Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that Congress would not repeat the mistakes that it has already made with respect to the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. We all remember what happened after 9/11. The Congress, in knee-jerk fashion, passed the proposal to create a new Department of Homeland Security, a gargantuan agency. Up until that time there were 133 agencies that had something to do with homeland security. So what happened is that the Congress and the White House, in its infinite wisdom, took 22 of those 133 agencies, lumped them together in a huge bureaucracy. They did not include the FBI, they did not include the CIA, the two agencies most connected with dealing with terrorism. They took 22 agencies, lumped them together in a huge bureaucracy, set up many layers of bureaucracy within that organization, and dumped FEMA into that organization. Up until that time, FEMA had been one of the stars of the previous administration under James Lee Witt when, for a change, that agency had been professionalized and depoliticized. But now what has happened is that since FEMA has been buried in homeland security, we have seen six separate reorganization plans for the Department of Homeland Security. We have had a number of directors, and now we have Mr. Chertoff sending us a letter raising two points that I find almost laughable. In his letter opposing this motion, Mr. Chertoff says that his proposal was formed after intensive consultations with preparedness professionals. The problem is we do not know who those professionals were and what they recommended because it all happened behind closed doors. It was an inside job. People who thought they knew better than anybody else got together with a proposed plan. I think that plan needs to have some critiquing from the outside, from professional people, before it goes into effect. Secondly, Mr. Chertoff says in his letter, ``No structural changes were made to FEMA prior to Hurricane Katrina.'' Does he not consider dumping FEMA into a huge bureaucracy where there are many layers that you have to go through before you can reach the President's phone, does he not think that is a major reorganization? Does he not think that taking away the grant program from FEMA is a major reorganization? He may not think so; I think they are. What I would simply suggest is that instead of, in a knee-jerk fashion, approving the reorganization plans of the gang that has demonstrated they cannot shoot straight, instead what we ought to do is get Chertoff down here in hearings before the committee. We ought to have Chertoff testify about his view about what happened, why we had the failures, what happened within FEMA, what are the faults within the agency, and let us have a detailed discussion of the problem. I would submit while I am sure this subcommittee can do a reasonable job of that, I think the country would feel far better off if we had an independent commission looking at the entire problem. The distinguished subcommittee chairman says if Members like the status quo, then vote for the Sabo motion. Quite the contrary. The purpose of the Sabo motion is to make certain that the people who are the status quo on this issue have somebody else looking over their shoulders before they make yet another unaccountable decision. This is too important to leave to the people who screwed it up the first time. Before we buy any more reorganizations on this level, we ought to bring those people down here, talk to them nose to nose. Mr. Brown was the President's appointment to FEMA. Mr. Brown testified yesterday that he inherited a robust organization when he was appointed FEMA director and that the Department of Homeland Security had stripped the agency of authority, positions, and dollars. We ought to bring them both down here, facing each other face to face, so they can have it out on the outside--not behind closed doors, but on the outside so we can get to the bottom of what the problem is. For Congress to just, in a knee-jerk fashion, pass whatever reorganization program the Homeland Security director sends down to us is patently irresponsible. It is once again neglecting our oversight duties. The problem is we do not pay the price when a mistake is made, the public does, and the best way to avoid that is to pass the Sabo motion.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, last year in the conference on the disaster supplemental, Senate conferees passed a provision extending the MILC program for 2 years, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood) and I had lined up enough votes on the House side to accept that amendment. To prevent that from happening, the Republican chairman of the conference gaveled the meeting to a close, and we never met again on the subject. Despite the fact that the President had said in my hometown on that same day that he favored the extension of the MILC program, when my office called the White House asking him to intervene in order to get that conference reopened so that the MILC program could be extended, the White House declined. That program is now scheduled to expire at the end of this week. If that happens, we will have lost an important safety net for Wisconsin's family dairy farmers. I urge the House agriculture authorizing committee to immediately report out to this floor an action extending the MILC program so that we do not lose that vital program, and I urge the Republican leadership of the House to see to it that the committee does just that.