Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006 - Conference Report
EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR DEFENSE, THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR, AND HURRICANE RECOVERY, 2006--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - June 13, 2006)
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Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I stand in strong support of this supplemental appropriations bill. There are many, many very important reasons to support it, and certainly one is because of the essential support it gives all of our Armed Forces around the world, particularly with regard to the crucial fight in Iraq. That is an essential reason to support it. Certainly the important money it puts toward border security, and we must do so much more with regard to border security.
I stand first and foremost and primarily with a focus on the crucial challenge of hurricane recovery all along the gulf coast, including in my home State of Louisiana. I strongly and proudly support this bill because it is an enormous help, an enormous commitment at the Federal level of keeping true to President Bush's Jackson Square pledge to make sure we have a full and robust recovery on the gulf coast.
This hurricane experience has been surreal for so many, literally millions who lived through it, including me. And it hasn't just been Hurricane Katrina which, of course, devastated southeast Louisiana as well as Mississippi and parts of Alabama. It has been Hurricane Rita, too, which damaged, devastated south Acadiana and southwest Louisiana just a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina.
It has been quite an experience in terms of introducing me to my work in the Senate. I will never forget so many of the experiences I lived through and saw firsthand, obviously Hurricane Katrina hitting on August 29 and seeing the aftermath of that, the unbelievable devastation, particularly because of the levee breaches in the New Orleans area. After living there on the ground, working on those issues day in and day out, I finally returned to the Senate on September 13 and stood here on the floor and tried to communicate exactly what I saw, but it was difficult because, again, so many of those images were just so surreal, so outside the realm of anything I had experienced before.
Then, just a few weeks later, September 24, it was almost unbelievable, but it happened. We were socked by a second devastating Hurricane Rita that went into the Texas-Louisiana border area, but really affected the entire Louisiana coast because it came in at an angle from the southeast to the northwest, in that direction, pushing flood waters all up and down, east and west of the Louisiana coast, but of course particularly devastating southwest Louisiana and south Acadiana.
I remember in that entire period thinking many times, and I will be happy to admit this, none too proudly, that this was heavy, heavy lifting in terms of my new job in the U.S. Senate. I remember on more than one occasion e-mailing my wife Wendy that this just seemed so tough a haul in terms of what we needed to do, including through Federal legislation, particularly as it was hitting when understandable concerns about spending at the Federal level were at an all-time high. I noted in several of those e-mails that it just seemed like a very, very tough haul.
After months and months of work and joining with so many others in the gulf coast and outside the gulf coast and all around the country, I am so delighted that we are really getting that job done in terms of this Federal support.
What seemed like such an uphill battle so many months ago is finally coming together, in terms of very aggressive, very robust Federal help.
Let me make clear, that is not primarily because of my effort. That is not primarily because of the effort of the rest of the Louisiana delegation--which has been completely united and which has worked very hard, yes--but that is primarily because of the leadership of others and their efforts. So I primarily come to the floor today to say thank you to those leaders.
Of course, we have to start with President Bush, the President of the United States. On September 15 he stood in Jackson Square and addressed the Nation. I was there personally. I will never forget that moment. It was surreal, in some ways, because the entirety of the French Quarter was dark, uninhabited, but there we were in Jackson Square and the President was speaking to the Nation, making a firm commitment that New Orleans and Louisiana and the gulf coast wouldn't just come back but would be rebuilt smarter, better, stronger than ever.
This legislation keeps that pledge. It makes good on that promise, and it only is happening because of the President's strong leadership in this regard. So in all my thanks--and we have many people to thank--I want to start first and foremost with President Bush. He stated it unequivocally, boldly, strongly on September 15 in Jackson Square, and he has made good on that pledge and that promise. This legislation helps do exactly that.
