[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19556]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT RESTORATION AND IMPROVEMENT ACT

  (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, we confront a hideous problem in this 
Nation. People are dying. People are dead. And people need help. The 
hospitals are full and nonfunctioning, and the suffering is tremendous 
all across the southern part of the United States.
  The first task we have is to assure that we take care of the people, 
and we resolve the problems of seeing to it that their suffering is 
ended and that the rebuilding begins. But while we are doing that, we 
can commence looking at one thing, and that is the structure of the 
Federal Government to address problems of these kinds.
  At the time we passed the Homeland Security legislation, it was very 
plain that inserting FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security was 
a prodigious mistake. Events in the southern United States associated 
with Hurricane Katrina have proved that to be so.
  I am introducing at an early time legislation which sees to it that 
FEMA becomes an independent agency, with the head reporting directly to 
the President of the United States, whose responsibility will be set 
out in statute and whose qualifications and that of his two principal 
assistants, also subject to confirmation by the Senate, will have to 
meet certain tests, and that is the need to show ability and experience 
in areas of emergency management. Only by doing this can we assure that 
the kind of misfortune and the kind of open criticism that has occurred 
in the United States of FEMA and our efforts to help people in the 
southern United States will not occur on a regular basis.
  Mr. Speaker, FEMA was an outstanding Federal agency directing its 
attentions to the cure of massive problems that followed catastrophes, 
things like hurricanes, fires and earthquakes. We need to see to it 
that that wonderful reputation is restored by proper structuring of the 
agency.

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