[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book I)]
[January 12, 2006]
[Pages 60-68]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks on Gulf Coast Reconstruction in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
January 12, 2006
Thank you all. Please be seated. Haley
said that it's protocol not to introduce the President. Well, that shows
what he knows about protocol. [Laughter] He just introduced me.
[Laughter] Thanks for having me back. My first observation is, it's good
to see--to be able to look in people's eyes and not see them all
bloodshot. [Laughter]
I can remember coming here, the times I came and looked hard in
people's eyes and saw a sense of desperation and worry and deep, deep
concern about the future. I'm sure there is still concern about the
future, but the eyes have cleared up. There's a sense of optimism.
There's a hope. There's a little bounce in people's step. I'm not
surprised; the people down here have showed incredible courage. And I
want to thank you for showing the rest of our country what it means to
survive an incredible hardship with high spirits.
Your Governor has done a magnificent job.
He went up to Washington--[applause]. You know, it's nice of him to give
me the credit to sign the bill. It's nice of him to compliment
Congressman Taylor, who deserves to be
complimented, and compliment--and Congressman Chip Pickering, both of whom are here, and I thank
them for coming. It's wise of him to compliment Senator Lott and Senator Cochran. [Laughter] And he's right to compliment them. But
the truth of the matter is, the person who deserve the biggest
compliment, in my judgment, is the man who brought the will of the
Mississippi people, the needs of the Mississippi people up to
Washington, DC, and fashioned one heck of a piece of legislation for the
people of this important State. Thank you, Governor, for your hard work.
And I want to thank Marsha for being
here as well. I don't know how you put up with him for all these years. [Laughter] You must be a patient
soul. But he married well, just like me. And speaking about that,
Laura sends her best wishes to all of you all.
She's looking forward to coming back down here. She's not going to
believe the difference between the last time she was here and today.
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It's hard sometimes, unless you've got a perspective. I have the
perspective of having spent some time here but not all my time. And I
can remember what was and now what is, and I can see what's going to be
too. And it's going to be a better gulf coast of Mississippi.
I want to thank Roy Bernardi, who is the
Deputy Secretary of HUD. He's going to have some stuff to do to make
sure this part of the world rebounds. I like your mayors. They're down-
to-earth people. They are good, solid people--Mayor Eddie Favre. You know, one time a buddy of mine said, when the
baseball players and owners couldn't figure out an agreement and they
went on strike and quit Major League Baseball, he said, ``I'm never
going back to a baseball game for 10 years.'' And I said, sure, you
know. And he's a great baseball fan. And, sure enough, last year was his
10th year, and he finally went to a game. The reason I bring that up is
Eddie said, ``I'm not going to wear long pants''--[laughter]--and I'm
saying to myself, ``One of these days, the President is going to show
up, and Eddie sure enough will put on long pants.'' [Laughter] I didn't
know him very well. [Laughter] I arrived here at this important school,
and he's got short pants on. Eddie, I like a man who sticks to his guns.
[Laughter] Thanks for hosting us.
And so I'm standing in the White House at a Christmas reception, and
in walks Tommy Longo. He's the mayor of
Waveland, of course. And he had on a fantastic suit. [Laughter] I nearly
fell out. [Laughter] Tommy Longo in a suit? [Laughter] I said, ``Where
did you get that thing?'' He said, ``It's amazing what you can find in
the rubbish.'' [Laughter]
I've learned something about the mayors up and down the gulf coast.
You've got some young mayors east of here who have been in office, what,
3 or 4 months, and the storm hit. They were incredibly tested--
Pascagoula and other places. You got some veterans who have been around
for a while, never dreamt they'd see a day like the day they saw. But
whether they're veterans or rookies, all of them have stood strong. All
of them have rallied with the first-responders. All of them have shown
great compassion to the people. I am proud of your local mayors, your
local governments, people like Rocky Pullman of the Hancock Board of Supervisors, the people
working in these counties. You got some good folks down here. And one of
the reasons why I'm confident about your recovery is because you've
elected good people to take on the job.
Finally, I want to thank Brother Talbot
and Brother Hingle of this fantastic school.
