Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I was aware of the editorial, but I do not remember all of the reasons. And as I go on and speak, it might help me if the Senator would be able to pose each of those points as a question, and then we could talk about it as I go forward. I would be pleased to yield to the Senator for a question on each of those points, if the Senator has a question, but only in the form of a question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am aware of the fact, and I will answer this question, I am painfully aware of the fact, as a Senator from Minnesota, that the mayors from Grand Forks, ND, and East Grand Forks, MN, and maybe some other mayors will be here tomorrow to say to the Congress, the time to act is now. And that is what I have tried to do today on the floor of the Senate, to say that as well. That is what the Senator from North Dakota has said today and has been saying for a good, long period of time. Mr. President, I hope that by holding the floor for a while this afternoon that in a small but hopefully significant way I have been able to speak for and to fight for and to help people in my State. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Yes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will yield for a final question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Well, Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota raises a very important question that I will respond to. And the question that he raises has to do with the effect of the delay both in a material sense in terms of economic resources but also in almost as serious a way, the way in which it erodes people's--it is personal-- People need some certainty. People need to be able to plan for the future. People need to get through this. This is a very difficult time. And our failure to act does not give people that confidence, does not give people that support. Moreover, I say to all my colleagues, in responding to the question from the Senator from North Dakota, the failure to act, the failure to get help to people, the playing of political games, has done an awful lot of harm. It has soured people and eroded people's confidence. That is a terrible mistake. Mr. President, I say to my colleague from North Dakota that I am about ready to yield the floor in any case.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased to yield for a question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to respond to the questions because this is exactly what is going on. The Senator is raising these questions, and I am responding. And I thank my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, because this is again another area that I really did not speak about and I should have. It has been wonderful to see different school districts, a neighboring school district taking students and making sure they do not have to drop out of school, making sure they can graduate. That has been happening in Minnesota and North Dakota. That is the goodness in people. I do not see much goodness in this Congress right now. I do not see much goodness in the House. I think we make a mistake when we go on vacation and do not come through for people. I am aware of the fact that these schools are now waiting for some assistance for the extra costs that they have incurred in taking in other students and making sure those students graduate. And so I say to my colleague, I am aware of this, but I am glad he has emphasized this in the question that he has put to me.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased to yield for a question from the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senator from North Dakota has posed that question to me because I have been remiss in not focusing on livestock producers. The importance of funding that is not in the pipeline has everything in the world to do with whether our ranchers and producers are going to be able to get back on their feet. So I say to the Senator, yes, I am aware of it. That is yet another example of families in our States--agricultural producers, who work so hard and are waiting for some help. And I say to the Senator from North Dakota, earlier I quoted him because I heard the Senator say, the question is, how many more days do people have to wait? How many more days do the homeowners have to wait? How many more days do the small businesses have to wait? How many more days do ranchers, livestock producers have to wait? So I am aware of that.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield for a question from the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I will keep speaking.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from North Dakota, if my colleague has a question, we will put it in the form of a question. Mr. President, I will, in any case, just to save my colleague from Missouri some frustration--I am going to yield the floor in just a moment. I am going to finish up. I am going to respond to some questions that my colleague from North Dakota has put to me. And I will yield to questions from the Senator from North Dakota only for questions, but I intend to finish in just a few moments, I say to my colleague. I will be yielding the floor in about 5 minutes or so. I will yield for a question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. That is what I have done. And I have the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yielded for a question. I made it crystal clear it was a question. The Senator from North Dakota asked me whether I was aware.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I have the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I respond to my colleague that this is also an important point. The buyout of the homes in the floodway is key to the future for people. And the only way this can be done is through the CDBG money that is being held up right now. And I say to my colleague from North Dakota, who knows this so well, that the awful thing is that so many people do not know where they stand. They do not know whether to move, not to move, where they are going to have a home. They do not know where they are going to be, where their children are going to be? People have been through enough, I would say to my colleague. Why do we want to heap more pain on the people who have already been through so much pain? That is what is unforgivable about this delay. That is what is unforgivable about political games. That is what is unforgivable about our failure to just get the relief to people, to get this emergency supplemental bill passed. It is an emergency. Just get the disaster relief to the people.