lates the mississippi louisiana coastal wetlands the great lakes are overdue as is for modernization and then after these letters mr president a letter from the national association of manufacturers and this is just one of those bills that just gets everybody supported to something that is important for everyone and they say on behalf of more than fourteen million manufacturing employees in the u s they're thanking us for our leadership and they're saying let's move forward with word and it's important they say that america's water resource infrastructure be reliable and productive and they applaud our efforts and they say how vitally unneeded this word is including the mon harbors canals another key infrastructure that's vital to america's competitiveness and they say were to will authorize many of these needs though the national association of manufacturers so it really goes on and on the pacific northwest waterways has a similar letter that's very important to us the american farm bureau the american farm bureau has entered this and they have written us a very good bill urging us to support the word and they oppose any amendment that would hinder our progress in moving forward the corn growers of america they have waited and they say it's very productive sent a letter to harry reid and mitch mcconnell and leaders here and saying that you know we really need to have this bill they need to have a fission transportation networks and so on this is a very important letter i think i may say t continue development of our water resources and an environmentally sound manner will contribute mightily to our nation's well being congress needs to act now to address issues such as environmental restoration navigation flood control hurricane protection water supply irrigation beach nourishment and recreation that's yet another matter and the american public works association has sent us a letter and they have a similar with adequate dredging our ports and waterways are the backbone of our transit system ensuring domestic and international trade opportunities and low cost environmentally sensitive goods movement and it goes on now  on to them now and make sure that i turn but the reason i like to hear these letters as i think it shows the breath of support that this bill has i mean we know we come to the floor with a lot of legislation that is contentious that is contentious between the parties that is contentious with people out there in america one groups of support said for example the labor unions might but the work that the bosses don't this is a place where everybody comes together and i think that is very very important just our colleagues know what's happening as you know we don't have votes today but we're going to try to debate some amendments today we've already debated the feingold amendment so is ready to be voted on tomorrow and i understand that senator tom coburn is on his way over here to offer at least one and we're hoping three men said he can debate today and then we can have votes on those as we agree between the sides and the way we've decided to handle this bill because it's been such a delicate balance is the following we are working across party lines to come up with amendments that we can agree to and we have taken the amendments that have been submitted thus far and we're was sort of categorizing those amendments and what is easy for us to agree to what's more difficult and we're to try to work through the easier amendments and the more contentious ones we'll have to have votes now that we call the big four the committee the chairman of the full committee the chairman of the subcommittee the chair and  ranking members of both the focal miti and the subcommittee have made an agreement that we will oppose all amendments why are we doing this and believe me that's not an easy thing for us to do we just feel we've worked so closely in a bipartisan fashion  we want to keep this bill totally bipartisan and we were trying to keep the most contentious items out of the bill in order to make sure it gets the president's stance and he signs it now the good news is we have a score on the bill that means how much the bill is scored that and it's thirteen point nine billion dollars that makes it lower than the house bill and this is very good news because we want to be fiscally responsible we also want to make sure that all the projects in this bill meet certain criteria that they have been studying they have been looked at that there is a fair cause share unless there is an unusual circumstance so we have really senator inhofe has been very strong on conditions and i expect him to come to the floor very soon he actually had a weekend trip to iraq so i do appreciate the fact that he that he is gone and that he's going to be here believe that to about three thirty as a matter of fact in about ten minutes at which point i hope he'll make some of his comments on this on this bill but the way we set the bill up is we now have the committee substitute pending in the form of an amendment a reader has sent forward to amend this but they're not the substitute builder to the underlying bill about iraq just as a way to expedite the consideration of the iraq supplemental and he's done that with the knowledge of senator mcconnell so there's no surprises here we have discussed this with senator feingold in terms of offering his amendment which he already debated and that will be ready for a vote later today i hope we can set aside  these all these amendments and vote on them tomorrow morning at such time as the leaders agreed so at this point since i think i've i've laid out the reason why with so much need this bill after seven long years of not having a word a bill we so much need to spell and we're so proud of the committee that they voted this bill out in a very harmonious way and that we are still working side by side the majority  minority side on crafting the amendments that we need to push this over the finish line i'm going to yield the floor and look forward to the comments of senator inhofe and we also will of course entertain the amendment i think colleague from california thank you mr president i come to the floor to speak just for a few moments about probably one of the most important bills that this congress will consider relative to louisiana and our ongoing attempt to protect the three million people that live in south louisiana and also to protect the great infrastructure that serves this country in a vast and