Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for the Small Business Administration's disaster loans program, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for the time and rise in support of the bill and would say that the subcommittee will be holding hearings to get to the bottom of this.

The funding provided in the bill translates into $4.8 billion in loans that will now be available to victims of the gulf coast hurricanes. The bill simply provides a temporary fix by shifting funds previously appropriated to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and redesignating them for the Small Business Administration disaster loan program.

The funding is needed immediately as a stopgap measure so that lending to affected homeowners and businesses can continue uninterrupted.

As a personal comment, when we listen to the different debates and comments and all the shows and all the attacking, the things going on in this city, I think it is really time for both parties to come together and to attempt to deal with some of these issues that we have in this country in a less partisan way. There was a very good article that David Broder did in the Washington Post about a week-and-a-half ago when he talked about when President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Hilton, Tip O'Neill went to his bedside at the George Washington University Hospital and held his hand and prayed with him. There were differences in the country those days, but there was just a different tone.

So I would hope that we could return to the days of Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill whereby the differences were less sharp and more civil to do which, quite frankly, with the problems that this country has both domestically and internationally, come together to do the best thing for the country.

With that, I appreciate the gentleman bringing up this bill.

Congress of the United States,

House of Representatives,

January 30, 2006.

Dear Colleague: You may have missed the David Broder column

below that appeared in the Sunday, January 29, Washington

Post on the same day my pastor preached a sermon based on

Ephesians 4:29-32 about being kind to one another.

There will always be real differences in our views on

issues, but there should not be an absence of kindness and

civility in our dealings with one another.

It would be a good idea for the Congress and the country to

adopt the Ronald Reagan/``Tip'' O'Neill model.

Sincerely,

Frank R. Wolf,

Member of Congress.

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 1, 2006]

When Partisan Venom Didn't Rule

(By David S. Broder)

The stench of partisanship is so strong in Washington these

days that it is difficult to remember that it was not always

the case that Republicans and Democrats were at each other's

throats. But, in truth, there was a time when friendship and

simple human compassion were far more powerful than any

political differences.

A wonderful reminder of that fact can be found among the

oral histories compiled by two dozen of Ronald Reagan's main

associates that are being released Sunday by the Miller

Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. The

transcripts are available at www.millercenter.org. One of the tapes was furnished by Max Friedersdorf, who ran

the White House congressional liaison staff for Reagan.

Friedersdorf recounts in the interview what happened while

the president was recovering at George Washington University

Hospital after the assassination attempt outside the

Washington Hilton hotel on March 30, 1981.

Reagan was seriously wounded by John Hinckley, and the day

after the shooting, Friedersdorf got a call in the White

House from James Baker, Reagan's chief of staff, who was at

the hospital. ``Get over here,'' Baker commanded.

``I went over to GW Hospital and went up to the president's

room,'' Friedersdorf said, ``and Jim was outside the room

with Mrs. Reagan and her Secret Service agent. Baker said,

``I want you to stay here until I tell you to leave.''

What had happened, Friedersdorf learned, was that Nancy

Reagan ``was all upset,'' because Sen. Strom Thurmond had

come over to the hospital a few hours earlier and somehow had

talked his way through the lobby, up the elevator and into

Reagan's room, where he attempted to chat with the gravely

wounded president.

``Mrs. Reagan was outraged, distraught,'' Friedersdorf

said. So Baker directed him to take up the watch, and ``if

any congressman or senator comes around here, make sure the

Secret Service doesn't let anybody up, even on this floor.''

Friedersdorf said he remained on duty during daylight hours

for the next three or four days, and then word came from

Baker that the president had recovered enough to start to see

people.

The first person to be admitted, Friedersdorf said, was

Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill, the speaker of the House.

When the Massachusetts Democrat arrived, Nancy Reagan

slipped out of the room and Friedersdorf retreated to a

corner of the suite where he could remain unobtrusive. ``Tip

got down on his knees next to the bed, and said a prayer for

the president, and he held his hand and kissed him and they

said a prayer together . . . the 23rd Psalm.

``The speaker stayed there quite a while. They never talked

too much. I just heard him say the prayer, then I heard him

say, `God bless you, Mr. President, we're all praying for

you.'

``The Speaker was crying. The president still, I think was

a little, he was obviously sedated, but I think he knew it

was the speaker because he said, `I appreciate your coming

down, Tip.' He held his hand, sat there by the bed, and held

his hand for a long [time].''