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am. It is a very important point. I say to my colleague from North Dakota that the key thing--and both efforts are equally important--that people need the short-term relief, but people need to think about how they rebuild their lives and whether they have a future. And that is what is so unconscionable about this delay and the House going on vacation before getting this work done. I would say that to my colleague.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague that actually the conference committee is meeting to do their work right now and that goes on right now. Believe me you, when the conference committee finishes its work and we get this piece of legislation, then we will move on it right away and I will not be on the floor then. I think my colleague confuses matters a little bit in the terms of the sequence of all of this. I remind my colleague one more time that the only reason--we should not be ahistoric. We only have to go to the question, why am I on the floor now? The only reason I am on the floor is because after all the work that we did in a bipartisan way to get help to people who really needed some certainty that they would receive some assistance, the House of Representatives' leadership decided not to do the work. They did not agree to let through what we do not disagree on. They did not do their work, and they went on vacation. Now we are back here and I am on the floor of the Senate today, you bet, to signal to colleagues in the House and my colleagues here, let's get it done and get this bill out and stop playing games. As to the inconvenience, toward my colleagues on other legislation which is important, I am really sorry, but in all due respect I do not think there is anybody here that is as inconvenienced by my holding the floor for a little bit of time today as are the people of Minnesota and the Dakotas. They are in the ones inconvenienced. They were inconvenienced by the House leadership refusing to do the work and just going on vacation. They have been inconvenienced by the games that people have played with this, attaching amendments dealing with a continuing resolution. People do not know a thing about continuing resolutions in Grand Forks or East Grant Forks nor should they have to. They have been inconvenienced by other amendments that have been put on this bill. I refer back to the St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial, in which the argument was made that it was important to stop playing games. Mr. President, people are not stupid. People are intelligent. They know full well when they see Representatives or Senators using their pain as leverage. They know what is going on. So, Mr. President, I again read an editorial. Believe me, there are plenty of editorials like this in papers in our States. Congress can't resist political gamesmanship. Congress has breezed out of town, leaving Washington for a long holiday recess. Despite evidence to the contrary, congressional bigwigs figured satisfying their political egos was more important than expediting flood relief legislation that would aid, among other backwaters, Minnesota and the Dakotas. So, Mr. President, let me just be crystal clear about what is going on here. I come to the floor today to focus on priorities. And the priority should be simple. The priority for the House of Representatives and the Senate, for the conference committee, for our Congress this week, should be to pass a disaster relief bill. And I am going to make it very difficult for people to conduct business as usual until we do that. I think the Chair would do the same thing if it was Kansas. I really do. I am sorry to speak for the Chair. I know he can't speak. But I really think that it doesn't have a heck of a lot to do with party. It just has a lot to do with you just do what you can do to fight the people, and this is the way for me to do it. Mr. President, since I have spoken a lot about what has not happened so far and what needs to happen, let me talk a little bit about Breckenridge. I have not spoken much about Breckenridge, MN. In the dark, water lapped up the streets, moving as inexorably as the hands on a clock. This is a piece, again, in the Pioneer Press by Nick Coleman. Breckenridge was going under; the flood had outflanked the city's dikes. In the worst flooding so far this season, hundreds of homes and businesses on the south side of Breckenridge were caught by a rapidly rising second flood crest that took the city off-guard and quickly became more devastating than the first wave of flooding that hit 10 days ago. Bleary-eyed city officials, assisted by bone-tired troops from the Minnesota Army National Guard, evacuated 400 residents Monday night and Tuesday, trying desperately to keep the city of 3,700 from going completely under. Mr. President, I would really like to thank the National Guard. I have not done that today. They have done a great job. It is incredible. So many people back in Minnesota and the Dakotas have done a great job, and we have done such a miserable job here. I am not delaying disaster relief. My colleagues are delaying disaster relief. And as soon as the supplemental bill is ready to bring before the Senate, bring it before the Senate. Believe me, I will not stand in its way. This is entirely in the hands of my colleagues. It is entirely in the hands of my colleagues what happens. And I intend to be on this floor for some period of time to make it crystal clear that I am not going to be silent until we do the right thing here. It is that simple. I ought to add that tomorrow evening the flood Senators will come to the floor and speak from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. on the need for disaster assistance. I will get a chance to speak at 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. Do you know that 3 hours isn't enough time? I mean, there isn't enough time to try and make the case to my colleagues to do the right thing and please get the help to people. By Tuesday evening, parts of south Breckenridge were under 5 or more feet of water and the floodwaters continued to