Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Greater Miami Chapter of the Links, Inc. on their 50th year of outstanding commitment to community service. The ceremonies recognizing this important milestone will be held on Sunday, October 16, 2005 at Florida Memorial University.

The Greater Miami Chapter was chartered on Saturday, November 5, 1955 when founding members Maude Maude K. Reid, Mayme E. Williams, and Susie W. Francis brought together 15 other charter members for an installation ceremony at the Carver Hotel in Liberty City.

During its 50th anniversary celebrations, the chapter will honor seven honorees: charter member Susie W. Francis, Frances J. Chambers, Gwendolyn H. Welters, Dorothy H. Fields, Ph.D., Castell V. Bryant, Ed.D., Regina J. Frazier, and Senator Frederica S. Wilson.

The Greater Miami Chapter lists among its many accomplishments programs that bolster the arts, promote awareness of international issues and multicultural events, and assist young people in reaching their full potential.

Nationally, The Links' organization has grown to 275 chapters and approximately 11,000 members who reside in 42 states, the District of Columbia, the Bahamas, Germany and South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, 50 years after their founding, the members of the Greater Miami Chapters of The Links, Inc. are a powerful force for change in the South Florida Community. I thank them for all of their efforts, and wish them another successful 50 years of making a positive impact in the lives of others.

Mr. Speaker, it is my sad duty to bring to the attention of my colleagues the passing of Miami Gardens City

Councilwoman Audrey J. King, an accomplished professional and tireless community activist, who died Friday, September 30, 2005.

A longtime community leader and an integral part of the incorporation movement for the City of Miami Gardens, Councilwoman King was elected as the first representative of City Council Seat 3 in July 2003 and served in that capacity until her passing. Prior to the incorporation of the City, Councilwoman King was twice elected to the Miami-Dade County Community Council 3, where she served as chairwoman and vice- chairwoman from 1996 to 2002. She also served as vice-chair of the North Dade Community Development Task Force, volunteered in numerous charity activities and was honored throughout her career for her dedication to the people of our community.

She was a life member of the Miami-Dade Branch of the NAACP, serving for several years as the Political Action Chair. Councilwoman King was also a devoted member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; the First Baptist Church of Bunche Park; and a founding member of UP-PAC, Unrepresented Peoples Positive Action Council.

She leaves behind a legacy of achievement and inspiration, for she was an example of what genuine caring and unrelenting commitment can accomplish. Councilwoman King gave tirelessly of herself for the benefit of those around her and will be sorely missed. Funeral services are scheduled for Saturday, October 8th at First Baptist Church of Bunche Park.

I rise to recognize the Church of the Open Door in Liberty City, Miami on its 47th Anniversary, which was celebrated on Sunday, September 18, 2005.

To celebrate its 47th year, the Church hosted civil rights activist and preacher, Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, a colleague of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Lowery's powerful sermon was heard by many of the Church's founding members who are still active in the congregation.

Open Door is home to many prominent activists in the Liberty City community. Many members participated in the March on Washington and other key events in the civil rights movement, and they continue to be strong voices in the fight for justice and equality.

The Church of the Open Door was built in 1958 at 6001 NW 8th Avenue, and was founded by the family of Marie Faulkner Brown. To celebrate this anniversary the church unveiled portraits of its founding members and pastors, and hosted four days of guest choirs, fellowship, and worship services for its annual revival week.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Open Door's pastor, Rev. Joaquin Willis, and his congregants on this happy occasion.

Madam Speaker, once again it is an honor to come before the House. We would also like to thank the Democratic leader for allowing us to come to the floor.

We usually have a 30-something Working Group, which has now picked up on many new purposes, and tonight, once again, we have the opportunity to come to the floor on behalf of the American people, to inform the Members, and to make the process better. With us tonight we have the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), who is an outstanding Member of this body, and I am also joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), and I know others will be coming.

I just want to say that usually we deal with issues that are facing young people, but today there are a number of issues that are facing Americans in general and I am very, very concerned about not only what is going on here in Washington, D.C. but also what is not going on, and I think it is important to talk about those issues in this democracy that so many Americans have lost their lives for, that so many Americans have lost limbs and their mobility to allow us to come to this floor to represent them and represent everyday Americans.

Madam Speaker, we talked last week about the issue of the independent commission, and I think it is important that we look at this independent commission and look into what happened not only with regard to Hurricane Katrina but Hurricane Rita. I strongly believe that we can do a lot more than what we are doing right now.

I know there is a committee that is looking into this effort, but it is not a bipartisan committee. And once again I want to go on the record commending the Democratic leader for not making appointments to that committee, and I will discuss the reasons why later. I think also tonight we will talk about what is happening here in Washington, D.C., or what is not happening here in Washington, D.C., and I think we will help crystallize this not only for the Members but also for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I took the opportunity to go on to the White House Web site.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to submit for the Record the information I will be referring to regarding the White House Web site.

Mr. Speaker, I know the President put forth a task force with his homeland security adviser as the head of it. He mentioned this in an announcement, and I assumed that it would be something where this task force would actually have some findings which would come back to not only the Congress but to the American people. So I checked out the White House Web site, at WhiteHouse.gov, if any of the Members in their offices want to go on to that Web site to find out what is there and what is not there.

This is actually the front page of the Web site. It has a lot of things on here. It talks about what the President is doing, about press briefings, and a number of other things, such as the war on terror. There is a little box down here that says Hurricane Relief Efforts. You click on that and then move over to this particular page here.

Madam Speaker, it goes on. The President is hugging emergency management personnel in Texas. That is fine. We want to commend those Americans who are doing what they are supposed to be doing. It talks about a number of things, speeches in the news, Federal Government Hurricane Rita preparedness. It goes on further down the page, which is the first page if you are looking at it on the computer, President Bush declares a state of emergency for the States of Louisiana and Texas. It goes on and talks about his major speeches.

Madam Speaker, the point is that the President mentions nothing about this review, what went wrong, where it went wrong, and why it went wrong. We know that hurricanes and natural disasters are acts of God; but we also know in the case of Hurricane Katrina, and I can tell Members there are some who came to the Capitol today saying that in the case of Hurricane Rita, and we will be voting on the energy bill tomorrow, one Member said it is the worst bill we have seen in 7 months, and I can tell Members there are some real issues that are going on in that bill that we will talk about a little later.

Madam Speaker, I think it is important that the American people understand that I believe we are not taking this issue seriously. The 9/11 Commission came out saying that many of their recommendations were not enacted, such as intraoperability to allow emergency workers to talk to one another. We had Coast Guard people who could not talk to the 82nd Airborne. We had local police officers who could not talk to one another because we did not do what we were supposed to do years after 9/11.

I can tell Members, the number of Democratic amendments to come up

with intraoperability to make sure that emergency workers can talk to one another was voted down on a party-line basis. I want to make sure that everybody understands what is not going on here in Washington. This is not only national security; it is responding to the Federal taxpayer in the way that they deserve, the State, local and Federal response. But we will never know because this Congress would not allow an independent commission to take place.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Madam Speaker, there are a couple of articles that I want to enter into the Congressional Record because I think it is important. I think it is important for us to understand that this is just one day here in Washington, and I think it is important for Members to understand that we are not here at 11 p.m. at night talking about the Pallone, Wasserman Schultz, Ryan Report. This is actually happening. This is what is happening in our democracy. The 107th Congress, 108th Congress, and 109th Congress are going to be held responsible for what has happened with regard to the deficit, what has happened as it relates to a war where they embellished the reason for why we went to war.

We are going to give this to the Clerk and make sure this appears in the Congressional Record: ``Spy probe widens to cover aides to the White House service.'' This is as it relates to the outing of CIA agents and sharing information with foreign governments: ``CIA Rejects Discipline for 9/11 Failures.''

``Goss,'' who is the CIA Director, ``cites fear of hurting the agency.'' That is also on the front page.

I am just going to go a little further on because this is too much to overlook and if we do not talk about it here in the Congress, then who will? ``Ex-White House Aide Indicted'' for lying to Federal investigators. This is serious stuff. It goes on. ``GOP Divided Over Range of Severity of Spending Cuts.''

I want to yield here for a second as we move along. We were on this floor supplemental after supplemental, borrowing to be able to pay for the war in Iraq. We all want to protect our men and women in uniform. I tell my colleagues I am first in line, and I am pretty sure many of us are. I know the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and I serve on the Committee on Armed Services. This is what we do every day: make sure that our troops are protected. But I can tell my colleagues right now, when it came down to giving money for chasing weapons of mass destruction that were not there, an imminent threat to the United States of America that was not there, but now it is an imminent threat due to the fact that it is the seed of terrorism right now. Individuals are going in there. They are going after Americans, and they are trying to fight against our troops that are there that were originally there for weapons of mass destruction, but that is another point. Now it comes down to making sure that we respond to Americans that have paid their taxes, that many of their children are at war right now either in Afghanistan or Iraq, that now the majority, the Republicans on the majority side, and not all of them, but I will say the individuals that are running the show on the other side, the leadership, they now want to say, well, we have to look at cuts and we have to off-balance some issues. Let us look at this. They are looking at cuts as it relates to things like Head Start, Title I, meals for poor children.

So we want to take from the poor to give to the poor in the light of being a fiscal conservative, and then at the same time, we have got billionaires, billionaires. No one is saying anything about them. No one is saying anything about the tax cuts for billionaires, not middle class tax cuts. There is no discussion on that on the majority side, and I think it is important that we highlight the hypocrisy in democracy.

There are about ten stories here, and I know folks can go to Washingtonpost.com. This is just one paper I picked up this morning. As it relates to the CIA chief, it goes on: On A-11, it talks about Porter Goss, and this is very interesting. The President said that we should have an internal investigation. Why do we need a 9/11 Commission? Okay. The internal investigation took place between Senator Graham over on the other side, head of the Select Committee on Intelligence at that time, and Porter Goss, who is now the Director of the CIA, was head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Part of the charge for that was to look at individuals no matter what level and ask the Inspector General, and that is the individual that is outside of the CIA autonomy. People are not supposed to be able to reach him and touch him, not supposed to be able to intimidate him.

The Congress passed a bill saying he should investigate this, come back with findings, and if there is a breakdown in management or something that was overlooked, then those, no matter what level, should be held responsible. The Inspector General did his job. He came back with a report, and today or yesterday, the CIA Director, appointed by the President, said, oh, well, we are not going to do anything about that. We are not going to hold those individuals accountable. George Tenet, who was the Director of the CIA at the time of 9/11, also who won the Medal of Freedom from the President, that he will not be held responsible or anybody under him. So the CIA Director said he will see to it that that report stays secret even though, Mr. Speaker, Americans lost their lives. And that is the part that gets under my skin. I do not represent New York. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) represents some of the victims of 9/11.

Two hundred died. His constituents died. And how dare the CIA Director or the President or the Congress sit by and watch this happen. All of those lives, firefighters, police officers, individuals who just said, I am going to work today, folks that have lost loved ones, we are going to say, oh, well, we passed legislation, but we are not willing to stand by it.

Mr. Speaker, I am saying this to make a point that this leadership and this administration, and there were Republicans, Democrats, Independents, even individuals who said, I am not voting because I do not care about the political process, there are individuals that died here and this is not dealing with the issue of, oh, well, they are a bunch of Democrats that died and Democrats in the House are concerned about it.

There are a couple more stories here that I know the gentleman is going to talk about, but that is just section A of the Washington Post, and I am not even at the Federal section yet. But I want to make sure to highlight it for the Clerk so they can enter it into the Congressional Record. There are couple of other stories that I want to get to, to share with the Members, because I want to make sure that we are all paying attention to what is going on because, when all is said and historians look at the 109th Congress on who was doing what and who stood by and watched it happen, I want to make sure that people know that many of us in this Congress were on the side of saying that we were about doing the right thing, that we wanted to make sure that things happened.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, as the gentlewoman shows, it is beyond sad. Sad would be if we could not do anything about it, but we can, and the American people can do something about it. I will tell you right now, all that we are talking about here, and I will tell you, because we like to talk about solutions, we also like to point out the problem.

Time after time again, and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is the Member who has been here the longest, from New Jersey, the fact is that Democrat amendments that have gone down on partisan lines to make sure we take care of the kind of oversight that the American people called for. Well, let us just say the Constitution calls for from this body. We have oversight and investigative powers that we are not exercising.

I think it is important, and I just want to make sure that we put on the record, I have asked the Congressional Research Service to go in and pull the number of Congressional subpoenas that went out in the Clinton administration versus the Bush administration.

I will tell you I personally, my chief and staff and others had to call the House Counsel's information to get this information, to allow the Congressional Research Service to go in, and the Congressional Research Service said, ``Well, somebody said that it may be political.''

No, it is just a history of the House. We did not call the GOP or the Democratic National Committee on this. If subpoenas went out under the Clinton administration, that is a matter of record. What is political about that?

Now, I will tell you, this is not a witch hunt or any kind of hunt you want to call it. It is the truth, and it is the fact that we cannot rely, and that is the reason why we need an independent commission to make sure that not only the act of God, when we watched television, it was the act of a lack of governance. It was an act of cronyism, of the Corps of Engineers stopping work after 37 years on a levee that they knew would be breached. And look, the American taxpayers now have to pick up $200 billion.

I will yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) to talk about his bill, because I think it is important that we get colleagues on the other side to come down and sign on it.

Before we do that, I want to make sure as we move through section A of the Washington Post, I feel that all of this should be enshrined, because I think it is important within the Congressional Record, which it will, that before the historians look at it, that the American people will have an opportunity to look at it and know that they have an option to bring about change in their government.

They deserve better. I am telling you right now, they deserve better. I know they do, and they know they do. This is national security. This is Americans we are talking about.

This is what I could not believe, Madam Speaker. ``Pentagon Releases Repayments Rules.'' Now, we had a big discussion here on this floor about body armor and we went to war saying that we are prepared to go to war.

Well, that is what the generals and the four star guys were telling us in the Committee on Armed Services. ``We got it covered, Congressman. Don't ask any questions. Either you are with us or with them. Don't ask us any questions.'' That is from Mr. Ashcroft over in the Senate, I must add.

Thank God for Senator Dodd and many others here in this Congress that fought to make sure that our men and women had the body armor that they needed.

You would have some folks come to the floor and make you believe that they are the leaders on watching out for our men and women. It is not a partisan issue, it is an American issue, the fact we were talking about body armor, and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member on the Committee on Armed Services, I would say some folks on the majority side were concerned about the body armor. Men and women were dying because they did not have what they needed.

Guess what they did? They did what they are supposed to do. Moms, dads, uncles, brothers, sisters alike, sons and daughters, bought their loved one body armor, kevlar, to wear in Iraq and Afghanistan. They did so. Then we passed a bill saying they should be reimbursed, rightfully so, unfortunately after the fact, and some folks died.

The Congress called for, once again, the WashingtonPost.com, you go on and check it out yourself, it goes on, ``The guidelines, from Undersecretary of Defense, David S.C. Chu, comes nearly a year after Congress passed legislation ordering,'' this is not asking, ``ordering the Department of Defense to come up with the reimbursement policy. The law required that the Pentagon issue the rules by February 25 of this year.'' Not 2006, but 2005.

Here we are in October, in October, and because there were threats from Senator Dodd and others in this Congress that they will do something drastic legislatively because they did not do it, these are families that still have not been reimbursed. These are Americans. These are Americans. These are not folks in a foreign land.

So when folks start getting upset about what we are talking about here on this floor, I can tell you something, I am glad that somebody fought for the opportunity for us to raise these issues, because this is beyond belief. Here in the United States, our own people. These are our people.

Now, I am just going to share this with the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone). This is not something as it relates to people saying, ``Oh, you are being partisan.'' No, we are not being partisan. We are telling the truth. We are making sure Members know exactly what they are doing and not doing.

If you are a Member of the majority side and you want to see the kind of change that these men and women deserve, that these men and women deserve to get reimbursed for their body armor, that are financially challenged right now, that are paying too much for gas, that will pay over $1,000 for heating oil or LP gas, this winter, they need that money. And, guess what? You go on the DOD website, there is no mention of it. There is no mention of the fact where they can go on and find out how they can be reimbursed.

So, we are going to work on that. I tried to find that today. This is on behalf of the entire country.

As we look at oversight and accountability, will the gentleman please talk about H.R. 3764?

