Date: 2005-09-07
Speaker: BLANCHE LINCOLN (democrat)
Chamber: S

indicated yesterday there are about 60.000 evacuees who have come to Arkansas with no jobs. no money. no change of clothesnothing. They are counting on us. and we in the Senate are not doing anything. We all care about these victims. This is not a question of who cares the most. But I have. to say. and I raise a flag of concern. tomorrow morning we are going to the Commerce. Science. and Justice appropriations bill. Under the rules of the Senate. you are really restricted as to what you can do on an appropriations bill. This appropriations bill is no different. We can do a few little things to help the victims but almost nothing: SBA loans and maybe a few things for law enforcement. but there is nothing that gets the victims the health care. the housing. the education. or the financial relief they need now. We need to adjust our priorities on the floor of the Senate. If we go to another appropriations bill. the same problems are here. We cannot get to the things that we need to get to. to help these people who are so desperately in need of help. I personally think we should finish the Defense authorization bill. That is what should be called up. Call up the Defense authorization bill. I spoke to the majority leader last week about this and indicated I would talk to Senator LEVIN about how much time he thought it would take. I reported my findings to Senator FRIST. We have to get to the Defense authorization bill. We spent some time on it. a few days. as you will remember. Nothing happened. to speak of. The bill was pulled. We have hundreds of thousands of people who will be affected by the Defense authorization bill. not only those on the ground as soldiers and marines and airmen and some naval personnel who will be helped. who are on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have to do it for that reason. but we also have to do it for the hundreds of thousands of veterans who are affected by what we do with the Defense authorization bill. or do not do. and right now we are doing nothing. If we brought up the Defense authorization bill. we could do the things that need to be done to help the victims of Katrina. What. obviously. is the game plan around here is we will wait on the Defense authorization bill until we are way down the road. Then people will say you are spending too much time on this and you are bringing up matters that are not in keeping with the. defense of this country. I think the defense of this country is right now. What we have seen happening in the gulf indicates that we need our soldiers and marines. our military personnel. There are about 60.000 of them down there right now. in those three Gulf States60.000. The Defense bill is important. Lets bring it up. If we brought- up that bill. there are some things we could do. We could. for example. introduce legislation to reestablish FEMA at the Cabinet level so it is no longer the toothless tiger it has become. We could introduce legislation to establish an independent commission to study what went wrong with Katrina. It is going to happen. There will be an independent commission to study Katrina just like there was an independent commission to study 9/11. The administration fought that and fought that. but it came to be and it was good. Congressman Hamilton and Governor Kean did a wonderful job for the people of America and the world with the work they did. We need a similar bipartisan commission to find out what took place after the storm hit. There is legislation in which some are interestedincluding. it is my understanding. Congressional Representatives from Louisiana. and I know I have spoken to Senator KENNEDY about thisto have an independent authority for how we are going to spend maybe as much as $200 billion. $150 billion. to do what needs to. be done as a result of that catastrophe. an independent commission like the Tennessee Valley Authority. as an example. so that money is spent in the right way. What about gas prices? Do we need to take a look at that? Do we need legislation to take a look at that? Of course we do. Of course we do. In one quarter. the last quarter. ExxonMobils profits were up to $8 billion. one quarter net profit. British Petroleum. $6 billion. Shell. $5.4 billion. ChevronTexaco. $3.7 billion. Conoco. $3.10 billiontheir profits up 55 percent. Chevron profits up 13 percent. Shell up 35 percent. British Petroleum. their profits up 37 percent. ExxonMobil up 32 percent. People are going to fill their vehicles today. and they will wind up spending $100 for a tank of gasone tank. So having the Defense bill brought up would give us an opportunity to do that. I cant imagine why we cant go to the Defense authorization billother than the reasons I just indicated. There are things we could be doing. The Energy and Water conference. we have been waiting for months to have a conference on that. We cant do that. Why? Because the Senate number is higher than the House number. so the House fixes that. They just wont let us go to conference. Chairman HOBSON is not allowing us to do anything because our number is bigger than theirs. The American people should understand -that part of the Energy and Water subcommittee money that we need to spend is for the Corps of Engineers. It is here and it is in the doldrums. to say the least. Nothing is happening. Why cant we go to conference? Also. in that the Republicans control the House. the Senate. and the White House. I think we need to revisit this budget and reconciliation. Is it really the time in the history of our country to have. as called for in the documents I have just talked about. $70 billion more in tax cuts? That is what we are being asked to go along with. On the night we voted on the budget resolution I read a letter from the head of the Lutheran Church. the Methodist Church. mainline Protestant Churches. They said to me: I want you to tell everyone -here voting on thisand I read it into the RECORD. -they gave it to me in the form of a letterthat the budget document that you are b6ing asked to vote on is "immoral." That is their word. not mine: "immoral." If it was immoral when we passed it. think about it now. We are going to ask for $70 billion more in tax cuts. most of them for the rich. of course. $35 billion in spending cuts. $10 billion alone for Medicaid. In all the pictures on television and the newspapers you see those people who could not get out of the storm because they had no automobiles. there was no public transportationthey were stuck there. The poorest of the poor have been hit the hardest by Katrina. Shouldnt.we consider not cutting Medicaid $10 billion? That is where that money goes. to the poorest of the poor. We cut student loans. food stamps--these are cuts to the very programs the survivors of Katrina need. America can do better. FEMA and other agencies failed these people. in my opinion. The Senate must not fail the American people. It is time we get to work. I have given some outlines. We as a minority are hippy to work with the majority. but I have given an outline of some of the things I think we need to do. The burden is on the majority to do something about this budget and reconciliation because it is on the conscience of the majority. I have to say: $10 billion cuts in Medicaid? More tax cuts? Cutting food stamps? Student loans? I also say that we have a burden. an obligation to do something about the military that is sacrificing so much.. The little. sparsely populated State of Nevada had 24 soldiers killed. I yield the floor.