Maxine Waters

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker and Members, I rise today to share with this body the unbelievable circumstances surrounding the victims of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. I thought the American people had been shocked at the lack of response by our Government to the victims of these hurricanes. I thought the American people could hardly ever get over the fact that they witnessed victims of a natural disaster held up in a convention center in New Orleans for days without food, without water, begging for help. It was unbelievable when we discovered that the head of FEMA, Mr. Brown at the time, said that he did not know that those victims were out in front of the convention center waving white flags, inside the convention center sick and even dying. It was unbelievable to witness one of the richest, if not the richest country in the world with the lack of adequate response to its citizens at a time when we were needed most. And so we're trying to work through this. We have been working to try and get money to the gulf coast, to New Orleans, to Mississippi. We have tried to work to save public housing so that residents could return who had been evacuated and told that the housing would be rehabilitated and they could return. Many of us have been pushing not only on FEMA and our government, but working with the State and local government trying to correct the injustices that we have now come to know that have taken place in the gulf coast. And now we're confronted with another unbelievable situation. How much bungling can you do? How much mismanagement can you be responsible for? Finally, we find there's more. The Federal Emergency Management Administration, that is, FEMA, has admitted what people living in trailers have known for several years: that these trailers contain high levels of formaldehyde that pose serious health risks for residents. Almost after moving in, trailer residents started to complain about respiratory and other formaldehyde-related health problems. The first private study on the unacceptable levels of formaldehyde in these trailers was in 2006. A few months later, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration conducted its own testing and found formaldehyde concentration as high as 5 parts per million, or 50 times higher than the level the Environmental Protection Agency considers elevated. But FEMA didn't stop the sale or deployment of trailers until July of 2007. And here it is 2008, and it still has no plan to move families out of these environmental health hazards and into safe, permanent, and affordable housing. Mr. Speaker and Members, we've got to force FEMA to rise to the challenge of getting these 38,000 families out of these toxic trailers as soon as possible and move them into safe, permanent, and affordable housing. Unfortunately, because affordable housing creation has not been a priority of this Bush administration, I know this is going to be a difficult task. The Bush administration has failed to ensure that the gulf coast region has an adequate supply of affordable housing for its displaced persons, including those in trailers. The administration approved redevelopment plans in Mississippi and Louisiana that provide less affordable housing than was available before Hurricane Katrina. It even allowed, believe this, the State of Mississippi to move $600 million away from housing assistance to the redevelopment of the Port of Gulfport. Now, mind you, there are still people who are out of State who want to come home. There are still people living in trailers. There are still people doubled up with family members. And this administration, this Housing Secretary said to the State of Mississippi, go ahead and take $600 million from housing assistance and you can go ahead and use it for the redevelopment of the port. In New Orleans, the administration has approved the demolition of 4,500 units of public housing, with no regard to the fact that there are 12,000 homeless persons who could have benefited from having a roof over their heads. The demolition of New Orleans' public housing during an affordable housing crisis is a prime example of this administration's shortsightedness and lack of concern for our country's lowest income renters. Mr. Speaker and Members, I simply close by saying, here we are, FEMA again, mismanagement, lives at stake. They have no answers.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I am indeed honored to be an original cosponsor of H.R. 3521, the Public Housing Asset Management Improvement Act of 2007; and I want to thank Mr. Sires and Chairman Frank for their dedication and commitment to resolving this, at times, perplexing and confusing process known as asset management to which our public housing agencies have been struggling to adapt for several years now. This struggle has been made all the worse by the Department of Housing and Urban Development's overly prescriptive guidance on some issues, lack of guidance on other issues, and contradictory or insufficient guidance on everything in between. I think we can all agree that public housing agencies can be better at managing our public housing resources and that asset management has the potential to improve how public housing is managed nationwide. However, in examining the issues behind the implementation of asset management, it has become clear that HUD's one-size-fits-all approach simply won't work. In addition, the Department's willful disregard of existing statute as a part of the implementation is eroding the trust of housing agencies' residents and some Members of this Congress. In light of the Department's actions and the need to proceed with asset management, my friend from New Jersey who introduced this bill, H.R. 3521, maintains and respects the negotiated rulemaking agreed to by all parties, housing agencies, their industry representatives and HUD and still requires housing agencies to convert to asset management by 2011. However, the bill settles three outstanding issues that have slowed the implementation of asset management: number one, the amount of management fees; number two, the ability of housing agencies to use a portion of their capital funds while operating expenses as allowed under statute; and number three, the kind of housing agencies that must convert to asset management. These are all critical issues that must be decided before 2011. H.R. 3521 would require negotiated rulemaking to settle the issue of management fees. The fees that the Department is attempting to impose on housing agencies are, in many cases, insufficient and will not meet the needs of housing agencies that have been historically underfunded. In addition, these fees appear to have been arrived at in an arbitrary manner. Negotiated rulemaking on the subject of management fees would allow the Nation's housing managers to work with HUD to determine a reasonable fee for managing public housing. Because the date for full implementation of asset management would stay the same, negotiated rulemaking would not delay or stall conversion to asset management. On the use of capital funds for operating expenses, the statute is very clear. Housing agencies have the ability to move 20 percent of their capital funds to their operating fund. However, in its guidance, the Department has disregarded this plain-as-day statute and has limited capital fund fungibility to 10 percent. The bill simply asserts what is already in law. Large housing agencies will benefit the most from asset management due to the economies of scale that will result from streamlining their operations. By raising the threshold for conversion from housing agencies that manage 250 units to those that manage 500 units, the bill simply ensures that only those housing agencies with the ability to benefit from asset management are required to comply with it. Furthermore, the bill makes sure that asset management does not stifle tenant participation and resident organization. Public housing residents are very concerned about how asset management will impact their ability to participate and to organize. The bill ensures that the ability of residents to remain involved and to be represented is not impinged upon. Mr. Chairman, this bill does not undo, reverse, or undermine the original negotiated rulemaking between housing agencies and the Department. It simply settles four outstanding issues so that asset management can move forward.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker and Members, our majority leader just put before us a motion that I think we should all support. It is unreasonable for us to think that somehow we are going to not give this House the opportunity to provide leadership on crime. There are Members on the opposite side of the aisle who would identify themselves as being law and order people, of wanting to get rid of guns and crime. Well, this is an opportunity to show where you stand. Do you stand with us to keep Americans safe? Do you stand with us to make the rules on Federal property, or are you going to vote us down?

Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker, I rise almost in disbelief that my friends on the opposite side of the aisle, led by Mrs. Bachmann, would dare bring to this floor a motion that basically would say to us that the Federal Government cannot direct this issue on Federal property. We own these public housing authorities. The people who are here live under the rules that we develop for living in public housing. We are confronted with the problem in America, and that problem is, unfortunately, and painfully, we have poor people who are isolated, and they find their power and their strength in the gun. There are far too many guns raging every night in America in public housing authorities, whether it is Los Angeles or New York or down south. What you find are young jobless men in gangs who shoot throughout the night where people are ducking under their beds, afraid to open their doors. Many of these public housing authorities are on main thoroughfares, next to shopping centers, on your way to the airport. These bullets don't limit themselves to inside these public housing authorities. They could end up shooting people who are passing through the area. I understand, perhaps, the argument that one would make about constitutional rights. While I disagree with that, I think it is foolhardy and foolish to talk about we don't have the authority to determine what happens on our property. There are those in this room who would shout down public housing authorities and not give people a place to live at all, because they said there is too much violence, there is too much joblessness, there is too much violence. There are those of us who have worked for years not only to clean up these public housing authorities but to make sure that the people who live there are abiding by the law. I am in disbelief that anyone could believe it's all right to continue what is happening in America today in many of these public housing authorities where young people are dying. Of course we don't like it. Of course we are appalled at it. We are pained with it. But give me a break. All of us are much more responsible than this motion to recommit would have us believe. I would yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker, this evening I come to the floor to be with my friend and colleague Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey as she gives her 250th speech and Special Order on this floor. I come to be with her to commend her for the tremendous leadership that she has provided not only in speaking out against the war in Iraq, but because she has given numerous press conferences, she has been on numerous speaking engagements, she has spoken with editorial boards, she has written articles, she has done everything that could be done in order to provide leadership and to encourage and urge the Congress of the United States to bring our soldiers home. Unfortunately, her messages have not always been heard. But there are those of us, those of us who work with her in the Progressive Caucus, those of us who work with her in the Out of Iraq Caucus, who have tried to not only give support but to do the same kinds of things that she has been doing in order to end this war. The American people are tired of this war, and I find it disingenuous for some of the pundits to say that somehow this is off the radar screen, that this is not an issue that the American public cares about anymore, that somehow it is the economy. Of course it is the economy, but you cannot separate what is going on within our economy from the war. We must look at this war for what it is. First of all, it is a war that we certainly should not be in. We were misled. There were never any weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein is dead. Four thousand of our American soldiers have been killed in this war. Countless Iraqis, Iraqi civilians, and others who have made up the coalition forces from other countries are also dead. And so here we are, and the pundits are talking about it is not about the war, it's not on the radar screen of the American public, that the economy is, when, in fact, our economy is in recession because of this mismanaged war. We have a President of the United States who came in as a fiscal conservative supposedly belonging to the party of the fiscal conservatives who have been spending, spending, spending on this war in Iraq, over $500 billion on this war in Iraq, at the same time giving tax cuts to the richest 1 percent of the corporations of America and denying the dollars that we need to invest in our own domestic problems that need to be addressed. We had a bridge fall down in Minneapolis, and people wondered why did that happen. And when we took a close look at the reviews, the assessments that had been done about the state of affairs of our bridges and our infrastructure, we learned that many of our bridges in America are in the same position that that bridge was in, and we know that they have been assessed to be dangerous, that they need repair. Why don't we have the money to invest in our infrastructure? Why is it