Thanks for hosting us. Tommy Longo was in the
class of '75. I hope that means you didn't lower your academic standards
in that year. [Laughter] He and old Doc Blanchard, they told me. Doc
Blanchard went here, in case
you didn't know it, the Heisman Trophy winner who carried the leather
for West Point. And one of the things the Brother told me, he said, ``We
wanted to make sure we saved the Heisman Trophy that Doc Blanchard had
made sure was housed here at this facility.'' But I do want to thank you
all for letting us come by. Thanks for your being in education, really
an important part of the future of this State and this country, to make
sure people get a good education.
I stood in Jackson Square early on in--after the storm hit, and I
said, ``We're not just going to survive but thrive.'' By that I meant,
it's one thing to kind of ride it out; it's another thing to take out of
the harm that came, convert this into a better life. I said, ``We're not
just going to cope, but we'll overcome.'' I meant what I said. I
couldn't have said that if I didn't have confidence, though, in the
people in the local area that have such a spirit to be able to do so.
I'm here to report to you some of the progress made and to let you
know that people in faraway places like Washington, DC, still hear you
and care about you.
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Signing all the legislation I've signed, the Federal Government has
committed 85 billion so far to helping folks and to help rebuild the
gulf coast of our country. Of that 85 billion, about 25 billion has been
spent. So 85 million [billion]* is available; 25 of it is already in the
pipeline. That's 60 billion more coming your way.
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*White House correction.
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Part of the strategy to make sure that the rebuilding effort after
the recovery effort worked well was to say to people like Haley and the Governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans, ``You all develop a strategy. It's your State. It's your
region; you know the people better than people in Washington. Develop
the rebuilding strategy.'' And the role of the Federal Government is to
coordinate with you and to help.
I thought that was an important first statement to make when people
began to wonder what life would be like after the storm hit. My view is,
and a lot of my political philosophy is based on, the local folks know
better than the folks in Washington, DC. I remember when Haley invited
me down, and he said--I think we were in a tent at that time, and there
wasn't a lot of electricity--it was like an old-time daytime revival
without electricity. It was hot in the tent. It was the first meeting, I
think, at least the first called meeting, of the commission headed by
Jim Barksdale. Citizens from all walks of
life, all occupations, all aimed at one thing: putting together a
strategy that will help this part of the world become even better than
it was before.
I have an obligation to make sure that the Federal Government
responds and coordinates and stays in touch with not only the commission
and the Governor but local folks as well. And
I picked a fellow that I trust, a person who's had a lot of experience,
a person who understands how people think down here; after all, he is
from Texas. He understands urban life, and he understands rural life,
and he knows the importance of county commissioners; you call them
county supervisors, I guess. He's a guy who's a good listener, and he's
got my full confidence. And that's my friend Don Powell who's with me today. He's going to be the Federal
coordinator. His job is to come down here and listen and report back.
And I recognize there are some rough spots, and I'm going to mention
some of them here in a minute, and we're going to work to make them as
smooth as possible. The first challenge we had after the storm hit was
to take care of the people that were displaced, millions of people, or
over a million people evacuated and scattered. It was an amazing period
in our history, when you think about it. One day people's lives are
turned upside down, and they're looking for help, and they're looking
for compassion, and they found it. People found it in churches, in
synagogues, in community centers, in private homes. It's an amazing part
of our history, when you think about it. It's like there's a great
capacity to absorb hurt in our country, because we've got individuals
that are so decent and honorable.
The Government had a role to play, and that was to get money in
people's pockets. I mean, when you have to evacuate, you don't have time
to plan. And so one of the first things we did was, we got $2,000 in
people's pockets as quickly as possible, to help them. In other words,
it was a response geared toward the individual. We had a special
designation for all evacuees, so they can become available for Medicaid
or family services or the Federal programs. The idea was to get a
response as quickly as possible to people who are scattered all over the
country so they could--to help get their feet on the ground.
We gave waivers to States. In other words, we kind of deregulated
the system so States could respond quickly to the people who needed
help. We provided 700,000 households with rental help. In other
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words, the goal is for people to be back in their homes, in a home they
call their own. That's the goal. But in the meantime, we had to deal
with people evacuated and people without homes. And so a part of the
plan has been to provide temporary housing with rental vouchers; $390
million went out as HUD vouchers for a group of people that qualified.