swell. The water was so deep that when a 5-ton Army truck veered off the curb, a National Guardsman was shoulder deep in the driver's seat, craning his neck to keep his chin above water and reaching down to the submerged gears to drive it out. An exhaust stack kept if from stalling. Residents dumped loads of dirt near a railroad line that cuts across town, hoping to stop the flood halfway through the city. But officials worried the flood would encircle them from the north. Efforts to sandbag around a nursing home failed after a night of effort. Dorothy Pierce, 77, came out of her house on the strong back of a 19-year-old National Guard trooper named Conrad Anderson, a specialist with the Duluth-based Co. C of the 434th Main Supply Battalion. Anderson ferried Pierce from her house on Second Street through the darkness in hip-high water to the safety of a Guard truck. ``I just moved here from Nebraska in November,'' Pierce said while sitting uncomfortably on a canvas tarp in the back of the truck as it made its bumpy way back to high ground. ``We don't do stuff like this in Nebraska. I got here just in time for the biggest blizzard I ever saw and the only flood I ever saw.'' Evacuated with Pierce was her son, Lonnie, his wife, Debbie, and the couple's three young children, Jena, 8, Donald, 6, and Dillon, 2. The children, sitting on the floor and clutching their mom, could be heard crying in the pitch- black covered troop carrier as it drove through the flood. Mama, I'm scared and I'm cold and it's dark,'' Jena said to Debbie Pierce. ``There's nothing to be scared of,'' Debbie Pierce reassured her children, hugging them tight. ``We're all safe.'' But under a hazy half moon and in a biting chill, Breckenridge was on red alert. Crews of sandbaggers labored through the night Monday in a vain attempt to stave off the wandering Bois de Sioux River, which jumped its banks and went overland, creeping into the city from the unprotected southeastern side. Everywhere, diesel engines throbbed as dump trucks carrying sand, flatbed trucks carrying as many as 50 volunteer sandbaggers and National Guard trucks on midnight mercy missions roared up and down the streets and slogged into the rising tide. But the situation was critical, the weather nasty and the outcome in doubt. ``We face a real possibility of the whole town going under,'' police Chief Dennis Milbrandt told the National Guard's Col. Gary Sigfrinius Tuesday morning as crews prepared to construct a makeshift dirt dike along the railroad tracks that separate the city's north and south sides. Nearby, three 5-ton Army trucks slowly splashed through cab-high waters on Fifth Street, carrying 41 elderly residents of a senior citizens apartment building that was being evacuated as water poured into the first floor. Reaching the still-dry railroad tracks, the gray-haired evacuees, clutching suitcases and wearing blankets to ward off the 30-degree temperatures and 7-degree wind chill, were helped off by teen-age Guard troops. ``I never thought I'd have to be fed by the Red Cross,'' said 79-year-old Margaret Olson as she was lifted in her wheelchair from the back of an Army truck. ``I've had three strokes and colon cancer but this is something very different and I'm happy to be on dry ground again.'' Lonnie Pierce, Breckenridge's utility director, said the rapid rise of the floodwaters had inundated both his family's home and his mother's home. After hours of battling with sump pumps and sandbags to try to save their homes, the Pierces had been forced to make a choice: Save the family or save the house. ``It came in awful quick here, awful high,'' said Pierce, 36. ``Christ Almighty, we'll lose a lot of houses,'' he said, peering out the back of the truck as it chugged slowly past the silent, flooded homes of his neighbors, pushing a gentle wake through the black waters that lapped against the houses. ``There's just no end to this. We haven't gotten one break. All this water was out there and we couldn't do anything about it. It was bound to come.'' Located where two swollen rivers--the Bois de Sioux and the Otter Tail--join to form the Red River of the North, Breckenridge picked a poor campsite. Forecasters thought the Red River's record crest of 19.18 feet at Breckenridge last week was as high as if was going to get. But the river was at 19.10 and rising at midday Tuesday, with officials fearing it could pass 20 feet. The first round of flooding damaged the city's north side, as the Otter Tail River overflowed. This time, it is the Bois de Sioux cascading into ``South Breck,'' as residents here call the south side of the city. I am going to go on, Mr. President, and read just for the Chair. I have been speaking this afternoon about a couple of different issues. But most of the time I have been focusing on the need to get disaster relief to my home. I again apologize to my colleagues who have not been able to bring amendments to the floor and to those who came and maybe didn't want to hear one speaker speak all day. But this is just an impossible situation. I mean we have had people that have been flooded out of their homes. Almost everybody in East Grand Forks had to leave. We have schools and hospitals destroyed in towns like Ada, and people have done everything right. They have supported one another. And we are supposed to get some relief to them. Instead, people have been playing political games in the House of Representatives. Rather than getting the work done, they went on vacation. They went on recess. They didn't even have the decency to provide the assistance to people. Now we are back in conference committee, and people are playing games. So I am using my leverage as a Senator to be out here and to say we are not going to have business as usual for a while, and I am going to fight for people in my State. That is why I am out here reading about this flooding. This flooding is much more severe than the first and the potential is worse yet: Breckenridge is looking down a three- barreled gun, with the possibility that the Red, the Bois de Sioux and the Otter Tail may meet in the middle of town. ``This whole year has just sucked,'' said Beth Meyer, a 35- year-old hairstylist who rode a National Guard truck into her flooded Seventh Street home after midnight to help evaluate her 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, and the family poodle, Whitney Houston. Meyer's