[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 131 (Monday, October 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11410-S11411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HURRICANE RECONSTRUCTION CONTRACTING

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning I and a number of other 
Senators held a policy committee hearing on the issue of FEMA and some 
of the expenditures dealing with Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of 
the devastation of the gulf coast of our country. Some of what we 
learned is enormously distressing. I will share some of it with my 
colleagues, including some ideas about what we ought to be doing about 
it.
  One of the people who came to Capitol Hill this morning was a man 
named Paul Mullinaux, a truck driver who owns his own tractor and 
trailer and lives in Florida. He was contracted by FEMA to haul ice to 
the victims of Hurricane Katrina and for the devastation on the gulf 
coast. Mr. Mullinaux is a person who, when asked to perform this 
service--obviously he was paid for it, but with his refrigeration truck 
and with an opportunity, he went to New York City and picked up a load 
of ice in his 18-wheeler and his refrigerated trailer. That load of ice 
was for delivery to Carthage, MO. He wasn't sure why it was to be 
delivered to Missouri, but it was. He took his 18-wheeler to Carthage, 
MO.
  When he arrived at Carthage, MO, they told him that what he needed to 
do was to go to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. So he had driven his 
18-wheeler with a load of ice from New York City to Carthage, MO. Then 
he was told, go to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. He got in his 
truck and went to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.
  When he got to Alabama, he told us this morning, he spent 12 days 
sitting on the Maxwell Air Force Base tarmac with apparently hundreds 
of other trucks and a load of ice. He said other trucks were loaded 
with ice, they were loaded with blankets, they were loaded with all 
kinds of things that evacuees would have needed, the victims of the 
hurricane would have needed. For 12 days he and his truck, with his 
motor running for the refrigeration to keep the ice cold, sat there. 
Finally, at the end of 12 days he was told he was to take his truckload 
of ice to Idaho.
  Remember, this is a truck driver contracted by FEMA to pick up a load 
of ice in New York and take it to the gulf coast to try to help the 
victims of Hurricane Katrina. He got the ice in New York, went to 
Missouri, then was told to go to Alabama. He went to Alabama, sat there 
12 days and then was told, by the way, now you should take this ice to 
Idaho and put it in storage.
  Mr. Mullinaux told them, I wasn't aware there was a hurricane in 
Idaho and I don't intend to drive to Idaho with this ice. At that 
point, they talked about calling the National Guard to escort him off 
the military base because he had a bad attitude. I would have had a bad 
attitude sitting there 12 days with a refrigeration truck running with 
a load of ice that was supposed to go to hurricane victims. At the end 
of 12 days, he refused to go to Idaho, so they sent him--and he said 
they sent many other trucks--to Massachusetts to offload the ice in a 
warehouse where it is now being stored.
  Think of this. The Federal Government, through FEMA, paid $15,000 to 
a trucker to pick up a load of ice in New York to help hurricane 
victims and they told him to go to Missouri. He went to Missouri. They 
then told him to go to Alabama. He went to Alabama. They then told him 
to wait for 12 days. He sat on the base in Alabama for 12 days and then 
they told him to take the ice to Idaho, to put it in storage. When he 
refused, they said, well, then, take it to Massachusetts. He took it to 
Massachusetts and it is now in storage. From New York, to Missouri, to 
Alabama, to Massachusetts.
  In effect, the American taxpayer has paid this one trucker $15,000 to 
haul ice from New York to Massachusetts to benefit the victims of 
Hurricane Katrina. It is unbelievable and staggering incompetence that 
FEMA is paying this kind of money. But it was not only Paul Mullinaux; 
it was not just him. It was hundreds and hundreds of other truckers 
with exactly the same experience. Loaded with blankets, loaded with 
ice, loaded with the things the victims needed, sitting in an airbase, 
being paid $800, $900 a day per truck while victims waited. 
Incidentally, Paul Mullinaux said they had a small television in that 
truck of theirs sitting on the tarmac of the military base along with 
hundreds of other truckers, and they were seeing on the nightly news 
the victims who were begging and pleading for the things they needed to 
keep them warm, to give them sustenance, food, ice, good water, 
blankets, clothing. And they were all on trucks, sitting there, day 
after day after day after day after day, and, finally, never delivered.
  The question is, when you hear this sort of staggering incompetence, 
who is in charge? Who is accountable? Harry Truman used to have a 
little sign on his desk that said ``The buck stops here.'' Where does 
the buck stop with this? Is anybody accountable? FEMA? It used to be an 
agency we were enormously proud of. Regrettably, many of the top 
positions in that agency were filled with cronies who had no 
information, no experience, no capability with respect to disaster 
preparedness or disaster response. And this is but one small story of 
Paul Mullinaux, a trucker who came here to tell his story, furious as a 
taxpayer about what has happened.
  Al Knight and Mike Moran came, Knight Enterprises. They were hired by 
a subsidiary of Halliburton to do some work down in the Gulf of Mexico 
to try to deal with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. They went out 
as a result of an oral contract and hired 75 skilled, experienced 
electricians to do a job. It wasn't very long before the subcontractor 
with Halliburton said, don't worry about that; your electricians will 
not be on the job very long. We are bringing in new people.
  Guess what. They did bring in new people. My guess is a fair number 
of them were undocumented workers. They say almost none of them spoke 
English. They say their electricians were trying to work beside them 
and these were not skilled electricians. In many cases, they didn't 
know what they were doing.
  Why were they there? Why were they there to replace Louisiana workers 
who wanted the jobs to help get back on their feet, people who were 
victimized by Hurricane Katrina and Rita? Why were others brought in 
from out of state to take those jobs? Money. Just money. Because the 
President said, by the way, with respect to reconstruction in the Gulf 
of Mexico, in Louisiana and related States, Mississippi and so on, we 
will get rid of the Davis-Bacon requirement.
  What is Davis-Bacon? It says the Federal Government, when it does 
work in your region, is going to pay the prevailing wage. They will not 
come in and hire a bunch of fly-by-night operators in order to drop the 
wages to dirt-poor levels. We will, as a Federal Government, pay 
prevailing, regional wages, when we do contracting in a region. But 
when the President said, by the way, Davis-Bacon does not work, does 
not count, with respect to reconstruction in Louisiana, Mississippi, 
and elsewhere, he opened the door for these firms to hire a bunch of 
workers for dollars a day with no benefits, and put them up in 
conditions--by the way, this picture was taken last weekend. Those are 
some of the workers who are brought in to take jobs that days ago 
belonged to the people of Louisiana. Workers who got hit by these 
hurricanes were anxious to get these jobs to try to get back on their 
feet. No more. The jobs now belong the these folks who live in these 
conditions--the exploitation of workers in this country. That is what