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I just want to say that we have a cosponsor form here for H.R. 3764 sitting here on the table. There is my pen. Anyone from the majority side, the Republicans, that want to get down to making sure that this never, ever happens again, that we do not have people dying because they did not have insulin, we do not have emergency responders not able to talk to one another because they do not have interoperability where they can talk to one other to save lives, and where we can save $200 billion hopefully in the future, because we could have saved New Orleans if we were on our job, our j-o-b, maybe, not maybe, this independent commission will point out, this independent commission, which the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) pointed out before, it is a group of individuals that are outside of the Congress, like the 9/11 Commission, that will not be here in Congress to carry on about trying to cover up on behalf of the majority side. So we have this here.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Madam Speaker, I want the gentlewoman to do that, but I also want to point out, being on the Committee on Armed Services, some of the other issues that are in this bill. It is very unfortunate. I am not going to be one to talk about the oil companies and special interests and the lobbyists and the K Street project and all of that, because guess what? The American people elected a Congress to protect them from greed, from doing it because we can. And we just passed, the majority did, an energy bill 7 months ago, but they are doing it on the backs of individuals of devastation, communities that are not in place to be able to come to Congress and lobby against this kind of action.

This is what is happening within this bill, I say to my colleagues. We just went through a BRAC process, military base closures. If they close, that means that the government can give this land to oil companies to go in and drill. Local communities have plans for military bases to help their economy, to be able to do the things that they want to do, because it is within their community.

Here is the kicker in this whole thing. There are a number of kickers. You can get kicked to death under this bill. If an oil company was to move in and contaminate or do something to harm the public, if the mayor of that city or county or parish or State were to bring a lawsuit against the oil company, and they were to lose, they would have to pay the oil companies' legal fees. Now, on the other side of the coin, if the local community, parish, county, State was to file a lawsuit against an oil company for not carrying out their environmental duties or whatever the case may be, put their constituents in harm's way, and they were to win, the oil companies, by Federal law, if this passed tomorrow, if the majority has their way, do not have to reimburse the local government for their legal fees.

So here is the U.S. Congress majority that is going to stand on the side of industry to say, we are on your side versus we are on the local mayor, the parish, the county commissioner, or the State government's side, the side of the taxpayers, and that are the individuals who elected us to come to Congress.

Madam Speaker, I warned my friends on the Majority side, I warned them. Because tomorrow we have 5 hours of debate and around 2 or 3 o'clock, we are going to be here on this floor and we are going to see the followers versus the leaders. On this side, we are going to lead because we are going to have an alternative amendment that is not going to have any of that language in there that is going to be able to bring gas prices down, that is going to be able to deal with our issues of conserving energy and things of that nature.

So I think it is important that we realize, and I want to warn the Members, unfortunately, if you keep voting for what they tell you to vote for on the Republican leadership side, you will find yourselves making a career decision, bottom line. Because I think the American people are fed up with this stuff here in Washington, DC. We are trying to do what we can. Someone may say, well, why are you all on the Floor arguing. The gentleman from New Jersey has talked about what Senator Dodd has done. The reason why the Department of Defense wrote those rules several months later after the congressional deadline was the fact that a Democrat raised the issue and threatened them, that he will take it to the next level, and that is the reason why they did it. They did not do it because they were supposed to by law or that it was the right thing to do; they did it because they came under pressure.

I am telling my colleagues that we are within our right to put the pressure on, put it on the Record, and we will be here every opportunity that these lights are on to talk about what is not happening and what we are trying to do, and the reason why we cannot do it because we are in the minority. If the Republican Conference betters itself and it starts to get leadership that is going to lead on behalf of the American people, then God bless them, but I can tell my colleagues right now for the last 10 years, that has not happened. It has not happened. That is the reason why. It can be a Republican parish, it can be a Republican mayor, it can be a Republican governor, if you bring suit against this industry, which is what they are bringing to the Floor tomorrow on the Majority side, you are going to find yourself paying legal fees if you are not successful. That is to intimidate local communities for not bringing suit against individuals that violate environmental law. That is what that is about.

Madam Speaker, we understand the majority has about 10 minutes. We are going to come back another 10 minutes after the Majority side; we will have 10 minutes after that, and I think the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is going to be sponsoring that. We have a couple more minutes and we are going to turn it over to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

But first, let me just say this real quickly, the articles that we talked about tonight, and this is just one publication. Washingtonpost.com. If you want to figure out how you can be a cosponsor on House bill 3764, that is housedemocrats.gov/katrina, you can go on-line and become a cosponsor of that legislation as a citizen to be able to push the drive for us to make sure that Americans never, ever have to go through the lack of response that they have received, and that is for Federal, State and local.

We will give it out next time.

CIA Rejects Discipline for 9/11 Failures

Goss Cites Fear Of Hurting Agency

(By Dafna Linzer and Walter Pincus)

The CIA will not seek to hold any current or former agency

officials, including ex-director George J. Tenet, responsible

for failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, CIA

Director Porter J. Goss said yesterday, despite a

recommendation by the agency's inspector general that he

convene an ``accountability board'' to judge their

performance.

Goss's decision, coming, four years after hijackers

commandeered four jets and killed nearly 3,000 people,

appeared to end possibility that a high-level official will

be held responsible for what several investigations found to

be significant failures throughout the government. The

inspectors general of the departments of State, Justice and

Defense completed their own investigations without publicized

disciplinary actions taken against anyone.

The CIA's report, which severely criticized actions of

senior officers, will remain classified, Goss said in his

announcement, which was welcomed by some former officials

mentioned in the document but assailed by families of victims

of the attacks.

Goss said in his statement that the voluminous report by

the CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, ``unveiled no

mysteries,'' and that making it public would only bring harm

to the agency when it it trying to rebuild. Goss said that

the report in no way suggest ``that any one person or group

of people could have prevented 9/11.

``Of the officer named in the report,'' he said, ``about

half have retired from the Agency, and those who are still

with us are amongst the finest we have.''

Goss had supported an internal CIA review in December 2002,

while he was chairman of the House intelligence committee.

The CIA report, which was mostly completed in February, is

the last known government inquiry on the counterterrorism

failures ahead of the attacks and has been the most

secretive.

It also had the potential to pit Goss against his own

agency. Convening a review board could have embarrassed his

predecessors and renewed questions over, President Bush's

decision to award Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I think it is utterly reprehensible for Director Goss to be

hinting towards not holding anyone accountable, particularly

since he was in an oversight capacity as house chairman and

is now in a position to atone for his own failures,'' said

Kristin Breitweiser, whose husband, Ron, was killed at the

World Trade Center. ``He is either avoiding embarrassment or

trying to hide something.''

More than a dozen intelligence officials, including Tenet;

his former director of operations, James L. Pavitt; and J.

Cofer Black, former head of the counterterrorism center, are

faulted in the CIA report, said officials who have read the

classified findings. Tenet vigorously disputed the findings,

arguing that he and his officers had done more than anyone

else in the intelligence community to warn about al Qaeda.

The report also names some current undercover operatives

working in the counterterrorism center. Officials had said

exposing them to public criticism would harm their work and

the agency during a time of war.

Tenet had no comment yesterday. Pavitt said he was

relieved. ``He did what was right for the institution and its

people, and for their work,'' Pavitt said of Goss.

Goss's former congressional colleagues, who have urged that

the report be declassified, reacted coolly to his decision to

forgo accountability reviews. They said Goss and John D.

Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, will be

summoned to appear before the Senate intelligence committee

to answers questions this month.

``I am concerned to learn of the Director's decision to

forego this step in the process,'' Sen. Pat Roberts, (R-Kan.)

said in a statement. ``However, I spoke with Director Goss

and Negroponte earlier today and they both strongly believe

that this is the correct course of action.''

The CIA's internal report was done in a response to a

recommendation of the House-Senate committee that looked into

the attacks. The committee called on the CIA's inspector

general to conduct an investigation ``to determine whether

and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held

accountable any omission, commission or failure to meet

professional standards'' to prevent or disrupt the attacks.

Based on these findings, the CIA director was to take

``appropriate disciplinary or other action,'' with the result

to be passed on to the President and the House and Senate

intelligence committees.

But Goss declined. He noted that before Sept. 11, when he

was chairman of the House intelligence panel, the CIA

suffered from cutbacks and reduced budgets. ``Stars'' were

singled out and asked ``to take on some tough assignments,''

he said, ``Unfortunately, time and resources were not on

their side, despite their best efforts to meet unprecedented

challenges.

``Risk is a critical part of the intelligence business.

Singling out these individuals would send the wrong message

to our junior officers about taking risks--whether it be in

operation in the field or being assigned to a hot topic at

headquarters,'' he said.

Citing classified information about intelligence sources

and methods, Goss said the report should not be made public.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.) the ranking Democrat on the House

intelligence panel, said she will work to get some elements

declassified and said Goss has a responsibility to ``persuade

the public that he has dealt fairly with his agency's past

mistakes.''

Mr. Ryan, where are we getting the money from?

Saudi Arabia, too. Do not leave them out.

I have had very little to say in this condensed time that we have. I think it is important for us to make sure that folks are not just, Members are not just watching thinking that we are going, just coming out of the sky with this stuff. We gave it at the WashingtonPost.com. We also said, if you wanted to cosponsor on House Resolution 3764, which is a bill that we have put forth to be about the solution, making sure that we can head off a lack of governance, not paying attention to the things that we need to pay attention to.

One thing about Katrina, Madam Speaker, and Rita was the fact that we are not ready to respond to a catastrophic event here in the United States. And I can tell you that our military is ready, but the question is, are our American leaders ready to respond? Do we have what we need to have in place as it relates to the management?

And if you want to cosign on this independent commission, that I must say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) that we talked about before, 81 percent of the polls show that Americans want to see an independent commission, you can sign on to this bill just as a regular U.S. citizen, HouseDemocrats.gov/Katrina.

With that, I say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) that we have a lot of work here to do. No one is saying that anyone is guilty or whatever the case may be because we know that there will be a court of law that that will take plays and on behalf of the institution, I hope all works well as it relates to democracy prevailing.

But I will tell you that it is important, and it is embarrassing to be a Member of the 109th Congress with this cloud over this institution. And people are going to look at, they do not care. They look at you as a Member of the House, not as a Democrat or a Republican or the one independent that we have here in this House. They look at us as stewards of this democracy that people have died for us to have the opportunity.

And I yield back to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Speaker, once again, it is an honor to come before the House, and we would like to thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader, for allowing us to have an hour here on the floor on the Democratic side.

Our 30 Something Working Group has been coming to the floor now for the second Congress, talking about issues that are facing Americans, issues that we are working on here in the Congress, issues that are facing the Congress and things that we feel very strongly about. Every week, we come together to talk about these issues and then we come to the floor.

As of recent, we have been coming to the floor if not every other day, every day, because there are so many issues that are facing the country and this Congress. I think it is important that we continue to not only speak to the Members of this House of Representatives and this Congress, but this administration and the American people.

We have been talking for quite a few weeks now on the action or lack of action as it relates to Hurricane Katrina. We have had a couple of events today that I think is worthy of merit of discussing, and also, as it relates to still, Mr. Speaker, pointing out the fact that we have over 100,000 Americans still in shelters, some based on the fact that we have had a natural disaster, two natural disasters, but some based on the fact of we have not governed in the way that we should have governed to protect those Americans.

Many of the experiences that these Americans have gone through and loss of life has been a breakdown in government operation. Either it be local or State or Federal, it is important that we address these issues.

Before we really get into what we are here to talk about tonight, the last time we left this floor, we talked about an independent panel, a bipartisan independent panel outside of this Congress, to deal with the issues that are facing some may say, well, it is just dealing with the gulf States, but I think that is an understatement. I think we are dealing with all Americans when we are talking about $200 billion-plus of the Federal tax dollars.

I can also share with my colleagues and Members, Mr. Speaker, the fact that it is disturbing to see some of the proposals that are coming out from the majority side that are saying that we should sell 13 national parks to pay for the natural disaster or we should look at wasteful spending. Of course, we have been talking about looking at wasteful spending for a very long time. Of course, the majority side has taken us into a deficit as far as the eye can see, but I think it is important for us to look at Americans that understand that we have to respond to Americans when they are in their time of need, not take away from.

We need to address issues like oil companies making more money than they have ever made before, record profits. Meanwhile, Americans cannot even fill their tank. Folks in my neighborhood, where I come from, they are having to park their cars. The President is saying conserve; if you do not need gas, do not get it. I do not quite get that, but Americans need gas to be able to take their families to work and their children to school.

There are some very interesting statements, some very interesting actions, here in Washington, DC. I think it is important that we not only point out to the Members what the American people, in this time that we live in now here in this country, with all eyes on this Federal Government, that we act responsibly.

I think it is also important that we address the issue of protecting the institution. This institution, which is the U.S. Congress, wherein the Members of the 109th Congress, regardless of whether we are on the majority side or the minority side, it is our responsibility to keep this argument above the belt, and I am very disturbed, at a time of national disaster, in a time of need, that Americans need this Congress, that we are still moving as business as usual.

I am talking about the partisan panel that has been passed by this House to look into what happened in Hurricane Katrina. I know that a couple of hearings have taken place, but it is very disturbing that Americans have to see that we are working against what they have asked for.

Here in my hand I hold a CNN-USA Today poll that was taken the 16th through 18th. Anyone, I am pretty sure, can go on the Web site. I just want to make sure no one sees this as the Kendrick Meek Report or the Tim Ryan Report or the Ms. Wasserman Schultz Report.

The question goes as follows: As you know, some people have called for an investigation into the problems the government had in responding to Hurricane Katrina. Who would rather see conduct this investigation, independent panel or Congress?

Now, it does say problems the government had in responding to Hurricane Katrina. It did not say the Federal Government. It did not say the State government. It did not say the local government. So I want to put that aside because some folks are playing this game as though it is some conspiracy theory to go after the Federal Government because they did not do what they were supposed to do and the local government did what they did right; they had no wrong.

Eighty-one percent, independent panel, 81 percent; 18, Congress. One percent was unsure. I am pretty sure if the question was put out on the issue of do you want a partisan panel to look at the response to the natural disasters, I am pretty sure they would have been a lot lower to Congress, and that is what is happening right now.

I, once again, say that it is important that we have an independent panel. What we mean by independent panel, just like the 9/11 Commission, that brought about the kind of accountability that we are having now. All has not been implemented that the 9/11 Commission called for, but a lot has improved as it relates to communications, the State, Federal and local governments, and I think it is important that we follow that.

Also, I know that we are going to talk about some of the cronyisms, some of the corruption that is going on around, not only this body, but throughout the government structure, and it is important, and I think a lot of this has brought about a lack of oversight, even when it comes down for some of the candidates for some of these appointments as it relates to the plum list, that have been well-documented, these are not my words, well-documented throughout the media and also as it relates to watchdog groups that are watching the Congress for what we do, and the President for what he does.

And I think we have to be responsible to the American people, Democrat, Republican, Independent alike. We have to make sure individuals that are being placed in these positions have some level of qualifications to be able to fill the position so that American people are not left vulnerable.

And with that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to either of my colleagues, whichever wants to start this discussion.

If the gentleman will yield for just a second on that point, he is not only hired as a consultant but he has been hired as a consultant to find out what went wrong.

This takes me back to last week. Same thing happening in the White House right now. The adviser, the young lady who is the Presidential adviser on homeland security now, has the task as it relates to the White House to find out what went wrong. These are the people that are making the decisions. That is the reason why we need an independent panel.

Last week we talked about this, and it was a little facetious to say it, but I said, My name is Kendrick Meek, and I am going to investigate myself and I will give you the findings in another 6 weeks. I said that to drive a point about the issue as it relates to the response to these natural disasters. And let us not leave Rita out, Hurricane Rita.

The fact is that people lost their lives, and not lost their lives in the storm, but lost their lives in the aftermath of the storm. Their lives could have been saved if we had had people in place that could make sound decisions.

I was reading in one of our publications here that Mr. Brown gave an interview to a newspaper and said, I called the White House and told them we have a problem and we need some help. Well, that is not good enough. Because the whole thing about the Federal Emergency Management Agency is to, what? Be ready to respond to a natural disaster. Now, Michael Brown, he is just Exhibit A as far as I am concerned.

Let me just say this, Mr. Speaker. I think it is important, very important, and my colleagues heard me earlier mention the issue about protecting the institution and making sure that we carry ourselves in the way we are supposed to carry ourselves, but I am here to say, as someone that knows that this happens when you are in political life, you have some people that are investigated. You have some people that are indicted. It happens. When it does happen, I think it is important for those that are accused, or it is said that this is what you have done and here is my evidence, then it is appropriate for one to say, well, I believe that I am innocent. I believe this is not what you think it is; and in the coming weeks, days, months, or years the truth will come out.

But it is another thing entirely when it comes down to intimidation, and that is what I would like to address, especially of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Some of the press reports that I have read that came out just recently have me a little disturbed. I am a little disturbed that people in power are coming down on a locally elected prosecutor and saying this is politically motivated. They are not indicted. They have nothing to do with the case, but they are coming down on this individual. I think that is wrong.

A grand jury has brought this about. But once again I want to state for the record that no one is saying that the person in question is guilty as charged. We do have courts in this land.

