Water Resources Development Act of 2007--Veto --

Floor Speech

WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2007--VETO -- (Senate - November 07, 2007)

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from California for the tremendous work she has done on this critical bill that supports the infrastructure across the country and for her diligence in keeping to the task to make sure we are finally here at this point where we are just a vote away from having this signed into law.

Madam President, I wanted to come to the Senate floor tonight to urge the Senate to override the President's very shortsighted veto of this Water Resources Development Act. This is a bill that, as the Senator from California said, renews critical flood control, navigation, and water quality projects that are important across the country but are important in my home State of Washington as well.

This bill ensures our waterways can continue to be used to move goods. It helps restore our beaches and our wetlands, which are important to our coastal communities, and it makes sure we are protected from catastrophic floods. These projects in this bill are essential for our economy. And as we saw with Hurricane Katrina, they can also be a matter of life and death. That is why I was astonished that President Bush vetoed this bill.

More than 2 years after Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, destroyed coastal Mississippi, and killed 1,600 people, I couldn't believe the President said no to this bill. Even after he failed to respond to the devastation on the gulf, he is now standing in the way of projects that will protect the people of that region. Madam President, 81 Senators approved this bill in October because we understood our responsibility to invest in these important projects that provide for public safety and that keep our economy healthy.

The President's veto is another example of his misplaced priorities. Throughout this year he has been insistent on playing political games at the expense of our Nation's economy and our health and safety. So, again, I urge our colleagues to override this veto and show the President he got it wrong.

I know most of the Senate agree it is critical for us to address these issues now. This bill will help us avoid another catastrophe such as we saw in New Orleans, and it will help ensure our environment and our economy stays healthy.

Too many years have passed since the Water Development Resources Act was reauthorized. It is 5 years overdue now, and the needs are piling up. I again thank Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe because their leadership in the first year of this Democratic-controlled Congress made sure that this bill did finally get to the President.

The tragedy in New Orleans provided a dramatic example of how necessary this bill is, but there are hundreds of communities across the country that have been waiting for years for Congress to act on this bill and ensure that these vital projects finally get started.

WRDA creates a national levee safety program and ensures thousands of miles of levees across the country will get a general safety inspection. It enables the Federal Government to act quickly on critical flood control projects, and it helps our local communities prepare for damaging and deadly floods.

This bill is also about economic development. It ensures that shipping can continue on our waterways and helps us to move everything from wheat to cars to wind turbines from port to port. And it is about making sure our lakes and our beaches are clean and safe. It protects our environment and promotes recreation and it provides jobs.

By vetoing this bill, the President said no to the communities that have been waiting for years to go ahead with these critical environmental, safety, and economic development projects. And, Madam President, some of those communities are in our home State. From shipping, to boating, to fishing, our waterways in the Pacific Northwest are vital to our way of life. That includes, by the way, a major shipping route on the Columbia River, with container ships and bulk carriers and tankers and car carriers that travel back and forth, as the Presiding Officer knows, carrying goods in, and shipping lumber and grain and countless other products out.

So it is vital to the economy of our region the Columbia get regular dredging and maintenance. This bill, the WRDA bill, lifts restrictions on the number of days Federal dredges can operate to make sure that happens. And it helps our region in a number of other ways too. This bill gives the Corps of Engineers another tool so they can eliminate that huge backlog of permit applications for people who are trying to do everything from building piers to expanding ports. That will save our local governments millions of dollars.

By vetoing this bill, the WRDA bill, the President essentially said no to the economy, to the safety, and to the environment in my home State of Washington.

Sadly, the Water Resources Development Act is not the first important and bipartisan bill this President has blocked. It happens to be the fifth. Besides this bill, President Bush has vetoed children's health insurance; lifesaving stem cell research, twice; and our efforts to change course in Iraq and bring our troops home. He has, by the way, threatened to veto many of our appropriations bills. He says he objects to our spending bills because they invest $22 billion more than he asked for.

President Bush is pretty happy to talk about pork and complain, but what he will not do and has not done yet is tell the American people what he wants to cut. Would he cut health care funding? Would he cut the money to build our deteriorating bridges and roads? Maybe he would cut investments to the FBI or the DEA. Perhaps it is the millions of dollars of funding we have in these bills for job training or education that he objects to. We don't know because he would not say.

But he ought to know this. We stand by these important investments because our bills ensure our roads and our bridges and our airports and our railways are in good and safe condition. They ensure our kids can see a doctor. They ensure we can do cutting-edge research so we can find cures for diseases such as diabetes or MS. But as we have seen, the President has insisted on blocking these ideas and priorities and keeps repeating his apparent favorite four-letter word, which is ``veto.''

Instead of investing in our communities, he has continued to play political games. Instead of progress, all we have gotten are vetoes. I hope it is time for us to send a message to President Bush: We are not going to stand idly by and watch you veto these investments in our communities. I hope our colleagues override this veto on this important legislation, and I believe by standing together, as our friends in the House did, we can send a strong message to him about who has the right priorities for America. I hope by doing this we can finally unite with our Republican colleagues in choosing a new course for the other important bills--the children's health bill, all of our appropriations bills, even the stem cell research bill.

I think it is time for Congress to turn a page on the President's obstruction. This is the first step. I hope there are more to come. As I have said before, and I will say it again now, people around this country are eager for a change. They want to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and we want to make sure the President does not put out that light.

I yield the floor.

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