[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 72 (Thursday, May 3, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H4471]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       IRAQ WAR SUPPLEMENTAL BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the issue of the 
Iraqi supplemental that we are currently about to redo.
  As you know, Mr. Speaker, the President in his regional message 
indicated that the bill ``is loaded with billions of dollars in 
nonemergency spending that has nothing to do with fighting the war on 
terror.'' He went on to say that Congress should debate these spending 
measures on their own merits and not as a part of an emergency funding 
bill for our troops.
  Mr. Speaker, for 19 months now, we have been trying to get this 
administration to pay attention to the people on the gulf coast. We 
have for weeks and months been trying to get the President to support 
our efforts to make sure that many of the families and friends of our 
troops, who have been affected in Louisiana, Mississippi, and even in 
Florida and Texas by this catastrophic event perpetrated by Hurricanes 
Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, get help. Today, we have not been able to get 
the President to support our efforts as we have tried to address these 
emergencies.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, since we are doing an emergency spending bill, 
we thought it very appropriate for us to do both international and 
domestic emergencies all in one piece of legislation. Consequently, we 
have moved in this legislation to address issues such as the East and 
West Bank Levee Protection and Coastal Restoration System in New 
Orleans and the surrounding parishes by inserting into this legislation 
$1.3 billion. We have added another $30 million for K-12 education 
recruitment assistance, another $30 million for higher education 
assistance.
  I plan to be in Baton Rouge next week to address Southern 
University's commencement exercises. I would hope that, as I go there, 
I can carry them more than mere promises to get them to feeling, once 
again, that we in this body are paying attention to and responding to 
the problems that they are suffering, many of them having lost a full 
year out of their educational pursuits.
  I would hope that those children in K through 12 can begin to feel 
that here in this Congress, with this emergency supplemental, that we 
are going to respond to them as well.
  And then there is the Community Disaster Loan Forgiveness Program. We 
have put language in this bill to address that issue, $4.3 billion for 
FEMA disaster recovery grants. These State and local grants will be 
waived, meaning that the Federal Government will be able to finance 100 
percent of the grants.
  We have been trying for a long time now to get this administration to 
treat the victims of Katrina, Rita and Wilma in the same way we treated 
disasters after 9/11 in New York, the same way we treated the 
earthquakes in California, the same way we treated the Hurricane Andrew 
down in Florida some years ago and Hurricane Anika out in Hawaii. In 
each one of those instances, we waived matching requirements. In this 
instance, we have not. And so we want, in this administration, to waive 
those requirements of the Stafford Act, the matching requirements, so 
that we can begin to address these emergencies.
  There are other emergencies that we plan to address here, and that is 
the Children's Health Insurance Program. We think, with 14 States out 
of money, another 3 States expected to be out of money by September 1, 
it is an emergency for the children in those 17 States, and I would 
hope that when we put the final bill together to send back to the 
President, we will address these emergencies that we have with our 
people here at home.

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