But we do know here in this political circle that some people would be lined up out at the door. We have seen it before in the last administration, or when the House was Democratic. Members lined up out of the door to convict on this floor Members that have been indicted or investigated in the past.

Now, I can tell you that I know on this side of the aisle we are better than that. Now, some of my friends on the Republican side did not take part in that, but I am here to tell you that there have been Members that have blown things out of proportion, coming onto the floor with paper bags on their heads, and we have heard Members saying, I am ashamed to be a part of this institution, because someone was accused of not paying a parking ticket. So there are some who have been blowing this thing out of proportion.

But I can tell you what is beyond a coincidence, and that is the number of

inquiries that are being conducted on this Congress from outside officials. The number of inquiries that are taking place, and I am talking real inquiries. I am not talking about someone paid for a plane ticket for someone, or someone had a steak dinner somewhere and somebody is upset about it, or someone did not report something small. We are talking about serious charges. We are talking about charges of speaking to Federal officials and not telling the truth. We are talking about questionable financial transactions. We are talking about a number of things. But I will tell you this, it is beyond coincidence that all of this is happening now.

My point is this, my colleagues. The majority side has not carried out its responsibilities. On the Committee on Armed Services, we have had 110 complaints about contractors overcharging the government, people that are being paid that are not even in Iraq, troops not having what they need when they need it at the height of the fighting; and worse yet, we sit on the committee that has oversight, yet not a mumbling word. Not a mumbling word. Not one real ``let us pull you in and talk about it.''

Look at Abu Ghraib. It almost took an act of Congress, with Members kicking and screaming, to even get the Secretary there to talk about these issues. If we conducted the proper oversight, maybe, just maybe, FEMA would have been in the position to respond to those individuals that were in harm's way. Maybe, just maybe, we would not have these cost overruns as relates to some of these companies like Halliburton and other companies that are out there that are charging our Federal taxpayers' dollars that are undocumented. Maybe, just maybe, officials in the White House that are running around without any oversight, without anyone saying, excuse me, can you answer this question for me; without anyone questioning them, things would be different.

I will tell you this, and then I will come in for a landing because I know you all want to talk about this subject.

We have been talking about this for a very long time, and I hate to say it, but in this Congress everybody wants to saying something out in the media. No one wants to come and talk about the responsibilities that we have as Members of the 109th Congress. We have a responsibility. Guess what, this was the Congress before we got here, and hopefully it will be a Congress and an honorable institution when we leave. We are the stewards of this. We are the benefactors of the past blood, sweat, and tears.

Mr. Speaker, there are veterans right now without limbs that are the reason we have the opportunity to come in here and breathe the very democracy we celebrate every day; their life, their commitment, these families that have lost so much in order for us to come in here. And for us to use our titles to chastise someone for doing what they believe is their job, and not just allegations against an individual but allegations that changed the face of this entire Congress. Members got unelected. If this is true, Members were unelected from this Congress because reapportionment took place. Members were elected and unelected in Texas because reapportionment took place. If that is true, then this is very, very serious.

So I would warn the Members of this Congress on both sides of the aisle to let us make sure that we pay attention to what is going on and make sure we refrain from using our office and our influence, because intimidation is the wrong medicine for this time.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think it is important going back to protecting the institution, going back to making sure that we do what we are supposed to do as the 109th Congress. I cannot speak for the 110th Congress. It is up to my constituents if I am to make it there. But I tell my colleagues this: being a Member of the 109th Congress in the minority or the majority, I think it is important that we share with our colleagues the importance of their duty of making sure that they do what they are supposed to do, because this is not about friendships.

We were not elected to come up here to be friends with one another. We were elected to come up here to represent our districts and the American people, to be able to make sure that democracy stands for another 200-plus years

and beyond. That is our job. Our job is to come up here to protect the welfare of those individuals who cannot protect their own welfare, and we are here to make sure that there is a government in place for when they need it.

Some people in our country do not want anything from government. But guess what. When they need it, it should be there for them. No one is trying to get into anyone's life. But I can tell the Members this right now: the reason why we are here on this floor and the reason why we come to this floor week after week is to make sure that we raise the issues of the American people, Democrat or Republican alike. It does not matter. I do not ask my constituents, when they come to my office, I need to know their party affiliation. I do not go and chastise in a general sense of the word Republicans because some Republicans that I know, many that I know that are supporters of mine, either it be politically or friendship-wise or what have you, they do not share some of the things that I see the majority side acting on now.

If it was not for this side of the aisle pushing after 9/11 for an independent commission and if it was not for the work of those families, there would not have been an independent 9/11 Commission. There would not have been the testimony by not only White House officials, Pentagon officials, CIA, FBI, DEA, name it, transportation officials. We never would have gotten close to the bottom of what really happened if it was not for the push on this side.

The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), our leader right now, was called a tainter by the Republican side for calling for an independent commission. There is a lot of name calling that goes on here on this floor. I for one do not like to name call. I just like to speak of the truth, period. When I talked about the allegations today, if they are true, then it is a problem.

The 9/11 Commission would not have seen the light of day if it was not for what we are doing right now, giving voice to those who sent us up here to give voice to them. After 9/11, Democrats called for a Department of Homeland Security. It is well documented. The majority- side leadership said we do not need a Department of Homeland Security. The White House said we do not need a Department of Homeland Security. And now we have a Department of Homeland Security, not because they thought it was a great idea. It was because of the pressure that was brought upon by us and also by the American people.

I think it is also important to talk about the issue of Social Security. The 30-something Working Group cut its teeth on the issue of Social Security, making sure that every American has the opportunity to have a guaranteed benefit. Whether it be a Democrat, Republican, young, old, disabled, retired, a survivor of someone that paid into Social Security, we fought for that. We stood here on this floor. We called out the leadership on the majority side. And the American people then, when we were making that argument, were on our side and we were on the side of the American people, period, dot.

Now when it comes down to Katrina, when it came down to responding to Hurricane Katrina, we were brought up here in special session over a case in Florida. We have got to come up here, and we have got to vote to try to save someone's life. We can get into all of that, but that is the past. We came up here for that. And after Hurricane Katrina, the Democratic leadership called for a special session. Oh, we do not need to do that. The American people demanded that the Federal Government do more than what it is doing right now. The President said, I am calling Congress back to session. There was a question, did the Democrats not call for that? Yes, they did too, but we are all in this thing together.

There should be an emergency supplemental. Oh, we do not need that, not now. Then that happened.

We called for Michael Brown's resignation because it was obvious. Here on this floor, I remember like it was yesterday, we called for it. I personally said if they are in a football game and they are within the first quarter and they have a quarterback that is not necessarily going to get them to the goal line, it is time to change personnel. A week later the President said, Michael Brown, you are doing an excellent job.

This goes into exactly what we are talking about. If it is left up to the majority, and I will not say us because we are here speaking now after 9 o'clock at night, children at home, loved ones at home, but we are here on this floor. Not because it is good for our health. It is because we care about what happens in this institution and this country. The bottom line is if it is left up to what the spin machine puts out from the majority side, we are in trouble.

Three days later, the Director of FEMA is sent back to Washington, then later resigned. We brought that issue up to the American people that he should be removed. Now we are at the independent commission. We have Members making statements that it is a shame that Democrats are not participating in the partisan commission.

The American people can see it. Go on CNN, USA Today Web site. This poll is there just as clear as my name is Kendrick Meek. As a matter of fact, I will give out the Web site: www.pollingreport.com disasters. We can get third, fourth-party validators. We called for an independent commission. Eighty-one percent of the American people called for an independent commission. I was talking with some of my Republican colleagues yesterday that are in leadership, and I told them they could save the country a lot of pain and frustration if they were just to say doing this in a partisan way is not the right way to do it. We should have an independent commission. If they are calling for it or the American people are calling for it, let us find a way.

I just want to finish this actual conversation that just took place yesterday. If they want it, we should just do it because we have nothing to hide. We are calling for an independent commission outside of this government because it does not have the ability to investigate itself. We cannot do it. We can just not do it because I am going to tell my colleagues right now, they say one thing and they do another. When I say ``they,'' I am talking about leadership on the Republican side.

The President said, I am a fiscal conservative. He has not vetoed one spending bill since becoming President. An unprecedented highway bill with all kinds of pork projects in it and everything. He is not even saying, I am going to stand for what I told you I would do, and we are not going to spend. Unprecedented spending. Unprecedented deficit. I mean, this is like opposite day. This is like, I am a fiscal conservative. No, I am not. I believe in responsible spending. I really do not. The action does not follow the words.

But in this case in the posture that we are in now, as Members of Congress, as we go to our districts, people cannot help but say, Wow, you are a Member of Congress? You are going to admit to that? You are actually going to admit that you are a Member of Congress? So you must not care about spending, or you must not really have control over no- bid contracts or companies that are already under investigation by the very government that has called them into question.

So what I am saying is that when we talk about credibility, when we talk about name-calling, remember the Democratic leader was called a tainter, and worse, I am pretty sure, in private. But I think it is important. And I call on all of my colleagues, Democrat, Republican, and the one Independent we have, that it is more important now than ever that we go see the wizard and get some courage and heart, and I will not even go to the third one as it relates to mine because I know that we know better. We need to be man-up and woman-up and leader-up enough to say this is not right and we have got to stop it.

And I believe, as I close on this point, Madam Speaker, that the American people will smile on those that are trying to do something about the present situation and frown on those that just watch what is happening and say that it will go away. It will not go away. This is reality. People cannot afford to put gas in their tank; meanwhile companies are making record profits and no one is saying anything about it.

Eight States have asked the Congress to look into this issue of record profits of these gas companies. Has it happened? No. Do my colleagues know what I hear today? There are Members here looking at an energy bill. We are

going to help the whole gas thing, and we have to go into the Arctic natural reserve and look for oil. People have hidden agendas that they want to carry out on the pain and suffering of Americans. As I speak right now, 100,000-plus in the middle of a basketball court in a shelter without a home, which could have been prevented if we had been on our j-o-b and making sure that the Corps of Engineers had what they needed to make sure that they can build that levee around New Orleans, to make sure that FEMA was able to respond to these folks. To make sure that the Congress, as they said, or the majority said, does what they were going to do from the beginning of being fiscal conservatives.

They have been just the opposite. The President said, I will make sure that we do not carry out wasteful spending. Maybe, just maybe, we would have no no-bid contracts going on with record profits. Maybe companies that are under investigation by this government and Departments will not continue to get billions of dollars in contracts. Maybe, just maybe, we would have some accountability if, only if, we had Members that were willing to stand up and face the music on our responsibilities and tell whoever is saying that we have to look the other way: I am sorry. We have a constitutional responsibility because someone woke up early Tuesday on election day to make sure I was elected to come here to Congress.

So whatever repercussions that may come out of this pressure, so be it. That is the bottom line because I will not, as a Member of this Congress, look my constituents in the eye and say I was in the minority and it was not much that we could do because there were powerful people on the other side of the argument who would have done things to me and would have said things about me and would have looked at me funny if I would have said something.

This country would not be independent if we had leaders like that. I would not be in Congress if we did not have leaders that were willing to fight to make sure that I could make it to Congress. The lights would not be on on this building if veterans did not lay down their life to make sure that we are able to salute one flag here today. That is how deep this argument goes.

And for those who have a problem, a problem, with our exercising democracy under this flag, then they have a problem with America. That is the bottom line. That is what it is, period, dot.

Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but I just had to share the fact that the reason why we are here is to make this country better. The reason why we are here and we argue the way we do night after night is to make sure that those who are in power, those who are committee chairmen, those who make the decisions on what bills come up, what bills do not come up, that we work on their conscience, that we remind them of their power and we remind the American people that if they want a change, then they will have their opportunity to make that change. And when they have that opportunity to make that change, then they need to make that change at the right time.

But I will tell the Members we cannot even last that long if we continue to act the way we are acting here, especially on the majority side, like it is just another day at the office.

People are suffering. People cannot put gas in their tanks. Folks are being threatened by the fact that they are going to roll back a prescription drug benefit that poor people have. Folks do not even know if their kids can get title I lunch. Meanwhile, no one speaks of billionaires getting tax cuts. We are going to sell national parks. There are questions of drilling where we have never drilled before. We do not even know if there is oil there; but because we are in this situation, we have individuals with power that want to come in and take advantage on the backs of suffering and death and lack of governance.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Give the website.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, with that, I just want to thank the Democratic leader for allowing us to have this time. Also I want to commend you both for doing your homework. I believe we will be back tomorrow, the 30-something Group tomorrow afternoon after votes.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 53 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, September 29, 2005, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and work of an incredible soldier for justice, the late Simon Wiesenthal.

For over fifty years, Mr. Wiesenthal sought justice for the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Over his long career he is credited with bringing more than 1,100 war criminals to trial.

Mr. Wiesenthal had been imprisoned in twelve Nazi death camps, and lost 89 relatives in the Holocaust. His pursuit of war criminals was a personal one, but it was a mission of justice, not vengeance. After the American liberation of the Mauthausen death camp in Austria where Wiesenthal was imprisoned-- he weighed just 99 pounds when he was freed--he decided to dedicate himself to seeking justice and ensuring that the Holocaust would never be forgotten.

Many have called him the `conscience' of the Holocaust. In many respects, though, he was the conscience of the world. When governments would not act on their own, he forced them to act. When others forgot or were anxious to forget the victims of the Holocaust, he kept alive the memories of Nazi atrocities and demanded that those responsible be held accountable for their actions.

Mr. Wiesenthal was born near Lvov in present-day Ukraine. He was educated in Prague and Warsaw, and apprenticed in Russia before returning home to open an architectural office. Shortly thereafter, war broke out. The Russians and Germans invaded Lvov and terror ensued.

After the war, Wiesenthal, based in a small apartment, began his quest for justice. He is best known for his efforts that led to the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the former SS leader who presided over the Nazi's extermination program.

Wiesenthal's career brought him many international awards and distinctions. In 1995, he was made an honorary citizen of Vienna. He was a published writer and maintained office hours at the Jewish Documentation Center he founded, even after turning 90.

Mr. Speaker, I pay tribute to, a man of immense courage and dedication. His passing reminds us of the importance of remembering the victims of the Holocaust, demanding that perpetrators of crimes against humanity be held accountable, and combating intolerance wherever it exists.

In these efforts, one man's life truly made a difference.

Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to come before the House, and I want to thank the Democratic leadership for allowing us, the 30-Something Working Group, to come to the floor to talk about issues that are facing not only young Americans but Americans in general.

The 30-Something Working Group, as I have stated before, time after time, is a group of 30-something Members on the Democratic side of the aisle who meet every week. We come together on the issues that are facing Americans and discuss things that, A, are working or, B, things that are not working on behalf of the American people, and we try to bring that to the attention of our colleagues here in this House.

I think it is important for us to not only be very aware of what is happening now in the action or inaction here in the Congress or here in this House. I think it is also important for us to realize that Hurricane Katrina survivors and those that are still in recovery are in need of a government that is willing to respond not only as it relates to saying, well, we passed the $62.2 billion emergency appropriation, but to make sure that we never have to be placed in a position that we are in now, not this House, but the people affected by the storm, and not as it relates to the natural disaster.

We know that is an act of God and that will happen; but as it relates to governance, who dropped the ball or who did not respond in time, who did not get a letter because too many people lost their lives because the response was not what it should have been.

Mr. Speaker, it was not the hurricane that killed a number of people, people who have children lost at this point, that homes are devastated in New Orleans because of the flooding. It was not just the storm that made that happen. Governance broke down somewhere. Our reason for coming to the floor today is to not only share with our colleagues but to make sure that we are abundantly clear with the American people about the importance of having an independent commission out of the control of this House and out of the control of this Congress to allow appointments to take place, bipartisan, and independent.

Right now we have a partisan select committee that will be meeting sometime in the very near future, maybe tomorrow, organizing and trying to bring

witnesses before them. I am very, very proud, and when I say very, very proud, this is the moment we live for to be able to stand up on behalf of those who are not here to stand up on behalf of themselves.

We know that the American people have said, 70 percent of the American people have said, they want an independent committee like the 9/11 Commission to look at what happened or what did not happen as it relates to the response and preparation for Hurricane Katrina. We are looking at the number of 200 billion Federal dollars being spent to rebuild and help those Americans get back on their feet.

It is important for us to have this independent commission to be able to make sure that we are not at this point ever again, especially when it comes down to the breakdown of government. I think it is important. I am not trying to be a pessimist in any way, but I think it is important for us to call it what it is. It is a partisan select committee created by the House of Representatives, passed outside of what we call regular order here in the process, outside of regular order, going to certain committees that have oversight over the necessary agencies. But to say we are going to get to the bottom of what happened is just not the way to go about doing it. Not even 50/50, or 10 on one side and 10 on the other side to make sure accountability is there so the American people can have some confidence.