husband, Mark, and 13-year-old son, Kyle, remained behind, sandbagging and pumping to try to save the house. In January, the roof caved in on the salon where Meyer works in Wahpeton, ND, across the Red River from Breckenridge. For the past three weeks, the Meyers and other South Breck residents have gone without phone service and been forced to go to an emergency phone bank outside the Wilkin County Courthouse, which itself was closed by floodwaters Tuesday. The National Guard has taken over the school where the Meyer children already have missed four weeks due to blizzards and flooding. And since the first flood crest hit the city 10 days ago, the family has not been able to flush its toilets. If they needed to relieve themselves, cans were required. Wearing a heavy Army jacket lent to her by a trooper, Beth Meyer maintained an exasperated sense of humor about the never-ending battle. ``We call this the Year from Hell,'' Meyer said as she gathered up her daughter in the dark. ``We're the South Breck Islanders. We're already talking about the party we're going to have this summer, if it ever dries out. We're all going to get together for an island party and we're going to have a little rubber pool in the middle of the street. With a sump pump in it.'' ``This is very scary stuff,'' said Scott Wermerskirchen, a 35-year-old science teacher who was helping out at a barricade Monday night. ``I don't want to think about what will happen if we get an inch of rain. We might as well write a big check and shut the town down.'' Although Breckenridge was continuing the fight, there was a palpable edge of discouragement in the chilly air Monday night and Tuesday morning, with the mood of the residents deflating with each increase in the water level. ``We got up this morning thinking we didn't have anything to worry about,'' said Kirk Peterson as he navigated in a fishing boat through the 5 feet of water in his back yard at 2 a.m. Tuesday. The floodwater was almost up to the top of his garage door and was running through the first floor of the house where he and his wife, Jackie, live on Second Street. ``So much for finished oak floors,'' Peterson said acidly, using a flashlight to peer through the window in to his darkened home. Peterson, a salesman, and his wife are ``River Rats,'' meaning they belong to a Department of Natural Resources program designed to preserve and clean up state rivers. With his flashlight, Peterson illuminated a sign in his flooded window: ``Please Keep the River Clean,'' it said. Peterson and a friend, Errow Hensch, maneuvered their boat to a clothes pole in the back yard. Monday morning, when he first measured the rising waters, 11 inches of the pole were under water. By 8 p.m., 51 inches were under. And at 2 a.m. Tuesday, as his boat bumped against passing ice chunks and the strangely orange moon glittered off the water, the tide had risen to an even 5 feet. ``I hate to say it, but I wonder whether this whole city won't really go under,'' Peterson said as he steered the boat to help rescue a neighbor, Dave Shockley. ``If we were smart, we would all have moved out in February.'' Mr. President, as it turns out, Breckenridge was hit hard with flooding but not totally flooded out, and people are rebuilding and people are celebrating. Yes, they are celebrating the help that they gave one another. And I say to the Chair, because I know of his own small business background and his commitment to small business, it was in Breckenridge that I really first got a feel for what the small business people were thinking about. They took me to their businesses which had just been destroyed by the flooding, and they said to me, look, Paul, or Senator, we are hearing about the Federal Emergency Management assistance, and we know they can do some repair for the infrastructure in the town, and then we are hearing about the Small Business Administration loans, but we can't cash-flow loans. It will not do us any good at all. So all of us in a bipartisan effort got together, and we put together a good disaster relief bill with about $500 million in CDBG money for all the States affected. But this CDBG money was going to give the States, Mr. President, the flexibility to get some direct grant money to some of the businesses, and homeowners who needed it who could not cash-flow any more loans. And that is what people are still waiting on. People do not know whether or not they are part of a buyout if they are living in a floodplain. People wonder, do we leave or do we stay? If we leave, are we going to have assistance? Is that coming? The State cannot make plans to do that. The cities cannot make plans to do that. The small businesses are still waiting. People are getting discouraged, and people are getting pretty angry. Frankly, they are probably angry at all of us. They are probably angry at all of us except for some of my colleagues from North Dakota, who have just been out here over and over again, and South Dakota and some of the other States; they have been speaking out. But people just cannot understand the code here. They cannot figure it out. I think what people are thinking is, look, it is simple--in fact, it is a little embarrassing to me because after we passed that disaster relief bill, I was so excited I did what I think the Senator from Wyoming would do. I got on the phone and had a conference call with lots of the small papers in smaller communities--big communities and big papers in heart--and I said we have passed this; it really looks good. And then, all of a sudden, all of a sudden now we have the games being played and people are thinking, well, we have leverage on this. We want to have leverage later on on the budget and on the appropriations bills so we have to have a continuing resolution. You can do that separately. Do it on something else. Just do not play around with the lives of people who are really in a lot of pain. Now, as I said earlier, if I cannot persuade people to just please back off of that for now, then get the work done right now and pass this bill and get it to the President. The President is going to veto it. He already said he was because of the continuing resolution. So the President will veto it. He has to do that. And then you can show that the President vetoed it and maybe you have embarrassed him, if that is what you are trying to do, and then let us pass it clean. Let us