[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 124 (Thursday, September 29, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10711-S10712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REIMBURSING CHARITABLE WORK

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, earlier this week the Washington Post 
reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was making plans 
to ``reimburse churches and other organizations that have opened their 
doors to provide shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes 
Katrina and Rita.''
  I understand FEMA's good intentions here, but we need to be very 
careful. There may be extraordinary circumstances when FEMA may need to 
rent buildings that might happen to belong to a church or mosque or 
synagogue. And I understand that under both Presidents George W. Bush 
and Bill Clinton, there have been appropriate ways to provide 
charitable choice and to fund faith-based organizations. I support 
that. I am currently working with Senators on both sides of the aisle 
on our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on legislation 
to help all of Katrina's 372,000 displaced schoolchildren, including 
some who are enrolled in private and even religious schools. But the 
kind of reimbursement described in the Washington Post article makes me 
want to waive three yellow flags and two red ones.
  One obvious concern is constitutional. The first amendment says that 
``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' Paying churches for work 
they choose to undertake as churches raises obvious questions. That is 
not my major concern. My major concern is making sure that we honor 
what it has always meant in America to be a volunteer, to be 
charitable, and to respect our religious traditions.
  When Jesus fed the loaves and the fishes to the multitude of 5,000, 
he didn't send the bill to Caesar. As Americans with a strong religious 
tradition, we believe in helping our neighbors. In the book of Mark, 
Jesus tells us to ``love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength'' and to 
``love their neighbor as thyself.'' This idea of loving and caring for 
our neighbors is not limited to Christianity. Jesus himself drew the 
commands to love God and love our neighbor from the Old Testament in 
Deuteronomy and Leviticus. I don't ever remember reading: ``Love God, 
love your neighbor, and send the bill to Washington for the expenses.''
  From pioneer days, volunteering and helping our neighbors has been an 
essential part of the American character. No other country in the world 
has anything similar to what we have in their traditions. They do not 
give as we give. They do not have that same spirit. It is one of the 
things that makes this a unique country. Our forefathers would be 
dumbfounded to think that if a neighbor's barn burned down and the 
community joined together to rebuild it, that they would expect a check 
from Washington, DC to pay them back.
  In that same Washington Post article, Reverend Robert E. Reccord of 
the Southern Baptist Convention helped put this in balance when he 
said:

       Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer. We would never ask 
     the government to pay for it.

  At my church in Nashville, Westminster Presbyterian, where I am an 
elder, we took up a collection for the victims of Katrina and raised 
about $80,000 in cash. We then filled up the parlor in the church with 
other things that we were told they needed in southern Mississippi. We 
loaded up a truck with diapers and Clorox and other necessities, and 
our associate pastor went down there with that truck for a few weeks to 
help people in need. Are we now supposed to send the Federal Government 
a bill for the food and the supplies and three weeks of the pastor's 
salary? Of course not. No one in our church expects that, nor should 
they.
  So churches and synagogues and mosques and religious organizations 
that are being good neighbors aren't looking for a Government handout. 
They are looking to lend a hand. We should respect them. We should 
thank them. We should honor them. They are performing an invaluable 
service. We encourage them by providing tax incentives for charitable 
giving. But we should also remember that virtue is often its own reward 
and that some rewards are in heaven, and we should be very careful 
before we start reimbursing churches for their charity.
  I ask unanimous consent that the article from the Washington Post to 
which I referred be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S10712]]

             [From the Washington Post, September 27, 2005]

  FEMA Plans To Reimburse Faith Groups for Aid--As Civil Libertarians 
         Object, Religious Organizations Weigh Whether To Apply

              (By Alan Cooperman and Elizabeth Williamson)