broad way not just from the energy sector but the fisheries but most importantly transportation and commerce there was an excellent article in the post this week and i'd like submit for the record written by really one of the most distinguished citizens of our state john barry who was a renowned author who wrote the book rising tide also  recent book about the influenza one thousand nine hundred seventeen but he writes in reference to this word of bill and some of the amendments that i'm going to be offering to this bill about the importance of acting now to save this great region of the southern part of the united states and the fact that the delta that we are attempting to save by building the right kind of levees the right kind of gates and locks the right kind of navigation channels correcting some of our past mistakes that we made before we realize the damage that would occur by some of our own actions he writes about the importance of this delta that it at one time reached from cape gerardo missouri all the way up the mississippi river down to the present mouth of the river that that is the entire delta and that it was created over a thousand of years and it was maintained as the river overflowed its banks and as the river overflowed and carried sediment it built the delta but as with channels the delta channeled the river and built levees up along the river we have caused the natural building up of the delta to stop and then as we cut channels through this great and amazing  land that reaches from really the east of new orleans all the way to the texas louisiana border as we crisscrossed it with pipelines and navigation channels to tap into the extraordinary oil and gas reserves both on land and off shore it exacerbated an already tough situation and then to level on top of that the dredging of the mississippi river to keep the sand bars out of the mouth the channel as we've made it the water move faster and that has an impact on the way that this delta is now lowering itself if you will into the water and there are other contributing factors but the bottom line is we have got to take collective action to reverse this we can't correct everything that we did but we most certainly can pass this bill the word of bill the water resources development act which has about twenty two percent of the entire bill is dedicated basically to this purpose and it is right that a large portion of this bill be dedicated to this purpose because this delta this mississippi river doesn't just serve the four point five million people that call louisiana home but it literally serves the three hundred sixty million people that call the united states of america home and it serves canada and mexico as well as well as ports around the world so it is not just for the people of louisiana that we act today it's in the national interest to do so in the underlying bill which senator boxer and senator inhofe have so carefully crafted the louisiana coastal area eco restoration system eco restoration system has one point one three three billion dollars more ganza to the gulf a very important aspect of our protection in south louisiana is included in this bill is eight hundred forty one million  support work at the port of new iberia and for million and iberia parishes which are two of our larger southern parishes has an authorization that is overdue and most certainly timely the amount of money to help relocate facilities from the mississippi river gulf outlet both private and public so that we can close the mississippi river gulf outlet which is also hopefully going to be part of this bill some work on the western side of our state the cows issue river pass and rock bank protection and then a lock project around the capital city to mention just a few but the bottom line is there's about two point five billion dollars in this bill for louisiana projects i had sounds like a lot and it is and we are proud of the eight years of work that have gone into building this warded bill through the past congresses and now this congress under the leadership of senator boxer she is committed to work with her colleague congressman oberstar on the house side to get a word of bill to the president's desk for him to sign as the president doesn't do us any good to keep talking about a word a bill the only good that will come of this bill is if we can actually get it to the president's de get him to sign it and get these projects underway the people of louisiana have waited for eight years through any number of hurricanes not the least of which in the last two years we've had the unbelievable challenge of dealing with hurricanes katrina and rita the first and third largest hurricane in terms of disaster and impact ever hit this country we're still mr president fighting to rebuild and reeling from the damage of those storms and as i've said many times on this floor before it wasn't just the multiple levees that collapsed it was really a federal flood more than a hurricane that did us in and it was the multiple failure of levees that should have been maintained should have been stronger should have been higher and more and more not but it's also because of the loss of a great wetlands and i'd like to just share with you what i healthy wetlands looks like with cypress trees and and land that you can do a little swimming and boating and fishing not of course a lot of walking or building but this wetland is stretches from as i said east of new orleans to the sabine river pass which separates louisiana in taxes this is a lot of what our coast looks like i doesn't look like the florida be sure the biloxi the beach or the north carolina beach we actually don't have any beaches in louisiana we actually only have two a little bit of a fan we do have two one seven miles long and it's called grand grand isle the other one is holly beach but the rest of our coast basically looks like this and you can't even get to it because there are only two roads two lanes each we don't have any interstate highways on our coast we have two two lane roads that go one down the east side of our state and one down the west and they basically dead end into swamp land but this is not ways land this is beautiful land and it nurtures migratory birds  percent of the nurseries of the gulf coast extraordinary wetlands that were trying to preserve without this bill though it will be impossible because i'd like to show you a poster in the sea senator coburn here i am to finish up in just a moment and