No, because the majority wanted to keep control of the process and because the President and others that are here in this Congress wanted to keep control of the process, we have a partisan select committee that has been appointed and given the charge to find out the truth. I think that not only Democrats on this side of the aisle but some of my good friends on the other side of the aisle should speak out. I know that Democrats have, but I challenge some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to speak out and say this is wrong, because we know it is wrong. We know it is going to be partisan, and we know we will not get the hard questions answered.

We know that if the administration has anything to do with the response, which admittedly the President has said it was not what it should have been, that would have been fine if we were talking about a check that was not mailed out, a rebate check and it was 3 days late. We are talking about loss of life, loss of property. We are talking about children as we speak now that are still missing. We are talking about people who spent 3 days on their own roof or in their attic or 3 days on a bridge without water, without proper sanitation and without a response from the Federal Government to be able to save not only their lives in some cases but also as it relates to saving their property, of making sure that we were there to respond.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for us to realize when it is time to lead and when it is time to not only lead but stand up on behalf of the folks that elected us here. It is important for us to stand up.

The American people, they do not want us to be partisan, and they do not want a partisan select committee selected by the House that is partisan. They want an independent commission like the 9/11 Commission. They want that. I guarantee you the folks in Alabama and Mississippi and definitely the people in Louisiana, and I would even say the folks in Florida, want an independent commission.

Members do not see anyone running around here saying we want a partisan commission to look at what happened. I do not see one headline that says we want it to be partisan so we do not find out exactly what we need to find out, not the who done it and who did it kind of thing, but where the ball was dropped so we can save lives, American lives. This is not a foreign country somewhere.

We are saying we need to make sure that we prevent loss of life. There are

Americans that died in the aftermath of this hurricane. I say the aftermath. I cannot help but remember the story where the gentleman was caught on television, and a reporter walked up and said what is wrong. ``My wife, she is gone. I was holding her hand. I could not hold on. She said, `You cannot hold me any longer.''' That was not a natural disaster; that was the fact that we did not have in place what we needed to have in place to make sure the governance, the government, be it local, State or Federal, was responding to these individuals.

I have papers stacked this high with pictures of people sitting in front of their loved ones because they ran out of insulin or oxygen. This is a failure, and we will never know, we will not know the truth if we allow this Congress, the majority of this Congress to deny the American people, not just the Democrats in Congress but the American people and the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the truth and to make sure and ensure that it will not happen again, because we will be better by having a nonpartisan commission outside of this Congress to evaluate what went wrong, what went right, and what we have to focus on.

We are better now because of the 9/11 Commission. We passed a bill here on this floor because of their work. We were able to save American lives and protect America in the future.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) heard me once before speak of the fact that it is not personal, it is just business. And that is the reason why we are here. We are here to conduct business.

I have very good friends on the other side of the aisle. I am talking about good friends that I had long-lasting relationships with prior to becoming a Member of Congress. As it relates to this select committee, those individuals that were fortunate enough to be appointed by the House leadership, many of them are good friends of mine. I mean, these are individuals that I talk to, and we talk about football and we talk about things that just regular everyday associates would talk about.

But it is not about them. It is about the fact that there has been a select committee elected on partisan lines, partisan lines, with a partisan vote that will meet tomorrow and, as we read through the media, will meet next week, a partisan committee to carry

out a bipartisan job. A bipartisan job. How can they carry out a bipartisan job when from the beginning it already smacks of political overtones? It is almost like, as the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) said, and I think she said it right, we are going to do our in-house investigation. What usually happens when people do an in-house investigation is someone screams for an independent investigation. For those men and women that are in business out there in America, they always have to get, 9 times out of 10, an outside audit for their company versus an inside audit. Independent it is called. And I think it is important for an independent commission, when we get one, because we are willing to fight. The Democrat side of the aisle is saying we are willing to fight on behalf of what the American people want.

Now, I did not hear one speech during the creation or the vote last Thursday on this partisan commission or select committee of saying that the people want a partisan select committee, and I am here to say that it is important that we have one. Not one speech. But that is what we have now. Because there are some individuals here in the Beltway that want vindication and validation, which, I guess, vindication, not rightfully so, but just to say, well, I had nothing to do with it and to beat up on Michael Brown of all people. And I think there is pretty much consensus on the fact that he did not possess the experience and the leadership qualities to be able to carry out the mission of being Director of FEMA. We know that. I mean, that is almost like the President's showing up 3 or 4 days later, or what have you, after he was supposed to be there, and saying there are a lot of homes, a lot of flooding going on. And people say, oh, really? We saw that on TV like 4 days ago. We are getting blankets and all these things in now when they should have had them 3 days ago. The world watched people on top of their roofs, and thank God for the Coast Guard who were there trying to pluck people off when we had mountains of Federal resources sitting somewhere at some staged area while people are there starving.

I went to Mississippi, Hancock County. Folks said they had sanctioned looting. The mayor standing out in front saying go in and get what they need, the essentials to survive. In America. This is not behind a war zone. This is not in a fort area. This is America where they can go in and help people, but failed to do so.

Once again I want to make sure that I am crystal on this and we are crystal. We are not only talking about what did not happen as it relates to the Federal response. We are talking about the State response. We are talking about the local parish response. We are talking about whoever was in charge of carrying out the plan, making sure it does not happen again. This is not isolated to the Gulf States. This is America, because we all learned what happened on 9/11 happened here in Washington, DC, happened in Pennsylvania with the plane going down, happened in New York City. But guess what? Having that independent commission helped prevent terrorism throughout the country. LAX is a more secure airport because of the 9/11 Commission. More secure. And I think it is important that we realize that this battle is not on behalf of what we want on the Democratic side. The battle is worth fighting on behalf of the American people. And I will tell the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) I know for a fact that there are some Republicans that sit on that side of the aisle that know 110 percent that we are right. And I will say this, just like I have said it before, when it came down to some of the votes that took place and when I called for some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to go see the wizard, get some courage, and stand up publicly to this rhetoric of a partisan select committee to investigate yourself.

If I messed up and I was to come to the floor and say I have decided that I am going to investigate myself, I mean it sounds a little funny because it is.

If it was not so sad. I will investigate myself, and we will be back in a number of months and give our findings. That would be fine if we did not live in a democracy. But we do live in a democracy, and I think it is important that we call it for what it is. It is a partisan select committee based on trying to find out what happened or what did not happen in Katrina, and it is not bipartisan.

Well, plans would actually be action if we were in the majority, or if we had a majority party that were willing to move in a bipartisan way in responding to the aftermath of Katrina. And also what Hurricane Katrina has exposed in America is the fact that we are not prepared to face a natural disaster or a disaster, period. We are not coordinated in this country to be able to have a response that will be appropriate to the American people in their time of need.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman left off with what is being proposed, and what is also being proposed is a $9 billion cut in student aid. I know we passed a bill to kind of help with a Pell grant, but this week the majority comes back with a $9 billion discussion of helping to pay for Katrina. So it is almost like I am going to give you something, but I am going to take $9 billion back.

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that we have the opportunity to come to the floor, and we have had to double up on 30-Something, because it is too much, too much going on.

I will tell my colleagues, and I will warn my colleagues on the majority side, especially those who are making decisions, it is time to start making the right decisions. When you have 8 States who say that they want the Federal Government or this Congress to investigate oil companies, we are paying $3.50, $3.90 a gallon; meanwhile, profits still soaring as it relates to the oil companies that are saying, oh, we have to go up on gas prices because the oil production is not what it should be. But they are not hurting. There are some people who could not make it to work because they could not afford to put a quarter of a tank of gas in their car or their truck if it was a small business. Sure, prices went up, because they could not move product. Diesel fuel went up, let alone jet fuel. Flights were canceled. But, meanwhile, the folks that provide the oil, they are having record profits. So eight Governors have asked for intervention by this Congress.

And, I have been passed a note here that they are also predicting that gas, based on what Rita does, could go to $5 or better. So I hate to say to not only my constituents, but also Members of this Congress, run out and fill your tank now, because Rita is a reality, and it is going to be a category 5. Because we gave money away to billionaires, not to the folks that we are talking about, not the folks that are on the cover of these magazines. What happened? How did it go wrong? Is this America? Question: Is this America?

Deficits. The deficits were here prior to Katrina, prior to Rita. When this administration came into power, that is when we started getting into deficits. We had surpluses as far as the eye could see.

So I am saying that, and I am hopeful that some of our friends, especially the ones making decisions on the other side of the aisle, will say, well, you know, maybe we need to rethink this.

Maybe we need to sit down as adults and look at how we can approach this and use not only the contributions, but the wisdom of all Members of Congress into, into what? Achieving what the American people want. That is not a radical idea. That is very simple. We have one side of the aisle that is saying that we want to do that. We have one side of the aisle, if given the opportunity to be in the majority, will do that. But tomorrow, I say to my colleagues, there will be a committee meeting, a partisan committee meeting, to organize themselves to get to the bottom of what really happened and did not happen, to report to the American people the truth. I will tell my colleagues right now that that just will not fly.

I am asking, as a member of the Democratic Caucus and asking as a Member of Congress period, and Leader Pelosi, the Democratic leadership, I am on the second floor of a 9-floor building. Hang in there, because there are a number of people and Americans, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, those that cannot even vote yet and those who choose not to vote are counting on our leadership to make sure that this never happens again.

They deserve an independent commission to be able to look at what happened, what did not happen. Subpoena those that need to be subpoenaed and pulled in, because Michael Brown, as far as I am concerned, is just crust on the pie. We are not really getting down to what is in the pie when we deal with Michael Brown. Michael Brown is so exposed he is just like the Washington Monument that sits in the Mall; everyone can see it all over Washington, D.C. If you get lost here in Washington, D.C., just look for the monument and you know you are on the right track. Michael Brown is there. I feel bad for him, because the guy cannot even go to the Mall without people looking at him and saying, it was you. No, it was not Michael Brown. It was those individuals that allowed Michael Brown to be

the director of FEMA. It was those individuals that made partisan decisions based on political activity in a partisan campaign, and said we are going to park our people here, our precinct captains in the emergency management agency. In our time of need, we want our friends, political friends, to be in those positions.

Better yet, even if FEMA, let us say if they did not have the ability to be able to govern themselves in a time of a natural disaster and respond, those individuals that were overseeing FEMA, it goes further. Yes, the Department of Homeland Security, you have people in the White House that are in charge of certain agencies that bring about accountability on those agencies on behalf of the President; you have so many people that are from the top, which is the President of the United States, Commander in Chief, if you want to speak militarily, all the way to the parish commissioner or levee board in New Orleans. In that track, need it be elected, appointed, they have to be brought in to task to make sure that it does not happen again.

Were there plans? Of course there were plans to be able to evacuate people, to be able to make sure that the Federal response is staged, and to go in when the winds die down to 40, the wind count or what have you. I am not a meteorologist; I feel like one, because when you watch TV, and it is hypnotic watching the reporting of this, 40-mile-per-hour winds. But it did not happen. And we can get down to the truth. It very well could be; I mean, I heard some folks from Louisiana saying, yes, the National Guard was in there trying to do the best they could. They did have food in the Superdome. They did have food in the Civic Center in New Orleans. No, we were there. We were here in the streets. They were not here by themselves. We will never know the truth until we have an independent commission.

I am glad, once again, I am going to say it again just in case. I want it to be printed correctly in the Congressional Record that the leader, by not appointing to this partisan committee, select committee, partisan, I want to say that, partisan committee that will have partisan findings, I commend not only her leadership, not on behalf of the Democratic Caucus, but on behalf of the American people. The question should not be, why are you not appointing Democratic Members to this partisan committee? It should be, why do we have a partisan committee, select committee in the first place for this bipartisan job?

Restore this bipartisan job. It is bipartisan because that is what we call it. No, that is not bipartisan. You have 11 members on the majority side, including the chairman who controls everything, and you have nine members on the minority side who cannot even call a committee meeting or call a witness up without the permission of the majority.

So once again, we are in a situation where we are saying, we will investigate ourselves and we will get back to you in a number of months on our findings of what we did wrong.

Period. Dot.

The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), you are 110 percent right as it relates to individuals taking Rita very seriously. Also I am hoping that emergency management, FEMA and other agencies, are doing the appropriate things that they need to do to be able to stage themselves so that individuals do not wait 3 days, 3 or 4 days.

We are coming in for a close here, but this is Louisiana, Mississippi, or the eastern part of Louisiana, Mississippi, and, also Alabama, and we have some of Florida in there, or all of Florida. I think it is important for us to understand, in this area right here, this is where Katrina struck.

The individuals that lived here had a slow response, but a response. A slow

response. We had loss of life here after the storm because people could not get what they needed as Americans. Here, this same area, President signs a proclamation waiving Davis-Bacon which will allow these individuals in these States, and these communities right here, real people in these counties and the parishes right up here in Louisiana, same place, same President, flying in there, four, five visits, what have you, that are without a prevailing wage, which means a contractor can go in and say, no minimum wage for this job, even though Federal jobs in other parts of the country that are paid for with Federal dollars, paid for, they make a prevailing wage.

It is not a union issue. This is an American issue. We want to make sure that these folks rebuild. Better yet, the $62.3 billion-and-change that we have appropriated here in this Congress, when it comes down to these individuals receiving a paycheck when many of those jobs have been shut down and some have decided was the final blow for them to move somewhere else will not be able to receive a prevailing wage on the tax dollars that they have given in this area.

That is why we need an independent commission. These individuals, these very real people right here in Hancock County in Mississippi, one of the hardest hit areas here in a FEMA trailer waiting to speak to an operator, I know personally that they were outside for 2 hours waiting to get into this trailer of 10 phones. 10 phones.

They deserve an independent, bipartisan commission to make sure that the Federal response is better, quicker. So this goes far beyond regular order that we say here in the Congress. This is not a committee that has been standing for 50-something years and that is just the way we do business. This is a natural disaster and failure of governance.

And that is where we come in, on the failure of governance side. These are real Americans that are suffering. I ask our Republican leadership, do not allow this institution to do what it is doing now.

Do not split us further by having a partisan committee meet tomorrow because they can, not because it is the right thing, it is because they can. That is wrong.

If we were supposed to be the shining example of government, elected in a democracy, do not allow that to happen. Do not do it because you can. Because I can do things as a grown up, I do not do certain things in front of my children, because it is a bad example. This is a bad example.

And I will tell you that it is far beyond regular order. I am talking to my colleagues in this Congress, and you know exactly what I am saying. This is far beyond, because we are in the majority. That is right. We are supposed to have more people on the committee. This is a natural unprecedented disaster.

And this was a slow response or no response at all. So I say to Members that it is important that we do this. I want to thank, Mr. Speaker, our Democratic leader for allowing us to come to the floor once again.

I want to also say that it is an honor to address the House of Representatives, but this is a very pressing time, not only for our country, but also as it relates to our leadership, and I hope that we can come together and make sure that we have a bipartisan independent commission that the American people are calling for so badly.

Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to address the House. And I want to thank the Democratic leader, Democratic leadership, Democratic whip, and also the chairman of our Democratic Caucus and also the vice chair.

Mr. Speaker, as we have been doing, week after week, and for now two Congresses, a Congress and a half, coming to the floor, sharing issues and concerns of the American people, need it be the 30-somethings that are out there, or young people in America, and those that are underrepresented in many cases as relates to their everyday lives, and so we take honor and privilege in coming here.

The 30-something Working Group consists of Members who are in their 30-somethings on the Democratic side of the aisle. We get together every week and talk about the issues that are facing America. Then we come to the floor to be able to share with our colleagues some of the good things that we are doing and also some of the things that we can improve on.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to start out by saying now I have the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) on the floor here with me and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is on his way.

I must say from the outset that I am very proud of the work that so many individual Americans have done in volunteering their time and also contributing to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and I close to our districts received some weather today from the ongoing system that we have in the gulf, but we pray and we hope that it weakens before it reaches the gulf coast area. And I would also add that there are so many unsung heroes and sheroes in this country that have done, some have done their job as it relates to first responders, others have volunteered their time because it was the right thing to do.

As I said last week, we are in the first couple of minutes in the first quarter as it relates to the recovery of Hurricane Katrina. We are going to talk this week about many of the issues that are facing the people in the Gulf State areas and Americans in general. Because we have appropriated the largest supplemental appropriations in the history of the United States of America outside of war with the $62.3 billion just as a down payment to start helping the Gulf States recover, Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago and last week, I am really concerned about the Federal commitment to the South, not only in what we say but mainly focusing on what we do. And I am disturbed in many areas of how we are starting out on the part of what we do.

Now, one may say, $62 billion, that is a lot of money. It is. More money than has been appropriated to any disaster thus far, and it will continue to grow because of the needs and because of the work that needs to be done. But it is one thing to appropriate. It is another thing to make sure those dollars go to the right, not only areas, but also it will go down to the people that are involved in the recovery process.