I can remember people hollering for trailers. We became the largest
consumer of trailers probably in the history of mankind. [Laughter] And
I know it was slow to begin with. The production needed to be ramped up,
and, frankly, the Government crowded out other purchasers in order to
set priorities for people down in this part of the world. We've now put
out 61,000 trailers, and there are more in the pipeline. I was asking
Haley, does he have a feel for how many more
we need, and he said, ``We're getting close to the end, but there's
still a need.'' And we understand that. And the manufacturing is
making--we put cruise ships out at one point to help people house on a
temporary basis, particularly in New Orleans, so that we could get the
police and the firefighters a place to stay so they could do their job.
People ended up in hotel rooms. At one time there was about 80-some
thousand people in hotel rooms. It's now down to 25,000 families in
hotel rooms. We're in the process of trying to locate every single
family and provide the rental assistance help for them, so they can move
from the hotel into rental housing, all aimed, by the way, at providing
some kind of housing until the permanent housing market takes off. We're
trying to bridge from being an evacuee to a person in a place until
their own home gets ready to move into.
And so what can we do? Well, first thing is, we can focus on
repairing homes. That's not going to do you very good down here in
Waveland. I understand that. Tommy and I and the
Governor and Marsha just drove by; there's no homes to repair. It's just been
flattened. That's what the people of America have got to understand.
Sometimes hurricanes go through, and, you know, there's a home and a
structure you can maybe put a roof on or do something--not here. Our
fellow citizens have got to know when this hurricane hit, it just
obliterated everything. It just flattened it.
But in parts of the hurricane zone, there's repairs that can be
done. FEMA assistance will help with that. SBA loans have gone out to
about--for about $2.1 billion to help people repair their homes. Now,
the most innovative approach, however, to getting the homes rebuilt is
the CDBG grants that Haley Barbour negotiated
on behalf of the people of Mississippi. That's government initials for,
direct money to help people who weren't able to get their insurance to
pay them off.
I remember being down in Biloxi. I think it was my first trip. And
it was hot, and it was steamy. An old lady walked up to me and said to
me--I said, ``How are you doing?'' And she looked at me and she said,
``Not worth a darn.'' [Laughter] And I said, ``Well, I don't blame
you.'' She said, ``I've been paying all my life for my insurance. Every
time that bill came, I paid it, every single month. And all of a sudden
the storm hit, Mr. President, and I came time to collect, and they told
me no.'' And she was plenty unhappy, and she was looking for anybody she
could be unhappy with, and I just happened to be the target. [Laughter]
I think Gene was with me then; I might have
shared the story with Gene about that.
One way to handle the issue--I know you got a lawsuit here; I'm not
going to talk about the lawsuit. But Haley did
something innovative, which was take the CDBG grants, a lot of money for
Mississippi and going to help the people do the job that many think the
insurance companies should have done in the first place.
Having said that, the Government has paid out $12 billion in flood
insurance. For
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those who had flood insurance, the Government is making good on its--on
the bargain with the people. If you got an FHA loan, your loan will be
forgiven for a year. In other words, there is an attempt to try to make
sure that things are being done so that we can--people can get back in
their homes, and people can get to be rebuilding.
There's going to be a building boom down here; there just is. It's
going to be an exciting time for people. One of the real challenges is
whether or not people are going to have the skill set necessary to be
able to meet the needs of the people. Are there going to be enough
electricians, enough plumbers, enough roofers? But you're going to have
yourself a building boom; you watch. There's going to be work; people
are going to be working hard here.
And Don Powell and I, to this end, met
with a group of leaders in Washington, DC, from building trade unions
and businesses, and the whole idea was to come up with a strategy to
make sure people have got the skills necessary to fill the jobs which
are going to exist. See, our goal, and I know it's the
Governor's goal, is to make sure the jobs
first go to Mississippi people, when it comes to rebuilding this--
[applause]--and Mississippi businesses. And we want this opportunity to
be an opportunity where minority-owned businesses and women-owned
businesses have a chance to flourish. An ownership society has got to be
a part of a new vision, where people from all walks of life can say,
``I'm owning my own business. I'm operating my own business. I'm owning
my own home.''
