[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 72 (Thursday, May 3, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H4466-H4467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson) is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H4467]]

  Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address 
the House on the still-critical matter to the recovery of the gulf 
coast.
  Mr. Speaker, yesterday President Bush vetoed the emergency 
supplemental passed out of this body that would have not only addressed 
the ongoing situation in Iraq, but would have provided the gulf coast 
with much-needed financial support and relief that would have allowed 
recovery and rebuilding to continue in a fairer and more equitable 
manner.
  In doing so, he stated, among other things, that the bill contained 
things, he said, ``billions of dollars in nonemergency spending that 
has nothing to do with fighting the war on terror.'' In this, I hope he 
did not contend that the hundreds of thousands of Katrina and Rita 
victims that were hit by the gulf coast storms in 2005 and whose 
recovery still depends on what we do here to a great extent is not an 
emergency issue.
  While the main focus of the spending bill has been on our troops 
abroad, the bill vetoed yesterday would have done so much for the 
scores of people dealing with the aftermath of the 2005 storms 19 
months later. Nineteen months after the storms our levees are still not 
fully repaired. $1.3 billion for ongoing projects to repair levees and 
other water infrastructure in the New Orleans area was in the vetoed 
bill. With the start of the 2007 hurricane season less than a month 
away, levee repair is an emergency and urgent need.
  Dillard University, Tulane University, Southern University and Xavier 
University were all under water after the storm. Nineteen months later, 
much of the infrastructure is still undone, and many of their 
professors are still out of town. The emergency spending bill would 
have provided $30 million for our Education Department to provide 
assistance to institutions of this type and to incentivize the return 
of professionals to their campuses. It would have given a similar 
amount of $30 million for our elementary and secondary schools to 
incentivize the return of professionals there and to get our schools 
jump-started where half of them remain shuttered after the storm.
  The extension of the $500 million social services block grant was 
also in the bill. This would have provided critical funding for social 
services, including programs for mental health, child welfare, and the 
treatment of addictive disorders. Thousands of citizens suffering from 
mental health disorders, drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, and who 
need care, have nowhere to go. They make our streets unsafe for 
themselves and for their neighbors.
  The SBA is charged with the business of helping our economy recover, 
yet nearly half of our businesses and 40 percent of the tax base of the 
city is still not back. The supplemental would have allowed the SBA to 
use $25 million in unobligated expenses to cover administrative 
expenses relating to the SBA disaster loan program, thereby providing a 
total of $140 million in fiscal year 2007 for that account.
  The bill would have allowed for the forgiveness of community disaster 
loans, following this unprecedented devastation of our city government. 
We now have about 60 percent of our tax base back in place. The city, 
however, has had to borrow $250 million, which we cannot pay back. This 
bill would have permitted forgiveness on those loans as it has for 
loans in disasters prior to ours.
  With 225,000 of our people not back home, living day-to-day in other 
places, they live in a state of emergency every day without our borders 
and have done so for the last 19 months.
  I realize that negotiations have begun on the new spending bill, but 
it is imperative that this portion of the bill that we are mentioning 
tonight, that helps our domestic issues related to Katrina, does not go 
untouched by this new negotiation. In fact, it remains untouched and 
must be included in the new spending bill that may be introduced 
shortly.
  In vetoing this piece of legislation and proclaiming the gulf coast 
as a nonemergency, it is an exercise in unreality. It is no time for us 
to devise an exit strategy at home from the hurricane victims that are 
depending on our government to restore their lives. There must be a 
clear plan to rebuild here at home.
  The administration labeled the supplemental unacceptable. Yet, let me 
remind the administration that it was not an act of God that flooded 
New Orleans. It was the negligence of the Corps of Engineers, a Federal 
agency, that drowned our city. It, therefore, is the responsibility of 
the government, since it broke it, to fix it.
  To ignore the ongoing emergency in our area is unconscionable, and I 
urge this House and all who are watching to insist on the supplemental 
that we are going to follow with here, that it include continued 
support for the Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims of our area.

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