Gene Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Skelton, the ranking member, and Chairman Hunter for the great work they have done. I also want to thank Lieutenant Commander Kevin Aanestad, who the Navy was nice enough to let work in my office for a year. Just a while back Kevin was flying combat missions in Iraq. He has been assigned to this office, as was last year Captain Randy Edwards, and let us not forget that that is what this bill is all about. It is for the Kevins, the Randys and the people serving in Iraq now, the people who have been there, and the people who are going there. I want to thank Chairman Bartlett for the great work he has done on the dual-lead strategy for the DDX. I think the DDGs have served our Nation very well, but it is time to move on to another platform, and it is great we are finally getting started on that. I want to thank Chairman McHugh for including TRICARE for guardsmen and reservists in this bill. It was kind of a contentious vote last year. I wish we could have prevailed last year, but the good news is it is going to happen this year. Our guardsmen and reservists are called upon increasingly to serve our Nation. At the time I made my pitch on the floor, 40 percent of the all people serving in Iraq were guardsmen or reservists. Since I made that pitch, we actually lost, I regret to say, a young National Guardsman by the name of Josh Russell. He died the night of Hurricane Katrina on a search and rescue mission only 30 miles from his home. They deserve the same benefits as the Active Duty force. If we are going to use them the same as the Active Duty force, then it is a great thing that this bill is going to give them the same health care benefits. The only disappointment I would like to express, Mr. Speaker, is, number one, I want to thank Chairman Hunter and thank Ranking Member Skelton for including language in the bill that would have provided an IED jammer on every vehicle in Iraq. If you look, as I do, at the casualty reports in the paper, you will see on a daily basis that young men and women are dying in Iraq as a result of an improvised explosive device exploding near their vehicle. Over half of all the casualties in Iraq are the result of IEDs, improvised explosive devices. We can jam that signal most of the time. And it is not a parochial thing. These devices are made nowhere near south Mississippi. But what they will do is save the lives of south Mississippians and Marylanders and people from California and people from Missouri. So I deeply regret that the Senate would not agree with us on this provision. They did, however, include a provision that every vehicle has some sort of coverage. But, again, in the chaos of combat, I think our Nation would be better served if every single vehicle had this provision; and I want to put my colleagues on notice that it is something we need to work on again next year. So, again, I want to thank Chairman Bartlett for his great cooperation. Joel Hefley, you are one of the classiest acts that has ever served in the United States Congress. Thank you for your service. Chairman Hunter, Ranking Member Skelton, thank you very much for your help on this bill. I want to thank Chairman Hunter and Ranking Member Skelton, as well as Chairman Warner and Ranking Member Levin, for their work on this Conference Report. They have done an outstanding job making this a truly bipartisan effort. As always, Chairman Bartlett and the Projection Forces staff have done a tremendous job crafting our Subcommittee's section of the bill. He has gone out of his way to ensure that this is a bipartisan effort, with provisions that make fiscally responsible decisions. I thank the Chairman for his leadership and for his consideration, even on issues on which our views differ. I strongly support the provisions in the Projection Forces portion of this bill. I would like to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for the compromise reached on the ``dual lead ship'' strategy for DDG I000 this year. Last year we in Congress required the Navy and the shipbuilding industry to use both surface combatant shipyards to build the DD(X), the Navy complied, and this bill follows through on that and allows us to be consistent in our direction to the department. The bill allows work to begin on a total of 7 new ships, with advanced procurement for an eighth--a good start towards reversing the decade long decline of our surface fleet. The theme of fiscally conservative decision-making while maintaining the robust force structure our military requires is maintained throughout the Projection Forces section of this bill. From maintaining our strategic airlift capability with the addition of 10 more G-17s (for a total of 22), to allowing the retirement of only those KC-135s and B-52s that are the most expensive to maintain. It applies cost caps on future aircraft carriers and amphibious ships, and requires that future proposals for all surface ships include options for alternative propulsion sources such as nuclear power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I am extremely pleased to support the Projection Forces section of this bill. I would like to express my appreciation as well for finally including the expansion of TRICARE coverage to members of the National Guard and Reserve. I want to commend all of my colleagues. In particular, I want to commend and remember a former colleague, the late Sonny Montgomery. I think Sonny would be very pleased that we are providing our Nation's Guardsmen and Reservists with TRICARE benefits. It is long overdue and I want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee, Chairman McHugh, and all the other people who helped make this happen. Providing this health coverage recognizes the sacrifices our Guard and Reserve troops are making every day. Insurgents in Iraq don't differentiate between reserve soldiers and active duty soldiers. Lastly, I would like to express my disappointment in a compromise that weakened my provision to require IED jammers on all of our wheeled military vehicles at risk in Iraq and Afghanistan. This threat is responsible for over half of the casualties in the war. I realize jammers are not a 100 percent solution, but they are proven and known to be effective. This is not the last conflict in which our military personnel will face this threat, every potential enemy in the world is watching and learning from our current conflict. Our British and Australian allies require and provide a jammer on every vehicle; we should be ashamed that we don't do the same. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Skelton, I thank you and your staff again for the work you've done on this bill, and for your thoughtful insight and leadership in creating an overall extremely balanced measure that I am proud to support.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, let me being by thanking my colleagues in the Mississippi and Louisiana delegations for cosponsoring this. Mr. Speaker, I could spend the remainder of this year's session naming south Mississippians who on an individual basis rose to the occasion and performed heroic deeds. Tonight we want to thank the employees of the Stennis Space Center for the phenomenal job they did in Hancock County, a county that 90 percent of the homes were either destroyed outright or severely damaged, a county where the vast majority of it was underwater for at least a substantial portion of the day. Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting sidelights, my colleague and friend, Congressman Hall mentioned, the Stennis Space Center runway, a 10,000 runway that was open the next day after the storm in order to bring in vital supplies. What the Congressman probably would never guess is that the person who opened that runway was the 13-year-old son of the airport manager, a young man by the name of Billy Cotter. His family had lost their home in Bay St. Louis. Knowing that the home was gone, they had gone out to the Stennis Space Center, moved into the dad's office. The dad's office had taken about waist-deep water, had about 6 inches of mud on the floor. And realizing that that runway was the vital link in a county that almost all of the bridges coming to and from it had been destroyed, 13- year-old Billy Cotter hops on the street sweeper, gets out there, and the next day cleared the runway of, I am told, snakes, branches, trees, and had the runway up and running by Tuesday afternoon, which is absolutely remarkable for anyone, but in particular a young boy. A reporter passes through the next day, and in trying a write a good news story of Katrina, looks over and notices that the helicopter that he was traveling in was being refueled by this little kid. And thinking it is pretty remarkable, goes up and hands the kid a $20 bill. The kid runs over to the refueling truck, opens the door and his pet dog is sitting in the driver's seat. The kid is so thrilled to get the $20 bill, he shows the 20 to the dog. And of course OSHA and every other agency of occupational safety in America probably would have gone berserk. But again here is Billy Cotter, 13 years old, running the street sweeper, refueling helicopters that are bringing in the life-saving goods. Billy really epitomizes the work that was going on out there, and the people pitching in doing what had to be done. Mr. Speaker, the other person I want to mention also, in addition to great work of Stennis employees, on the day after Easter, a convoy of the 155th Mississippi National Guard was attacked in Iraq. One of the drivers, a young Mississippi State student who had been activated for the war, a fellow by the name of William Brooks was severely wounded, lost both legs. He spends a lot of time at Walter Reed. In the course of that, I had asked the folks at Mississippi State University if William was up to it, if he would do an internship, would they give him credit for his studies. For whatever reason, William chose not to take me up on that offer until the day after the storm. The day after the storm, after many months of recuperating at Walter Reed Hospital, William finds some money for a cab fare, has the cab bring him to Capitol Hill, shows up at my office, says something to my staff that is kind of overwhelmed at this point, and says: ``I figured you all could use some help.'' And for the next couple of weeks, since the phones are down in Mississippi, and when a Mississippian can finally get to a phone and make a call looking for some assistance, almost all of those calls came to the Washington office. Young William Brooks, who had been severely wounded in Iraq, was there answering the phone helping people. Again, I know the hour is late and I could tell 8,000 stories like that. But tonight we want to talk about the great work of the Stennis Space Center, so many of whom had lost their own homes, so many of whom retreated to the Space Center. First thing, here is a place to take care of their families, but then pitching in and taking care of approximately 4,000 other south Mississippians who found themselves in the same predicament. So we want to commend the staff at the Stennis Space Center, Admiral Donaldson, who was in charge of leading the space center at that time, and all of the people out there for doing a phenomenal job of taking care of themselves, their families and the people who had retreated to the Stennis Space Center looking for hope in the aftermath of the storm. What is really remarkable about my fellow south Mississippians is that the extremely high percentage of people who had lost their own homes, be their firemen, policemen, civil servants, the airport manager, fill-in-the blank, but who kept going to work, taking care of others, knowing that there really was not much that they could do for themselves, but they were in a position to help someone else. That is the kind of spirit that has gotten Mississippi going back in the right direction. We still have a heck of a lot of work to do, but because of the good work done by the folks at the Stennis Space Center, William Brooks, Billy Cotter and so many others in south Mississippi, we are at least heading in the right direction. I thank you very much for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order and to address the House for 5 minutes.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday of this week, Mr. Edward Rust, Jr., the CEO of State Farm Insurance Company, was supposed to be in Washington. I had hoped that I would have the opportunity to speak to him on behalf of the people of south Mississippi. State Farm is one of three firms that for thousands of south Mississippians has denied their claims on wind policy, some of them for over $1 million; have said that they are not going to give a dime as a result of what happened at Hurricane Katrina. Had Mr. Rust been there, I also would have had the opportunity to tell him that last Saturday I met with two whistleblowers, two sisters, Cori and Carey Rigsby, who walked away from jobs that paid well over $200,000 a year, investigating claims for State Farm, because they felt that company was abusing the people who paid for their policies, that their company was engaging in fraudulent behavior by denying these claims. Instead of being rewarded by that subcontractor to State Farm for telling the truth, they are being sued by that subcontractor for telling the truth. So, Mr. Rust, if you had been there, I would have presented you with this letter, detailing what I think you have done to the taxpayers and to the people of south Mississippi. But since you were not there, I am going to put it in the Congressional Record and mail you a copy. But there are two things I want you to know. You see, when you didn't pay people's wind claims in south Mississippi, you hurt them individually. You hurt average Joes like Joe Dee Benvenutti, who, interestingly enough, is also an insurance salesman; or guys like Mike Chapoton, who is a banker; or Dr. Leroy McFarland, who was my family's physician when I was a kid, and now in his 70s has been denied over $1 million claim. But you also denied guys like Senator Trent Lott and U.S. Judge Lou Guirola. It is one thing to tell a banker or a former corrugated box salesman that you can't read a policy, but I think it is something else to tell a Federal judge that he couldn't read his policy, to tell a U.S. Senator with a law degree from the University of Mississippi apparently he can't read his policy. If they are doing that to the average Joes, I am sorry, if they are doing that to the bigshots like U.S. Senators and Federal