We are going to talk a little bit about Davis-Bacon and the waiving of Davis-Bacon by the President. We will also talk about the issue as it relates to no-bid, no-requirement contracts that were given to companies that are participating in Iraq and that are under investigation on their Iraq contracts; but they were in the part of the group of big contractors that received contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And how does that play as it relates to sending a strong signal to the South and to the Gulf States that we mean business when we say that we are about them recovering.

I would also add, Mr. Speaker, last week we took some action here on this floor. I personally voted against it because I felt that it was important that we have an independent commission look at what happened. And we are joined by a super, and when I say ``super,'' a supermajority of Americans that have said they want an independent commission to look at what happened and what did not happen and to make sure it never happens again.

Now, not on the natural disaster side. We cannot legislate, we cannot stop natural disasters from happening. That is an act of God. But one thing we do have within our power is making sure that we govern in a way that the people of the United States, no matter where you are, that you will be protected and the government will not fail you.

When I say ``government,'' I want to make sure that we do not get confused. I am talking about Federal. I am talking about State. I am talking about local. And in the case of Louisiana, parishes, presidents, government facilities that were opened, plans that were available that were not executed on all levels. Some of this we already know.

Last week, I brought many of these publications to the floor. This is just a few of them. There are news reports and accounts of people just not doing what they are supposed to do. So we need to make sure that we do not fail the people that pay taxes, the people that woke up one Tuesday morning to vote for representation, that we do not fail them as it relates to being the stewards of the very government that they pay taxes to.

I am glad, Mr. Speaker, this week to share the floor with my good colleague and friend of many years, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz). It is great being on the floor with the gentlewoman again.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to just understand that we have the same thing happening. This is not a mystery.

After 9/11 we did a little work. I tell folks all the time that we do work within the 30-Something Working Group. We do not come to the floor with the Debbie Wasserman Schultz-Tim Ryan-Kendrick report.

These are facts. We do not get in the back of the chamber and say this is what we are going to say today; this is the story today; let us look at who said what today in the paper today. We want third party validators, and I am going to tell you what is important here.

We did a little work. We have something in the Congress, and I know many of the Members know. We call it the Congressional Research Service. These are the individuals that are in the Library of Congress.

Nonpartisan, academics.

Very smart, I must add, and I am just glad to rub elbows with them. We have been spending a lot of time together. They have been coming over to the office.

Today, we had a conversation, and one of the gentlemen from the Congressional Research Service said, Congressman, I actually had to wear a coat to work today to come over here. I thought that was quite interesting. I want to try to find a little humor within this tragedy, but at the same time it is important, and you have to look at history.

I just want to make sure that Members understand, after the 9/11 Commission, it is almost like the Congress protects or tried to protect itself as an institution. It is just natural. I mean, it is almost like if something happens that may be embarrassing to the Federal Government, we then circle the wagons and say we have to protect the institution, regardless of the fact that it may end up in that circling wagons and protecting the institution, when I say the institution, the Washington Beltway, the inside politics here, partisan politics here in Washington, D.C., we must protect ourselves; we need to protect ourselves.

What do we have to do first? We have to have control of the situation, and so by saying that we will pass a bill on a bipartisan panel, you let the majority side tell you that it is bipartisan. We already said that it is eleven-nine, eleven Republicans, nine Democrats, and under this kind of situation, you are going to need subpoenas to make sure the people can come and testify.

Under oath, and let it be known they are telling the truth to the American people.

There is no question. The latest Washington Post-ABC poll found that 76 percent of the public supports the creation of a 9/11-type independent panel. When we say independent panel, let me just go down the history of what happened after 9/11.

Basically what happened is that the Congress did what it is doing now. It said, oh, we will review this and we will get back to you in some months, do not worry, do not ask any questions. Even after 9/11, it was on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence level. I think the only reason why the Senate, the other body across the hall, and the House got together was that you had Congressman Porter Goss at that time and Senator Graham from the same State, and they knew each other for a number of years. They got their committees together, and behind closed doors, they had meetings. They questioned the CIA, and they questioned a number of other folks as it relates to what happened and what went down.

There are a lot of honorable Members on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence here in the Congress, some that I know. Some are good friends of mine, but the bottom line is, it is not about relationships. This is about making sure the American people get what they need, not only the truth, but to make sure that we have the ability to correct ourselves. Let me just go down the line here.

Then the 9/11 families, God bless them, came to the Congress for months, talking to congressional leaders. Two times here on this floor an independent panel was introduced in the form of an amendment because that is the only way as Democrats we can get anything to this floor. I must add in case some Members forgot, the Republican party is in the majority. The Republican leadership runs what happens on that side of the aisle, and I believe there was some good-hearted Republican Members. Some of them

are friends of mine. We talk, we read some of the same newspapers. I come from some of the same area of the country, and they wanted an independent panel but could not vote for an independent panel those first two times here in this House. That is the truth.

So when it came down to the amendment in the Intelligence bill that created the independent panel, the pressure from the American people and the pressure from those 9/11 families helped. Once again, I am glad they came up here and forced this Congress to do what it was supposed to do because we never would have had the outcome measures that we had with the 9/11 bill passing on this floor that has made this country safer, that has made it where agencies can talk to one another. It sounds kind of familiar.

FEMA, that is a true, it is an acronym, but it is a four-letter acronym, and a lot of folks have problems with FEMA. I know the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and I have a problem with FEMA as it relates to not letting our constituents being able to make claims. Their homes were damaged, too, and there are going to be problems in the Gulf States as it relates to that.

So I am saying this to make a point. It took an entire year for the 9/11 Commission families and Americans to get justice as it relates to getting a real independent review, and I am talking about the people from the White House, all the way down to the local government, and they came out and it was bipartisan and they worked with one another. These were past elected officials, some individuals that were professionals in the area of intelligence. We had governors on there.

This is the kind of review that the American people deserve and the individuals that have lost their lives and the injured. We still have children now that are still missing. This is not lightweight stuff. This is heavy, very heavy. So it is important that we do this.

I want to talk about Davis-Bacon when we get a chance, but I just want to make sure that we share with the Members that this is nothing new. This is what the Congress does. This is what they do. This is what we do. I am not a part of it because I voted against it, and I am glad that I did, not that I do not want to get down to the bottom of it. I know what the deal is. I know when I see the Potomac Two-Step, when I start hearing the music, I understand what is going on. I understand this is inside the Beltway. I understand there is a Republican President in the White House and there is some protection that needs to take place here. I understand there are individuals that will probably do things better under other circumstances.

So, as we continue to move on week after week on the 30-Something Working Group, this will be exposed. The way when I am talking about right now, where we have on this paper will continue to be exposed to not only Members of Congress saying, listen, if you do not think that no one wants to say it out loud on the Congressional Record, we are going to say it out loud: Protect those families. They need the representation, to make sure we have the independent counsel. Fine, if they want to do the independent panel here. Whatever the majority wants, that is fine.

But we need an independent panel.

I do not want to cut my colleague off.

It is about priorities. Priorities.

I want to say that out loud. And I cannot say we, because we are not a part of that, but the majority, the majority leadership, I will put it that way, and the White House, would much rather protect billionaires in receiving taxes. For instance, let us say that they decide to repeal this tax cut for 2 years for billionaires. Let us make a sacrifice on behalf of the country.

Roll back a piece of it. So maybe they cannot buy another yacht for 2 years, but just hold it off for a couple of years to give us the money to be able to respond to not only the natural disaster but also as it relates to what is going on in Iraq right now. That is coming in. That train is going to roll in here again to the tune of $50 billion.

Priorities. We would much rather take prescription drugs away from seniors. And I am smiling because it just seems like a bad dream. We would much rather cut the transportation bill.

That is going to put people to work and allow local communities that have traffic congestion, to let that continue because we want to protect the few.

Look at us. We are here on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives saying that the President, the leader of the Free World, the last standing superpower on Earth, that he should ask the most wealthy, the individuals that are receiving unprecedented tax cuts, that we have to say, can we please ask for some of that money back, even though you did not ask for it?

What happened to the leadership? It goes to show you what kind of government we have right now, especially when it comes down to the majority. We have to ask billionaires. Please, we are the Congress. But it is quite interesting, my colleagues, that we do not have to ask the elderly that are going to be delayed in their prescription drug benefits. We just do it. Or the majority just does it.

We tell them what we are going to do. We do not have to go out and ask mayors, Governors, people in local communities, like my colleague mentioned in Youngstown, and I am pretty sure my colleague and I from Florida can give similar examples of where to help our communities. Does anyone think the President is going to ask, can we have some of that transportation money back, even though I signed the bill?

I am not justifying all of the projects in the transportation bill. We know there are some issues within that bill. But this is the kind of America that we are living in right now. We are living in an America where on the one hand we are saying we have to ask the individuals that have, and I am not talking about the folks that are making $100,000 or $200,000 a year, I am talking about the folks who are making millions and millions a year. We have to go to them, head down, and say is it possible, if you will, please, allow us to have some. So that means if you are walking into a drugstore, that you are not going to be asked about your options.

And I want to segue over to Davis-Bacon, and I want to give our Web site out so that we hear from some folks on this. We need some feedback here in Congress. We need some intervention on behalf of the American people.

It cannot be the water because I am drinking the water here in the Capitol, and I am not running around saying that we need to protect billionaires.

I also want to talk about, and I do not want folks to get confused there were no recommendations; there was a bill dropped today by the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) dealing with contractor fraud, making sure that the victims in the Gulf States do not become victims again, not by Hurricane Rita but Hurricane Washington, D.C. that is going to take away the opportunities that will come out of tragedy.

And that is a very substantial bill, something that I can say from the Democratic side of the aisle that we have been putting out proposal after proposal, day after day. If we were in charge, if we were the committee chairpersons, if we had a member of our caucus that was the majority leader, it would not be a letter, it would not be a proposal on an idea; the American people will see action carried out and will give another voice in this perspective.

Let me mention something about Davis-Bacon, and let me say the Congressional Research Service, I was reading in the newspaper, some Members of Congress on the majority side were saying they are concerned about Davis-Bacon because of the unions. Let us do ``operation clearup'' here. We had the Congressional Research Service look at that. I did not think about Louisiana as being a union State, nor Mississippi nor Alabama nor Florida.

That is what I am talking about.

Actually Mississippi, quite interesting, is number 45 in the Nation as it relates to being a unionized State. Mississippi, union members as a percentage of employment, 4.2 percent. Wow, if we do not do something about Davis-Bacon, that 4.2 percent, that is going to suck up all of the money.

Mr. Speaker, we get excited with third-party validators, and we come out with the truth, versus what individuals who may sit in the back of this Chamber asking what are we going to say today. Let me say this: Louisiana, the State where obviously a lot of this money is going to be spent, 6.8 percent organized labor. We have to watch out for that 6.8 percent.

Alabama, a lot of jobs with municipal workers, 8.8 percent, not even 10 percent of the workforce. So how in the

world can anyone be scared of Davis-Bacon and the prevailing wage?

Before I put this letter down, let me mention that Davis-Bacon, we talk about prevailing wages. These were two Republican Members of Congress who passed this legislation. Davis and Bacon were both Republicans. We all know that. They did it after World War II to make sure there was a prevailing wage and people would have an opportunity to support their families.

I am getting there.

This was during rough times in the United States. In Louisiana and most of the parishes, prevailing wage is $9.60. It changes from county to county, but mainly $9.60. Minimum wage is $5 and change, and is not a wage that anyone can say I am going to rebuild my house making minimum wage. But when Federal dollars are being spent in contracting, the prevailing wage is supposed to be in place to make sure that the worker, the individual that is going to work. And I am talking about fact, not fiction.

On Sunday I flew with Members of Congress over Louisiana. I was speaking with the Governor of Louisiana, and she told us she wants her people to make prevailing wage. She wants to make sure that Louisianans who want to participate in the rebuilding of their State, that they are not cheated, that they are not left behind, that other individuals from other States or other countries, and I have to add that too, come in and take these jobs away from these people who are victims. Better yet, we are going to do wonderful things in the Gulf States, and this also is evident in my community, Miami-Dade County.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important. And the only way the proclamation can be overturned that the President waives the Davis- Bacon requirement is through an act of Congress. That means both House and Senate would have to pass an act overriding the President or saying that Davis-Bacon should be reinstituted. Subsection 6 of Davis-Bacon allows the President in time of national emergency to be able to waive the prevailing wage.

We do not hear any discussion about waiving the prevailing wage in Iraq contracts or Afghanistan contracts. It really benefits the contractor. I can see if it was something there that said if we waive Davis-Bacon, then we can save money. That is what they are saying, but that is not actually what will happen. Contractors will make more money because they do not have to pay the people who are out there punching in and punching out every day.

Do not leave the Congress out because we have a responsibility too, Mr. Speaker.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Make sure we clarify because I want to make sure that Members do not get confused. Under Katrina he did. But there were how many storms last year during the Presidential election that came through Florida?

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, as we look at our constitutional responsibility as Members of Congress, it gives me no pleasure to be a Member of the 109th Congress, the highest deficit in the history of the Republic. I think that there is a real reason to have not only debate but also action as it relates to the deficit. And when we give irresponsible tax cuts, we spend like we are in the black versus the red, and we continue to spend. We cannot control ourselves and we are spending.

Now, when it comes down to the reality of where we are now, that is the reason why people have insurance. That is the reason why folks save money. They save in a bank account for a rainy day. The majority has not allowed that to happen here in this Congress.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, every time it comes down to the budget, it is a partisan vote. On our side of the aisle, the amendment comes down to pay-as-you-go. Pay-as-you-go. For every dollar we spend, we have to represent how would we pay for that dollar that we are spending, how would we reduce the budget at the same time we are passing legislation to spend Federal dollars. That is not anything new. I mean, this is what happens.

So the Congress when the Democrats were in control, we balanced the budget. Balanced the budget. Surplus. The surplus is getting so small now in the rear-view mirror, we can barely see it. Not because of our doing, but because of the majority side.

So it gives me no pleasure to be a part of this Congress, the highest deficit in the history of the Republic, because someday I am going to be walking around somewhere with a big hat on, fishing on a peer somewhere, and someone is going to say, you were part of the Congress in the 108th and 109th Congress when they just ran the deficit through the roof. What did you do? So I think it is important that we point this out.

Now, there is a good, healthy discussion; and we know that we have individuals that are living in large homes that are making very little sacrifice as it relates to the Federal commitment to education, to health care, to making sure our men and women have the equipment that they need over in Iraq and Afghanistan and other foreign lands, and now we have a natural disaster here in the country. Better yet, we have people that are saying here in the Congress, not only are we repeating what the Majority side is saying, oh, well, maybe we should ask, or maybe they should ask the wealthy Americans' top half percent, what have you, to give back some of what we have given them. Better yet, it is not carried out the same way as it relates to asking a senior citizen who cannot afford prescription drugs or asking a mayor or a State: the transportation dollars that we gave you, we want to take them back, or asking a child that is in an overcrowded classroom who every year, under the threat of losing Title I, reduced lunch, asking them to make a sacrifice; no, it just happens to them. That is the difference. That is the difference.

I think the Members need to understand, when we start talking about the differences and say, are there any great ideas, there are a number of great ideas, and there will be action carried out with those great ideas, if we were in the majority, to bring about the philosophy of this Congress, of the majority of the Congress to go to the White House. And the real issue, when you start looking at responsibility and start talking about responsibility of this Congress, I think it is important for us to understand, and I keep saying the majority runs this House, and the minority, we try to make sure that the American people get what they need. We offer amendments on the Floor many times which are voted down in a procedural vote.

But it is important as we close here tonight to let the American people know that there are amendments and there have been amendments here in the House and on the other side of the Rotunda, and this Congress that has been offered to create an independent commission to make sure that we never, ever have to go through what we are going through again, not only the natural disaster issue, but on a governance issue. Now, because of a lack of governance, a lack of follow-through, a lack of oversight, $200 billion is on the horizon of the Federal tax dollar going to the Gulf States, rightfully so; guess what? If we were on our j-o-b on the oversight, if the State government was on their j- o-b as it relates to the oversight, if the levee board down in New Orleans and the parishes in the area were on their j-o-b, then maybe, just maybe, we would not be spending $200 billion. And the $200 billion, the way the majority would have it, will affect every man, woman, and child, individuals that are not billionaires. But, better yet, the majority is proposing with a straight face, with a straight face that we should bring about cuts for every-day Americans, but protect, protect those individuals that go and put their card in the ATM and do not even worry about how much money they get out, because they do not have to worry about it.