get all the provisions off this bill that do not have anything to do with making sure that people can rebuild their lives in Minnesota and the Dakotas. That is all people are asking. So if you want to play your game, play it. I do not think you should, but if you want to play your game, play it, but why don't you play it in the next couple days. Because I will tell you something, if not, at least on the Senate side, whenever I have an opportunity to be out here and hold the floor, I am going to do it and we are not going to do a lot; we are not going to do much else. I put the people from East Grant Forks right now ahead of my colleagues in the Senate. I just think that Mayor Stauss and Mayor Owens and other mayors have waited too long. So whatever we need to do, whatever I need to do as a Senator, I am going to do. Mr. President, this is another piece. And there has been some really good writing because the journalists that were covering this, they saw the pain. They knew what it was in personal terms. They saw the courage of people. They saw the devastation, but they saw just that incredible determination. But for some reason here in Washington, DC, starting with that ``leadership'' in the House--I say leadership in quotes; we never translate it into personal terms--the leadership in the House decided to go on vacation. It is not what the majority leader of the Senate wanted them to do. It is not what my colleagues here wanted them to do, but that is what they did. That is why I am in the Chamber. And now I am reading that we may not pass this this week. That is just outrageous. So, Mr. President, just so my colleagues know, I probably will maybe stay in the Chamber for about another 50 minutes or so, up to about 7 o'clock, and then I think I will have had time to talk about this today, and I will come back tomorrow and figure out a way of getting in the Chamber again, if I can. By the way, Mr. President, I really should also mention that--I mentioned FEMA, James Lee Witt. I also wish to thank SBA, the Small Business Administration. What I said about some of the businesses that are worrying about cash-flowing more loans is true. But SBA, they have been on the ground. They have tried to help. The State people have been marvelous. The State office, Jim Franklin at emergency management assistance, that office has been great. Legislators have cared. The Governor has cared. Really, in our States, we are just forgetting the party part, trying to help people. And I want to just make it clear that a lot of people deserve a lot of thanks. So, Mr. President, I will continue to talk about this. I want to make note of the fact that Senator Dorgan had come down to the floor earlier, and he is right now tied up in a meeting on the disaster conference report. They are in conference, meeting on it, getting ready for it, and that is going to be key. We are going to need Senator Dorgan's help. But I would just say to members of the committee, thank you for your commitment. The good news is we worked together in a bipartisan way and we had something good going and people really appreciated it and we did exactly what we are supposed to do: provide people with some relief. The bad news is then people started playing games, and then people decided not to even finish their work and had the insensitivity and the gall to just go home, go home. It is amazing to me how some people can be so generous with the suffering of others. Can you imagine a group of legislators--and now, I say to my colleague from Missouri, I am speaking specifically about leadership in the House--saying, oh, well, you know, we got these disagreements and we can't get our work done. We can't resolve this. So they go home. That is being very generous with the suffering of a whole lot of people in the country, including people in Minnesota. Well, Mr. President, we can have all of these arguments about what is in the pipeline, what is not in the pipeline. We heard from Mr. Raines today from the Office of Management and Budget that a lot of this, a lot of this money is not going to get out there to the communities. I talked earlier about buyouts in construction. I told you Minnesota is a cold-weather State. We have to get the work done now because come mid-October or the end of October, we are not going to have time to do this at all. So one more time I would say to my colleagues, some of whom have been inconvenienced today, I apologize, but, in all due respect, the problem of time is a bigger problem for the people in Minnesota and North Dakota because time is certainly not on their side. Think about this. There was a piece that I read earlier about the little girl who just sort of had a vacant look in her eyes and was really looking down and not playing like you hope and pray a child would play. We know what has happened. Just imagine, I say to people, what it would be like to be completely wiped out with a flood and no longer have your home and be homeless and then people in other towns take you in. That is Minnesota. But I bet you it is every State. I love to brag about Minnesota, but I bet it is in every State. The goodness of people comes out and people take families in and all the rest. But it is hard for families because you go back, now the water has receded, now you have to go back to your homes and now you have to look at this devastation and there it is before you. And you do not know what is going to happen next. If you have lived in the floodplain, are you now going to move? If you haven't, are you going to have the money to rebuild your home? And you are just there and you do not know where you stand. And you hear that the Federal Government is going to help. You better believe that over the years when my colleagues have come to the floor from Missouri or from California or from Florida and they have said we need help, there has not even been any question in my mind. Well, that is the situation right now. The only question is, where is the soul of the Congress. I say to my colleague from Missouri, where is the soul of the leadership of the House of Representatives, who do not even get the work done and send back a bill to us. Well, this time, this week there is going to be a conference committee and they are going to do the work. I feel they will do the work. I believe my colleagues will spearhead that. We are going to get this done. And as I said