then resume after his comments but as senator boxer knows because she came down and flew over these wetlands and i am so grateful to my colleague from california the chair of this committee coming down to fly over these wetlands and senator we flew over new orleans which is right here and out to the coast you got to see some of these wetlands this is the coast of louisiana but the red spots i call your attention to because these red spots or land lost just since katrina and rita land lost just since katrina and rita the the land loss from the storm a lot of it in st bernard parish lower plaquemines parish where the hurricane came through here and then over this way which is where hurricane rita made landfall so hurricanes exacerbate an already difficult situation but because as we have been putting navigation channels through these wetlands we've been allowing for shipping which is appropriate but you've got to have the right locks and dams and water control structures and because mostly we've blocked this great mississippi river which is the largest river system on our continent from naturally over flowing so that we could ship the grain out of the mid west so we could ship products all from canada down to our through our the midsection of our country this delta is starved for sediment so we don't have a choice and i'm going to end right now by just saying that this word of bill as far as louisiana is concerned is the bill is the bill that is going to reverse this decline and start us on a path of safety for the residents of protection for the environment and of lang now on the foundation i see my colleagues for a great economy which we need to do we can't shut off this part of the nation and call it quits we can't shut down the refining capacity and oil and gas we have to make it work and we can't it's going to take good science it's going to take a long commitment and it's going to take more than this war to build with this war to bill as a start so in a few minutes after senator coburn speaks out like to ask permission of this body to lay down an amendment that we could consider that would lay a foundation down for the category five protection that we need we do not expect in louisiana for this congress to pick up the whole tab and we most certainly do not expect this congress to pick up the tab in this bill but we like to lay the beginning foundation down knowing the people of louisiana and mississippi and texas will pay our own way as well and our independent stream of revenue that we now have an offshore oil and gas revenues can contribute to this project which is going to be several decades and it's going to take anywhere from thirty to fifty billion dollars but there is no alternative there just is not an alternative it's expensive but the cost of doing nothing is even more expensive so let me all the time to the senator from oklahoma who was scheduled before me and then i'll return to this debate at a later time the work on the word of bill has been very important i'm very supportive of us keeping our obligations especially in the wheezy anna for the tremendous problems that they've encountered and there is a legitimate role for the federal government in that as a partner with people of louisiana mississippi and texas in terms of restoration and also in terms of prevention so that we don't see the same things again the word bills important bill for a lot of states on a lot of projects many of which have come about because the federal government has overreached in some of its authority and demanded things of states that they can no longer afford to do but that's where we sit today  and that's a consequence sometimes of having the federal government that's a little bit bigger than what the constitution would envision and what our forefathers would have invention in vision that is appropriate let me talk about process for a minute the chairman asked me a moment ago if i was going to offer any other mamet's other than amendments on this bill i told her no and i will will not but i think it is important for the american people to consider what we're doing here today it's important work but it's certainly not as important as funding our troops you know we we have ask american families and their children who are serving the armed services to do a very difficult job it's very controversial at this time but regardless of where you are on that job the fact that we continue to to produce bills and not address their needs to me seems somewhat out of context for where we should be it's been almost sixty days since the president president asked for the additional  funding we have passed the competes act spending money on the future but we can't seem to pass the money for troops that are in harm way harm's way we passed an f reauthorization with paducah for making sure that drugs get cleared but we can't seem to produce a consensus to that our troops will be funded with the necessities that they require since they are in harm's way i find it ironic that we would do anything other than that and when i look at the constitution the one thing i see as our number one priority is defense and whether or not we were agreed with the foreign policy that is ongoing today we all agree that we don't want to fund our troops to be it anyway priced in harm's way because of our lack of action i think that's a real  justified criticism today that may in fact come true that american troops are hampered because we cannot pass that bill so i won't offer that amendment although i think that's what we should be discussing today rather than the word of bill i want to thank my colleague senator inhofe for his work and senator boxer for her work on this bill i know it means a lot to a lot of communities who don't have the resources to accomplish a lot of the things that they need to accomplish however one of the things i am concerned about is priorities last year we had a debate on the floor on the emergency status of funding the levees in sacramento and i had offered amendment talks with the governor of california talk with the two senators from california ultimately withdrew that because i came to became convinced that in fact it was an emergency and it still is sacramento is the largest town in this country that is is at major risk for a flood is the corps of engineers uses years for an event and sacramental sets it eighty five years the likelihood that once one out of the next eighty five years ackerman was going to be flooded for as new orleans