Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
July 11, 2002 -- Page: S6635

MRS. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I am the ranking member of the Military Construction Subcommittee. I have worked very hard with Senator Feinstein, the chairman of that committee, to produce a bill that takes into account all of the priorities of the Department of Defense, the administration, and the Members' requests. I think we have done a good job. We didn't give every Member everything they asked for, of course, but I think we have done a terrific job in meeting the needs of the military and the requests of the administration.

We need to pass this bill. I appreciate the support of Senator Lott, along with, of course, Senator Reid and Senator Daschle and Senator Feinstein, that we need to move this forward. However, I wanted to say that although Senator Kyl has objected--and I disagree with his decision to do so--I understand his frustration, and Senator Reid said he understands his frustration. We see it every night on the news--the fighting of these incredible fires, people being put out of their homes, ruining vast hundreds of thousands of acres of our forestland in this country, and we are running out of money.

I hope that people have also seen the floods in my home State of Texas. The Governor is now saying that the damage is estimated to be $2 billion. It only happened last week, so I cannot tell you exactly what we are going to need to clean up the floods. But I know that the people are suffering. I am going to be there tomorrow with Joe Albaugh, head of FEMA, to look at the damage myself because I want to make sure we are doing the right thing for the people of Arizona, the people of Colorado, the people of New Mexico, the people of Idaho, and the people of Texas. We have always done that.

So I understand Senator Kyl's frustration. I am sorry he is holding up this bill, but I am committed to seeking a vehicle for an amendment that would ensure that the money is there to fight the forest fires in this country and to clean up the flood damage that we see happening in Texas. We will do that. We will find the vehicle to do it. I commit that we will. We are not going to appropriate money that isn't needed. We are going to have a contingency appropriation so that if the money is needed, it is there.

We all want to be careful with taxpayer dollars, but there has never been an earthquake, or a flood, or a fire that we have not responded to as a country and said we are not going to let people suffer when they have nowhere to turn but to us. We will be there for them. So I am committed to trying to find the right vehicle. I want to make the decision now so we can get on with MILCON. If military construction is the right vehicle, let's put that emergency appropriation on military construction. I would prefer to see it on the supplemental appropriations on which we are having a conference tomorrow. I would like to put it there.

This is an emergency. We have had a change in circumstances since the President sent his request to Congress. It seems to me that it is common sense that we have had a change in circumstances that would warrant a change in the cap. That would be the preferred way to handle this emergency, which we all acknowledge we need to do. If we cannot do that, I want the commitment for Senator Kyl, for Senator Domenici, for the Senator from Colorado, that we will handle this issue. So if it is not going to be on the supplemental, then I am willing to try to help them put it on military construction. If it is not military construction, then I don't think we will be handling any appropriations bills until we get a commitment to address this issue.