judges, then the question is, what are they doing to grandmothers? What are they doing to corrugated box salesman? What are they doing to high school teachers who don't have a prayer and who have been told that their cases could take years to be heard? Mr. Rust, you not only denied those people, but, in my opinion, you also stole from the taxpayers. Let me walk the taxpayers through this. Flood insurance is paid through you, the taxpayers. It is heavily subsidized this year to the tune of over $20 billion. According to the Rigsby sisters, your agents were instructed to walk on a piece of property, and, without looking at any of the evidence, blame it all on the water. It was all water; offer to pay that water claim immediately, and say, we will get back to you on the wind, knowing full well that an investigation would not take place on the wind policy, and that the only check those people are going to get would be from the taxpayers. You see, that broke the law, because under the False Claims Act, when you ask your Nation to pay a bill that it should not pay, you are liable for triple damages and a $10,000-per-incident fine. I think that is exactly what went on. This House has passed language asking the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department to look into that. Unfortunately, the other body has not acted on that. Senator Lott, for his part, has passed the funding for that investigation for $3 million, but this House has not voted on that. So, in return for your behavior towards the people of south Mississippi, where over 1,000 south Mississippi families feel like the only chance they have of any justice is to go to court, I am going to try to do three things in my time remaining as a Member of this House. Number one, I am going to push for that investigation, because I am confident in my heart that you stole from the taxpayers when you did that. The second thing is I am going to work to remove your antitrust exemption. I bet you it would surprise the average American to know that if the two hardware stores in town called each other up and said, let's charge this much money for a gallon of paint, if they were caught doing that, they would go to jail. But Allstate can call State Farm, who can call Nationwide, who can call Farm Bureau, and they can say, this is how much we are going to charge for an insurance premium, and this is what the benefit is going to be. Yes, let us all play hardball and not pay any claims. It is perfectly legal. Check my facts on that, it is perfectly legal. Look at your own pay stub. I would guarantee probably that at least the fourth biggest expenditure in every American family is insurance. Do you want to know one reason why it is so expensive? There is no real competition. They are exempt from the antitrust laws. No one should be above the laws. I am going to work to take away that exemption. Third thing is I am going to work to pass an all-peril policy so that the people of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama or Texas don't have to stay in their house with a video camera to record how their house was destroyed to get some justice out of you. Lastly, I am going to work for Federal legislation because you have picked the States apart. You are picking on 50 little States, 50 sets of rules. You are taking advantage of the citizens of this country when you ought to be dealing with our Nation's government. Mr. Speaker, I submit for printing in the Congressional Record a copy of a letter from me to Mr. Edward B. Rust, CEO, State Farm Insurance Companies, dated September 20, 2006. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, September 20, 2006. Mr. Edward B. Rust, Jr., CEO, State Farm Insurance Companies, Bloomington, IL. Dear Mr. Rust: I am writing to make you fully aware of the consequences of the bad faith actions and policies that State Farm has carried out against the people of South Mississippi since Hurricane Katrina. First, allow me to establish a few basic facts about Katrina's damage in Mississippi. There is no property in Mississippi that was damaged solely by flooding. More than 300,000 properties, including many that were hundreds of miles inland, sustained wind damages but no flooding. Properties nearest the coastline were damaged or destroyed by some combination of hurricane winds and storm surge. State Farm's assertion that hundreds of coastal homes were destroyed without suffering any wind damage has been easily and overwhelmingly refuted by every meteorologist, engineer, eyewitness, or investigator who is not on the payroll of an insurance company or an insurance company's contractor. Every community on the Mississippi Coast suffered four or five hours of high hurricane winds and powerful gusts before the surge. High winds continued to cause additional damage during the surge, and the wind and water in combination caused the worst destruction. State Farm recently reported that it has handled more than 84,700 property claims in Mississippi, yet requested engineering reports for only 1,100 of the claims. Since engineering reports are needed for the purpose of determining whether damage was caused by wind or by water, State Farm must have acknowledged that other 83,600 properties were damaged by winds alone. In other words, State Farm has paid claims for wind damage far inland where you could not blame flooding, while denying wind claims on the coast where the winds were much stronger, but where you could blame flooding. Many homeowners near the coastline had flood insurance, but not for the full value of their properties. Hundreds of homeowners who bought every property insurance policy that was available to them--homeowners, windstorm, and flood-- are nevertheless left with huge uncovered losses because State Farm and other insurers have decided that only the federal flood insurance program, and federal taxpayers, should pay on homes that were destroyed by the combination of wind and water. State Farm's twisted legal argument that the anti- concurrent causation language in your policies allows you to deny wind claims, even where you acknowledge that wind was a cause of the damage, is an especially cynical and despicable act. Your company's betrayal of its policyholders has had horrible financial consequences for families and communities at their time of greatest need. Some policyholders will file bankruptcy and default on their mortgages. The lucky ones will recover only after depleting their savings and retirement accounts and assuming large new debts. Worst of all, I fear that your actions will result in unnecessary deaths in future disasters. If you succeed in establishing that the burden of proof is on policyholders to prove that wind and wind alone caused damage, I am convinced that some people who should evacuate will stay behind next time to record the damage. State Farm and other insurers have contracts with the National Flood Insurance Program that permit you to sell flood policies and adjust flood claims that are backed by federal taxpayers. When your adjusters assigned all damage to flooding, I believe you committed fraud against the United States government. State Farm's contract with NFIP obligates your company to apply the same standards to flood claims as you apply to your own claims. The federal regulations do