When I reached Friedersdorf last week at his retirement

home in Florida, I asked him how it happened that Reagan's

first guest was the leading Democrat on Capitol Hill.

``Well,'' he said, ``Tip was third in line of succession

[after the vice president] and the fact he was a Democrat

didn't bother anybody. We didn't even think about it. Tip had

been calling constantly to see how the president was doing.

And there was a bond there.

``I remember,'' Friedersdorf continued, ``the first dinner

the Reagans had in the private residence was for Tip and his

wife, and my wife and I were there. Tip and the president had

a drink or two and started swapping Irish stories.

``Often, after that, Tip would say pretty harsh things

about some of our legislative proposals, and the staff would

want Reagan to answer him. But they trusted each other, and

the president would say, `That's just Tip,' and let it go.''

I asked Friedersdorf if he could imagine that sort of

relationship flourishing now between the Republican president

and the top Democrats in Congress.

``Absolutely not,'' he said. Sadly, I think he is right.

Mr. President, after the close of business on February 9, 2006, the Small Business Administration, SBA, notified my office that the SBA Disaster Loan Program was going to run out of money 4 days later on February 13, 2006. I was outraged that my office was only made aware of the situation because USA Today was about to do a story on it. The Disaster Loan Program is one of the most important lifelines that the people of my State are relying on to pull themselves out of the destruction wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. When SBA first knew about the funding shortfall in this program, the Senators from Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Alabama should have been the first people told. No doubt some of my colleagues may only have learned about this in the media. That is not how a Federal agency should notify Congress of important developments.

The administration has requested, and the Appropriations Committee has approved, a reprogramming of $100 million from SBA's salaries and expenses account to the Disaster Loan Program to keep it funded for another 2 weeks. The program will still need additional funding beyond this. H.R. 4745, that is before the Senate today, will allow for a reallocation of $712 million in funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to SBA in order to keep the Disaster Loan Program running until the end of April. They hope that by then Congress will have acted on an additional Katrina supplemental appropriations bill to keep the Disaster Loan Program funded through the end of the fiscal year. I certainly support this legislation and I am pleased that SBA acted to keep the Disaster Loan Program funded.

But even with these temporary extensions, this latest incident is just another example of the poor performance of SBA under the its Administrator Hector Barreto. SBA told us that it has known about this problem since December when they realized that their average disaster loan size for damage as a result of Katrina was double what they had previously experienced in the program. So all of their estimates were off. They knew that the amount of money they had budgeted for disaster loans to businesses and homeowners for the program would not last. But they never said anything to us about it--until they thought that the press would tell us first.

The Small Business Committee held hearings focusing on SBA's disaster response to Katrina and Rita, so the agency knew that this was a major concern to the chair and ranking member of the committee, Senator Snowe and Senator Kerry, as well as myself and my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter. The committee staff is in almost daily contact with SBA, giving SBA ample opportunity to discuss upcoming issues that would warrant congressional attention. No one at SBA raised this issue, everything was fine.

When the administration released the Federal budget for 2007, SBA made no mention that the Disaster Loan Program was going to need additional funding. The SBA's Chief Financial Officer took part in budget briefings for staff along with other SBA officials. Again no mention that the Disaster Loan Program was running out of money.

Mr. President, if this was an isolated incident or oversight, I would not be nearly as disappointed. But this is far from an isolated event. My constituents have been complaining about SBA and the Disaster Loan Program since the earliest days after the disaster. Katrina and Rita catastrophically destroyed or damaged over 18,000 businesses and over 200,000 homes in Louisiana alone. Early on after the storm, disaster victims had to wait months for their loans to be approved. The agency did not have enough staff on the ground to do damage assessments. The situation has improved since those early days, and the SBA has finally heeded our calls to contract out the loss verification process to speed things up. I commend them for coming to their senses on that, but I still believe that the SBA's slow start has led to business failures and has left many homeowners without any hope of returning home.

Furthermore, SBA's failure to accurately track the finances of the Disaster Loan Program, and more importantly, its neglect in keeping Congress updated on this developing problem, is evidence of a culture of inefficiency that goes through to the highest levels of the SBA. I want to know what these officials knew and when they knew it, because certainly no one in Congress was told until February 1. That is 12 days--I repeat 12 days--before the program was set to run out of money.