today even post katrina as a one in two hundred fifty year risk of being flooded again so as we look at the word of bill one of the things we ought to think about is how do we prioritize things to make sure that where there is a legitimate government role that we actually spend the money on that role and there's a lot of money in this bill and granted this is an authorization bill which will put forward a lot of new projects some of which we know the cost and some of which we don't but i would remind the colleagues in the senate in american people at home right now we have enough work for the corps of engineers for the next fifty years if we don't give my nother job on their budget fifty years worth of work and then in this bill we're going to give them several more major projects and not the appropriate funding to do that and one of the reasons that we're not going to give him the propre of funding is because we don't have the money to do it one is because we have two hundred billion dollars a year and waste fraud and implication in the money that we appropriate presently which the senate and the congress refuses to look at and the other is because the limitations that we have in terms of the magnitude of the jobs that we put before the court but if you look at priorities in terms of what's important california has several projects in this as do several other states and you say what are the priorities and you say well what what if we as a family have so many things we have to do should we do the most important ones first and if if families have a rough they need to put on the house it's highly unlikely that they're going to build us one until we're going to fix the roof first and then say for this one until we don't do that in terms of many of the priorities in this bill myself and seven other members of the senate voted against going ahead with this bill simply because we're actually for two reasons number one is the the intent although the details were not followed in terms of the new earmark proposals in the bill that's one and ima be considered read this a real simple amendment what this amendment says there's one hundred thousand people from louisiana today in temporary housing we have failed to move them from temporary housing into other housing and all this amendment says there is in this bill a new visitor center a supply and study for a new visitor center to be set up in morgan city which will be a great thing for the area of louisiana i don't doubt that the purpose of this amendment is the same we should spend the money on that that we get the people of affected by katrina back in the house instead of temporary housing so it's it's not necessarily a criticism although i generally have criticisms of the federal government's role in providing visitor center for for tourism and etc in the states more importantly it's about priorities of whether or not we ought to take care of those people who have been markedly impaired in their housing opportunities which ultimately affects their ability to earn a living and louisiana before we build another visitor center before we spend any money on we attempted to try to find out what how much this visitor center would cost and nobody could tell us but the point is we probably shouldn't spend a penny on that until we've taken care of the people of louisiana and if you look at the stories that continue to come out and senator landrieu has been just a champion in this body to making sure the rest of the members of this body are aware of the need continuing needs in louisiana for housing we shouldn't spend any money on anything other than those critical needs for the people of louisiana and when those are met then we go and build a visitor center we don't do it at the same time to do it at the same time says there's no limit on the mount of funds that we have and we know there are so we should not put this forward all this amendment says is that the take away doesn't take away the visitor center then the limb and i thought visitors center it just says you can spend the money on it so we've taken care of the people  in their housing very simple very straightforward but puts a priority much like you and i would put a priority on what our needs are one of our big favors in this body is to try to make we have to pick priorities if we had unlimited funds that we would need to do that but we don't have and we are true deficit was far in excess of three hundred billion dollars last year although we claimed it was under two hundred billion of by enron style accounting but it wasn't say in in fact we added three hundred billion dollars to our children and grandchildren's debt so this is just a little small amendment that says we shouldn't do this until we've taken care of the obligations are in front of us in terms of people's lives and when we've done that then go forward go do it but don't do it ahead of those people when people can have services can have what they need have to been displaced by a natural disaster  that the life that we've never seen before in this country we should spend one penny on things other than taken care of them and once are taken care of a legitimate federal role to make sure the housing has been the the environment for housing has been created so that louisiana can get back on its feet then we ought to do this so we're not eliminating we're just saying don't spend the money no authorization until you have met and been certified that the housing needs of those who are in temporary housing to that trailers tens and tens and tens of thousands of people are still living in trailers still don't have actually as to how you don't do that until you've met that me very  thank you thank you mr president let me just respond to my colleague and i want to begin by first thanking my colleague from oklahoma for his time and focus and he has come down to our state he has viewed the damage and as you can tell he is most familiar with our situation and he is absolutely correct we have a great deal of work to do this particular visitor center like several others is not just for  extra recreation though i would say to my colleagues this is the heart and soul of tourism in this region we don't have big cities like new york and chicago and this region maybe somewhat like the senator cities from oklahoma or a small communities but they are important communities and throughout the southern part of the state as i have showed on the map we don't have large communities but