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\3/4\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, 19 times this year the majority party has asked me as the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations to help them with procedural waivers of House rules so they could accelerate the passage of their appropriations bills, and we provided that cooperation. Today, under consideration of this bill we on the minority side asked for three things. We asked, first of all, that since the last money that was provided to the hurricane region was provided with virtually no real debate, we asked that this bill be brought to the floor under an open rule so that Members could offer amendments trying to increase the efficiency of the money which is going to be delivered to the stricken area. The majority party said ``no.'' The majority party then insisted on bringing this bill up under suspension despite the fact that their own caucus rules indicate that no bill should be brought to the floor under suspension, which means no Member has a right to amend. Their own rules say that they should not be brought to the House floor unless the bill is under $100 million. This is a $50 billion bill. Thirdly, because we had 17 Members who wanted to comment or ask questions about it, we asked if they were going to consider it under a closed rule that they give each side of House 1 hour to discuss the matter. We have been turned down. Lastly, we asked the majority to provide for us an opportunity for at least one amendment so that we can correct the fact that right now FEMA has been used as a political dumping ground for patronage by the White House, and as a result we have a dysfunctional and chaotic agency. We were not even allowed to offer that amendment. So I simply want to put the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) on notice. He need not bother me asking me for any further procedural considerations for the rest of the session. If the gentleman wants to stick to the rules, we are going to stick to the rules. I agree with the gentleman that it would be nice if we could follow on the model of 9/11 when we had bipartisan consideration of these matters. The reason we had bipartisanship is because the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and I worked together. We were consulted equally. We met in the Speaker's office and the minority had some opportunity for input in the product. We have been given no such opportunity by the White House, by your leadership, or by you yourself under those circumstances. I think the gentleman needs to expect to receive the same kind of cooperation which he has extended. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Melancon). We have seen him in his efforts in his own district after this disaster.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we have all seen the damage done when FEMA is run by incompetence and when FEMA itself is a disabled agency. We must depoliticize and professionalize the leadership at FEMA, and I hope we will have an opportunity to do that very soon, because until we do, this money is being spent by a disabled agency. One other point. The news media has talked often about those who were left behind in New Orleans. They are easy to see because the cameras are there and we can see the dead bodies floating in the water. But there are millions of other Americans in and outside of the region who are also being left behind in our schools. They are being left behind in health care. They are being left behind on Medicaid. I would hope that this Congress would have the decency to set aside its plans to provide billions of dollars in additional tax cuts for the most wealthy and the most prosperous and comfortable among us while the needs of so many are so apparent and while so many Americans are indeed still being left behind in the affected area and in other regions of our country. Mr. Speaker, I would also hope that we could come to an agreement that in a matter this serious, the most serious disaster that has ever affected this country, this Congress would find a way to deal with these issues in a bipartisan and consultive fashion. If you want cooperation, you need to extend cooperation. This is too important for this business to be handled any other way. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished minority leader.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, last week I returned to Washington along with about 20 other Members of the House in order to assure passage of the initial down payment of $10 billion for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Today we will be voting to provide $52 billion more in aid. I am all for it. We will all vote for it. Any suggestion in any way that the delivery of that money would be delayed is pure nonsense. That money will be voted today. But the problem we have is that the bill is being brought to the floor in a manner which prevents Congress from exercising any independent judgment whatsoever about how best to use taxpayers' money. And the problem is that the agency that we are appropriating most of the money to has demonstrated with great clarity that it is spectacularly dysfunctional; and there are a number of reasons for that. The problem we have with FEMA is that what was an efficient, professional and qualified agency under James Witt during the Clinton administration has now once again become a dumping ground for political cronies. Three years ago this Congress in the wake of 9/11 merged FEMA into a huge, new, gargantuan agency, the Department of Homeland Security. Since that time the White House, the Congress, and the Department of Homeland Security all together have squeezed the resources available for FEMA. They have hollowed out that agency and they have cut more than 500 people out of that agency. To top it off, the President appointed to run that agency a gentleman who before he joined FEMA had no previous disaster experience whatsoever, and whose only apparent connection to the disaster world was that he was the college roommate of the former director of FEMA. We have seen the disastrous results of that appointment. I want to provide the $50 billion that the legislation is going to provide today, and I will vote for it and so will ever other sane Member of this House, I assume. But I deeply regret the fact that the manner in which this legislation is being brought to the floor today will prevent me or any other Member from taking an action which I think is essential to restore the professionalism of FEMA and to depoliticize that agency. I wanted to offer an amendment to the bill which would have allowed the money to flow immediately, but which would have done five additional things. It would have restored FEMA status as an independent agency with no intervening bureaucracy between the White House and that agency, it would have reestablished the position of the FEMA director to one who reports directly to the President, it would have required the FEMA director to have extensive experience in emergency or disaster-related management, it would have made that directorship confirmable for a specific 5-year term to reduce the likelihood of the position being used as