National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I know we are awaiting the arrival of Senator Johnson.

I wish to take a moment to express my appreciation to the majority leader for including in the items we will be handling before we adjourn for Christmas the confirmation of Judge Brian Davis to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Judge Davis has been waiting for 2 years. This is a good example of how things have gone very slowly for a very deserving judge. He has been waiting for 658 days. He has the support of Senator Rubio and myself. The American Bar Association has found him to be unanimously well qualified to serve on the Federal district court, and it is the ABA's highest rating.

Judge Davis is a native Floridian who grew up African American in segregated Jacksonville, FL, and despite those circumstances was accepted to Princeton for his college education. He returned later to the University of Florida Law School and then became a top prosecutor in Jacksonville and 20 years ago went on the bench as a State circuit judge. He has an impeccable record. He is, in a huge bipartisan way, embraced by the lawyers who have practiced in front of him. Yet it has taken 658 days.

I thank the majority leader and I thank the Senate. I thank Senator Grassley, who initially had concerns, but when he looked at the record he had an open mind, and then he saw the character, the quality, the excellence of Judge Davis.

There are 37 judicial emergencies around the country, and two of them are in the Middle District of Florida where Judge Davis is, and three of them are in the Southern District of Florida. The courts are overburdened, and we need to fill these vacancies.

So I thank the Senate in advance for giving this good man, this excellent jurist, the opportunity to serve in a greater capacity, to serve his country. I want my colleagues to know this is a great Christmas present for me, but it is nothing compared to the Christmas present it is going to be for Judge Brian Davis and his family.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. President, it is my understanding. But in the newfound felicity and spirit of the season, wouldn't you think that since the real estate market along the coast has dried up--why? Because if you cannot get flood insurance because you cannot afford it, you cannot get a mortgage. If you cannot get a mortgage, there are a lot of folks who cannot buy a house. By the way, those who need to sell their houses cannot get the buyers. So what happens to the real estate market in places such as the Tampa Bay region of Florida, as chronicled by the Tampa Bay Times--an example that a homeowner's present flood insurance premium is $4,000; under the new bill, $44,000. That is unaffordable.

What we are merely asking for is that FEMA do an affordability study while this is delayed for a few years to determine what is the affordability.

If this is supposed to be actuarially sound, then that came as a result of huge losses to the program because of an unusual thing--not a hurricane called Katrina but because the waters rose, it put pressure on the dikes and it breached the levees, and that flooded the bowl called New Orleans, and that caused lots of economic loss, and they are figuring all of that in the flood insurance premiums. And oh, by the way, 40 percent of all those flood insurance policies are in my State of Florida.

Before we hear from the Senator from New York, I want to say this: Floods come from many sources. Obviously, floods come from hurricanes. People used to think hurricanes were Florida's problem. Well, now we know, because of the experience on the gulf coast, they can do an awful lot of damage in many different ways.

But oh, by the way, people up in the Northeast suddenly realized hurricanes are a problem. Why? Because the ocean temperature is rising, and when the water gets warmer, the frequency of the storms is more and the ferocity of the storms is greater. Thus, in a time when it is normally cool water, cold air temperature, all of a sudden we have a major storm that comes to a part of the country that is completely unprepared, and now not only do you have all the damage from the water and the wind--and think what happened all the way up into New England, all the way up into Vermont. You heard about all those rivers that suddenly completely overran and inundated that little town with a lot of water, and they are calling this a thousand-year storm.

But the 1,000-year storm happened a year ago. I am not here to speak about climate change, on which I certainly think we better get our heads out of the sand. I am here to talk about an immediate problem for the people all up and down the coasts of the United States; that is, the affordability of flood insurance. Why would not our colleagues give us a little Christmas present since we have over 60 votes in the Senate, and let's give some hope to those homeowners back home who now cannot afford flood insurance.

I want to hear from the Senator from New York who has been a leader, and his State has suffered. Fortunately, it is going to take folks like him and the great Senator from Louisiana to keep beating this drum to bring some relief to our people who are desperate.

I yield the floor.

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