It's a fantastic opportunity. And--but it's not going to work unless
people have the skill set necessary to be able to fill those jobs and to
be able to provide for the--to meet the consumer demand. And so the idea
is--and Powell is going to work on this
strategy--is to work with your community college system or the building
trades and have centers where people can go to learn how to get the
skills necessary to fill the jobs which are coming. They're coming. It's
going to be an exciting time down here, just so long as you're able to
get enough material and enough labor.
One of the important--and by the way, speaking about jobs, not only
we got to make sure people have the skills necessary to fill the jobs,
the Federal Government has got a lot of facilities down here, and
there's a lot of Federal employees in this part of the world. We're
going to rebuild the Federal facilities so that the people will be able
to work.
This recovery is going to be led by the private sector. However, the
Federal Government is going to help, and $85 billion is a good--I would
call that ``help''--so far. But the truth of the matter is, the jobs and
the quality of life, the recovery, is going to be led by the private
sector. I was asking Haley about some of the
industries down here, and he told me, for example, at the year end, a
casino opened. I mean, it's remarkable. If you'd have seen what I--I'm
sure you saw what it looked like up and down this coast, and all of the
sudden, there's businesses, and people are thriving. People are
beginning to work. It's happening. It's the private sector that's going
to carry much of the recovery.
Congress did a smart thing, in my judgment--was to provide tax
incentives for businesses who are in this part of the world. They
provide tax incentives for small businesses to expense up to $200,000 of
investment and private--and incentive for all businesses to provide a
50-percent bonus depreciation for investment made. What I'm telling you
is, it's kind of economic talk for saying, if somebody spends money in
an investment in this part of the world, they get a tax incentive to do
so. In other words, if you're able to make the Tax Code attract capital
so people invest, it means you're more likely to be able to find work
here. It goes on. It's a smart idea, and again, I want to thank the
Members of Congress for working on that. I think it's going to make a
big difference.
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If you're a small-business owner--we just met today, by the way,
with some small-business owners in New Orleans. And one of the things
that became loud and clear to me there was that because a lot of people
haven't moved back into the area, and if you're a small-business owner,
there's no customers, so you have no cash flow, which makes it awfully
difficult to survive. There are SBA loans for this, and I understand for
some the word ``SBA'' means ``slow bureaucratic paperwork.'' [Laughter]
I hear it loud and clear. I will tell you that SBA has put out about
$470 million worth of SBA loans. In other words, the loans are going
out.
But this small agency has been overwhelmed. And so Don
Powell is working on an interesting idea,
and that is to work with the local bankers, people who understand the
local customer, as to how to become the agent for the SBA to get money
out the door to help small businesses manage their cash flow needs until
the customer base comes back.
The other thing that happened quickly--and I'm real proud of your
folks down here--was that the energy sector rebounded unbelievably fast.
This part of the world is really important for national security and
economic security of the United States of America. Remember, when the
storms hit, a lot of folks were really worried about the price of crude
oil and gasoline. We, fortunately--we just did two things I thought were
wise.
One, we suspended reformulated gasoline rules, which enabled us to
import gasoline from Europe, which helped to take the pressure off the
market. And the price of gasoline, although it went up, didn't go up
nearly as high as a lot of people thought, and is now heading back down,
thank goodness, for people who are working for a living. And the price
of crude oil stayed reasonable because we opened up the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. I was confident in being able to do that because I
knew how fast this industry could move if just given a chance. The
suspension of some regulations to help these refineries and these gas
processing plants get up on their feet was important. In other words, if
you can get government out of the way, amazing things can happen
sometimes in the private--[applause].
And so I want to thank those of you who work in the energy industry
for doing what you're doing. I remember going to the plant--I think
Haley was with me--went to the plant in
Pascagoula. And we had people there camped out there working as hard as
they could to get the refineries up so that our citizens from all around
the country would be able to have gasoline at a reasonable price. And
these people worked hour after hour after hour and did the Nation a
great service. In the meantime, we did our part, tried to do our part to
make sure that we cleaned out the waterways so that the ships could move
better. Our Coast Guard, by the way, provided invaluable service here in
this part of the country.