not empower you to assume flood damage anywhere it is possible, while denying wind claims unless no other cause is possible. I believe that State Farm and other companies violated the False Claims Act by manipulating damage assessments to bill the federal government instead of the companies. I have written the Justice Department to recommend that the Katrina Fraud Task Force investigate whether insurance companies defrauded federal taxpayers by assigning damages to the federal flood program that should have paid by the insurers' wind policies. In late June, the House approved my amendment to the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act to instruct the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the Katrina claims practices of the insurance companies that adjusted flood claims. Sen. Trent Lott added a similar provision to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Even before Katrina, I was an original cosponsor of legislation introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio to repeal the antitrust exemption that was granted to the business of insurance by the McCarran Ferguson Act. After Katrina, this issue will be much higher on my agenda. It is obvious that the large insurance companies conspired together to manipulate the claims process. It also is clear that state resources were inadequate to protect consumers from underhanded insurance practices on such a large scale. In the decades since enactment of McCarran Ferguson, the federal government has assumed responsibility for insuring some risks that the insurance industry refuses to cover. Medicare and Flood Insurance are obvious examples. The federal government also provides disaster assistance and loans to individuals, businesses, and communities to help offset their uninsured losses. It does not make sense for the federal government to fill in the gaps left behind by the insurance industry and yet have very little role in regulating and investigating insurance companies and their practices. In the next session of Congress, I plan to press for a vote on legislation to have the federal government take responsibility for regulation of insurance. It is ridiculous for the industry to claim that insurance is not ``interstate commerce'' rightfully under federal jurisdiction when companies stop issuing policies in New York and Florida because of claims in Mississippi and Louisiana. Congress and federal regulators should have clear responsibility for oversight of the insurance industry. I also pledge to work tirelessly to enact a natural disaster insurance program that provides for all-perils insurance coverage. There is no reasonable way to distinguish the wind damage from the water damage from a major hurricane. The worst destruction almost always results from the combination of the two. The division of wind and flood coverage guarantees that legal disputes will consume millions and millions of dollars for engineering reports and legal fees instead of going to pay damage claims. I cannot support plans to provide federal reinsurance for the current system that allows insurance companies to shift their liabilities to taxpayers and property owners. Any effort to provide a federal reinsurance backstop for insurance losses must insist on elimination of the exclusions and gaps in property coverage. Homeowners need to be able to purchase insurance and know that disaster damage will be covered. Finally, I will continue to urge the leadership and my colleagues in Congress to undertake detailed hearings and investigations of insurance industry practices. Please know that the actions of your company have helped make the case that Congress and the federal government must move to regulate and investigate your industry in order to protect consumers and taxpayers. Sincerely, Gene Taylor, Member of Congress.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. So if the State wished to have a ban for 12 miles from the shoreline or 12 miles out from the barrier islands, that would be within their jurisdiction under this bill?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, prior to Hurricane Katrina, the hottest topic on the Mississippi gulf coast was a proposed ban on drilling 12 miles out, and that has kind of been put on hold. But anywhere from champions of industry who actually own shipyards that repair drilling rigs are in favor of this; an ex-president of Tidewater Marine was in favor of this ban. A lot of people in the oil business wanted a ban for 12 miles off of Mississippi. My question is, how would this affect that? There really is not a synopsis of the bill available yet, and I regret that, and I am sure it is an oversight, but representing the people of south Mississippi, I would like to know how does this affect that.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. Chairman, not everything our Nation does is wrong. And one of the things our Nation does that the private sector wouldn't do or chose not to do was insure people against flooding. And that is a very good program. When you consider that the predictions are that within the next 50 years 80 percent of all Americans will live within 50 miles of a coast line, then protection from flood insurance, protection from hurricanes is very important. In southern Mississippi I have had very, very few complaints about the Federal flood insurance program. I have had tens of thousands of complaints about how people were treated by the wind coverage. So I want to commend the gentleman from Massachusetts and the gentleman from Ohio for raising the amounts that people can buy coverage for. Most of southern Mississippi had older homes. People had lived in them for decades. And now they, and I, are going through simultaneous sticker shock. Houses that you may have bought 20, 30 years ago for $50,000, you have now got to replace for a heck of a lot more than that. So by raising the amount that people can cover themselves from $250,000 to $335,000 is a huge improvement. Also, raising the contents up to $135,000 again is a huge improvement. I think as people put a pad to their contents after they woke up the next morning and discovered that they were gone, I think everyone was surprised that they owned more than they thought they did and they lost more than they thought they did. So again this is a move in the right direction. I want to commend the committee for putting in the money for the new flood maps. Water in Bay St. Louis got to be 26 feet above sea level in some places. That was unprecedented since the Europeans landed over 300 years ago. And the Navy Oceanographic Lab tells us we are in for 10 years of this. So, again, since this is a public entity funded with taxpayer dollars, I think it is very important, whether it is Pensacola, Florida, or Gulf Shores, Alabama. Anywhere in coastal America I think it is important that we know the propensity to flood, take adequate steps to minimize losses in future hurricanes. I would also like to commend the committee for working with me on trying to address the Katrina fraud. Citizens of this country are noticeably upset that some of the generous money given to them, either as taxpayers or through groups like the Red Cross, was abused, that people milked the system, in some instances, to do things like a sex- change