. The Corps has had difficulty, thus far, in sealing the existing levee breaches due to a height differential in water levels between Lake Pontchartrain and the City. (As of September 1st the lake levels in Lake Pontchartrain were 1 to 2 feet above normal, but falling at a rate of 0.05 to 0.10 feet per hour.) Recent reports suggest, however, that these levels are coming into equilibrium, and once that occurs, the Corps will have an easier time of repairing the breach. As of September 1st the Corps reports that it has contracted with a pile driving operation to insert new piles in the breech openings, and is continuing to use sand bags to halt the flow of flood waters. The Corps is beginning with the 17th Street Canal and will then move to the London Avenue Canal. Support for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) As part of the National Response Plan, the Corps is executing missions in the areas of ice and water delivery to regional warehouses, emergency power assessment and generation, debris, removal, emergency roofing repair, temporary housing, and the unwatering of the City of New Orleans. The total value of the Corps mission assignments is $135 million. A total of 505 Corps military and civilian personnel are in support of the FEMA missions. The 249th Engineer Battalion (prime Power) his 44 soldiers deployed and has initiated emergency power assessments of critical facilities. Current Status of the Mississippi River and other Ports (as of August 31st) The Mississippi River is open from the Sea Buoy to Mile Marker 507 to tug and barge traffic only. Deep draft ships may move within anchorages if they have pilots on board., The GIWW is open from Mile Marker 177 (west of Harvey Locks) to Mile Marker 89 (east of the Harvey Locks). The Ports of Mobile, Gulfport, Pascagoula, Pensacola, Destin/Panama City are closed. All bridges, floodgates and locks are closed in vicinity of the Port of New Orleans. New Orleans and Mobile District crews are surveying the river from New Orleans to ocean (New Orleans) and the GIWW (Mobile). Corps hopper dredge WHEELER is standing by in New Orleans ready to dredge as necessary. It is enroute to Head of Passes today. Corps Dustpan dredge Jadwin is underway from Vicksburg to be ready for any dredging requirement. Industrial Canal not open due to bridges being underwater, locks are operational with--auxiliary generators. Baptiste Collette channel will be surveyed and dredged to offer alternate route around industrial Canal. Port Fourchon will be surveyed and channel dredging, clearance of debris and vessels will be evaluated to ensure support vessels to offshore oil industry. President's Budget Request for the Army Corps of Engineers In March, as the Subcommittee prepared an analysis of the President's budget request for the Corps of Engineers for fiscal year 2006. In this analysis, the Subcommittee highlighted the President's failure to adequately fund the Nation's water-related infrastructure, including the infrastructure constructed and maintained by the Corps. The Subcommittee concluded that the administration's budget request failed to recognize that continued investment in the Nation's water- related infrastructure is a key element for simulating and improving the U.S. economy, as well as protecting the lives and livelihoods of those living in flood prone areas, alleviating the potential for tremendous economic and personal hardship. The passage of time and years of inadequate funding for maintenance and replacement of Corps projects have taken a toll on the Nation's water related infrastructure, minimizing the utility of many projects, and setting-up the possibility for catastrophic failure of essential navigation linkages or flood protection projects. While it is too soon to know what caused the failure of the levee system surrounding the City of New Orleans, the question remains, did the levee fail due to lack of proper maintenance or deterioration, and could this failure have been avoided with increased maintenance funding for the Corps of Engineers? The administration's budget request for fiscal year 2006 marked the fifth attempt in as many years to cut funding for the Corps. This pattern of shrinking budget requests and repeated attempts to under- fund the Nation's premier water-related infrastructure agency, reflects a lack of commitment to addressing the economic, ecological, and humanitarian needs of the county. In the fiscal year 2006 request, the total budget request for the Corps was 10 percent less ($527 million) than the appropriation for fiscal year 2005, The greatest single programmatic cut was in the construction account, which was down 11 percent ($207 million), with all on-going construction projects (with the exception of dam safety projects) facing a reduction or elimination of funding, This account includes funding for small flood control projects under existing authorities--a program that has been heavily subscribed in recent years, In relative terms, the greatest percentage cut proposed in the President's budget was to the General Investigations account, which proposed a 34-percent reduction ($48,7 million), This significant reduction would prevent the Corps from initiating or completing future project recommendations, and is part of the administration's stated objective to reduce the backlog of under-funded projects by slowing the rate of addition of newer projects, Finally, and most troubling, was the administration's proposal to cut funding for vital operations and maintenance at Corps projects by 6 percent, or $119,8 million, Facilities in the Corps' inventory are rising