Amy Klobuchar: “I come to the floor today to speak on the importance of passing the Water Resources Development Act or, as we know it…”

“I come to the floor today to speak on the importance of passing the Water Resources Development Act or, as we know it around Washington, the WRDA bill. In my State they know it as a bill that is good for our harbors, rivers, and the flood protection we need in the Fargo-Moorhead area or, as I like to call it in Minnesota, the Moorhead-Fargo area. The bill advances a critical front to protect the Red River of the north to Moorhead, MN, and Fargo, ND. I visited this region twice over the last year, and I have been back literally every year I have been in the Senate because of flood threats--these years more than ever. This is literally an every-year occurrence now to the point where people have major sandbag operations filled with volunteers, seniors, and people from the prisons. Everyone is working together, but there must be a better way to do this. Just because we do it so well in North Dakota and Minnesota and have such an incredible spirit of voluntarism doesn't mean there is going to be one year where the flood is too great or that we should continue on this path when, in fact, we have the opportunity to have long-term flood protection. The river has been above major flood stage 6 out of the last 8 years. In 2009, the year of the record flood, the river rose to more than 40 feet. I will remind the Presiding Officer of the Grand Forks flood and what happened there. It was literally just about an hour away from Fargo.…”