operation. I happen to think the biggest fraud of all, though, Mr. Chairman, came from the insurance industry. And I will walk you through this. Under the National Flood Insurance Plan, we count on the private sector not only to sell the insurance policy; we count on the private sector to adjudicate the claim. Now, wind damage is paid for by a private company. Flood damage is paid for by the Nation through the National Flood Insurance Plan. So imagine yourself, a 25-year-old insurance adjuster. You have visions of being a company man or getting that next promotion. You may even own stock in your company. You are sent out to adjudicate a claim on a house that is no longer there, knowing that if you said the wind did it, it is coming out of your company's pocketbook. If you say the water did it, it is coming out of the taxpayers' pocketbook. The FBI says that fraud is a crime of opportunity. And I think under this system, we have given the insurance industry the opportunity to stick the bill to the taxpayers every time there was any question. And I think they did. Is it a coincidence that the insurance industry reported $44 billion in profits last year, in the same year that the National Flood Insurance Program lost $25 billion? Are they that much better at what they do? I don't think so. I think they took claims that legitimately should have been paid by the wind policies and stuck it to the taxpayer to the tune of millions, if not billions, of dollars. And I am going to offer an amendment in a little while to ask for an Inspector General's report to see if that is true. And if it is true, then we need to come back and change the system so that we don't just count on an insurance adjuster blindly sending the bill to the government and the government paying it every time. Think about it. If the Members in this room want to be reimbursed for their trip to the airport, they have got to turn in a taxi receipt for 15 or 20 bucks. But in the case of the National Flood Insurance Program, Allstate, State Farm, Nationwide, fill in the blank, can bill the government for hundreds of billions of dollars, and we pay that claim without even bothering to look into this. That is wrong. It is a system ripe for abuse. And I am convinced it has been abused. Last, and several other speakers have touched on this, we need to rethink the whole flood insurance program. Whether you are from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, any coastal State, we don't need people who have invested their life savings in their houses getting abused by their insurance company. And let me tell you, it is happening every day. Senator Trent Lott, one of the most powerful men in the Senate, feels like the only way he is going to get justice out of his insurer is to sue them. Federal Judge Lou Guirola had to drop hearing cases, like Senator Lott, so that he could sue his insurance company. Now, when U.S. Senators and Federal judges feel like the only way they are going to get justice is to go to court themselves, what is it like for the grandmas and grandpas out there? What kind of fair shake are they going to get? And the answer is they are not getting one. So if the private sector is not going to do it fairly, if they are not going to do it right, then maybe we need to expand the National Flood Insurance Program and call it the National Hurricane Insurance Program. Because let me tell you what I think is going to happen. We spend a lot of money to send the hurricane hunters out there for the Air Force, a lot of money to tell us where these storms are going to hit and when. We have satellites up in space to tell us about these storms. Why do we do that? So that people will get the heck out of there before a storm hits. Based on what has happened, based on the tens of thousands of southern Mississippians who have been denied legitimate claims for their wind coverage, I am convinced in the next hurricane people are going to die needlessly because they stay behind in their home with a camcorder so they can prove to the insurance adjuster whether it is wind or water. That is wrong. It is completely contrary to why we fund the hurricane hunters; it is completely contrary to why we put those satellites in space. A person should not have to die on his property to get justice from his insurance company. And although there is no Federal regulation of the insurance industry, maybe the abuses that took place after Katrina will cause some of my colleagues to rethink this. So, again, the bill takes some very important steps on allowing people to purchase more flood insurance, to purchase more contents insurance. It is taking the right step on getting the flood maps much more accurate, not so much for the guys who have lived there for 20 or 30 years, but for all the new folks who are moving to the coast who need to know if their property has a propensity to flood. So I am grateful for what has been done. I have offered some observations of what needs to be done.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, when the National Flood Insurance Program was put together, a couple of steps were taken to minimize the administrative costs of that program. One, under the National Write Your Own Program, allowed the private sector, companies like Allstate, State Farm and Nationwide, to sell this policy, get a fee for selling this policy, but the cost of actually paying the claims would be borne by the Federal Government. There is really nothing wrong with that. The problem came in when at the same time they allowed the same companies to adjudicate the claim in the aftermath of the storm. The example I used earlier is that you have got a young claims adjuster. He is a company man. He works for State Farm; he works for Allstate or Nationwide. He has visions of being promoted to a manager. He has stock in that company. He wants to go far. He is sent out to what is now a slab that just a few days ago was someone's home. There is nothing there. And he has to determine whether that house was destroyed by wind or by water. In the case of south Mississippi, the Navy Oceanographic Lab tells us we had 6 to 8 hours of maximum hurricane winds before the water ever got there. In the case of the little town of Bay St. Louis, that meant you had winds for 6 to 8 hours from 100 miles an hour up to 150 miles an hour before the tidal surge came in and destroyed the evidence of what the wind did. So this claims adjuster, who wants to go far with the company, can decide whether his company is going to pay that claim through the wind pool, or whether the taxpayers are going to pay through the flood insurance program. The FBI says that fraud is a crime of opportunity. No matter how well-intended Congress was when they wrote this, they created the opportunity for a heck of a lot of fraud. In fact, I think the biggest fraud that occurred after Hurricane Katrina wasn't people getting an extra FEMA check or two or three extra checks from the Red Cross, although that is deplorable. The biggest fraud occurred at the corporate level where the insurance industry made a corporate decision to, whenever possible, blame flooding every time and stick the taxpayers with bills that they should have paid. Mr. Chairman, last year the insurance industry reported a $44 billion profit after everything. Last