both in number and in age, This translates into a need to devote greater resources to protect the taxpayers' investment, and to make necessary engineering and technological improvements where necessary, Last year, the Corps' own estimates noted that the budget request for operations and maintenance would need to increased by 50 percent to addressed delayed maintenance that is vitally needed, and will only cost more in the long term, Without vital maintenance, Corps facilities run the risk of catastrophic failure, as may have been the case with the New Orleans levee system, The Water Resources Development Act and Coastal Louisiana Restoration: In July, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2864, the Water Resources Development Act of 2005, This legislation included an authorization for the first stage of the comprehensive restoration of the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA). The LCA includes about 30 percent of the Nation's coastal marshes, but about 90 percent of the coastal land loss in the lower 48 States is occurring in this area. Over 1 million acres of the Louisiana coastal area have become open water since the 1930's. Another one-third of a million acres could be lost in the next 50 years unless corrective actions are taken. The Louisiana coastal wetlands exist in the interface of the freshwater from coastal rivers including the Mississippi River and the saltwater of the Gulf of Mexico. This area once included more extensive marsh and barrier islands that served as a protective zone and buffered the effects of large storms that would otherwise severely damage inland areas. This natural protective barrier has been severely reduced. There are thousands of oil and gas wells along the coast with an associated network of pipelines and channels causing salt-water intrusion into a fresh water environment, destroying thousands of acres of coastal wetlands, and increasing the process of land subsidence and coastal erosion. In addition, the flood control and navigation projects that keep the Mississippi River in a single channel have cut off the freshwater and sediment flows that historically created the coastal marsh where the river has overflowed its banks. Channelization of the Mississippi River has also increased the velocity of the water, depositing sediment off the Continental Shelf rather than distributing it along the deltaic plain. This funneling of nutrient-laden sediment through a single river channel has also exacerbated a hypoxic condition (dead zone) in an area of the Gulf of Mexico. There is approximately $100 billion of critical energy, transportation, and industrial infrastructure in the Louisiana coastal area that is at increasing risk from storm damage if coastal erosion continues unchecked. This includes major ports on the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Port Fourchon, a major port for offshore oil and gas exploration, 1,806 miles of navigation channel, 42,000 oil and gas wells and 4,200 miles of pipelines, 2,500 miles of highways, several of the Nation's largest oil refineries, and over 300,000 acres of agricultural lands. In the 1990s, the Corps of Engineers, in partnership with the State of Louisiana, designed a comprehensive project for the long-term reversal of the loss of coastal wetlands in the State. This project, estimated to cost approximately $20 billion over the next 30 years, was designed to restore thousands of acres of coastal wetlands by diverting water and sediment from the Mississippi River into the coastal areas of Louisiana, attempting to mimic the deltaic forces which originally created this region. In addition, the project would attempt to build upon the successes of the Coastal Wetland Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, CWPPRA, though a continuation of rebuilding strategic barrier islands and other coastal protections to provide further protection of the coastal region. The Water Resources Development Act of 2005 authorizes the first installment of the LCA project, called the LCA Near-Term Plan. This plan, estimated to cost approximately $2 billion over 10 years, would authorize the first five major projects of the longer term plan. In addition, this authorization would establish a process for the development of other future critical projects for the protection, conservation, and restoration of the coastal Louisiana ecosystem, as well as the selection of demonstration projects, and projects for the beneficial use of dredged material to test innovative technologies, models, and methods which may prove valuable in the future. For the LCA Near-Term project, the cost share of constructing environmental restoration projects is 65 percent Federal, 35 percent nonfederal. The non-federal partner for this project is the State of Louisiana. Lake Pontchartrain Basin Restoration program In 2000, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approved legislation to create the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Restoration program. This program, established within the Environmental Protection Agency, EPAA, and modeled under the National Estuaries Program, was designed to restore the ecological health of the Basin by developing and funding restoration projects and related scientific and public education projects. The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Restoration program focuses on water quality concerns within the Lake, and not hurricane and storm damage reduction projects, which are performed by the Corps. However, as the Corps begins to dewater the City of New Orleans, the issue of water quality may be a concern because of the pollutants, such as domestic sewage and toxic chemicals, contained in the flood waters that will need to be discharged back into the Lake.