Pete Domenici: “I note the presence now of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I will take as little time as possible, and I…”

“I note the presence now of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I will take as little time as possible, and I know of no reason for this amendment to take a lot of time, but I want to make sure everybody knows it is pending, and that is why I put it here, and I plan to offer it now. It is a very important amendment with reference to the reconstruction of the levee system. I will quickly show three photographs. One, the photo that is up here right now shows the floodwall breach at the 17th Street Canal. As you can see, the storm surge pushed the floodwall out of alignment. The corresponding photograph shows repairs to the 17th Street Canal floodwall as of February 2006. This one shows the repairs and, believe it or not, that is what has been done already, Mr. Chairman, in the short time since the disastrous break, and it looks like that now. Third, this photo shows the failure of an I-wall section of the levee. The President has requested that we replace I-walls with stronger and more substantial T-walls. These I-walls fell down all over parts of the area, letting water come through as they fell down, and became more like waterways rather than water containers. That is what we are replacing, and we are replacing them with what is shown in a fourth photograph I have here, which shows work taking place elsewhere in the area.…”