year Federal flood insurance lost $25 billion. That is the reason this bill is on the floor today. I don't think it is a coincidence, because I think what happened was whenever given the opportunity, the insurance industry stuck the taxpayer with bills that they should have paid. So what I am asking for is for the Inspector General to look into this and hopefully use the Fraudulent Claims Act, which requires treble damages for anyone who submits a false claim to our Nation, in addition to a $5,000 or $10,000 fine every time a false claim is submitted. Because I am convinced that is precisely what happened. Mr. Chairman, after we are told that that is what happened, I hope this Congress will come back and find a way to where we as a Nation won't just blindly accept the claims of an insurance industry when we pay that bill. I used the analogy before. If Mr. Oxley, if Mr. Pickering, any Member of this body wants to be reimbursed for their trip to the airport, they have got to submit a claims ticket from that taxi driver for the 15 bucks, or they don't get paid. But in the instance of national flood insurance, these insurance companies submitted claims for $100,000, $200,000, $250,000, and the taxpayer paid it every time without anyone second guessing. That is the opportunity for fraud, and I believe that fraud took place. So, Mr. Chairman, I don't know of anyone who in their right mind could oppose this, I don't know of anyone who wants to see our tax dollars used unwisely, and I don't know of anyone who wants to see the National Flood Insurance Program defrauded or the subject of fraud. So, again, it is my understanding that Mr. Oxley will accept this amendment. I very much appreciate that. I hope that when the Inspector General report comes back 6 months from now that the next Congress will take steps to take away this opportunity for fraud.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Again, Mr. Chairman, I very much thank the gentleman from Ohio, and I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I have the great fortune to represent the people of south Mississippi, and on behalf of the people of south Mississippi that suffered substantially in the loss of about 40,000 houses in late August of last year to Hurricane Katrina, I want to thank my fellow Americans for all the wonderful things they have done for us, for their financial help; for their college kids who came down and gave up their spring breaks to help out people; the church groups, the Rotarians, and individuals who came to provide medical care. There was a tremendous showing of generosity, of support to some people who needed it, and I hope I will never fail to thank the American people properly. Mr. Speaker, I also want to, on behalf of the people of south Mississippi, express an outrage on the handful of southern Mississippians and southern Louisianans who abused that generosity. I do not think anyone wanted to see that happen, and certainly those who have broken the law should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I am sure the people who have read that their tax dollars were used to help somebody go to a gentleman's club or get someone get a sex change, they should be justifiably angry. But let me tell you what the biggest Katrina fraud of all was. It was not done by a guy living in a FEMA trailer. It was not someone down on their luck. It was by corporate America and, in particular, the insurance industry in America, and next week this House will have an opportunity to do something about it. Mr. Speaker, because of the unprecedented amount of losses because of Hurricane Katrina, our Nation will have to put $25 billion into the National Flood Insurance Program. I am going to vote for that. It is important. It is going to help a lot of people, but I would hope that my colleagues, when they do that, would amend that bill to require an investigation by the insurance industry in the post-Katrina world, and let me tell you what I know to have happened and what I think a Justice Department investigation will prove. Mr. Speaker, when Congress wrote the National Flood Insurance Plan way back in the late 1960s, they called for the insurance industry to write the policy, even though it is a Federal flood insurance policy, but also to adjudicate the claim, to send their adjusters out to decide what happened to that dwelling and how much was it hurt and what would it cost to fix it. The immediate conflict that was drawn in there was that person who may work for State Farm or Allstate or Nationwide, who may have stock in their company, who hopes to get promoted with that company, who may be looking for a Christmas bonus, is suddenly in a position when he walks to one of the 40,000 slabs in south Mississippi that are there in the days after the storm, he has got to decide whether the wind did it, and therefore, State Farm is going to pay, or the water did it, and the taxpayers are going to pay. Let me tell you about an interesting coincidence in America. Last year, the private insurance industry had a profit of $44 billion. The National Flood Insurance Program lost $25 billion, the same year. How does this happen? Well, let me tell you what happened. That insurance adjuster who works for State Farm or Allstate or Nationwide walked out, and in every instance blamed all the damage on the water, but that is completely contrary to what the Navy Oceanographic Command says. The Navy Oceanographic Command tells us in south Mississippi we had hurricane-force winds for 6 hours before the water ever showed up. So what does this do? For the individual homeowner who had a flood insurance policy and a wind policy, they have been denied across the board. We have a U.S. Federal judge who cannot hear these cases of people who feel like they have been wronged because he, too, is suing his insurance company. In the other body, Senator Lott, who has been extremely supportive of the insurance industry during his entire congressional and senatorial career, is filing suit against his insurance company. So if the insurance company is willing to take on U.S. Senators, if they are willing to take on Federal judges, what do you think the moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas of south Mississippi, what kind of chance do they have? So it is wrong on an individual case, but let me tell you why it is wrong for all of you. Remember, every time they said the water did it and not wind, the taxpayer paid the claim, and so now we have to raise $25 billion, probably of borrowed money, to pay claims that should have been paid by companies that had a profit of $44 billion. There is no Federal regulation of the insurance industry, but there is a law called the Fair Claims Act. The biggest abuse, the biggest fraud that has occurred since Hurricane Katrina has been by the American insurance industry. Next week this House will have an opportunity to look into what I have just told you, the allegations that billions of dollars that should have been paid by the private insurance industry were instead paid by the American taxpayer. How is it that during the same storm season the private industry makes $44 billion while the taxpayers lose $25 billion? Under the Federal False Claims Act, if indeed these companies did that, then they will be fined millions of dollars, and their corporate executives will go to jail, a fate they richly deserve. So, Mr. Speaker, I am asking for two things: Next week, when the National Flood Insurance Renewal Program comes before the House, I am asking for an inspector general investigation of the insurance industry to see whether or not claims that should have been paid by the private sector insurance industry were wrongly stuck on the American taxpayer. And I am asking for your support. Mr. Speaker, I will note that two of those insurance industries that I think were the biggest culprits reside in Illinois. But I also note that two-thirds of all the campaign contributions from the insurance industry went to your political party. So the real question is, Mr. Speaker, are we going to look out for the American people, or are we going to look out for your contributors? That decision will be made next Tuesday.