Mitch Landrieu: “The $3.3 billion in the underlying WRDA bill represents about 20 percent of the total bill. As I tried to explain to…”

“The $3.3 billion in the underlying WRDA bill represents about 20 percent of the total bill. As I tried to explain to some of my constituents at home, if we were talking about a desert bill we would probably have zero money in this bill. But we are talking about a water bill, and Louisiana most certainly has a great deal of water--sometimes more than we need, more than we asked for, and more than we want. But this is Congress's major water development bill. Because we sit at the mouth of the greatest river system in the country, which is the mouth of the Mississippi River, and because we have some of the greatest and last coastal wetlands in the country, of course, this would have a great many projects for us. We really appreciate, Senator Vitter and I, the cooperation of Republicans and Democrats in being particularly supportive of us as we struggle to get many of these protection projects in this bill authorized because, of course, of our recent tragic experiences with the storms. The $3.3 billion in projects is significant, necessary, and essential to beginning to build a kind of barrier of protection that the people of south Louisiana, and I might add south Mississippi and part of south Texas, depend on to keep them safe.”