political patronage of any President by any party, and it would have established a deputy director with primary responsibility to assure that a direct connection is retained with the Department of Homeland Security so that in the process of dealing with domestic disasters, we do not neglect our responsibilities to also protect the country against terrorism. Our friends on the majority side of the aisle declined to allow us to have that vote. I do not object to the majority saying ``We do not believe that that is the right solution.'' or ``We do not believe that this is the right time to discuss this.'' That is a legitimate position. But what we are asking for is to at least have the ability to debate that issue, to discuss that issue, because every day that we delay professionalizing FEMA and depoliticizing it is another day that taxpayers' money is being spent by an agency which has been demonstrated under these circumstances to be incompetent. The President has a responsibility, each and every Member of this Congress has a personal responsibility to see to it that if we are going to provide $50 billion today and another $50 billion down the road, as we most surely will, we have a responsibility to know that that money is going to be spent in the most efficient, the most effective way to save lives, to rebuild communities. We cannot have that confidence under the existing management of this agency. And so I think we have an obligation to move as quickly as possible to fix the problem. The amendment I would have offered would have given us 120 days to make those changes. I regret deeply the fact that we will not be able to at least discuss that matter on the floor today.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. OBEY. Continuing under my reservation, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that if this motion is agreed to, I do think that the situation in the Gulf Coast is serious enough that it warrants more than a dog and pony show and that it warrants some thoughtful discussion of how problems like this might be avoided in the future. I would simply say under my reservation that I have been horrified watching my television set over the past few days as I moved around my district in Wisconsin to see the absolute inadequacy of the Federal response to what has occurred. I would hope that the magnitude of the disaster which we have seen would make us all think through the degree of lack of discipline and denial that has marked this country's preparation for not just natural disasters but disasters of other origins as well. Point one: I was personally appalled to see an interview with a representative of the Army Corps of Engineers in which he explained away our failure to prepare for anything worse than a level three hurricane for the New Orleans area by saying in essence that a cost- benefit analysis had been done, and it was concluded that it was not cost beneficial for us to prepare for anything above a level three hurricane. What that in essence says is that you are not going to worry about the biggest disasters that can occur; you are only going to worry about the smaller ones. Whether it is with a hurricane or whether the action of the Mississippi River a number of years ago, how many times do we have to see disasters overwhelm our preparedness before we recognize that we are playing Russian roulette with people's lives, with their livelihood and with the life of whole communities if we do not prepare for the worst? Point two: I think it is fair to say that the administration and the Congress itself has not covered itself with glory in terms of anticipating problems like this. We have seen the Congress in fiscal year 2004 cut the budget request by $170 million for FEMA. We have seen an amendment by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) to try to supplement FEMA funding several years ago turned down by the House. We have seen flood control projects in the Gulf short-sheeted in Federal budget requests from the executive, and we have seen now stories, one by Sidney Blumenthal, which makes the point that in early 2001, FEMA management issued a report saying that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. Yet the Federal budget has not demonstrated any serious response to that warning. And we have seen other comments as well in the paper, including a number by Louisiana papers, documenting the lack of effective Federal response. Another statement in the New York Times indicated that 5 days after Katrina hit, the response from our government was still spectacularly inadequate and in the words of the editorial amounts to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the Federal Government's response. I would hope that the pictures that we have seen on our television sets would change that. Continuing under my reservation, the third point I would simply make is that I think the devastation and utter destruction that we have seen indicates that we have a serious problem not just with respect to our response to natural disasters but in response to other potential disasters. I would hope that we would take to heart the lessons that this disaster ought to teach us about the need for more adequate preparation across the board, including potential terrorist attacks. There are those of us in the Congress who still believe that we are not doing enough to secure our borders. There are those of us who still believe that we are not doing enough to protect this country against terrorist attacks from air cargo. There are those of us who believe that we are not doing nearly enough to protect this country against terrorist attacks by the use of containers in our ports; and in my view, the response of the administration and the Congress since 9/11 on that score has been totally inadequate. I think that this disaster in the Gulf demonstrates the importance of ending the practice of casual thinking on these potential problems. Point four: and I do not know the answer to this, but I know questions have been raised about whether or not the heavy involvement of our Guard and Reserve forces in Iraq is in any way linked to the fact that we have had so few Guard and Reserve personnel being used in response to this disaster. I do not know whether there is a direct causation or not, but I do know that there are some 11,000 Guard and Reserve forces from the affected