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, as the Representative of the people of south Mississippi, I want to rise once again to thank my fellow citizens, both collectively and individually, for what they have done for the people of south Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We have been the beneficiaries of tremendous generosity, and I don't want at any time for people to think that what they have done as individuals, through groups, through churches, through charities, and as taxpayers that we are in any way ungrateful for that. Mr. Speaker, one of the continuing problems that persists in south Mississippi is the whole debate over insurance. When people lost their homes, when on the day after the storm there was nothing there and they tried to settle with their insurance company, in almost every instance the insurance companies refused to pay on homeowners' policies, citing those homes had been destroyed by water and not wind. And, of course, when your house isn't there, you don't have much of an arguing position. That has affected the lives of tens of thousands of south Mississippians, and they suffer individually as a result of that. But, Mr. Speaker, what I am asking my colleagues to look into, and I will offer an amendment to the National Flood Insurance Program when it comes before this body next week or the following week, is to ask for the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to look into whether or not a crime has been committed against the citizens of this country collectively. Because when the Allstates, the Nationwides, the Farm Bureaus, the State Farms of the world refused to pay the claim on a homeowner's policy and shifted that cost to the National Flood Insurance Program, I suspect that they took costs that they should have paid out of their pockets and their stockholders' pockets and shifted those costs unfairly and, in my opinion, criminally to the taxpayer. When an adjustment agent walked to any of the 10,000 slabs and said there is nothing there, your house was washed away, and there was no wind damage, that was completely contrary to what the Navy Meteorological Command tells us, that in communities like Bay St. Louis and Waveland there was 6 to 8 hours of 120-to-180-mile-an-hour winds before the water ever arrived. Even farther away from the eye, in towns like Biloxi and Ocean Springs, there were at least, according to the United States Navy, at least 3 hours of maximum wind before the high water arrived. So when these agents looked the people in south Mississippi in the eye and denied their claims, they not only hurt them but they are hurting us all. Because, again, when that cost is shifted to the National Flood Insurance Program, billions of taxpayer dollars had to be shifted from other accounts and, more honestly, borrowed to help make up the difference. So it is not fair to them, and it is not fair to the American taxpayer. I think, at the very least, this Congress ought to ask the Inspector General's office to look into it. I am going to offer that amendment, and at this time I am asking for my colleagues' help on that. We will be going before the Rules Committee next week. I do want to thank Chairman Oxley for his generosity in hearing me out on this. He has offered a Government Accountability Office investigation. But in total honesty, that is already going on. I think that when you believe a crime has been committed, then I think it calls for a criminal investigation. And everything I see in south Mississippi tells me a crime has been perpetrated on the people of south Mississippi and the taxpayers of this Nation, and I am asking my colleagues to look into what I think is a crime.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I have a modification to my amendment at the desk.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, the modification, that the majority was so kind to agree to, would name this year's defense bill after one of the finest gentlemen to ever serve in this body, a former soldier, a statesman from the State of Mississippi, Sonny Montgomery, and the author of the Montgomery GI bill. The bill does a lot of things this year that I think Sonny would be very proud of, particularly extending the TRICARE privileges to guardsmen and reservists, and since we are told that former Congressman Montgomery is under the weather, we hope that he is aware of what we are doing today because, again, I cannot think of anyone in our Nation who has done more to advance the Guard and Reserve than Sonny Montgomery. He caught a heck of a lot of heat from people when he used his friendship with then-President Bush to have the Guard and Reserve called up for the first Gulf War. The decision he made then, the decision President Bush made then, was absolutely the right decision, and it has led to the one-force policy that our Nation enjoys today. So, again, I want to thank the majority for working with me on that.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank my colleagues for their kind words about Sonny Montgomery. I would also like to remind my colleagues that the underlying amendment calls for telling the Department of Defense that by the end of fiscal year 2007, the Secretary of Defense will develop a plan to equip every wheeled vehicle that leaves a compound in Iraq or Afghanistan with an IED jammer. Mr. Chairman, I voted for the use of force in Iraq and therefore I share in the responsibility for the death of every young person and every not-so-young person who has been maimed over there. It is a very unfortunate tactic by our enemies to use improvised explosive devices that are remote detonated, which have resulted in over half of the casualties and injuries of Americans over there. Technology exists to jam the signal that triggers that charge. Many of our vehicles in Iraq have these jammers, but not all. Just as we would never dream of sending a helicopter out that does not have protection from missiles, or dream of sending a C-130 to land at Baghdad or Balad that did not have an antimissile defense, we as a nation should not dream of sending one Humvee or one truck outside of a compound that does not have the technology to jam that signal and protect the troops on board. I have been to most of the funerals of the south Mississippians who have died in this war, and I have visited most of the soldiers at Walter Reed who have been