before, the best of all worlds will be, please, just keep all the extraneous political stuff off. Let's just pass a clean disaster relief bill and get the money out there to people, get the help out there to people. Mr. President, let me just read about Chip Rankin. I started to talk about him. [He] looked tired in his National Guard fatigues, stood in the pulpit of the Immanuel Lutheran Church on Sunday, reading aloud from the Gospel of St. Luke, [this is from the Pioneer Press of April 14] recounting how the apostles, frightened by a storm on the Sea of Galilee, wake Jesus from a nap and beg him to rebuke the raging waves. An hour later, the 22-year-old wrestler-- Mr. President, did you hear that? Wrestler. Now we're really talking. At the University of Minnesota-Duluth would find himself in troubled waters. By the way, Mr. President, while I am speaking about wrestling, the University of Minnesota-Duluth had their wrestling program shut down. It was a real shame. The title IX program is a great program. I mean, as a father of a daughter who loves athletics and is a good athlete, and having one granddaughter, the idea of full participation of girls and women in athletics is right on the mark. But the shame of it is, in a lot of these schools, in order to reach parity, what they do is go after the minor men's sports, the sports that don't have the clout. It's a political issue, I say to my colleagues. The University of Minnesota lost their wrestling program. A real shame. Mr. President, I am not without my biases, since I wrestled and love wrestling. I do think it is a real shame. There has to be some way to make sure this doesn't happen around the country. It is so unfair, gymnastics, swimming, other minor sports--who gets to define what's a minor sport? Baseball. Rankin and a Guard sergeant were caught in a frightening torrent of water that threatened to wash his 2\1/2\-ton troop truck off a Norman County highway and into a forbidding sea of ice and water. Rankin's truck lurched and sagged, plunging into holes that were rapidly forming in the crumbling highway while a Hovercraft and men with ropes stood by in case they had to attempt a desperate rescue in the icy current. God, and the National Guard, would come through. But it was close. To some, it might sound like just another day on the Red River of the North, this spring of record flood. But it wasn't just another day. It was the Lord's day. A day when the weary people of Hendrum--those who haven't fled the flood--paused in their struggle against the water that surrounds them on three sides to worship in an extraordinary ecumenical service. This was written by Nick Coleman. ``Faith and the flood. It was a time of prayer, reflection and drama as Sunday came to the Red River of the North.'' You knew it was going to be a different kind of service when you saw Rankin line up a dozen troops and march them, single file, into the church, reminding them to doff their camouflage caps. This wasn't a ho-hum Sunday go-to-meeting with everyone freshly scrubbed and in their Sunday best. This was a battlefield prayer meeting, with the enemy on the horizon and coming on fast. It was a ``come-as-you-are'' service where the pastor sported a week's worth of grizzled whiskers and refused to take an offering because, he said, the people in the pews had been offering all week and giving all they could give. A service in a church where people have been sleeping in the basement and the congregants had mud on their boots and exhaustion on their faces. Where men and women wept without shame. Where some folks had to scoot out during the sermon to check on the pumps keeping the waters at bay. Where helicopters chattered overhead and where everyone looked at each other when the lights flickered, it being only a couple of days since the town got its power restored. Where the mayor read from Genesis about ``the spirit of God hovering above the waters,'' and the police chief's daughter sang, ``Yes, Jesus Loves Me.'' And where the psalm they chose for the day, Psalm 46, praised ``a river whose streams make glad the city of God.'' The Red River isn't in the Bible. But it has taken on Biblical proportions. And, for generations, through flood and drought, blizzard and blight, the response of the people along the river, many of them the descendants of devout Norwegian Lutherans, has been to roll up their sleeves and to put their trust in their God. Praise the Lord and pass the sandbags. Or, as they simply say in Hendrum, ``toss 'em.'' That was the tone at Immanuel Lutheran. . .. Mr. President, I notice that my colleague from North Dakota is here. I would be pleased to yield for some questions, if my colleague has some questions. And then, if my colleague, who I know has been out here over and over again and back in North Dakota, wants to speak, then I would at that point in time--I would then ask consent to yield. But right now let me just ask my colleague whether he has any questions and respond to some questions. Then we will see what kind of unanimous- consent agreement we can get. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to yield only for a question.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I only yield for a question, I do not yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will say to my colleague, I have the floor. I made it clear, Mr. President, that I cannot believe that the House of Representatives went into recess. But it is also true--and I have thanked colleagues in the Senate for their work--but I am telling you, somebody has got to make it clear, and our colleagues from the Dakotas feel just as strongly, and they have made it clear, that business as usual is not going to go on. We will use our leverage as Senators. It is also true, however, that even on the Senate side, on the majority side, I am sorry to say, there is the idea that you should attach extraneous measures to the disaster bill. That is not acceptable. That was in the Senate bill. All this discussion about a CR, good people back in our States do not understand what in the world people are doing playing games. That is why I talk about this Congress. Now, Mr. President, Let me go on. Normally divided by the Red River, the two cities found themselves joined in misery by a spreading river that knows no borders. At nightfall, the last bridge linking them was nearly submerged. Soon after that, the