       After weeks of prodding by Republican lawmakers and the 
     American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
     said yesterday that it will use taxpayer money to reimburse 
     churches and other religious organizations that have opened 
     their doors to provide shelter, food and supplies to 
     survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
       FEMA officials said it would mark the first time that the 
     government has made large-scale payments to religious groups 
     for helping to cope with a domestic natural disaster.
       ``I believe it's appropriate for the federal government to 
     assist the faith community because of the scale and scope of 
     the effort of how long it's lasting,'' said Joe Becker, 
     senior vice president for preparedness and response with the 
     Red Cross.
       Civil liberties groups called the decision a violation of 
     the traditional boundary between church and state, accusing 
     FEMA of trying to restore its battered reputation by playing 
     to religious conservatives.
       ``What really frosts me about all this is, here is an 
     administration that didn't do its job and now is trying to 
     dig itself out by making right-wing groups happy,'' said the 
     Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United 
     for Separation of Church and State.
       FEMA officials said religious organizations would be 
     eligible for payments only if they operated emergency 
     shelters, food distribution centers for medical facilities at 
     the request of state or local governments in the three states 
     that have declared emergencies--Louisiana, Mississippi and 
     Alabama. In those cases, ``a wide range of costs would be 
     available for reimbursement, including labor costs incurred 
     in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and 
     delivery of essential needs like food and water,'' FEMA 
     spokesman Eugene Kinerney said in an e-mail.
       For churches, synagogues and mosques that have taken in 
     hurricane survivors, FEMA's decision presents a quandary. 
     Some said they were eager to get the money and had begun 
     tallying their costs, from electric bills to worn carpets. 
     Others said they probably would not apply for the funds, 
     fearing donations would dry up if the public came to believe 
     they were receiving government handouts.
       ``Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer,'' said the Rev. 
     Robert E. Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist 
     Convention's North American Mission Board. ``We would never 
     ask the government to pay for it.''
       When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf 
     Coast, religious charities rushed in to provide emergency 
     services, often acting more quickly and efficiently than the 
     government. Relief workers in the stricken states estimate 
     that 500,000 people have taken refuge in facilities run by 
     religious groups.
       In the days after the disaster, house Majority Leader Tom 
     DeLay (R-Tex.) and other Republicans complained that FEMA 
     seemed reluctant to pay church groups. ``There are tons of 
     questions about what is reimbursable, what is not 
     reimbursable,'' DeLay said Sept. 13, noting that Houston 
     alone had ``500 or 600 churches that took in evacuees, and 
     they would get no reimbursement.''
       Becker said he and his staff at the Red Cross also urged 
     FEMA to allow reimbursement of religious groups. Ordinarily, 
     Becker said, churches provide shelter for the first days 
     after a disaster, then the Red Cross takes over. But in a 
     storm season that has stretched every Red Cross shelter to 
     the breaking point, church buildings must for the first time 
     house evacuees indefinitely.
       Even so, Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church 
     and State, said that federal reimbursement is inappropriate.
       ``The good news is that this work is being done now, but I 
     don't think a lot of people realize that a lot of these 
     organizations are actively working to obtain federal funds. 
     That's a strange definition of charity,'' he said.
       Lynn added that he accepts the need for the government to 
     coordinate with religious groups in a major disaster, but not 
     to ``pay for their good works.''
       ``We've never complained about using a religious 
     organization as a distribution point for food or clothing or 
     anything else,'' Lynn said. But ``direct cash reimbursements 
     would be unprecedented.''
       FEMA outlined the policy in a Sept. 9 internal memorandum 
     on ``Eligible Costs for Emergency Sheltering Declarations.'' 
     Religious groups, like secular nonprofit groups, will have to 
     document their costs and file for reimbursement from state 
     and local emergency management agencies, which in turn will 
     seek funds from FEMA.
       David Fukitomi, infrastructure coordinator for FEMA in 
     Louisiana, said that the organization has begun briefings for 
     potential applicants in the disaster area but that it is too 
     early to know how many will take advantage of the program.
       ``The need was so overwhelming that the faith-based groups 
     stepped up, and we're trying to find a way to help them 
     shoulder some of the burden for doing the right thing,'' he 
     said, adding that ``the churches are interested'' but that 
     ``part of our effort is getting the local governments to be 
     interested in being their sponsor.''
       A spokeswoman for the Salvation Amy said it has been in 
     talks with state and federal officials about reimbursement 
     for the 76,000 nights of shelter it has provided to Katrina 
     survivors so far. But it is still unclear whether the 
     Salvation Army will qualify, she said.
       The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Save America, 
     an antiabortion group formerly known as Operation Rescue, 
     said, ``Separation of church and state means nothing in time 
     of disaster; you see immediately what a farce it is.''
       Benham said that his group has been dispensing food and 
     clothing and that ``Bibles and tracts go out with everything 
     we put out.'' In Mendenhall, Miss., he said, he preached to 
     evacuees while the mayor directed traffic and the sheriff put 
     inmates from the county jail to work handing out supplies.
       Yet Benham said he would never accept a dime from the 
     federal government. ``The people have been so generous to 
     give that for us to ask for reimbursement would be like 
     gouging for gas,'' he said. ``That would be a crime against 
     heaven.''
       For some individual churches, however, reimbursement is 
     very appealing. At Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Ocean 
     Springs, Miss., as many as 200 evacuees and volunteer workers 
     have been sleeping each night in the sanctuary and Sunday 
     School classrooms. The church's entrance hall is a Red Cross 
     reception area and medical clinic. As many as 400 people a 
     day are eating in the fellowship hall.
       Suzie Harvey, the parish administrator, said the church was 
     asked by the Red Cross and local officials to serve as a 
     shelter. The church's leadership agreed immediately, without 
     anticipating that nearly a quarter of its 650 members would 
     be rendered homeless and in no position to contribute funds. 
     ``This was just something we had to do,'' she said. ``Later 
     we realized we have no income coming in.''
       Harvy said the electric bill has skyrocketed, water is 
     being used round-the-clock and there has been ``20 years of 
     wear on the carpet in one month.' When FEMA makes money 
     available, she said, the church definitely will apply.

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