States now in Iraq and those are obviously troops that cannot be used on their home ground. I think we need to examine very carefully whether or not this demonstrates that we need to do more to build up the size of our regular Army forces so that we do have a greater capacity to use the Guard and Reserve forces at home when they are needed. I would also say that every time that we have a disaster, Congress responds by tossing together an appropriation bill for an emergency appropriation. It would seem to me after all of the disasters that we have had that we should have a more regularized approach to the problem. I have introduced in the past, and I will introduce again, legislation asking that we establish an experience-rated insurance fund from which all States can purchase insurance coverage against future disasters so that you have a ready-made source of funding the moment these disasters hit. There are five or six States in the Union that experience disasters on a fairly regular basis, and it seems to me that we need to have an experience-rated insurance system so that we take into full account the cost of hurricanes and the cost of other disasters that might occur. If we did that, we might see a greater level of preparation with respect to, for instance, long-term planning by the Corps of Engineers to deal with the most severe hurricanes. Mr. Speaker, this legislation obviously has to pass, but I hope this represents just the beginning of some new thinking so that we do not wind up 3 or 4 years from now facing yet another problem as unprepared as we apparently were for this unfortunate and heart-rending incident. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I do not intend to object; but I think it would be helpful for Members to understand that if this proposal is agreed to, and I expect it to be, that there will be 5 minutes of debate on each side of the issue, and then any Member who wishes to comment will have an opportunity on a Special Order, which immediately follows, to do so.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, by way of explanation, this bill provides $10.5 billion, $10 billion of which will go to FEMA, half a billion dollars to DOD. It provides for relief efforts for the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane. The funds to DOD will go to the operation and maintenance account with broad transfer authority. They will eventually wind up, I am certain, being used for procurement for housing and matters like that. The funds for FEMA may be used for any traditional purpose under the FEMA legislation, including public assistance, shelter, food, et cetera. Let me simply say that I hope that we recognize this is just the initial downpayment in the costs that are going to be associated with this incredible disaster. I would also hope that we would recognize that we have for a long time been making inadequate investments in activities that could lessen the impact of disasters such as this, and I would hope we would recognize that values such as preventing this horrendous event from occurring again ought to be much higher on our values scale than they have been in past months and certainly in past recent years. Mr. Speaker, I would urge support of the legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I would once again like to express my profound misgivings about supporting this bill this afternoon. Obviously this Chamber has basic expenses, and they have to be paid for, but I want to suggest that I think that the visitors center, which is now being constructed on the east side of the Capitol, is a project which, while it might be desirable, has been managed in such an outlandish fashion that I think before it is done, it is going to bring great embarrassment to this institution. The fact is that that center started out costing around $90 million. Before it is finished, it is now going to cost a good $600 million. It was supposed to be open by 2005. We are going to be lucky if it will be open and fully operational, if we ignore the nice word games that we have been presented by the Architect's office; in fact, we will be lucky if this is fully operational by the year 2007. In my view, this project has been mismanaged as badly as the entire Federal budget has been mismanaged. That hole that we used to have out here, I think, was symbolic of the hole in logic that has dominated the administration of this entire project. I have two principal objections to that visitors center. Number one, I think it is far too expensive. And, secondly, I object to the misallocation of space in that project. Now, I have seen three different stories that have purportedly reported on my objections to the center. And each of those stories leaves the impression that my major concern is simply that Congress did not have enough room. That is not my point at all. My point is that when you have such a huge addition of space to the Capitol, that space should be allocated in an intelligent way, in a way which makes Congress more efficient, in a way which gives Congress more working space as opposed to propaganda space. We are going to have a lot of money lavished on a media center. We are going to have all of the creature comforts that you can imagine for any of the reporters who cover Members of Congress in that media center. But there will be very little done to make this Congress more able to sit down in a timely fashion in conference and work out our differences. So I think a tremendous amount of space has been wasted. And I think a tremendous amount of taxpayers' dollars have been wasted. And the reason I am voting against this is because I think this is the last chance that any of us will have to ask the leadership of this House and the Architect's office to at least review the way space is being allocated, at least review the way taxpayer dollars are being expended. We are going to have, when this project is over, we will have a project which is cosmetically beautiful, no question about that. There will be lots of Taj Mahal marble show space, but there will be very little working space that will be added. I think that if we are not getting the biggest bang from the buck we ought to be getting out of a project like this. I do believe that not only is the cost of this project out of control, I think the heating center project which is also ongoing is also going to wind up embarrassing this institution significantly. So I intend to vote ``no.'' I am not going to particularly try to ask anyone to vote any which way, but I intend to vote ``no'' because I think this visitor center represents a missed opportunity and a spectacular case of mismanagement and wasting of taxpayer funds.