communities of fifteen thousand or ten thousand high up on a ridge surrounded by levees we're proud of this great wetlands we want people to come see it so it's not just saving it for the birds and the fish and that's very important but it's actually saving it for the benefit of the people who live there who want to be able to recreate on it and we want to share it with the world we think that the senator bob might say from oklahoma that the more people they can actually get their eyes on this problem the more support we can get for doing the right things to preserve it to taper down on unnecessary unwanted development to scale up the investments in the right kinds of structures that will help us preserve it over time so while i know one first blush it may seem like to the senator that this is a frivolous expenditure i would say that this is part of a very comprehensive approach that louisiana has to save the wetlands i don't think the center and i'll be happy to submit for the record the total cost because i most certainly can get that for the senator is going to amount to very much money but it's an important aspect of our redevelopment that has to do with science with engineering with the environment with the basic industries a and with tourism and education of the people about what our wetlands is as i said senator one of the difficulties that senator vitter and the higher having in trying to explain this to the nation is that there are virtually no other sure's in the country like this there are low lying areas of course the south carolina north carolina and marshes but there's virtually no other dell cell like this in the country so people literally have not been able to see it when you can't see something like a beach in florida the wonderful coast in california that many of us have been to or the out to long island in the hamptons in new york you've seen that with your own eyes you can appreciate it and understand it the only way to get to the coast of louisiana is literally by boat or by air except for those two little highways that us spoke about l a one on the east side and a holly beach road on the west side so having this center and i'd like to show you where it might be if i can find a picture of the chaff a lie i'm not sure if i have one but let me show you the original picture that i started with here i'll show it here not to make too much of of this because it's just a small education center but the i'm not sure this is a first poster there would allow people to come down into this wetland area and see some of the great a chaff elia basin that is sort of the last standing cypress swamp in the country so again it's a small item i object to the senator taking out of this bill but i want him to know that this is not because we don't think it's important to put people in trailers and to build levees we're doing all of that and doing it as fast as we can trying to reduce red tape but we do think that these educational centers that we're building here serve a significant and important purpose and i do believe that the state is already contributed in kind as well as the local parish so i will leave my arguments there and at the appropriate time come back to this subject and i yield the floor but i'd like to speak at some time later afternoon i thank the senator fielding the oklahoma just comments first of all we didn't take this out we haven't eliminated we just said that there ought to be priority on the funds and that  again in a quote from a smack dab in the center that shows the lay a basin is a very welcome sight for those traveling on interstate ten a welcome centers open seven days a week from eight thirty to five centers located off interstate ten addicts at one twenty one it's a first class  ty quite impressive with historical information within the walls and kadian style cottage museum outside while a lot of natural wildlife and nature will take you back in time that was completed in june two thousand  it has many of the same things that the senator wants to support there's also two other visitor center in morgan city so it's not that there is not and there's not some process out there all right to do that again the point is not to eliminate this  point is to say shouldn't we have a priority before we allow money to go for another visitor center where there's already one just opened three years ago should we not have the people and housing taken care of so i'll stand with that and won't continue the debate on is this is for the restoration of the chance it's a thirty or forty year project which i don't object to in on its face i love beaches i get to take my family to florida i noticed recently they've restored beach down there again the question is is priority we have a tough time setting priorities we've we take authorization bills we don't look at them what we do is we get a ma authorize and then we fight like heck when the appropriate appropriation time comes around to get our projects funded sacramento levee system according to the corps of engineers is one of the most important projects they have in terms of reducing risk for people at risk of floods we had a debate on this floor less than a year ago with the senators from california talked to the governor of california i had attempted to strip some of the funding out of an emergency bill for emergency funds for the corps of engineer for this basin and for these levees they convince me with their argument that that was a high priority i actually withdrew my m m it didn't ask for a vote on it and now we come we have a word a bill that has this in it and then we have a beach restoration project which there is some significant debate over in terms of the imperial beach in southern california restoring that beach over the next forty to fifty years with intermittent projects ever four to five years pumping sand off the shore on to restore the beach and i'm not against that either but what i think we have to do is to set a priority and why shouldn't the priority be that we protect the people  sanitas sacramento and finish the levee system the answer will be we can do both what we really can't do but we will do both probably but we can't do though we can't do both with the money that we have so then it comes to where the priorities and we'll have this debate again when the bills come forward in the appropriation process of where the priority is and will probably fund both of these projects but when the american taxpayers ask now which one is most important