National Weather Service issued an ominous assessment, raising the crest forecast by a foot. ``This situation is unlike any flooding conditions ever experienced in eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota.'' Confounded by the effects of overland flooding and a rapid melt, it was the fifth time in five days that the Weather Service had revised the crest forecast. It didn't take an official bulletin to inform Grand Forks residents they were in deep trouble. What was so sad about this, I had visited several times earlier and people did everything they could. There were high school kids out there sandbagging. It was a great community effort. People were working day and night. They started very early on. We knew we had a lot of snow. People were worried about this. They did everything they could to get ready for this. It didn't take an official bulletin to inform Grand Fork residents they were in deep trouble. The scene in the deserted Lincoln Park area of Grand Forks Friday afternoon was one of almost eerie splendor, with the sound of rushing streams of water drowning out all other noises except the whumping of Coast Guard helicopters overhead and the sirens. If it weren't for the fact that hundreds of homes were being devastated while their helpless owners waited out the flood in safety, you would think you were on the banks of an untamed northern river. And you'd be right. Millions of sandbags, millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of hours and months of planning were not enough. Bolstered by a rise in the Red Lake River, which flows into the Red at East Grand Forks, as well as by unprecedented overland flooding to the south--upstream on the north-flowing river, the Red surpassed all expectations and its dikes with an ease that was awe-inspiring to witness. Water spilling over the dike several blocks to the south was rushing knee-high along Lanark Avenue, then cascading down a block-long stretch of pavement that has been transformed into a foaming spillway. A few blocks away, the surging river poured over a 12-foot- high dike on Lincoln Drive, roaring like a waterfall and threatening to burst, unleashing the massive amount of flood water that had been held back by the dikes until yesterday. Fireplace logs, plastic snowmen, sofa cushions, and chunks of ice drifted past in the rapid current, sweeping past stacks of sandbags, shovels and piles of sand. ``We're sad about our city and what's happening,'' Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens said tearfully. ``It is very devastating to all of us. If I were to say one thing to the people of Grand Forks it would be keep the faith and we will make it through.'' Under a bright spring sky, with lovely cumulus clouds on the horizon and birds singing nesting songs, Grand Forks was receiving the pent-up wrath of a winter of record cold and snow. Temperatures soared into the low 60's for the first time in April and residents of Grand Forks dressed in short sleeves as they turned out by the thousands in one last-ditch effort to hold some of the dikes. All nonessential businesses were asked to close and to steer their employees towards the front lines. Cars, pickups and National Guard trucks raced up and down the muddy streets of Grand Forks, giving the city the look of a wartime capital. The scene in a packed McDonald's restaurant on South Washington Street seemed right out of a disaster movie. A woman, her sweatshirt caked with mud, sobbed as she embraced a friend and told him that her house in the Riverside Park area of the town was inundated. Other muddy-booted patrons stood in line for a hot meal while, in the background, a TV emergency channel blared the latest warnings. ``Riverside, Central Park, Lincoln Park areas, please leave at once,'' the message said. ``Critical areas at this time are the Olson Drive and Elmwood Drive areas. Take with you medication, pillow, blankets, immediate clothing needs.'' Evacuation at dawn. Evacuations along the Red River started before dawn: at 5:45 a.m., the City of Grand Forks sounded emergency sirens-- even though almost 1,000 people in the lowest area of the city had left their homes hours before. Authorities did, however, have to clear out a nursing home, relocating 106 elderly residents to the library of an elementary school a few blocks away. All told, 2,000 residents of nearly 800 homes along the river in Grand Forks had been ordered to leave after the river starting pouring over the dike south of downtown. By 10 a.m. the water was running knee deep in the streets, and by evening, it was lapping against the windowsills of a handful of the lowest homes. Officials estimated that more than 4,000 people--nearly 10 percent of this city's 50,000 residents--would have to find shelter elsewhere Friday night, and even more were moving away from an expected break in the city's Riverside dike. At 9 p.m., officials ordered the southern end of downtown Grand Forks to evacuate. A few hours later, the mayor made an appeal for everyone in the city to leave. The Minnesota side. On the other side of the river, East Grand Forks authority sent police cars through streets before dawn, exhorting the city's 9,000 residents to wake up and go immediately to the city's sandbagging facility to start filling bags. The levees on the Minnesota side of the Red River started giving way Friday morning, prompting frantic sandbagging in the city's Point neighborhood. It had been cut off after the Red Lake River--a tributary that is one half of the area's famed forks--turned out of its channel and started running overland. Gary Sanders, a consulting engineer who works for East Grand Forks, Minn., estimated that as many as a third of that city's homes might have to be evacuated. He and other officials spent much of the day struggling to stem the breaches in the city's dikes, hoping that massive pumps might be able to drain the area of the city along the river. A sandbagging operation in East Grand Forks turned into a crisis at midafternoon Friday, when part of a dike holding back the Red Lake River gave way. It sent water gushing through a neighborhood just south of the Louis A. Murray Bridge. Dozens of emergency crews with heavy machinery rushed first to repair the breach and then to evacuate dozens of residents from their homes. Polk County Sheriff Douglas Qualley eyeballed Murray Bridge and expressed concern about