So I think it is important. I am not here to say, well, you know, we need to do X, Y, and Z and every American needs to, we need to take the tax cut, no. Some of the tax cuts are good for working families. But when you have billionaires that we cannot even man up and woman up and leader up, and we are not even willing to go see the wizard to get some courage, we are saying, we are going to ask them to give back some of the money that we have given them that they did not even ask for.

So I think this debate may very well be healthy, and I hope that the American people see exactly what is going on here in Washington, D.C., and I hope that some individuals that look at this entire situation say to themselves, hey, I am a Democrat and I disagree with that, or hey, I am a Republican and I disagree with that; or I am an independent and I disagree with that; or I am not even registered to vote, but I disagree with that, but I am going to get involved. Because we need the kind of representation here in Washington, D.C. that is going to protect the country, not just a few individuals, that is going to make sure that we do not waive Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage, to make sure that victims that swam and were clinging on to their roof, in the attic, had to leave some of their family members in the attic who died, behind, for the sake of making sure that contractors, of all people, get their just due out of the contract.

So I think it is important that this is very real and we need to make sure that every American understands what is going on, and is not just the minority side saying, well, they are not doing this and they are not doing that. We have ideas. We have proposed those ideas, you can go on the website and find those ideas. But, guess what? They will never surface to legislation unless we move in a bipartisan way and look at this. We do not have the ability, and when I say we, the majority of the Congress, the way it is operated, we do not have the ability to do it in a bipartisan way on this issue. It is evident. And we are going to continue to provide that evidence to the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentlewoman. I want to thank not only the gentlewoman from Florida, but the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the rest of the 30 Something Working Group for doing what they do. We would also like to thank the democratic leadership for allowing us to come to the Floor again, Mr. Speaker, to not only share with the Members, but the American people, about what is happening here in the Congress. We passed out our e-mail address; again, it is [email protected].

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 58 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, September 21, 2005, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, once again, it is an honor to come before the House of Representatives; and, also, we would like to thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader; and also the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the whip; and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the caucus chairman; and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn) who is our vice chair, and all of the hardworking Members of this Congress.

I think it is important for us to remember, and I think in a few short minutes the President will address the country from New Orleans and the French Quarter, about the Federal commitment to the hurricane- devastated areas. He will be in Louisiana, but I would assume he will also be addressing Mississippi, Alabama and some of the other surrounding areas that were affected by Katrina.

I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I think it is important that we look at the contrast of what exactly the Federal commitment will be. There has been a lot of words, a lot of Federal jet fuel burned of the President and the Vice President going down to the affected area. There has been a lack of organized congressional visits for us to even understand what those people are going through in the South.

We are going to be talking a little bit about, the 30 Something Working Group, the Federal commitment and the response not only to rescue and recovery but also the response to a national tragedy.

There have been some good statements and some very disturbing statements, and I think the Members need to realize what has been said, what has been done and what has not been done.

I think it is important, if we are going to follow through on some of these statements that have been made here on this floor, if we are going to follow through on what the President would say tonight in another 20 minutes to the country, are we going to be here for the long haul or are we going to give the people affected in the South what we call here in Washington, D.C., the Potomac two-step?

Are we going to try to ride this media cycle out?

Are we going to allow big-time contractors to go down, make a bucket of money on the back of tragedy and cut the wages for those very same people that were victims? Are we going to allow that to happen?

Are we going to allow this House, in a vote that we took today, that I voted against, not that I am not in solidarity of the reason why we wanted to put together a select committee of the oversight of what happened in Hurricane Katrina, but the fact that the people of the South are not getting what the 9/11 families got and the American people got after 9/11.

So there is a reason I think why we are heading off, and there are strange votes that are taking place. We say we do not want to politicize the process, but we step out on politics. We say we want to get to the truth, either it be city or parish or State or Federal Government, but, better yet, we take congressional action that does not even carry the language to allow us to get to the truth, does not have the bipartisan not only flavor but bipartisan language.

If we are going to do something in the Congress to find out where government failed, where nonprofit failed and not have a 50-50 relationship with the majority side to be able to get to the truth, we are going to see partisan votes on that select committee.

I stand with the Democratic leader and I know many of the 30 Something Working Group stand with the Democratic leader as it makes to not even making an announcement now, even if we are going to appoint Members to that select committee because I will tell you 710 lives that have been lost. Better yet, we are going to appoint a committee just like it is regular business here in the Congress. Also, the largest supplemental, I must add, in the history of the Congress and this country, outside of a war supplemental. Some are saying it will go to $200 billion.

Well, if it goes to $200 billion, what will be the Federal commitment in the end? A, we know the people that will be working in the rebuilding process that are victims of this hurricane will not receive the prevailing wage because Davis-Bacon has been waived. They will not receive what other Federal contractors will receive using Federal money. We know that from the beginning. We are going to shortchange them from the beginning. We know they need money to rebuild, yet we are going to do that.

The whole issue, when it comes right down to it, I say to my colleague from Ohio, is that the Federal commitment is about tomorrow, a national day of prayer over at the cathedral, and that is fine, we can pray for them. But we are the Congress. We are supposed to act on behalf of those individuals that cannot stand for themselves. So I want to come out tonight and say that individuals that are in the affected area, I believe the country needs to rally around them and demand a 9/ 11-like commission.

We are going to let politicians stand in judgment of politicians? We are going to let a majority party stand in judgment of the majority in the executive branch? The same party that says, oh, we will get to the bottom of this, even if it is embarrassing? Well, people have lost their lives, yet we are going to sit around here as though it is another day at the office? I think not.

There are individuals right now that have mold in their homes, and individuals right now that still do not have even the simple opportunity to bury their dead. There are children right now that are lost in the hundreds, and yet it is just another day at the office? Excuse me, but I have a problem with that.

Over in the other body across the hall yesterday there was a vote that went down on a partisan party line. One individual from the State, one of the affected States, did not even vote on the amendment, and that amendment called for, down to the last sentence, a 9/11-like commission.

It is very, very unfortunate that partisan politics has found its way into this national tragedy. The only reason why this Congress is getting away with it is the fact that these individuals who have lost their lives are poor. The individuals' homes that are still under water are poor. That is the reason why. So who are we, as a country, to go somewhere else and start talking about what other people should be doing when we are not doing it?

Now, I am not saying the American people are not doing it. I am saying the leadership here in this Congress is not doing it. And if they can sleep well by doing that, so be it. But I will say this, that I believe the American spirit will rise on behalf of these individuals who are living in shelters right now and who do not even know what is happening to them.

I think the reason why people are saying, well, we are moving expeditiously and we are trying to do this, that and the other, and we want to make sure people get accountability, is that these are poor individuals, who, by the way, work every day but who may not have the education that the brokers and the stock folks and all of those folks had in 9/11. Now, I supported that 9/11 Commission, and we are better because of it. We are better because there was a 9/11 Commission.

There were families that came to this Congress. It was not the first idea of

the Congress or the administration to have a 9/11 Commission, but thank God that those family members on behalf of their families who had lost their lives took whatever money they had, came to this Congress and made it happen. The only difference between the 9/11 families and these families down south is the fact they had a little more money and had a little more influence. And God bless them for having it.

But I will say right now, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, that we have to stand for these individuals that cannot stand for themselves. That is why we are here. We are not here to represent the haves and haves more; we are here to represent the individuals that cannot afford to come here. We are here to represent those who got up early one Tuesday morning voting for representation so that they would be represented in this House, so that Democrats and Republicans alike would be represented in this House and Independents would be represented and those that are too young to vote would be represented.

We come here and stand as though it is business as usual while the body count still goes up, the death toll and the misery. So I do not know how long this media cycle is going to go on. I just do not know. I do not know how long the press will stick with this issue to keep it in the forefront, but we cannot leave these individuals behind. We have to be resilient; and we have to make sure, even if it costs criticism from individuals who may say, well, what do you want us to do? We want you to do the right thing. We want you to pass a resolution that has some teeth in it.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution 437 is a select committee that we cannot even get people to come and talk to us. We have to ask them to come talk to us. So I say to my colleague that this is going to be one of those things, like the Committee on Ways and Means, with partisan votes up and down; like the Committee on Armed Services, partisan votes up and down; like the Committee on Appropriations, partisan votes along party lines. We cannot allow that to happen.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

It is a select committee. It does not have any subpoena power. You cannot subpoena anyone.

I mean, it is like, Will you please come and talk with us?

Mr. Speaker, let me just say this in order to clarify the whole issue on subpoenas. In section 5 it calls for joint operations, and it comes down to the majority party. The majority, basically, the bottom line, are the only people that can actually subpoena. So your statement was correct, the minority view on the committee or the Democratic view on the committee, if we wanted a particular individual to be subpoenaed, could not be subpoenaed if we are not in the majority to be able to do so.

Of course. And that is in section 5 of the joint operations. But let me just say this. If there was an equal 50-50 power on the committee, then, obviously, there would be time for compromise. Okay, if you want to subpoena this witness, we want to subpoena that witness, and let us just compromise. Even though we do

not fully agree, we will get our members to vote for it.

But let me just say this. I think that it is important for us to remember that this is not the only battle as it relates to making sure that this never, ever happens again, especially after a 9/11 bill passed through, Homeland Security given all this authority, FEMA having the resources to pre-stage the equipment and to be able to move in for it to ever happen again. Whether it is something the Governor did not do in Mississippi or Louisiana or Alabama, or something that the mayor did not do in the town, wherever it may be, Gulfport, New Orleans, what have you, we have to get to the bottom of it.

Americans are pouring their hearts out and their money out, and we are using their taxpayer dollars to send down to the affected areas, and rightfully so, without the proper oversight and without any real congressional review. If a Member of Congress wanted to go down and see exactly what the Federal response was, you cannot go on what we call a congressional visit, go down there on a CODEL. No, you cannot. You have to find your own way down. Good luck, Charlie. You find your own way down there. Catch a bus if you can, or hitch a ride with a friend, or take money out of your own pocket and go.

I happened to get down there on the relief flight taking food and necessities down. That is how I got into the affected area.

The American people can take it for what it is. This is a coordinated campaign. Unfortunately, I do not believe it as a campaign, I see it preventing lives in the future from being lost. I cannot help but look at exactly what is going on.

U.S. News and World Report, ``What went wrong?'' We will never know.

Another edition, U.S. News and World Report, ``Who Screwed Up?'' We will never know.

Newsweek, ``Poverty, Race, Katrina, Lessons of a National Shame.'' We will never learn because the majority does not want to learn.

Some may be saying that the 30 Something Working Group, they are on the floor are talking about the majority party's failings with regards to leading and this national tragedy. This is not an issue of being partisan. This is an issue of telling the truth. The bottom line is we always talk about what would be different if we were in the majority.

Well, the Democratic leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), recommended with the council of ranking members said, let us come back from our break and go into session and give FEMA what it needs to be able to respond to this national tragedy. Number one, it is a shame that FEMA was out of money.

What did they say? The House leadership said, no, we will be back; do not worry about it.

A day later, the President got called out on it. Time was awasting. That means maybe FEMA did not have what it needed to be able to respond to people stuck in the Superdome and in shelters.

And in Mississippi, where I went, in Hancock County, they had sanctioned looting. It was sanctioned because they had no food and no water. It was not a situation where they said, fine, electricity is off, we do not have a lot of law and order going on, so we are going to go into this store and take things. These are individuals who work every day.

Second point, the Democratic leader said we need to make sure that we have a FEMA director that knows what he is doing. This one does not. He needs to step down. Because, obviously, if he was there the day before the storm and his administration was there before the storm and they watched this come in, knowing what the National Weather Center has done, and I am speaking from fact. I went down to Miami, just south of my district in Miami, and met with the director of the Hurricane Center last Friday. He was here before the Committee on Science this week and testified. He told the officials that the levees would break. A Category 4 or Category 5 storm, they will break, so it was not secret.

He called the mayor of New Orleans on Saturday night before the storm and said, Mr. Mayor, your levees potentially will break. The mayor put out the order early Sunday morning, mandatory evacuation. We knew there would be massive flooding from the simulation pattern a year prior to this storm. The officials all knew. They knew within FEMA. The State and city folks knew. The levee board knew.

And people died. I think it is important. I think it is important that Mike Brown hung around. The President went down and told Michael Brown that he was doing a good job.

Mr. Speaker, people died. I am not saying that he needs to wear that on his back, but the bottom line is somebody appointed him to that position with no experience whatsoever. It is like me leaving this room, leaving this floor and saying to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), well, you know, I am going to carry out open heart surgery. I know nothing about it, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

You do not get qualifications based upon we need to fill a position, not a FEMA position. That played around, and finally the administration took him out under pressure, not only pressure from the Democratic leader but from the media who started focusing on him, saying things were going poorly because we still do not have good leadership there. He came back to Washington, and he resigned.

Then we called for this 9/11 Commission-like legislation to pass to make sure that this never happens again, never happens again. Not natural disasters, we have no control over that. That is an act of God. But when it comes down to governance and responsibility and making sure if you are poor, middle class or wealthy in this country that this government will govern on your behalf, and that did not happen. The response to that request was we are going to put together a select committee, we are going to make sure that there is a majority influence on it as relates to the Republican leadership side, and we will not get to the bottom of what happened.

Will we have a lot of show and a lot of folks getting excited in the select committee? I am pretty sure they will have it. But what I am saying, independent individuals, I am talking about people who understand emergency management, individuals who understand weather, regular citizens from the affected areas. Regular citizens were on the 9/11 Commission, a Democratic and Republican appointment, co-chairs, to look at this and professionalize our response on all levels. That will not happen, not right now.

I think it is important that the American people, Members of Congress, no matter what community you represent, if you believe in making sure that people get the same representation, for us to have a 9/11 Commission, and I must add and say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), and we come to the floor to talk about what we should be doing and how we should be doing it or what we are doing on this side of the aisle, it is important for us to know the facts. This is the same Congress in the majority that the 9/11 families came up here, and they voted down two opportunities to set up a 9/11 Commission. This is the same Congress, until it just became overbearing that there were major mistakes in our intelligence, major mistakes and flags, and they are still finding stuff because of the 9/11 Commission that could have saved lives.

Better yet, we came to this floor, the 9/11 bill came to the floor, and we have better intelligence, better communications between Federal, local and State agencies because of their work. It is one of the best pieces of legislation that has passed this floor. So now the difference between the 9/11 families and what has happened down in the South is the fact that these individuals are poor, that they are still in the recovery process, and they have not been heard from yet. They have not been heard from. I think it is important that we give those individuals voice.

I am not saying just Democrats that are concerned about individuals that are affected in affected areas. I am talking about Members of Congress giving them voice to allow them to not ever go through this again and also make sure that they do not become victims when we have contractors with no restraints, no-bid contracts. They can run the tab up to whatever they

can run it up to, and then the President is going to waive Davis-Bacon which allow the people in the recovery process to receive minuscule wages, not what they would ordinarily get from Federal procured work.

I think it is important. The differences:

A, coming back here in session, it would have happened without hesitation if Democrats were in the majority.

B, Michael Brown would have gone to another job long before because the pressure, and there probably would have been a vote to remove the director, putting pressure on the White House to get someone more qualified.

C, we would have a 9/11-type commission appointed today to start pulling itself together to do the work and make sure this never happened began.

D, the procurement issue, it would not be an issue because there would be proper oversight. These are very serious issues.

The only reason I am saying Democratic leadership versus Republican leadership, because that is exactly the direction we are going in now. The votes that are going down here are partisan votes, not votes on behalf of what we know. We are not talking about a Truman Commission or something that happened 20 or 40 something years ago. We are talking about a 9/11 Commission that is still doing its work, and it is the same administration and the same majority side in Congress.

I am asking for the Members of this House on both sides of the aisle and for the American people not to give up on these poor people. That is the bottom line. Do not give up on them. They are not giving up on us. The American people, community after community, are taking care of the evacuees, taking care of these Americans, but we need to make sure that the government that they pay taxes to, that their children are fighting in a war for, making sure that they are not left behind because they do not have the economic means to be able to come up here to Washington and say we want a commission, we want it now, we want to make sure this never happens for my husband, my neighbor, for my family, for a family member or just someone who is unrepresented in this process.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we have central time in the affected area, eastern time. I know that the President is going to be on 8 o'clock central, but he is going to be on at 9 o'clock eastern. But, obviously, he will be coming on very shortly. But I think it is important that it is not the words he is going to share with the American people tonight. It is

the action. We have to look at the action or the lack thereof that has been taken thus far.

Flying down, reviewing the devastation, talking to families, we have to go far beyond that. We have to make sure that Members of this Congress feel what we feel here on this floor tonight, having an opportunity to touch these individuals.

And I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, this is a picture of, I may say, very fortunate individuals. This is a FEMA trailer down in Hancock County, Mississippi. I am standing there talking to one of the FEMA part-time workers. And there is a row of people actually behind us. There are maybe 10 phones in this trailer. But these individuals waited about 2 hours, and that is the short line, to get the assistance. They say that it should be 48 hours, 72 hours when it goes into their bank account. Many of these individuals, some of them returned back because they applied 3 days earlier and they still did not receive the assistance.