which one is a true federal responsibility which one is a state responsibility then i have some questions that they're going to ask and they're going to say protecting a major city like sacramento from a levee system that the corps of engineers designed that was substandard to begin with and redoing that to make sure we protect all these people or letting the state of california restore its own beaches from santa rosa i believe the vast majority of americans will say well probably the beach you know the local community can afford to do that they get the benefits off of it they get the property taxes off of it they get the tourism off of it but sacramone of sacramento is a different story it's something the federal government started it's something the federal government's responsible for and something the federal government should respond to and finish  senator feinstein in our debate last year noted that the bottom line is that human life and property hangs in the balance based on sources saying ability of these levees i think is right i don't think human life stands in the balance on restoring the beaches which is really a state responsibility and what we're going to do in this bill is we're going to take taxpayer money we're actually going to borrow the money to do it we're not going to do it out of the regular budget and we're going to pay for something that's a state responsibility the other factor that comes into it is is that every state in the union save one has a surplus this year and we have a three hundred billion dollars deficit if we're honest so again it comes with is it great if we had extra money if we weren't far the money for the future should we do this at the same time i'd agree the fact is we don't want to make the hard choices we don't want to tell anybody no not now what we want to do is be able to have both and we can satisfy people today but the people that will be dissatisfied will be the generational collar that we put around our kids and grandkids as we repay the costs of not prior ties in things not looking at things that are most important and otherwise not standing up to the line and doing what we really should be doing which is making the hard choices over one of the things i think the american citizenry is upset with as much as the war or more is the fact that it seems like we don't care about the future we will throw money at anything money that we don't handle and so these two amendments that i put on the floor today they're not big they may not pass but they're based on a principle and the principle is be a good steward we all have to in our own personal lives with our own money we have to make priorities we have to put that roof on before we do something else of the house we have to make a choice about where the first dollar should go unfortunately sometimes we do a poor job of that in the u s congress and i believe from the way this senator sees it that securing the levees ought to be a much higher priority than restoring beach that could be restored by a local community or the state of california and it is not truly a federal responsibility i studied a great deal about the village restoration project they have it a general plan what has happened to them is really been out of their control the t a want to river in terms of how it's been dam and the the amount of sand that filters in and available for the beach several attempts to grow and structures have been made in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight a plan was put forth that would have restored it it didn't meet the environmental impact statement that was abandoned at that time and what we know and what is predicted by those who have watched this especially or in pixley the director program for the study of developmental shorelines at duke university that we shouldn't be nourishing the beaches and the and president clinton and much to his credit saw the need for the states to take a greater burden in financing breach nourishment and he proposed eliminating all funding for nourishment projects and studies and he reduced the federal share to thirty five percent on any projects that were ongoing where's the responsibility so who's going to pay for it easy to spend your money ese do not tell anybody no but the fact is when we get down to the long in the short of it we can't do everything everybody wants to do and i know a lot of people were told no in this bill about things we want to do so we do do some of it to be fair but in the long run was safety housing have to take coming over here on a monday afternoon and putting these amendments down so we could begin the debate and hopefully vote on them tomorrow i do appreciate that it means a lot to us as managers because we work long and hard on the spell  before i tell you why i call this amendment the russian roulette amendment let me just say that i've supported senator coburn and coburn and many of his amendments where he's looking at being fiscally responsible and i will continue to do so when i think those amendments make sense and i'm sure they will be but i do want to call to the senators attention if you look you step back from this particular amendment which i strongly disagree with i think it's dangerous but we're going to  if you step back and look at the whole picture of this bill should be very proud that working together republicans and democrats we took a bill that was scored at about thirty one billion dollars down to a bill that's about thirteen point nine billion because we really did apply some strict standards to dispell and projects are not in this bill that are giveaways or handouts or make somebody's beach front pretty that's nonsense because neither side would approve of that and i also want to make a point because i think senator feingold made this point very well although i disagreed with him and we had a bit of a spade on that last week that when colleagues use the word prioritize we should prioritize and then they for these amendments they're putting out their priority now that's not subjective it's not subjective if i put out my priorities next to senator coburn center fine goes next to senator enough that's objective and i think my madam president is sitting in the chair knows because she sits on the committee that has jurisdiction over this bill it's hard we battle it out for what the right priority should be now as i told senator feingold last week when we had a debate on because he's offering an amendment dealing with