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying, success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan. We bring to this House success with at least 435 parents, starting with the Speaker of the House, who is a strong advocate for the original bill that the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) and I introduced, and nearly all of the members of our committee, for $375 billion, to respond to the Nation's transportation needs over the next 6 years. We did that in 2003 at a time when gasoline was selling for $1.34 a gallon. I appreciate the Speaker being an advocate for a robust investment, but I even more appreciate the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) for advocating before his conference this level of investment that we did not pick out of the thin air, but that was recommended by the Department of Transportation as directed in TEA-21 to evaluate paving condition, bridge condition, safety needs, and congestion across the country; and they came back with their estimates, after consulting with all of the States and all of the transportation experts, what it should be, and we did what we thought should be. When the chairman broke his pick on that number after vigorous advocacy, we agreed to scale the bill back incrementally, further down the ladder to below $300 billion, and then down to $275 billion. We brought that bill to the House floor last year, and it passed; we went to conference with the Senate and they could come to no resolution, as we quaintly say in this body. We had a little higher threshold. We came back this year, and while TV and newspaper stories report conflict and gridlock in Congress, there is no black smoke coming out of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure committee room. There is no discord or disagreement on how to approach policy issues. They are resolved in a thoughtful, constructive, and positive way that brought a bill that every one of us on both sides of the aisle could support, as if there were no aisle. For that, I express my deep appreciation and admiration for the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young), whose patience nurtured the process along, whose impatience prodded the other body along, whose smile deflected critics, and whose scowl sent them skittering. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri), the chairman of the subcommittee, whose thoughtful and deliberative approach over many years on this committee contributed enormously to our work product. The ranking member, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), plunged into this subject matter, mastered the issues, and became a vigorous and constructive advocate of all of the principal features of the bill. The gentleman has been an extraordinary, constructive partner. This bill, in the end, was a measure so loved that all who were interested came to it bearing gifts and adorned it like a tree. At the end, one by one, we took those ornaments off until there was only one remaining last night; and that one, too, has been put back in its box to await another vehicle, perhaps a future omnibus bill where that ornament will be plucked out and hung on another tree. For now we have a tree of solid oak for this century, an investment in transportation, highways and bridges and transit and safety, tripling the investment in safety that we had in TEA-21. Most importantly, this bill will move us in the direction of reclaiming our productivity in the marketplace and in the world economy. In 1987, logistics consumed 17 percent of our gross domestic product, that is, moving people and goods. Last year, logistics consumed 9 percent of our gross domestic product, and that is a $750 billion a year gain in productivity, meaning it is less costly to move people, less costly to move goods. Take the example of UPS for whom a 5-minute delay nationwide costs $40 million. We will make an assault upon our slipping productivity, keep momentum going, address the congestion points across America and move America forward. This is a good bill for America. It is good for people, it is good for economic sectors, and we all ought to pass this bill this morning and move America forward. Vote for the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, this item which the gentleman has raised was an item requested by Senate conferees on which Senate conferees voted and asked us to consider. We were not aware at the time that it was a BRAC item. We learned about it subsequently. Our review of the matter reveals that one runway at the Air Force base was closed; the other runway is active and still operating as a military facility. This language would simply keep the other one runway operating for a variety of purposes, multiuse purposes, at the airport.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I concur in the gentleman's feelings about this matter. It should not have been an item in a conference report on a transportation bill of this magnitude, but as we all know, these things make their way in. We did not have full information. Our information subsequently is that the base was not closed, but that one runway was shut down, and this language was to open that one runway. There will be a further opportunity in a technical correction to address the concerns of the gentleman from Connecticut, and I am confident that the chairman will further consult on the matter.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?