I also want to specifically thank all my fellow Senators, particularly leaders in this regard such as Senator Cochran, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. In the months following the tragedies of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, some of the most important work I participated in was getting fellow Senators, fellow Members of Congress, down to the devastated regions, allowing them to see the scope of the devastation firsthand. So many came and so many responded in terms of really getting it, really understanding exactly the unprecedented scope of this devastation. So I thank all my colleagues who did that, all my colleagues who joined together in this enormously important boost for the gulf coast and for Louisiana.
Again, there are very many folks who worked hard on it, but none harder than the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran, himself, of course, from a devastated State. So I deeply and sincerely thank all those fellow Members of the Senate.
What is it that we have accomplished? It really is a lot from the Federal level: passing the funding, the support, the help we need on the gulf coast for our full recovery. I am proud and happy to say in all of this the Senate has led the way through the leadership of Senator Cochran and others, in terms of passing the levels of support we need. The Senate led the way, the Senate bill led the way in the conference committee.
Several categories are enormously important. First, in this bill $4.2 billion for Louisiana of community development block grant funding. That is enormously important. It will complete a $12 billion package for Louisiana primarily dedicated to homeowners, many of whom lost everything, and to housing needs. That is crucial in terms of revitalizing and rebuilding our community for the better.
Another absolutely crucial issue as a threshold concept is rebuilding the levees far better than before to give everyone in the region peace of mind that we will have adequate protection in the future. Again, in this bill, $3.7 billion will go to the Corps of Engineers for their ongoing emergency levee repairs and reconstruction. Just as important is crucial authorization language that is necessary to allow them to get that work done immediately. Again, a crucial threshold issue. Nothing will happen in terms of a robust recovery in the New Orleans area without knowing that we will have the levees we need to give individuals, families, businesses real security in the future.
Other important categories--$500 million for agricultural relief, focused on the gulf coast region where the devastation from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita happened. Again, I acknowledge Chairman Cochran, who kept that package in the bill--slimmed down, yes, but vitally important nonetheless--and preserved it in the conference committee negotiations. That was enormously important.
Similarly, fisheries, $118 million for fisheries that were decimated all along the gulf coast, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi, is another crucial component in the bill.
This is so important and is vital particularly when coupled with our earlier legislation, a big bill in December where we passed billions in December also in CDBG funds, in levee money, in health care--Medicare and Medicaid--in education, passing money that followed the evacuee child wherever that child went so we can pay for those extraordinary needs, and in higher education, in extraordinary help for local government where the tax base was decimated for the foreseeable future, jurisdictions such as Saint Bernard's, the sheriff's office, local government, the city of New Orleans, and others.
Also, crucial legislation in December on the tax side of the equation--GO Zone legislation--to provide powerful incentives for businesses, families, and individuals to come back and rebuild and bring the jobs with them to revitalize our economy because that is at the core of our recovery as well.
I say thank you to the President of the United States, to all of my Senate colleagues, to all who worked on this crucially important legislation. I say it with every piece of sincerity and heartfeltness in my body because this has just been a matter of survival, of life and death for all of us in Louisiana.
The most important way I can say thank you is in continuing to work with folks on the ground in Louisiana to assure all of you, to assure the President of the United States, to assure the American people, that this money gets spent right on the ground; that it is not just thrown at a problem but actually helps fund positive change and reform on the ground in Louisiana because that is exactly the leadership we need to move in the direction we need to take.
As we turn our attention to how that money is spent on the ground, I assure you I will be an active participant in that work, an active player in that debate. I will continue to use all of my leadership skills, everything I can muster, to make sure, again, that this enormous Federal support that everyone here--the President and others--has made possible goes to fund positive change and reform on the ground in Louisiana. We certainly need it in a whole host of categories: political reform, levee board reform, health care restructuring, educational improvement through charter schools, and the like, and on and on.
That is my pledge to my colleagues. That is, perhaps, the best way I can continue to say thank you for this vitally important help that will mean New Orleans, LA, including southwest Louisiana, decimated so hard by Rita, the entire gulf coast comes back--but also comes back better, stronger than ever.
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