prioritization and setting up a whole new way to prioritize this project let's look at this process that we're engaged in here because i think the senator the reason i believe the seven are is on week ground here is because he seems to be ignoring what has gone on before he got involved in this first of all these projects start from the local governments up and the local governments and the communities get together and say we've got a very rough situation here and we pay federal taxes and we'd like to make a partnership to protect lives and property and business from there from there they put up the fares they have to be willing to put up a fair share so this isn't uncle sam paying for all this this is a joint effort and they have to come forward in the various committees  jurisdiction approve the study now when these studies are looked at i say to my friend there is a cost benefit ratio involved in this and sometimes it is you know very tough on college because they think they're going to get a project realized it just doesn't add up so everything that comes before it does pass muster local government the local people they pick up their share and if they have to be funded with a study and that study as i say have to come in and show that this makes sense and then it goes to various committees or the administration most funded there's an environmental impact statement that goes along with all of this they're considered again in word and i guess this a chance for colleagues to say we don't like this project or that we're having this debate and it's the senate has absolute right to choose and what he thinks are not priorities i understand  and so after we'd have to hear it then have to go forward and get appropriated as well this bill has been seven years in the making we've cut it more than half and i think it is it's a proud product  i would say to my colleagues the reason i say playing russian roulette is that we don't know when a hurricane or a storm is going to come up and meet us in the face now it may come in the northern part of my state i say to my friends i've got a coastal state i've got a state that is beautiful we have more beauty per square inch of course i am not subjective on the point that i think any other state we have thirty seven million people we have a real problem and the fact is  and the fact is we can't just do one thing that the meadow and take care of all the other thing and i so appreciate my friends coming around with us on the sacramento issue i cannot tell you when it  because as he now knows we have to take care of sacramento it is low lying is a potential catastrophe he's absolutely right to call attention to the levees we have to do all that but the reason i say the is russian roulette it is essentially counting on the fact that we're not going to have this problem in imperial beach now i want to say this is not a beach project this is a hurricane and storm damage reduction project is not about making somebody's property pretty to look at this is serious business and speaking of business if we don't do this where and that the locals are going to pay in the beginning thirty percent and then fifty percent if we don't take care of it business is going to get the floods and it's going to they're going to be wiped out so you know i wish that i could say to my friend all i need is one you know flood control project in sacramento and be done with it but with thirty seven million people an if it was the reception nation would be the fifth or sixth largest in the world obviously california needs so much now we have stress with deanna and hurricane katrina rita senator inhofe and i put aside a lot of other people and said look we've got to come together and we have to help that region but we also have a backlog of seven years worth of work in the case of beer imperial beach this project got start three that spread oh sorry and the people are waiting the city of imperial beach is home to twenty six thousand people four thousand of its residents live within two to three blocks from the shoreline it's located near san diego just to give everybody a picture and the beaches in the sand dunes act the buffer to protect residential and commercial property it's a defensive defense against storms and storm s and if we didn't do that we'd be building walls very expensive way to get that hurricane damage reduction so nature provides our coastal communities with natural protection from violen storms and the waves they produce in the northeast with the high rocky cliffs from the middle class that are around the gulf of mexico it's white sandy beaches in louisiana it's miles of wetlands and that's why both our colleagues senators  talk a lot about wetlands restoration which we do in this because that's the natural of flood control just as the beaches and the bluff are natural flood control that god gave us the coast of my state is particularly prone to strong winter storms that blow in from the pacific during the el nino years storms can be especially dangerous that's why i say rushing west not playing russian roulette this is not some project that sprung up because some individual looked out and said you know i want more beach in front of my house no nothing to do that it's a dangerous situation the public is going to be paying for half of it and the army corps engineers says that one hundred thousand cubic yards per year is eroding from the beach correspondents who are sure a line retreat rate of sixty from here is adequate protection from winter coastal storms that's what the army corps says that's not me speaking i'm not an engineer i respect what they say and i know my friend says he's not striking that he's just saying it's more important to do sacramento first i want to say to him we need to do all of it we need to do this bell  need to take care of our people in this bill wherever they live east west the north the my state south east west of the country midwest wherever they are wherever they need help at the current retreat ra the shoreline in the northern portion of the area could reach the first line of development this year this year that's why this bill is so needed it's needed now not next year not after they finish where they finished hurricane katrina we should be picking and choosing we should be having a absolutely firm commitment to making sure every one of the  projects the benchmarks that we've sent we've set in a bipartisan way meet the benchmarks meet the criteria and not punish people say gee