injured. In every instance they were either killed or injured by an IED, and I regret to say, in every instance the vehicle they were traveling in did not have a jammer. We are the world's greatest nation. We are going to spend $10 billion this year on national missile defense and we have not been attacked by a missile, and yet every day we are having young Americans killed by IEDs. I think it is time we tell the Department of Defense that we as a Congress want to see that every single vehicle in Iraq is protected, every single soldier, airman, Marine, every single Navy personnel who is traveling in these vehicles is being protected. I welcome the comments of the chairman of the committee, and I very much welcome his support of this amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bill. I want to commend all of my colleagues. In particular, I want to commend a former colleague, Congressman Sonny Montgomery, who is under the weather, who is probably watching, and we want him to know that all of us are thinking of him, and in this bill, in particular, I think Congressman Montgomery after his years of avidly serving the National Guard would be very pleased to know that a provision in this bill will extend to our Guardsmen and Reservists the exact same TRICARE benefits that are extended to the regular force. It is long overdue and I want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee, Chairman McHugh, and all the other people who helped make this happen. I also want to mention on the TRICARE for retirees that there will be no increase in their copays. That is an issue of great importance to the people who have already served us. Great people and great nations keep their word, and we need to keep our word to them to keep their premiums low. I would also like to commend my colleague Joel Hefley. We are going to miss him very much. He has been a very honorable Member of this body. I think the committee did the right thing in naming the housing complex off of Fort Carson after him. He is going to be missed greatly. Mr. Chairman, a couple of things in the limited time I have left that I would ask you to consider for the remaining time on this bill. First is the amendment by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) that would elevate the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to Joint Chiefs of Staff. There are over 400,000 National Guardsmen, and the events of the hurricane in south Mississippi last fall really convinced me that should there be an attack on the American homeland it is going to look a lot like Hurricane Katrina. You are going to have a lack of electricity, food and water, no place even to put the bodies of the dead, and the National Guard did a magnificent job in responding to that. They will in all probability do a magnificent job should there be a terrorist event in this country. But the person who should be at the table with the President in the event of that is the Chief of the National Guard. I would ask that the Members of this body be given an opportunity to vote on the Davis amendment. Second is an amendment of my own that would provide that 100 percent of the wheeled vehicles in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters that leave a base have an IED jammer. I voted to send those young men and women over there. We are now in the third year of this conflict. Well over half of all of the casualties, well over half of all deaths are caused by IEDs. Just as the Department early on did not think it was necessary for every soldier to have body armor, or every vehicle to be up- armored, I think the Department has been slow in seeing to it that every vehicle has an IED jammer. I would ask for a vote on that amendment. I think it is important. I do not think any of us want to go to a funeral and tell the moms and dads that we are visiting that their son, their daughter, husband, brother happened to be in the last vehicle in Iraq that we failed to put a jammer on. We are going to spend $10 billion this year on missile defense. We have not been attacked by a missile. Thousands of young Americans have died in Iraq. Half of those young Americans died as a result of IEDs. It is, unfortunately, the weapon of choice and, unfortunately, a very efficient weapon that our enemy is using. We need to take that weapon away from them, and the IED jammers can contribute to that. I ask for an opportunity for a vote on that amendment. It is in the best interest of our troops. Again, this is a good bill and I encourage my colleagues to vote for it.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Madam Chairman, may I ask the Clerk to read the amendment? It is a very short amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Madam Chairman, the President of the United States came to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi about a month ago. He stood on the floor of the gymnasium at Saint Stanislas High School and made a solemn pledge to the people of Mississippi that he would repair every Federal installation to pre-Katrina standards. In this supplemental request that he sent to Congress, the President seeks to fulfill a part of that pledge by rebuilding the commissaries at Keesler Air Force Base, and at the Navy Construction Battalion in Gulfport, Mississippi. The funds he requested would get them back to their pre- Katrina standards. It is my understanding that in committee, there were some concerns expressed that because these are normally MWR funds, that there was not a precedent for appropriated funds being used to repair MWR facilities. I have provided to both the majority and the minority a lengthy list of precedents where appropriated funds have been used on military installations to repair MWR facilities. I also understand that there were concerns about the authorization for this. Again, on the publications that I have given to both the majority and the minority, we point out Title 10 USC, 2854, it authorizes appropriated funds to ``repair, restore or replace'' facilities damaged or destroyed by acts of God, natural disasters, fire or terrorism, even MWR facilities normally constructed with non appropriated funds which was incorporated in DOD policy, DOD 1015.10. Madam Chairman, since, again, this is the President's request, it is for facilities that were clearly destroyed by an act of God at the end of August of 2005, that we have fulfilled the requirements of the committee to show that again, there was precedent for this, it is authorized, it is the President's request and, quite frankly, the people who shop at that commissary, up to 20,000 young airmen, tens of thousands of military retirees who paid their dues in Korea, in Vietnam. Some of our World War II veterans still shop there, Gulf War veterans shop there, and it is only trying to do for them what was promised to them. They have made due with a very, very small commissary that the base has funded with one of these small appropriations since the storm. We are trying to put the base back like it was. The base was spared in the BRAC rounds. It is actually going to grow a bit as a result of BRAC. And so for any number of good reasons, we are put trying to put this back, the appropriations sought by the President back in this bill. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.