Mr. President, Katrina and Rita threw the gulf coast into a state of uncertainty. SBA's handling of the Disaster Loan Program has only made this feeling of uncertainty worse. We need more than a string of temporary fixes to the financial viability of the program to ensure that the dollars will be there for the people in the gulf who are trying to rebuild. We need a permanent solution or else the management mistakes of the past will continue to plague the SBA's disaster response for future disasters.

Mr. President, the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program is facing another shutdown this month unless Congress passes a bill to provide the program with more funding. A shutdown of this program would further slow the recovery of the gulf, where hundreds of thousands of business owners and homeowners have been waiting months for the administration to process and disburse loans to help them pay their bills and start rebuilding their businesses and homes.

As of this week, according to the SBA's data, out of more than 60,000 loans approved for businesses and homeowners, only 23,000 have been partially or fully disbursed. And out of the almost 375,000 applications received, 190,000 are still waiting to be processed. The families and businesses waiting should not be subjected to yet another roadblock to assistance through the disaster loan program.

The mismanagement of the SBA's disaster loan program has been well- documented on national news programs like CNN and in major papers like the Washington Post and USA Today. The Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship has held two hearings on the matter. Adding to the problems, the SBA was not paying attention to the books and didn't realize it was making larger loans and spending more than it had estimated. This lack of oversight brought the program to the brink of shutting down.

When the President's budget was released on February 6, the SBA discovered it only had enough money to make it to February 13. Instead of being forthcoming about the problem when the SBA and its financial team came up to brief the oversight Committee on SBA's budget and financial standing, they were silent. Luckily, as has been the pattern since President Bush has been in office, the Congress stepped in to pass emergency legislation to keep one of SBA's small business programs up and running.

Specifically, Congress approved a last-minute request from the administration to reprogram $100 million from

SBA's disaster administrative funds into the account for disaster loans. Unfortunately, not only did SBA wait until the last minute to seek assistance, but the assistance it sought was not enough to keep the program running long--just enough to keep the program running from February 14 to maybe the end of the month. To make it through the year, the SBA needs an estimated $1.3 billion.

Demonstrating yet another lapse in judgment, the administration did not plan to seek the entire amount to avoid another shutdown but instead decided to take a piecemeal approach. Their plan was to ask now for enough money to make it through July and then later in the year to seek the rest of the needed funding. I disagreed with this approach and urged the President and Senator Majority Leader Frist to request the entire funding at one time and to move the funding measure as a freestanding bill so that it could pass before the Congress breaks for the Presidents Day recess. Waiting until Congress comes back on February 28 would be too risky given that SBA only has the $100 million it requested to keep going.

Given all that is at stake for the families and businesses in the gulf, I am very glad that today, before we recess, the Senate is considering H.R. 4745, a bill to provide funding to the SBA's disaster loan program. I am glad that Congress has come to the administration's rescue to pass another emergency bill, one that is freestanding. I only wish the bill provided the full $1.3 billion instead of $712 million. This will only keep the program running through April. However, the House has already recessed, so we are not in the position to add more funding at this time.

I hope this bill gives some peace of mind to those in the gulf waiting for help, and I hope that when we come back we can be just as swift in approving a final measure to fully fund the disaster loan program.

In closing, I ask unanimous consent that letters from me and my colleagues to President Bush and Majority Leader Frist be printed in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from California has indicated, the majority is bringing to the floor a bill that transfers $712 million from FEMA to SBA for Katrina-related costs. We are told that SBA projects they will run out of money by February 21 without the action contained in this bill. That is despite the fact that the Congress has just passed a supplemental appropriation for Katrina that was signed into law on December 30 of 2005.

At that time, Congress actually provided SBA emergency supplemental funding totaling $441 million. SBA stated that the reason their projections were inadequate was because the size of the loans were much larger than previous disasters, from approximately $30,000 to $60,000 per loan.

Even though Katrina and other hurricanes hit in late August, because the SBA was so slow in approving loans, they had no idea of the size. Once the SBA began to approve loans at a quicker pace, they apparently discovered that they would probably be short of funds, but even that, Mr. Speaker, is not the whole story.

SBA believes they will need an additional $400 to $600 million on top of what is being provided here to provide funding for all the hurricane victims of Katrina, Rita and Wilma. The difference is expected to be presented during the larger Iraq-Katrina supplemental, which is supposed to be coming any day.

