On the recordMay 15, 2013
for the benefit of all Senators, we are moving forward today. I thank all colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Senator Vitter and I have tried to allow all kinds of amendments. Unfortunately, yesterday there was an objection to one contentious amendment, and Senator Landrieu was--she took one for the team and withdrew her amendment because she wanted to make sure this WRDA bill moves forward. I appreciate that. It is a very important issue about flood issues and it is complicated and I know how strongly she feels about it. I know she will be back. So we have a number of amendments, and we will be debating them for 1 minute on each side. I wish to address my friend from Oklahoma. Let me tell my colleagues, we have been on opposite sides on his amendments. I don't like that very much. When we do work together we win big; when we don't, then it doesn't work out well for either of us. So I am sorry to say I will have to oppose the two amendments of my friend from Oklahoma, and I want to lay out for the record in a little more than a minute why. We do something important in this bill. We create a new infrastructure deauthorization commission to review the backlog of corps projects and develop a list of projects that will be deauthorized unless Congress passes a joint resolution opposing the commission's recommendation. It is kind of like the Base Closure Commission, where the Base Closure Commission comes forward and says these are the bases that will be closed.…