we cannot create the jobs by investing in our infrastructure? Why can't we repair the bridges and the roads and the highways and build credible transportation systems? It is because this administration has decided that we are going to spend a disproportionate amount of the taxpayers' dollars on this war in Iraq, and we don't know when we are going to get out of this war in Iraq. And this administration would have us believe, because they have sent more soldiers and spent more money in the so-called surge, that somehow we are winning the war. What are we winning? What does winning look like? I don't recognize it. I know this: I know that these 4,000 soldiers that have been killed in Iraq are not with their families, that their families, many, are in disarray; many of them very patriotic, who went to war because the President said that they were needed; and many of them who are no longer with us, their families are suffering. And we have others who have been injured who have come home, and they have not gotten the best medical treatment that they should have received, even though they were promised that, if they serve, they would be taken care of. So here we are. We have destabilized the Middle East and we have occupied Iraq. We have Iran that is threatening us, Syria, Lebanon destabilized, and Pakistan is a joke. I will simply conclude by thanking Lynn Woolsey for all that she has done to try to convince this Congress we should bring our soldiers home.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker and Members, I first would like to thank all of our leaders who were involved in the negotiations on this most important stimulus package. Despite the fact there are some differences and some things we would have liked to have seen differently, this was a good effort, and I think we all have to get behind this effort and move forward with it. I'm thankful for the work that the Speaker did in particular. And I rise in support of the economic stimulus package before us today. It is urgently needed in light of home foreclosure rates that are 70 percent above the same time last year. Labor Department figures show that a sharp slowdown in job creation actually took place in December and the worst holiday season in over 5 years. Americans need help, and I applaud Speaker Pelosi for working with the administration and Minority Leader Boehner to provide it to them and quickly. This package will provide rebates to 117 million households, the kind of broad-based relief required to help jump-start consumer spending and the economy. Individuals can look forward to up to $600 in tax relief, while married couples may get as much as $1,200 to meet their expenses, including skyrocketing costs of fueling their cars and heating their homes. Equally critical, this package is not tilted toward the high income to the extent that the President's original proposal was. Indeed, thanks to Speaker Pelosi's efforts, the package includes tax relief of up to $300 for 35 million working individuals who earn too little to pay income taxes, a group that had been left out of the initial plan. Further, the bill will temporarily raise loan limits for the GSEs and the FHA, which will allow these entities to play an increased role in helping distressed homeowners across the country, especially in high- cost housing markets like my home State of California. As the lead sponsor of H.R. 1852, the Expanding American Homeownership Act of 2007, I am pleased that the bill incorporates loan limit increases for loans written by the Federal Housing Administration. The reforms in H.R. 1852 are critical in addressing the current foreclosure crisis, and I look forward to ensuring enactment of other elements of this much-needed legislation. There are a few critical measures to assist our Nation's lowest income households, those who are most likely to inject any assistance they receive directly into the economy, that I am disappointed were left out of the final stimulus package. In particular, extension of Unemployment Insurance benefits and a 10 percent increase in Food Stamp benefits would provide critical assistance to the Nation's poor families. Moreover, both could start injecting more consumer purchasing power into the economy within 1 to 2 months, even faster than the planned rebate checks are likely to go out. A recent analysis by Economy.com found that for each dollar spent on extended Unemployment Insurance benefits, $1.64 in increased economic activity would be generated and for each dollar in increased food stamp benefits, $1.73 in new economic activity would be generated. This is substantial ``bang-for-the buck'' in fiscal stimulus. Nonetheless, I recognize that Speaker Pelosi had to make some hard choices in negotiations with the Administration and our colleagues from across the aisle, who view appropriate economic stimulus very differently; therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this negotiated proposal.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to Mr. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Committee on Financial Services.