But I think it is important for us to realize, Mr. Speaker, that he mentioned the poll about putting an independent commission together. Because it is one thing to be able to say I will do my investigation and we will make sure that this never happens again and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is my good friend and I am going to make sure that he did what he was supposed to do. I do not think we are going to get down to the real truth about how we can avoid this from happening in the future, the governmental response, also making sure that the nonprofit agencies that we tie in with, that they did what they were supposed to do.

As it relates to the evacuation of poor people, there was a bill dropped down today on the Democratic side of the aisle that called for a response plan, an evacuation plan for the poor, for the elderly, for the individuals that need assistance the most, because what we saw in New Orleans, what we saw in Louisiana, what we saw in Mississippi, the individuals that were left behind were the individuals who did not know where their next $5 was going to come from or were waiting on their check to come in or did not have a car to get out, and it is catastrophic.

So for us to be the last standing superpower, for us to have a President that we call the leader of the Free World, and for us to allow this to happen to Americans is shameful. That is not what I am saying. That is what weekly periodicals are saying. That is what the headlines on newspapers are saying. That is what everyday Americans are saying.

Some folks say it has a lot to do with the fact that people just did not listen to us. Well, there are a lot of people who did listen, and there are a lot of people that are somewhere else, at a cousin's house right now; but their homes are gone. Many of them did not even have insurance because their homes were paid for or they could not afford it.

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line here tonight is that we cannot allow business as usual or ``the establishment'' to sweep this under the carpet. We are not saying that blood is on anyone's hands. We are not saying that. What we are saying is that we cannot afford for it to happen again. That is the bottom line.

So I think, Mr. Speaker, before we leave here tonight, we need to make sure that we give the e-mail address out. We need to make sure that Members know on both sides of the aisle that we have a responsibility to stand for these individuals. If somebody wants to do something, I think they need to help these individuals in the South. They need to help these individuals who do not have the means to come to Washington to organize themselves and ask for a government- sanctioned, funded independent commission to be able to make sure that someone's husband or wife does not run out of oxygen because the levees broke and because we could not reach them and that instead they sat in their homes for 3 days and perished.

On their memory, on behalf of them, make sure that does not happen again. Like in the charity hospital where 35 or 40 folks perished because the levees broke and we could not do anything, and we come to find out that those individuals did not even drown. They just expired. They did not get health care. The power ran out. The generator was out. All of this could have been avoided. All of this could have been avoided with the proper oversight and governance. So we need individuals that are professionals in this field to make sure that this never happens again.

Mr. Speaker, I will just go ahead and say for those individuals that felt that the resolution that we passed today was the best thing since sliced bread and they are on the plane on the way back to their districts or what have you, off for the weekend, that they did their part, now they go home and do what they have got to do in their district, that is fine. But I think they should have a conscience, a conscience on the fact that these individuals are not getting their just due, and they are not getting represented, and they are not getting what they deserve as Americans.

They are not refugees. They are Americans; and I will tell the Members right now, if we leave these individuals behind, if we leave these individuals behind, because I am going to tell the Members right now I do not think the American public will allow that to happen. I am going to be positive on this. When one is a leader and they say, okay, we thought we did something, maybe we need to revisit this thing one more time, I think that is important. And if one is in power to be able to make that happen, then so be it.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act never would have been if it were not for the people out in the streets making it happen. If it were not for black and white people of goodwill saying that somebody like me can have an opportunity to come to the Congress and give a Special Order to talk about the very individuals who cannot represent themselves; if it were not for those individuals, white and black, people in the North saying something is not right in the South and we are going to risk our lives to get the attention of the government that they pay taxes to allow them to have the kind of representation they deserve, this is far deeper than the resolution on the last day of a work week.

The last vote we take, and folks go home like it is another day at the office, I am sorry. If these individuals had the means to be able to make the political contributions, maybe they would get the attention of the majority of the House. I am talking about majority on both sides of the aisle. Maybe it would be different. But all they did was they voted for representation, and they salute the same flag that we solute every day here in this House, and they deserve the representation.

I am disturbed, Mr. Speaker, I am disturbed, by the fact they are partisan votes that are going on the other side of the Congress and in this House as though it is just another piece of legislation. It is something we disagree on. Americans have lost their lives. Americans are displaced. Children are displaced. People ran out of oxygen. Folks ran out of insulin. People are wrapped up on the side of the road, and bodies are still floating; and we leave on our way to a picnic like it is nothing.

Maybe all of us have made our contributions to the best 501(c)(3) or the relief effort that we wanted to. I know I have. But I will tell the Members this: it goes far beyond that. It goes far beyond that.

So I think the 30-something Working Group has to continue to do our part. We have to continue to do our part.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is 110 percent right. The gentleman from Ohio mentioned an issue about being nonpartisan and being, I would say, third-party validators, I just want to make sure we are clear. On the commission procedural vote here on this House floor that was voted down, for us to have this week, voted down for us to have a 9/11 kind of a commission, I believe that was today; and yesterday, there is an article, and I will give it to the Members just in case they were not watching the Senate, www.sfgate.com, there is an article: ``Senate Kills Bid For Katrina Commission.''

Now, let me tell my colleagues something. This is nothing that we did; this is something that the majority did. If they wanted to get to the bottom of it and to make sure that it never happens again and to make sure that Americans do not have to watch the horror, the horror of people dying and bodies floating, not because of Katrina, but because of lack of response, because the levee broke and because of a lack of administrative duties and governance on all levels; if we do not want that to happen again, why are we not passing a 9/11 kind of commission for the people in the gulf States?

They do not want to hear a speech. They do not need to hear, oh, we are going to do this, that, and the other. We are at war right now. We have men and women right now with sand in their teeth and bombs blowing up every day around them, away from their families, some have family in the affected area. I just want to give credit where credit is due; some of them had an opportunity to come back and check on their families. But let me just say, we have to go far beyond allowing business as usual.

I call on the Members and the American people again not to allow this to be swept under the carpet, not to allow individuals to sit up here and set the deck because these individuals are poor. We are better than that, and I know that we are going to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I want the gentleman from Ohio to give our e-mail address out. I know our hour is coming to a close. But I will tell my colleague, I am encouraged. I am encouraged because the American people, some 70 percent of them say they want an independent commission, and it is not a partisan issue. Those are Democrats and Republicans. I am encouraged that the democratic leader, the gentleman from California (Ms. Pelosi) is willing to stand in there against the wind for what the American people believe in and not allow business as usual. I am encouraged. I am encouraged by the fact that people are not only praying on behalf of these individuals, but the American people have taken action on behalf of them, making sure that they have the things that they need. Throughout the country people are bringing people into their homes, paying rent for them as they are displaced at this particular time. I am encouraged. I am encouraged by the fact that these victims, many of them have praying grandmothers to make sure that they are even able to stand up and go through the trials and tribulations that they have gone through and they still go through. I am encouraged by that.

So, I say that every time that we have an opportunity to come to this floor and speak as free Americans in this democracy, we are going to give those individuals voice. I am glad that there is some leadership on this floor that sees the importance in that.

Well said, I say to the gentleman. I thank my colleague for joining me in this (special order) this evening.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 37 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, September 19, 2005, at noon.

Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to come before the House of Representatives, and we want to thank the Democratic leader for allowing the 30-something Working Group to come to the floor once again to work on issues and talk about issues that are facing Americans in this time after Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that has taken place in the South. Also, issues that are facing everyday working Americans throughout our country that are working 30-somethings and their families. When I mention their families, I am not only talking about 30-somethings as individuals but also their parents and their grandparents and their children and children to be.

Mr. Speaker, this working group, like I stated last week and the week before last, is a group of Members on the Democratic side of the aisle that come together on a weekly basis to talk about the issues that are facing Americans. I want to thank the Democratic leader and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip; and also the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), chairman of the Democratic Caucus; and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), our vice Chair, for standing steadfast on behalf of those Americans that are in great need at this time. I would also like to thank all of the workers that are working on behalf of the Federal effort to be able to bring about some, hopefully, stability to those that are in the affected area.

Mr. Speaker, I speak from experience because I had an opportunity to travel down to Hancock County this past weekend and also to Gulfport, Mississippi, to speak with some of the residents there about some of their pain and suffering they are continuing to go through. And I know that last week I mentioned that we are in the first 2 minutes of the first quarter of their recovery process, and I will tell the Members what I saw down in Hancock County, which was one of the hardest hit areas.

Everyone knows about New Orleans, that when the storm hit New Orleans, the worst thing that happened to New Orleans was the fact that the levee broke and that those homes were flooded, and a lot of those homes have to be leveled due to the water damage and saltwater damage to those homes. But I had an opportunity to travel down there, Mr. Speaker, and I want to share some of the photos that we were able to take down there of some of the devastation that took place.

Mr. Speaker, this is actually a photo here of the Florida National Guard. I have to take my hat off to those men and women that actually went down to Hancock County, where they had a tidal surge, or storm surge, of 23 feet. We have Colonel Duren who is in between me and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), who is a Member of this House. This is actually the gentleman from Mississippi's (Mr. Taylor) home that stood there and was washed away. The storm surge was actually to the top of the trees, and it was almost like a washing machine. Brick homes, wood homes, trailers, what have you, are just leveled and devastated. The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) feels that he will recover, but there are a number of stories of his neighbors and his whole neighborhood that was actually washed out.

These are members of the Florida National Guard that were with us, and they have cleared in Hancock County and Mississippi some 65 miles of roads that needed to be cleared to help individuals put themselves back together.

This is also some devastation from the same county that is receiving very little media attention about what happened. Some buildings that have been there since the 1800s have been taken outside by Hurricane Katrina. And as the Members can see, the economy and the way of life in that particular area is going to be forever changed.

Also, we have here a middle school. I am standing there with Colonel Duren of the Florida National Guard once again. Not just because I am from Florida, but I want to thank all of the National Guard troops that are actually down there trying to be a part of the Federal response.

As the Members know, in Florida we have the special emergency response teams that have a lot of experience in the recovery process, helping people bring their lives back to normal. They are working with very little guidance, and I think I am going to make a point a little later on, Mr. Speaker, the reason why we need a commission to look at the whole Katrina experience from the beginning to the end. Some may say that a commission would bring about something similar to the 9/11 Commission with civilians, individuals that once served in this body, past first responders and present first responders, so that we will be able to avoid something like this from happening again.

This is actually a middle school here. The Florida National Guard cleaned about maybe 2 or 3 feet of mud out of this school. This is the library, where the librarian and we also met with the superintendent of schools in this county said that the librarian's goal was to have a million books in this library, and obviously she has been set back; and we will be asking Americans to not only help this school but other schools that are trying to stand up on their own two feet. All of these books were soaked, and obviously the mold and everything has set in here, and these are the setbacks that many of our young people have gone through.

The last picture I want to show here, I know FEMA has received its hard knocks and I commend not only past Director Michael Brown from stepping down from the post of FEMA because this recovery should not be about Michael Brown, it should be about FEMA doing its job, and with the appointment, the temporary appointment, of Mr. Paulson, who was the Miami-Dade County fire director, who went through Hurricane Andrew and a number of other hurricanes, we do know that he does have experience in recovery and also response. With it being very early in hurricane season, and North Carolinians and South Carolinians and Virginians looking at a possible storm hitting them now, it is important to have someone at the helm of FEMA that has some experience in dealing with natural disasters and know what to do when they happen.

This is actually a FEMA trailer here in Hancock County. I am speaking to one of the part-time workers here standing up. These are phones that are there of individuals that are coming in that are making phone calls to receive their initial $2,000 from the Federal Government to be able to assist them with some of the basic needs. Some of these people waited at least 3 hours in the blazing sun in Mississippi. I must say it must have been about 90 degrees here, nothing that we can do anything about because they do not have the facilities to be able to go into. My hat is off to those local workers and FEMA workers.

Actually, this gentleman here in the corner of the picture, he is retired. He worked with the Firestone Rubber Company in west Maryland, I must add, and he has been down there for 8 days, and he is saying that he has been working hard in trying to make a wrong right. And many of these people like him that are working that are retired that have decided to work part time for FEMA, I think we need to take our hats off to.

We have a couple of others. But, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we set politics aside and allow leadership to prevail. And in the 30-something Working Group, we are very concerned about politics playing a role in not only this recovery process but being able to get down to the bottom line of what has to happen not only in the future but right now. I would ask the Members and also Americans to take a look at Time magazine talking about poverty; also talking about the issue of race in the South.

I will tell the Members that many of us watched New Orleans residents suffer for 3 days without food, without water. Some went into stores and took what they needed to be able to survive. Some left their homes with only the clothes that are on their backs.

I went to Mississippi, Hancock County, a lot of hard-working people, like the hard-working people of New Orleans; and there was a similar story, Mr. Speaker. I was talking with the mayor of the town, and he told me at the Big K and the Wal-Mart, they stood in front of that Wal- Mart and he told the folks, listen, go in and get what you need. Do not walk out with a DVD or whatever the case may be, but go in and get the things that you need to survive, because that is all they had. There was the threat of the fact that they may run out of food, they may run out of water, they may run out of personal items that they need to be able to survive; and so they did what they had to do. Unfortunately, they had to do that. These are law-abiding individuals, and I know in New Orleans the same thing happened.

So when we look at this situation, we have to look at how we put Americans in the position to go in and do things traditionally that they have not had to do, individuals that woke up every day and went to work, did what they had to do to put food on the table for their families, pay for their children's education. I think it is important. A lot of children and women are affected by this storm. It did not discriminate, and I think that the question that was posed to the President, was there discrimination that played a role in the national response, I think that the future will tell if that is true or if it is not true.

I am one that believes that we can see the best of America right now. The world is watching what we do and how we do it. And regardless of the pigment of the skin of the individuals that were affected by this storm, if everyone is treated equally and as human beings, I think that it will be important for us to prove to the rest of the world, if we are the superpower of the world and we stand as a shining example of democracy, I think it is important that, through our actions and here on this House floor and in the other body and the executive branch, that we play a very strong role in making sure that those individuals that were displaced, evacuees, Americans that are in Utah, that are in my district in Miami, Florida, that are in New England, that are in Maryland, that are here in Washington, DC, in our Capital, that are in Texas, that are in Georgia, that are in the upper part of Mississippi, that we make it so, Mr. Speaker, that they will be able to come back to their homes and they will be able to claim their property and that they will be able to move in and they will be able to take part in this recovery process.

Many of the small businesses that were struggling anyway will not go back into business. We know that the SBA will try to do all they can to provide low-interest loans. We know that individuals of good will and banks have offered dollars as it relates to providing them with loans, and we know that the economy in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast area are going to be suffering for some time.

I had an opportunity also to visit Gulfport, and I can tell my colleagues that I went to go see the port, and to see port containers, Chiquita Bananas, what have you, that are 5 miles down the road that destroyed homes. I am from Miami, Florida, so this is nothing that I am not used to, seeing storm damage. But when you see a storm surge, 23 feet of water, and you see a container sitting between two trees and what is left of a house wall and you wonder how it ended up there, some 4 or 5 miles away, and that is no exaggeration whatsoever; it was like a washing machine and those containers moved on down and they just literally, and the tidal surge cleared those homes and the way of life that individuals are used to seeing.

I think that it is also important that as we look at FEMA, we have to make sure that we have this independent commission. The Democratic leader, and I must say the Democratic leader, and I may just want to say leader, she is a leader just like we have other leaders in this House on the other side of the aisle; I think we should be willing to take on the recommendations of leaders who are in this Congress, and I think we should be able to take on the recommendations of those who have been through this before.

I think that we should ask professionals to come to serve their Federal Government, just like a 9/11 Commission with subpoena powers to be able to ask the tough questions. Because the unfortunate thing that happened in this case as it relates to Hurricane Katrina is that we did have a great deal of loss of life. It may not be what some people said that it would be, but individuals have lost their lives, and we also have individuals that have been injured in this storm that go unsung. We have children who cannot find their parents at this particular time. We have sons and daughters that they are trying to locate, through the media and Internet sites, and volunteers are trying to reunite individuals, family members together.

So I think that it is worth the Federal commitment to the South that we do everything that we can. It goes far beyond our visit. Just by myself going down to Mississippi is not enough just to say I have been there. It is not like visiting Walt Disney World and saying, oh, I did go to Walt Disney World and I have been to Disneyland. That is not what this is about.

It is about us being able to not only go down to the area; and I must say, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, and others, the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has asked for a congressional visit down to the affected area, and I think that is important. I am glad the President is going there. He was down there when I was there. But this Congress has to go down and see exactly what is happening to these individuals in the South.

