[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19448-19449]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HURRICANE KATRINA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I began this week with a stomach virus that 
had me flat on my back and very quickly that illness was replaced with 
a sickness in my stomach from watching our fellow Americans, some of 
the most vulnerable, some of the poorest, hurting, even dying, and all 
week long, like many of my colleagues I have spoken with today, feeling 
somewhat helpless, even as a Federal legislator, not being able to roll 
up my sleeves and go and help our fellow man.
  We are with all of these people. From the Tennessee Valley to the 
Silicon Valley, we stand with our friends and neighbors in Louisiana 
and Mississippi and Alabama, but particularly in the New Orleans area 
and in southern Mississippi where the devastation is so bad.
  Mr. Speaker, there is going to be plenty of time to point fingers, 
scrub the problems, determine what changes need to be made, what broke 
down at the local, State, Federal level. I hope knowing this 
institution now as well as I have known it for 11 years, and knowing 
the goodness of most people from both sides of the aisle, we can do as 
much as possible, like we did after September 11 and come together, 
bring the Nation together, around the solutions.
  This has been an extraordinary time over these last 4 years in this 
country as we put 22 agencies together to form the Department of 
Homeland Security, including taking FEMA from an independent agency 
under this new umbrella. Obviously all of the bugs have not been worked 
out; and obviously, as the President said today, this is an 
unacceptable response, frankly, at every level, local, State and 
Federal.
  But let us today try to hold off on too much of the blame and come 
together to support all of these people. I am greatly encouraged today 
to see the truckloads and the air loads going in and people being 
evacuated. Until every person that is still living is in a safe and 
secure place, let us try to

[[Page 19449]]

meet each other at the water's edge and try to solve these problems. 
Every minute it is improving and the system is improving at every level 
of government.
  These are difficult, difficult times. It is important that we come 
together. Natural disasters, terrorist activities, these activities 
will probably continue, and we have to make sure I believe as leaders 
that the unity of purpose, of mind, of spirit is maintained in order to 
preserve what we have. It is going to be easy for chaos to take place 
in the cities that are affected or even on the floor of this great 
institution if we are not careful that we do not dumb down to the 
lowest common denominator of criticizing or breaking down. It is a time 
of unity in the day and months ahead. The solutions are extremely 
difficult.
  I want to also talk beyond this crisis and hurricane because I 
believe we were headed for serious trouble before this hurricane hit. 
In places where people are on fixed income, the cost of energy, not 
just gasoline but all energy, was becoming such a burden, and now it is 
compounded because of this incident.
  When crisis sets in, character is born, leaders emerge. We must in 
the short run use every bit of influence to increase the capacity for 
oil for our country. OPEC is just 11 countries, many of which get 
significant funding annually from our country. We need oil. If they 
cannot release more oil, we should hold back the contributions we make 
to their country until we get a satisfactory flow of crude oil into 
this country, from OPEC countries as well as non-OPEC countries. But 
OPEC countries have much more oil than non-OPEC countries, but non-OPEC 
countries are actually producing much more oil than OPEC countries 
today.
  Pressure needs to be placed from the executive branch, but also the 
legislative branch, which has the power of the purse. We need to say 
this is a time of crisis in America. Following this hurricane and 
following incredibly accelerating gas prices, we need relief. We need 
refinery capacity as well. We need cooperation at every level. We need 
response to the short term. And in the long term, we need to bring 
about changes in our country's policy to get ourselves off of oil.
  So let us unite and solve these problems and help America at this 
critical time.

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