Ms. WATERS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, hardworking member of our subcommittee, Congressman Sires, 2 minutes.

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. WATERS. I will yield that 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Wisconsin, who has been so much involved in this issue, Gwen Moore.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. I would like to thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Financial Services, Barney Frank, and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Mel Watt for their strong support of the manager's amendment to H.R. 3524. In the manager's amendment filed before this committee, we worked very hard to address concerns that had been raised by the minority, housing advocates, resident organizations, housing authorities, and others to ensure that we have a bill that is achievable and responsive to the needs of low-income families and communities. In the manager's amendment we maintain more of our public housing stock by requiring the replacement of any units in existence as of January 1, 2005; provide an extremely limited waiver of the one-for-one requirement in special circumstances, such as a court decree or a severe shortage of land, and impose a penalty on those housing authorities who receive a waiver but fail to meet their obligations under it; allow replacement units to be built outside the jurisdiction of the housing authority in the event the housing authority's jurisdiction is limited in the number of low-poverty areas; extend the timeline for rebuilding from 12 to 54 months; increase resident involvement in decisions surrounding significant changes to HOPE VI plans; exclude green building from total development costs; provide flexibility in nonresidential green development standards; protect grantees affected by cost increases and project delays as a result of the 2005 hurricanes from recapture of their funds; and provide that HOPE VI housing assistance is only for persons who are legally present in the United States. These changes will greatly improve the bill and build upon the success of the HOPE VI program. Since this program's inception in 1992, we have all watched it at work in our districts and wondered how it could work better. We have all seen families displaced and heard stories about families disappearing into thin air because of these developments. We have seen the units come down and seen a reduced number come back up. We know that HOPE VI can and must do better. This manager's amendment as well as the underlying bill will go far into making this a program that truly gives hope to low-income families. I urge you to support the manager's amendment and the underlying bill and to remember that this bill is about maintaining housing for our low-income families. They need our support. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WATERS. I would like to inquire as to how much time I have left, Madam Chairman.

Ms. WATERS. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Danny Davis.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to a gentleman who has been very much involved in this issue, Congressman Elijah Cummings.

Ms. WATERS. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a member of the subcommittee who has never missed a meeting, Congressman Al Green.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison), a hardworking member of our committee.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I would like to inquire how much time I have left.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, to correct that information, I yield 30 seconds to the chairman, Mr. Frank.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), who spent a lot of time working on this manager's amendment and this bill.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey, Congressman Bill Pascrell.

Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, this would be an excellent time for me to call on the major cosponsor of this bill, someone who has been consistently involved with HOPE VI ever since it was originated. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Mel Watt.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 3524, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Ms. WATERS

Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, during consideration of H.R. 3524 pursuant to House Resolution 922, the Chair may reduce to 2 minutes the minimum time for electronic voting under clause 6 of rule XVIII and clauses 8 and 9 of rule XX.