The fact that the administration had no idea that one of the key agencies on the ground in Louisiana was almost out of money seems to me to be just another example of the wholly inadequate response which the Nation has seen in the aftermath of these hurricanes. The administration's initial response was disorganized and indecisive. The people who knew what they were doing, the experienced career employees of FEMA and other first responders, were apparently ignored by incompetent and unqualified political cronies who should never have been in the positions of leadership that they had.

I would have thought that 9/11 would have been a wake-up call. I would have thought that Katrina would be a wake-up call. I think that every Member of this House has the right to be tired of being disappointed by the folks who cannot shoot straight when it comes to providing the needed relief.

Let me also, Mr. Speaker, express my concern about the fact that this Congress is not taking action to address another problem which is an emergency, namely, the energy crisis in this country. Despite some relief being caused by warmer than usual temperatures, the latest figures issued on February 7 by the Department of Energy confirm that the cost of heating one's home has still risen dramatically this winter. Comparing this winter to last, average prices for natural gas are up by 31 percent, average prices for home heating oil are up 25 percent, and average prices for propane are up 18 percent just over that year.

In spite of those price increases, this year's appropriation for the Low Income Heating Assistance Program is actually $21 million less than last year. A shortfall in LIHEAP is even more serious than these price figures would suggest, Mr. Speaker, because, first, this winter's increase comes on top of price increases over the past several years that far outpace the appropriations this Congress has provided for

Mr. Speaker, I was told that I had one other Member who wanted to speak, but she is detained in another meeting. So I think if the gentleman is interested in yielding back the balance of his time, we could do that on this side as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, as a result of this Administration's failed leadership and mismanagement of resources, H.R. 4745, Hurricane Katrina Small Business Loan Supplemental is a corrective measure. The supplemental funding needed is directly in response to the gross incompetence and poor planning by the Bush Administration. This proposed legislation comes on the heels of Congress providing more than $400 million for Katrina disaster loans two months ago. This highlights that the Small Business Administration is unable to accurately assess the needs on the ground and funds that have already been allocated have been mismanaged. Running out of disaster loans for Hurricane Katrina victims is an embarrassment to this Administration and a slap in the face to those who survived Hurricane Katrina. The facts are clear; the Bush Administration is failing to help Gulf Coast residents rebuild their homes and their lives.

Immediate assistance must be given to the region's local small businesses. Currently, only 37 percent of Hurricane Katrina disaster loan applications have been approved from a total of 280,000. Furthermore, less than 10 percent of those loans approved have been paid out. As it stands now, there is a backlog of 105,664 pending applications. Congress must take action to ensure that this mismanagement does not continue to compound the devastation of Hurricane Katrina survivors. The Gulf Coast region is depending upon swift deliberate action to revive its economy and put it on the road to full recovery. However, the Bush Administration is steeped in incompetence, mismanagement and cronyism.

Nearly 750,000 families remain displaced from their homes and are paying the price for this Administrations lack of strong leadership. Additionally, this administration has rejected the only bi-partisan plan to rebuild Louisiana. The recent budget proposal indicates misplaced priorities and seeks to slash funding for small businesses, community development and rural development. These funds are precisely what the Gulf Coast requires in order to rebuild. Furthermore, the abuse and the fraud persist in this Administration regarding no-bid contractual agreements which are not capable of rebuilding communities effectively and efficiently in the Gulf Coast.

The Bush Administration has not met the needs of Katrina families, small businesses and communities. To further compound this colossal failure in leadership, the Republicans are refusing low-income energy (LIHEAP) assistance funds today, even though home heating costs are up and federal grants are down. Additionally, 12 states have already run out of energy assistance, and some people may have their heat shut off in the next month. I must underline that these are poor families that are struggling to make ends-meat. Congress has cut home energy assistance by $21 million, while the number of people applying for help with their heating bills has reached a 12-year high. Families are essentially paying 17 percent more this year for home heating and 67 percent more since this Administration took office. While millions of Americans are cold at home, oil companies are reporting record profits and Republicans are ensuring that this does not change.

It is clear that Democrats are moving to the beat of a different drum than this Administration. We are committed to putting an end to the corruption, mismanagement and poor leadership that has adversely impacted Hurricane Katrina survivors.