[[Page S11411]]

happens when you get rid of the Davis-Bacon requirement of paying the 
prevailing wage--bring somebody in and exploit them.

  And, oh, by the way, one of the witnesses this morning said he saw 
jobs advertised by companies to do the reconstruction that claimed 
their workers can have free meals at the Red Cross. What does that 
mean, ``free meals at the Red Cross''? That means you don't have to pay 
them much. You can underpay them. You can have them live like this, as 
shown in this picture. You can exploit them. And, oh, by the way, we 
can get free meals for you at the Red Cross.
  What a shame this is. The fact is, there is a right way and a wrong 
way to do reconstruction in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, and 
that is to not devastate the local prevailing wage. It is to reach out 
and hire the people in that region who have been victimized by these 
natural disasters. It is not to waste money. There is such prevailing 
waste here, it is almost unbelievable.
  Ms. Sheila Crowley testified this morning. She has a Ph.D. She is 
president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. There is $11 
million being spent each day to put people in hotels who are displaced 
because of Hurricane Katrina. Think of that. So $11 million tonight is 
what the estimate is for hotel rooms.
  Now, why are we still paying for these hotel rooms? Because the 
administration decided they did not want to use a voucher program. They 
do not like vouchers. A voucher program would have been to say to a 
person displaced: Here is a voucher. Go find yourself an apartment. It 
would have used existing housing stock. It would have made a great deal 
of sense and very quickly put people in housing. But the administration 
does not like vouchers, so the people who run these programs have been 
prevented from doing that.
  Let me come back for a moment to the testimony by Paul Mullinaux. I 
have asked FEMA if we can find some accountability in FEMA. Who is it 
that decided we should have a truck pick up ice in New York and deliver 
it to Massachusetts for the purpose of helping victims of Katrina down 
in Louisiana and Mississippi? Who decided to do that? Who authorized 
the payment of $15,000 for that truck and hundreds of other trucks just 
like it full of materials that victims needed, full of food and 
supplies and clothing and ice that victims needed? Will we find the 
answer to that? Will we find some accountability somewhere? I hope so 
because as we produce additional money for reconstruction and as we 
provide additional money to FEMA, the question is, Is this money being 
spent in a manner that meets any commonsense test at all? The fact is, 
this does not meet any test at all, that I am aware of, of efficiency 
or of effectiveness. Someone, some group of people is completely brain 
dead when it comes to managing the resources that belong to the 
taxpayers of this country. I would like to find out who. This country 
deserves better. America deserves better than this. We can do better as 
a country.
  Let me just finally say this: We had a FEMA that was extraordinary. I 
know that because in my State we had a city of nearly 50,000 people 
that was nearly completely evacuated because of a flood. I watched FEMA 
up close. They were extraordinary: professional, sharp, on the mark, on 
the ball, doing the right things.
  Now FEMA is a joke. I am sure there are wonderful people still 
working at FEMA. But I see people inside FEMA, who are career people, 
who say what has happened inside is to hollow out this great 
organization. You put people at the top who have no experience at all 
in this area--just hire a couple cronies, friends, and say, ``Go do 
this,'' with no experience in disaster preparation or disaster 
preparedness--and this is what you get.
  I hope we can find some accountability. I hope we can put some new 
people in charge, in place, to be responsible for this country and to 
its taxpayers. We are going to spend billions more dollars out of this 
Chamber. I have watched it with respect to reconstruction in Iraq, and 
I am now watching it with respect to reconstruction in the wake of 
Hurricane Katrina. In both cases, it appears to me that massive amounts 
of money are being wasted. There is substantial waste, fraud, and 
abuse. Instead of yawning at that problem, this Congress ought to be 
furious. We ought to make sure we put a stop to it right now.

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