whether it would hold. There was reason for concern. ``We had just got done shoring up on the west side of the bridge,'' said [a volunteer]. ``We went to take a break, and all of a sudden it just started coming in.'' Mr. President, that was another impressive thing. Not only the high school students, but the ways in which all of the students--university, college, vo-tech, community college students--were out there volunteering. It is just incredible the way in which the worst of times can bring out the best in people. Sometimes I wish it would not take the worst in times. I wish we would all be like that all the time. But the students were great, really a great help. Within 20 minutes, the southern section of the bridge was submerged and water--sometimes settling to depths of five feet--rushed south down Third Avenue Southeast. Jim Maughton, an Army National Guardsman working on the bridge, said water gushed at ``10,000 gallons a minute'' at its peak. Vince and Sue Taylor, carrying a couple of plastic bags, trudged along with their two children. Mr. President, that gives you a feel for some of what was happening. This is Sunday, April 20, 1997. A city was sinking in the night. Occasional bursts of eerie blue light in the black sky signaled the demise of electrical transformers. Water boiled up from the sewers, spurting in fountains that were quickly submerged in rising water as the river sought to equalize itself on both sides of failing dikes. Downtown Grand Forks was going under. Dikes were giving way along both sides of the Red River of the North. Like some proud ocean liner fatally damaged by an iceberg, Grant Forks was dead in the water, filling up fast. And there was not a thing anyone could do but leave. Everywhere, between the warble of the sirens, emergency vehicles splashed through the streets, blaring warnings over loudspeakers. ``All residents are ordered to evacuate this area. Get out now!'' Signs in dorm windows at the University of North Dakota said, ``Build the ark.'' But arks weren't necessary in the darkness separating Friday from Saturday, struggle from catastrophe, hope from despair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. First of all, Mr. President, I made it crystal clear today that the House----

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I would like to briefly respond to some of the discussion that deals with S. 4, which is egregiously entitled the ``Family Friendly Workplace Act.'' But I also want to say to my colleagues that I am going to spend a little bit of time talking about disaster relief and the failure of the House of Representatives to move forward with this legislation because I think that takes priority over all of our business here. Mr. President, I will agree with my colleagues, starting with Senator Ashcroft, whom I enjoy as a colleague, that this piece of legislation deals with a very important question. And the question is how people balance their commitments to work with their commitments to family. I think that is a very important question. But I would like to just repeat one more time for my colleague from Missouri and other colleagues who want to see some kind of positive, constructive legislation passed, this piece of legislation in its present form is going nowhere. And it should not go anywhere. Mr. President, first of all, there are two features that are automatic nonstarters. My colleague from Minnesota, whom I enjoy working with, talked about a couple of women's organizations that support this bill. My understanding is there are huge numbers of women's organizations who are in opposition, for good reason. First of all, we have the Fair Labor Standards Act which was hallmark legislation. The idea here was the 40-hour week. If you worked overtime you get overtime pay. That is very important. There are a whole lot of families with incomes below $20,000, $25,000 a year for whom overtime pay is key. What we are doing with this legislation, which has this sort of happy-face title, the ``Family Friendly Workplace Act,'' is we are now moving from a 40-hour week, we are abolishing it and we are going to an 80-hour 2-week period whereby an employee could work 50 or 60 hours one week, 30 or 20 hours the next week and not get paid any overtime. If you think that the reality is in the workplaces throughout this country that employees are equal partners in this decisionmaking in all these workplaces, then you might not worry about that. But the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of people, the vast majority of women and women's organizations, understanding the threat to the 40-hour week, will not accept this. This provision is not in the House bill that passed, and it should not be in this bill. It is one of the reasons this bill will go nowhere. Mr. President, in addition, there is another feature that deals with flextime which essentially says you can work overtime and then you can take that hour off or however many hours you worked, but you do not get an hour and a half off for an hour overtime so it becomes a cut in pay. Again, you have two features in this bill that are in direct contradiction to the Fair Labor Standards Act and, therefore, going nowhere. Now, the third point I want to make is that there has to be some guarantee, some way that we protect people for whom being able to work and working overtime and being paid overtime is critical to their family's income. In a huge percentage of families with incomes under $20,000 a year, the household head works overtime. So what you do not want to have happen is a situation where an employer is only going to give the overtime to those people who take comptime as opposed to people who want to have time-and-a-half pay. Again, so far, we have not seen any willingness to sit down and negotiate and compromise on some of these questions. Mr. President, in committee Senator Murray talked about an extension of the Family and Medical Leave Act which was terribly important. The Senator may, while she is here, raise a question with me about this, and I am pleased to do a colloquy with her on that. In addition, I had an amendment in committee which said if there is a situation dealing with Family and Medical Leave Act considerations where there is sickness in the family or whatever and you banked 20 or 40 hours, you should be able to take that time off; you do not need to ask for permission.