We should not borrow more money on top of everything we have borrowed over the last several months and the last several years to do it.

We need to continue the highway program and continue that vital work.

We would suggest maximum flexibility to the President and the White House.

To me, at least, it seems like we are ignoring a core problem in the governmental sector.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

So, just to underscore this, where the canal walls breached have been replaced with a whole new design. Correct?

You are just fixing the same system that broke in the first place.

I believe this language covers Option 2 more clearly than it covers Option 1.

Do not rush to undertake the expenditure of a lot of funds that might not be adequate for the task.

So again, under Option 1, that would not change. Under Option 2, it would completely change for the better.

I guess one of the points I am trying to make is that the Corps will say, well, under Option 1 we are going to match at the lake the pumping capacity that the city has in the center of the city.

The authorization language says modify the canals. Now to me, this fits Option 2 better than it fits Option 1 because of that word.

it is safer. It would simply take the water out of the system and avoid the huge risk of the collapse of the walls again.

OK. So, under Option 1, the solution is to lower the water level allowed in the canal to a lower 'safe water level.' Is that right?

So, wherever there is not a breach, which is 99 percent of the walls we are talking about, there is the same old faulty design that led to the breaches.

This is the authorization language to do the permanent fix.

But they provide a heck of a lot more protection from flooding.

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thank you again General for your leadership.

So, given that, is not the general concept of Pump to the River to move a significant volume of water in a whole other direction and avoid the 17th Street Canal, a reasonable compensation for that enormous loss from the capacity we thought…

Has the analysis of Option 1 versus Option 2 and 2a gone through any sort of outside peer review?

But my point is, if under Option 1 you cannot allow the water to get past 6 feet, you are giving up a lot of safe storage between 6 feet and 12.5 feet, which we thought we had, which the system was designed to include?

In my opening statement, I expressed a frustration, also, with some of the ways the Corps is moving forward...

Again, my big overarching concern is that we could be repeating a grave mistake of history.

Just to summarize, my personal goal coming out of this hearing, which I think is shared by Senator Landrieu and Chair Boxer, is to first urge the Corps again to reconsider their position on authorization of 2 versus 1.

Everyone in the State unanimously is with this.