This Congress that will appropriate the dollars, because the President can only recommend, but this Congress needs to see firsthand the needs of those individuals that are affected. I think not only going to the affected areas, but going to see shelters that are far away from the South where these individuals have been introduced to a new community, and I want to commend those communities who have taken these evacuees, these Americans in with open arms.

But we have to go far beyond putting them in our gymnasiums and in our sports arenas and in our churches. We have to make sure that they have what they had before the storm, that is, a home with a fence, with memories, with family portraits on the wall, and a sense of community. We owe them

that. I feel as it relates to the levee, the levee there in New Orleans, the things that should have been in place, that it is important that we make them whole. I think it is important that we look at and we have an independent committee just like the Democratic leader has suggested. And I must say, Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Democratic leader said we should come together in a special session and send emergency appropriations to FEMA so that they can have the dollars to deal with the response.

Originally, that response back from, unfortunately, the leadership was, oh, we do not need to do that, and then a day later the President recommended it and said well, yes, it is an idea and jointly we will do that. But I think that time is of the essence and we need to put partisanship aside.

I think also as it relates to the recommendation of Director Michael Brown, obviously he was over his head on this particular issue. I personally went down last Friday and met with the hurricane center director. Michael Brown was in place, he spoke to him the day before the storm, like he spoke with the mayor of New Orleans and others. There were individuals that knew what happened and what was going to happen. So I think it is important that we look at this beyond what we read in the paper. I think it deserves the kind of attention that the 9/11 Commission was able to bring about, for not only the survivors but also the families of the 9/11 tragedy.

So if we do not do that, I think we fall short of allowing Americans not only to know the truth but to be able to have preventive action in place.

The Special Emergency Response Team from Florida is one of the best teams in the Nation with some of the best building codes in the Nation, and we are able to respond. Our National Guard automatically, they know automatically in the way they do business, when the wind drops down to 40 miles per hour, they are moving in. They are moving in before Americans or Floridians have an opportunity to even come out of the house and see what happened. They know they have a security mission; they know they have a recovery mission. This is what we need throughout the Nation. We need a Federal Government that understands that.

I am not here to say that it was totally the Federal Government. I commend the President for taking some level of responsibility for the Federal response being lackluster, at best, because Americans not only were close to starvation, but without water. And if the media can make it there, the Federal Government can make it there. If a paper was not signed or somebody did not call somebody, we knew, those of us who knew, what we had to do when we had to do it. So that is important.

I am glad that my colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), has joined me, who knows quite a bit about hurricanes herself. We served in the State legislature together in Florida and were a part of many of the reforms in Florida after Hurricane Andrew. Now, hopefully, we will be a part of the reforms here in this Congress as we look at the Federal response in the future.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman was also busy making sure that our constituents were able to take advantage of the filing of her bill, and I am a cosponsor of her bipartisan bill, in forcing FEMA to make sure that those homeowners, some 300-plus in south Florida, are able to receive FEMA assistance. Many of those individuals need that assistance; and because they fall under the 800 or 400 threshold of FEMA, they have a discretionary decision to make here in allowing those families, individuals who work every day, pay taxes every day, to be able to take advantage of what the Federal Government provides.

Well, I can tell the gentlewoman that this is very, very important, being able to take these recommendations and move with them. Also, I think it is important that Members of Congress, we can travel overseas and learn from what they are doing and express our feelings to individuals as it relates to counterterrorism issues, as it relates to trade; we can definitely go right here domestically. We have a number of aircraft that are out at Andrews Air Force Base that can move Members down so that they can get firsthand experience in speaking to those Americans.

One may say, well, you do not represent those individuals. Well, I do not represent anyone in Egypt. I do not represent anyone in Europe. I do not represent anyone in other areas where we have interests, whether it be Pakistan, citizens of that country.

But as a Member of the U.S. Congress, I do represent Americans. Even

though I have a district, we are here, and we stick our voting card in these machines that are placed behind these chairs here voting on behalf of Americans, and they pay taxes to be able to allow us to do some of the things that we are doing throughout the world.

The least that we can do, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, the least that we can do on behalf of these Americans, go down now, see it as it is now. Take it from me, from someone that has gone down there and has seen responders, they are going through a transition of law enforcement and first responders.

We have search and rescue that is going on in New Orleans, but much of it is now a transition into recovery, making sure that independent contractors that are traveling from as far down as Canada, United States border, and we do know some of them are well intended and some of them are coming to take advantage of making the victims victims again. And this is the reason why we need to know first hand what is going on.

When New Orleans is clean and when the gulf area is clean, as it relates to some of the debris that is there, that is in place there now, I do not think that it will serve us well if we do not see it in the way that it is now. TV just does not give it justice, in my opinion, to be able to see the sweat literally run down the side of an individual that is waiting in line to be able to receive Federal assistance.

I was there with the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), who has been down there and was there all last week, did not come up to Congress because he needed to be able to help his constituents put their lives back together. Rightfully so, he was there for him; and we did what we had to do up here, did the best that we could to make sure that appropriations came down.

But there are a number of individuals that are still suffering, a number of individuals that we have to understand as a Congress how we respond, even when it comes down to individuals that Americans that have poured their hearts out and sent not only contributions to some of the organizations but have taken it upon themselves, with their credit cards and with the gas prices now, I would say credit cards, going and filling their tanks up and driving down, not knowing anyone, but going down there to feed people, to help people, but those individuals, and for diapers and all of those things that have been sent down, being able to understand that we need volunteer coordinators from the beginning to make sure that those supplies are not spoiled or being out in the sun or being in a place where they should not be.

The little, small things like that are important for us to understand as Members of Congress.

And, Mr. Speaker, if this was allowed, because I must share not only with the Members but those of us that are in this Chamber that, you know, as a ranking member of the Oversight Committee on Homeland Security, if I had the authority, I would do it. But, unfortunately, I am in the minority party; and we cannot authorize a congressional visit. The majority party can do that.

And I have said that to my Chair. I said that we have a responsibility to go down there. From what I understand there hasn't been an official congressional CODEL to the gulf States. Our commitment to the South is in judgment right now.

I think there are individuals, Democrats and Republicans and independents alike, and those individuals that are not even registered to vote, that are still putting out the question, where is my Federal Government?

Now I will tell you this. I ran into a young lady that said, where is my Federal Government? And she was, you know, had some water and MREs and all of those things. Yes, I can say, look at your hands, there is your Federal Government, but that is not enough in my opinion.

Here is someone that is looking for a process that we should be well practiced in, natural disasters. And I will tell you that being a member of the Homeland Security Committee, and from what I have seen of the performance of the Department, I think we are pretty well trained up on a terrorist event. But I think that natural disasters are still in the rear view mirror and is considered as an afterthought.

I am not totally prepared to say that it is important that we move FEMA outside of the Department of Homeland Security, and that is the reason why we need this commission. We need this commission to make recommendations to us here in this Congress on what we should do, how we should do it, and in a way that it could happen that will not disrupt the relationship between FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. So that is the reason why we need it.

I will say to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), and now our good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), is here, that the leader said that we should go into special session immediately or come back from recess early, go into session, give FEMA energy funds. No. Then eventually it was yes, 48 hours later.

Said that Under Secretary Director Michael Brown of FEMA should step down because he is not up to par, being able to carry on, not only the future response but the initial response. Several days pass, back and forth. Okay, they sent him back to Washington. Three days later, he resigned.

She has also asked, even though the leadership has said in both House and Senate, the other body, that we should have a committee of House and Senate Members to look at this and have a press conference, just one side on, you know, Republicans there representing, saying that it is a bipartisan, but no subpoena powers, none of the teeth that we need to get down to the bottom of how can we correct it.

I commend the Democratic leader and the Democratic leadership for saying in both the House and other body that we will not participate in such a committee. Because we need to professionalize that. Even though we are professionals here, we need individuals that understand emergency management and recovery. And so that is what that is about, to be able to make sure.

And you know something, if the leadership says, fine, let us put together a commission, the President says, let us put together a commission, I am all for it. But we are wasting time. Because people are saying, well, you know, the Democrats recommended it, and we cannot do it because they are Democrats.

We are Americans, too. And I believe there are some individuals that are on the other side that believe that we should come together in time of 9/11. I think there is an opportunity for us to be able to show Americans that we can lead in a bipartisan way, and I just do not want us to blow that opportunity.

To the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), I am so glad that you have joined us here. The gentlewoman and I are from Florida. I mean, it is like we are talking when we were in the State Senate together, because we were a part of helping Florida being able to advance itself as it relates to recovery.

But thank you for joining us.

Mr. Speaker, I always want to be a part of technology, but I can tell my colleagues that I am so glad they brought up the whole issue of Davis-Bacon and what the President did, many Americans did not understand what he did.

We talk about avoiding making the victims victims again. And we want them, and even some prominent Republicans have said, we want them to be able to have first swipe at the jobs that become available. But they will have a first swipe at the jobs at a lower paying rate than usually what the Federal Government provides to individuals carrying out federally funded work.

I think it is also important for us to realize that there are no parameters on contractors that are down there trying to correct the problems that are there. So that means that the money saved on Davis- Bacon will go into the pockets of those individuals who are direct contractors of the Federal work.

The good thing I like about this 30-something Working Group is we always talk about second- and third-party validators and making sure that folks do not watch us here on the floor and think that we are talking out the sides of our necks. The Wasserman Schultz Report, the Ryan Report, the 30-something Report, the Meek Report. This is reality. The $62 billion is the largest supplemental appropriations in history of this country outside of war; $62 billion we did last week or the week before and the rest last week is the largest in history in the United States of America. So we have not been to this point ever.

I think it is also important for folks to understand the difference. Folks say, what is the difference between Democrat and Republican leadership? I will tell you this in the moment, this is fact, not fiction.

I am holding here a letter from the Democratic leader and several other ranking members that I mentioned earlier. Folks wants to know the action. This is not on behalf of Democrats in Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama. This is on behalf of Americans in those States. We are talking about the commitment to the South. We are talking about commitment to Americans that pay taxes every day, those that are veterans, those that are children of veterans, those that never fought in wars before, those that go to work every day, those individuals that are disabled and cannot go to work. We represent them.

Like it or not, we have to make sure as this Congress, because as the House we are the only branch of this government that must be elected to the position that they are in right now, including the President but the Vice President can very well, I am just saying as it relates to the legislative body, we are the only body that has to be elected by the people.

I thank the gentleman. I am glad he was present in constitutional law.

There is a letter right here to David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States of America, Government Accountability Office. It is basically saying that we are asking for an anti-fraud commission to make sure that there is accountability in government contracting as it relates to Hurricane Katrina.

This is not just a letter just by the Democratic leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Here we have the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) who is the ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform. He would be chairman if we were in the majority. We have the Democratic whip, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) who is the number two in charge of our efforts here on the floor. We have the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) who is the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. We also have the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) who is the ranking member and would be chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security if we were in the majority here.

We have the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of Committee on Appropriations. We have the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) who was once chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce that would be chairman if we were in control. We have the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) who is also the ranking minority member as it relates to the Committee on Education and the workforce.

They are writing this to make sure that the largest appropriations outside of supplemental appropriations for a war, some $62 billion are spent in the way that it is supposed to be spent so we do not make the victims victims over again.

I think all Americans, no matter where they may be, east coast, West, Midwest, South, this is their taxpayer money at work. So we know that Davis-Bacon, those rules and regs and that right that workers would have has already been swiped aside by the stroke of a pen, that you will receive a wage lower than any other Federal project that is out there because it has been waived at a time of natural disaster.

Will it save us money to be able to do more projects? No. Will it help the companies down there that are assigned the no-bid contracts, saying do the work, the sky is the limit, do what you do, bill us the way you want to bill?

One of the companies is under investigation right now as it relates to the Iraq contract. But better yet, they are given a contract, go down there, do as you may, we will do the paperwork later. But what we have done from the beginning are parameters on the American worker and those that are in the South.

Let me also add this: today, Democratic leader and also senior House Democrats, again, the list of individuals that are on the committees that are affected, have also requested an immediate establishment of a team of experienced auditors to monitor and also realtime contract and spending of the recovery effort.

This is what we are doing right now. If the majority side has done it, I commend them; but I do not think that is the case now. So when I mentioned earlier on that we need to work in a bipartisan way, if we were working in a bipartisan way, this would not be a question of letters. It would be an issue of action. It would be, good, let us move on that idea. Let us make it happen.

That is the reason I believe that the chairmen, ranking members, and Members of this Congress should take time out and go down to the affected areas and see what is going on down there, and see poor individuals that are staying in New Orleans right now and staying in some of the affected areas in Gulfport, in Hancock County. Some watch TV and say, why do they not leave? Guess what? They cannot afford to leave.

They still today do not have the money to be able to get $5 worth of gas.

I went down to see the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), our colleague, who is down there trying to not only help his constituents be able to receive some sort of Federal assistance or State assistance or trying to put boats back together so they can get back to work; he is a victim himself.

Earlier, I showed a picture of the Florida National Guard that is with us and the Congressman there on the other side of the colonel and myself. This is the Congressman's house, straight off the platform, not a brick left. So you want to talk about individuals being affected and not affected, all of us are touched by this, but we have to make sure that we show some level of leadership right now. This is why it is important that we make these recommendations.

We have Members of Congress that are trying, but we need individuals that are in the leadership that are willing to stand up. And I said it once before, and I will say it again, if we are ruffling feathers here tonight, so be it. Because last week we came to this floor putting great pressure on the administration and those that are in charge that have the pen stroking power to bring about a difference in the South, and we were in the light of saving lives. Now we are in the light of making sure that individuals are able to return back to their homes.

Our business here is very serious, and that not only letter writing but action is important. I think based on the action that has taken us this far, all the way back when we said if we can go in special session on the Schiavo case, if we can bring individuals before Congress and have congressional hearings and have special prosecutors for personal decisions that individuals have made in elected office, if we can come up here for far less, we can at least make sure the largest appropriations outside of the war supplemental, $62 billion, that it has the oversight, not just because we want to have the gotcha factor. That is a lot of money, a lot of money that has been appropriated in a matter of 10 days, rightfully so.

I heard one of the esteemed, very prominent Members on the other side of the aisle, who took to the well right there and said, guess what, in $50 billion, there is going to be wasteful spending. I had to kind of double take and rub my eyes and say, excuse me, am I sleeping? Am I dreaming?

I have a problem with wasteful spending of $50 billion, but, guess what, that means a victim will not receive what they should receive, Americans will not get accountability of their taxpayer dollars and that we have accepted the fact that it is okay to waste money. I have got a problem with that, and I know we all do.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, we usually would have a closing statement here, but our time has run out. We will have, I understand, the first Democratic hour on Thursday.

Mr. Speaker, with that, we would like to thank the Democratic leader for allowing the 30 Something Working Group to come to the floor, and it was an honor to address the House once again.

Mr. Speaker, in this time of national tragedy, the merits of this bill are obvious. The American people are generous and insist that we offer aid and assistance to Hurricane Katrina's survivors.

The confidence of our nation was shaken by the slowness and shortcomings of the federal government's response to this massive human tragedy.

While this Second Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Hurricane Katrina Response provides an additional $51.8 billion for hurricane relief, much more will need to be done.

Congress must ensure that the victims, and the state, local, federal and private agencies that are trying to care for them, have the resources they need.

However, it is not enough to just vote for large funding bills. Americans also want accountability on the over $60 billion we have appropriated so far for Hurricane Katrina relief.

We have to make sure that the relief money we are appropriating today and in the future actually gets to the victims, and is not used on unscrupulous contractors or spent on projects that boost the profits of companies seeking to profit at the expense of the hurricane victims and the taxpayers. This was the case in Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars were either ``lost'' or improperly paid to contractors like Halliburton.

To make sure that the $2 billion that FEMA is now spending every day is properly used, I believe that, even as we appropriate billions for hurricane relief, we also provide additional resources to the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to help ensure that the additional tens of billions of dollars that will be necessary to care for our fellow Americans and rebuild the South are not wasted through fraud, abuse, overpayments or ineffective government management.

We have many good reasons for concern about wasteful spending. In the 3 years since the Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella department that houses FEMA, was created, numerous reports by the Congress, the Department's Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office have detailed instance after instance of contracting deficiencies, fraud, wasteful or lavish spending, lax oversight and management, procurement shortcomings, blurred lines of responsibility and lack of accountability.

I believe that this Congress must make sure, to the greatest extent possible, that the funds that we are appropriating today and in the coming months to help the Hurricane Katrina victims are directed squarely at helping the victims and not those who seek to profit at the expense of the victims who desperately need the help. This is more than just a business opportunity for the Administration's friends. It is an opportunity to do the right thing and help those who are suffering, and it is our obligation.

I also want to express my disappointment in the bicameral review committee created by the Republican Majority to examine the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. This committee, simply put, will be toothless.