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) for reminding me that I forgot to mention the continuity issue as well. Again, I find myself in the minority. This is a very important question. What we are talking about here is very simply, what would happen if a large number of Members of Congress were obliterated in some kind of terrorist attack and we were left in a crisis situation? And we have very simply a choice that needs to be made. We have a choice between an operation which would allow the executive branch to essentially operate almost any way it sees fits with perhaps only a handful of surviving Members for a 45-day period until we can have special elections to replace Members of Congress who might have been killed in such an attack; or we could follow a different model under which we would have this Congress populated for a temporary period by persons who are appointed under a previously prescribed procedure until we could have a special election so that we would again have elected representatives for each of the 435 districts in this House. I much prefer the latter. I do not think it is a good idea, as this bill does, to, in effect, create a situation in which we would have one-man rule for 45 days. We could have literally only a handful of Members of Congress who had survived an attack, and I do not think under those circumstances that we want to be ruled by a President without any kind of checks and balances whatsoever. So there is an honest, intellectual difference of opinion on this question. And I think we are going down the wrong road. I think that by choosing the model that was chosen, what is happening is that we are in fact choosing form over substance. It is indeed important to have persons who represent each of our districts be elected representatives. But if the Member from an individual district is blown away in a terrorist attack, it is in my judgment, better that that district be represented on a temporary basis by an appointed person rather than having them represented by no one at all for that period. So that is why I think that this House in its haste to find a solution is going down the wrong road.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. OBEY. No, I do not think so. I think there is always room in this place for protest votes, and this is one occasion when I intend to exercise it; but I thank the gentleman for his efforts.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I would simply like to say that this is a close call on this bill as far as I am concerned; but weighing all of the conflicting pressures, I come down on the side of recommending a vote for the bill, primarily because of what it does to finally provide sufficient funding for veterans health care. With respect to that item, I would simply say to our friends on the majority side of the aisle, welcome aboard. We tried for the last year and a half to convince this administration and to convince the majority that the veterans health accounts were underfunded. Finally, the administration admitted that that was true; and, in fact, the amount being added to this bill today for veterans health care is exactly the amount that we had been asking be added to that program for that purpose for a long period of time. I want to make clear, the shortfall for veterans' health care is not the responsibility of the chairman of this subcommittee. This problem is supposed to be taken care of by another subcommittee; but, in fact, after running away from the problem for months and months, the majority party has finally decided that they did not want to go home in August and have to face the folks at the Legion hall or the VFW hall without finally doing something to fix the problem. So I am glad that they did. But even though I am going to vote for this bill because of what it does for veterans, I think we need to understand that in a number of other areas, this bill is far from where it ought to be if we are to meet the responsibilities that we have to this country's future. Overall, funding for the EPA declines by $291 million in this bill. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund has now been cut by 33 percent over 2 years. Grants to States for conservation and recreation are reduced by two-thirds from fiscal year 2005. Every State suffers a 66 percent cut. In the year 2001, land acquisition funds in this bill were $442 million. Today, they are $124 million. That is the lowest appropriation for this item in the past 20 years. Construction funding for national parks and refuges and forests has been reduced by about 10 percent from last year. The funding for Forest Service buildings, roads, and trails has been cut from $514 million to $441 million, a reduction of 14 percent. BIA school construction is funded at a level $53 million below last year. Health facilities construction for Indian health services is funded at $38 million, a reduction of $50 million. I do not believe those numbers are numbers that we would be proud to take home. So we are stuck with a choice. We can cast a protest vote against the cuts in this bill, which many of us have already done; or we can recognize the fact that in a time of war we have an obligation to meet the health care needs of those who have risked everything for this country; and I think we, in the end, have no real choice but to come down in favor of voting for that increased veterans funding. But I hope that the general public will understand that the cuts in this bill do the Nation no favors. We are shortchanging our country's future. We are not meeting our stewardship responsibilities, and we will pay a long-term price for that, I regret to say. Mr. Speaker, let me say one other thing. I do want to express my appreciation to the subcommittee chairman for the fairness with which he has dealt with this bill. I may not agree with the priorities that the majority party budget resolution imposed on the subcommittee, but I do want to say that I think the chairman has been most fair in his dealing with the minority; and we appreciate that.