you people  money you're going to pay fifty percent after we're stopping just guess what a lot of miles away in another part of this country or this state other people need help and they're more important than you i don't think that's the right thing we  united states senate leaders we are senators of all the people and we have to look at their needs and absolutely prioritizing its key and i've shown my colleagues how we prioritize through this process and how we cut back the cost of this bill so the beaches coastline the protective buffer is literally washing away and the chiefs yes considered a fifty year fix only if they continue to do the work every five years correct well that will work but of course all projects have to be maintained but no one is according to the court every five years w pump the same amount of sand up there and in fifty years we'll be doing the same thing again this isn't a long term fix this is a short term fix according to the court not according to anybody else they have to do the same thing every five years this maintain the status quo is that correct no that is not an initial bill project assist of one million two hundred fourteen thousand cubic metres of sand resulting in a total beach with a thirty two meters beyond the existing beach line that's the first phase and to get to your point it is estimated that once every ten years over the fifty year life of the project they would replenish yeah so ok so every ten years ago i had to do the same  thing to bring back the sand in that the ocean naturally washes away from this beach because we haven't done what really needs to be fixed which is a long extended grohl and to help the beach replenish itself mr president  isn't a free lunch for anybody and the local people have to pay for that as well so the reason the core recommend is particular project is they say it's very cost effective and it provides a lot of protection for these people and it has a very high cost benefit for every dollar put in the american people get a buck seventy in return and few projects can claim such a return i wouldn't know how to they do have to be maintained the way to fix this according to the people we've talked to was original core plan which is to put the money into an extended growin so the beach develops and replenishes it so we will be continuing to do this every ten years and i'm not saying that's not a good priority i'm just saying it's not a priority like many of the other things mr president i'd like to enter into the record a letter i got from dr sergio the dina executive director while coast imperial beach california supporting our amendment and asking that this money be placed secondary to the efforts in sacramento simply because their studies show one ocean one winter storm will wash what this money will spin back out because because it in fact this isn't the best plan for it although it is a plan and it will comps and again if i was there i'd want this beach maintained and restored but i understand the desire for it i understand the priorities for it i understand the decisions that have been made in terms of lessening priorities  included in this bill and i appreciate the chairman of the committee's time she's given me to offer these amendments and i'd ask unanimous consent that this letter be admitted into the record with the floor without objection so order correct that's correct i just i just really feel like i want to respond just for a couple of minutes more to this amendment and that you know my colleague says oh my goodness every ten years you have to do more work as i say the course found that this is the most economical and sustainable way to resolve this problem he talked about beaches what were his works floating away being washed away yeah beaches will be washed away we expect that and every ten years will restore the beach but it's better that that happens then houses washing away businesses washing away or people washing away so we have looked at the other options concrete structures walls all very expensive all require you madam president a lot of maintenance and so on so here we have a situation the city's paying for thirty five percent the initial part of the project fifty percent for the rest of the project the city of imperial beach is not looking for a handout but it it is sharing the burden of protecting its people and you know again i i don't quite understand the prioritization of the senator from oklahoma why he picks on you know this particular project it's just this is a project that is more cost effective than any any other alternative and it's one of the most cost effective in this in the nation we feel very good about it but just as we see as wetlands restoration will lessen the impact of hurricanes because the wetlands are that natural absorber of the water and they also lessen the power of the hurricane we have here using the god given beaches as a way to do this flood control or better said hurricane impact reduction so we learned from hurricane katrina that we should address our flood threats before they materialize we are worried about this particular community and i am very pleased that this particular project certainly wasn't even controversial when we put together our package because it was so clearly fits all the criteria that we had in place and my colleagues saying well don't do this till you do sacramento it just doesn't make any sense to me it truly it doesn't because we need to do it all that's the point of the word a bill to take care of as many people as we can  protected with the you know most stringent criteria that we have so it's the russian roulette amendment it plays with the fates of of my community and i think cetera amendments that would strike a blow at the the tourism revival and and louisiana is is also i think in ill fated amendment and i the reason i was so i think it would be very good for the bell i'm looking forward to senator inhofe to rival he has had a very grueling we can any rock and i don't know exactly when he will arrive but let me just at this point note the absence quorum call on the floor of the senate this afternoon as senators continue working on water resources legislation right now they're considering the coburn amendment to the boxer's substitute earlier today senator reid says that he hopes for final passage by the end this week and also hopes to get to immigration legislation by sometime this week live coverage of the u s senate during a scoring call here on c span to