Mary Landrieu actually said...

If we had not passed the RESTORE Act, all of that money would have come, under previous law, to the Federal Treasury.

It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use these penalty monies to jumpstart some of these very needed restoration projects.

I insisted on that, Senator Vitter supported that effort, so that our local parishes can have some of this money to do some things.

I want to focus on the portions of this budget that deal with oil and gas revenues and permitting.