Date: 2005-09-13
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

The gentleman is absolutely right on point. Your comments remind me of a question that our good friend. Doug Lyons frdm the South Florida Sun Sentinel. who I spoke to this morning. asked me. He said. he asked me if Michael Browns resignation was enough. He said. .now that we have got a successful. documented professional who will be at least. on an interim basis. running FEMA and making sure that the disaster response to Katrina has an expert in charge. is that enough? You know. can we all breathe a sigh of relief. wipe our hands and go home? I mean. the answer to that is just so absolutely not. The leader of FEMA is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean. when you ask. any expert in emergency preparedness and disaster response if the one leader is the most important chink in the armor. they would of course say. no. it requires planning and preparation and budgeting and foresight and hindsight and a whole combination of expertise and planning that goes into preparedness and response. So while it certainly was the right thing to do. and we are pleased to see that former Under Secretary Brown now did the right thing and stepped aside. there is so much left to be done. And going forward. while we can talk about what went wrong. we need an independent investigation and an independent commission that will be able to examine objectivelyi so the American people have their confidence restored and that we know we have some competence and some deliberations going on about how we are going to deal with these kind of disasters in the future. We have got to talk about what comes next. You watch the news every night. and now almost all the TV stations are allowing Katrina victims to list their cell phone numbers on national television because some of them are still looking for their kids. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. at least as of yesterday. said there were still 1.700 missing children reported from Katrinas aftermath: 1.700 children. 14 year olds. 12 year olds. 6 year olds. babies. There are babies that are still separated from their parents. from their moms. We have got to do something going forward for these Katrina victims. We have got to make sure they have housing. Wt have got to make sure we get these .kids back in school and we can get them back in school near or in the area that they originally lived in. And like the gentleman said. with the Presidents waiver of DavisBacofi. which is the law that requires the prevailing wage be paid to workers. what incentive is there going to be for them to come back? When you have the State of Israel. which commendably has offered scholarships for the college students that were displaced by Katrina. and we have Katrina victims going over. Jews and nonJews going over to Israel now to accept scholarships. and the generosity of other countries. boy. does that say a lot about what we need to do to step up and make these residents whole again. We have got to ensure that a number of different things happen. This is the 30something Working Group. We have got a generation of people and young kids and our genera�tions children that are going to be in dire need of their governents assistance. And if there is any time when it is imperative that the Federal Government engage. any point with any circumstance that there is an appropriate and vital role for the Federal Government. it is in response to a hurricane. .I am glad to see that the President today acknowledged -finally. because it is really the first time I have heard him acknowledge. the possibility of a mistake. I am glad to see that he owned up at least in part to the possibility of there being problems. and it will be interesting to see what he says Thursday night when he speaks to the American people. I hope what he says. we hope what he says is that there is going to be some drastic changes in our preparedness. in our response. in our funding._ and in our priorities. because right now we are moving in the wrong direction.