Part of the recovery of this part of the world is going to be when
you get your infrastructure up and running. And I can remember first
choppering over here and seeing the incredible devastation done to the
bridges and highways. First of all, there has been some incredible
construction done. The Slidell Bridge there, to the west of you, got up
in record time. It's amazing what happens when you provide a completion
bonus for people doing work. [Laughter]
And I know you're concerned about the I-90 bridge, but they're
getting ready to start on it, as I understand. And the bills I've signed
provide $2.3 billion for repair of highways and bridges in this part of
the world. That's going to provide not only jobs but it's going to make
the quality of life come back to what it was. You're dependent upon good
highways and good bridges in this part of the world. The Government
recognized that and put the money out there, available for reimbursing
the States
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when they get these highway projects moving.
One of the really interesting things that happened was education,
how the country responded for the kids who have been moved around. And
school districts all over America took children from Louisiana and
Mississippi and helped educate them. It was really remarkable to watch
the education system rise to the challenge. In the bill there is $1.6
billion worth of operating money. It was money to help these schools
stay afloat; it was to reimburse school districts for taking in the
children who had evacuated to their part of the world. That's in
addition to the Federal commitment to replace every school. In other
words, part of the commitment is that if your school got destroyed, the
Federal Government will help rebuild the school or will rebuild the
school.
Plus, we understood that there was a lot of kids that were going to
higher education and these--higher education institutions were affected
by the storm, obviously, and they were allowed to retain their Federal
aid, even though children weren't going to school. In other words, we
made a concerted effort to help these schools to cope with the crisis.
We're going to make a concerted effort to help the schools deal with the
long-term reconstruction as a result of the crisis.
Ninety-three percent of the schools here in Mississippi are up and
running, and it's an amazing feat in 4 months time. It's a great credit,
again, to your Governor and your education
institution, but more importantly, it's a great credit to the teachers
and superintendents and principals of your local schools.
Finally, the first issue I was confronted with as the President was
debris. I remember the meeting very well when the mayor showed up and
said, ``We can't possibly say to our people things are going to get
better so long as we got piles of debris lying around.'' It was not only
a practical issue, but it was a psychological issue. And I can
understand--I mean, I understood right off the bat what they were
talking about. And we had a slow start, because we had a little bit of
a--we had an issue of how to get debris off of private property. And,
thankfully, there was some creative work done here at the local and
State level, with the Federal Government--it really was--as to how to
deal with the liability issue.
I don't want to go into the law; I'm not even a lawyer. Got too many
of them up there in Washington, anyway. But my point is, is that by
listening to the local folks and by being flexible about how to deal
with an important issue like debris, we're making pretty good progress.
Out of 42 million cubic yards of debris, 27 million have been removed.
Now, there's still debris. It's estimated about 15 million cubic
foot--cubic yards of debris left. But there's a certain momentum that's
gathering. Haley believes that by the end of March, we can get most of
the debris off of the public property. In other words, they're making
progress.
Don Powell's job is, to the extent that
the Federal Government is contracting out--we want to make sure that
they just don't hustle when the President shows up, that they're
hustling all the time, because the rebuilding and rebirth of this area
is really going to depend in large measure to getting these lots clean,
to getting your public access roads cleaned up, getting that debris out
of people's sight. There's something--there's a certain confidence to be
gained when you see this beautiful countryside cleared of the damage of
Katrina. Things have changed a lot when it comes to debris. It looks a
lot different, a whole lot different. And we got more work to be done,
and we're going to stay on it until it gets done.
And so we've done a lot, and there's a lot more to do, but there's a
certain optimism and hope that's coming. I hope you feel that. You've
come a long way in 4 months. Seems like an eternity to you, I
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know. Seems like a lot of time for a lot of people to have gone through
what you went through. Four months is not all that long, and a lot has
happened in that 4-month period. And a lot more is going to happen in
the next 4 months, and then the next 4 months. I can't wait to come
back, and keep coming back and seeing the progress that's being made.
We've learned some lessons about Katrina, and we're going to analyze
every lesson learned. Obviously, the Federal response in parts of this
devastated area could have been a lot better. We want to know how to
make them better. We want to make sure that when there's a catastrophe
of any kind, this Government, at the Federal level, is capable of
dealing with it, in conjunction with the State and local governments.
There's going to be some lessons learned about having agencies that
get overwhelmed by a size of a storm, agencies whose job it is to help
people get on their feet and maybe aren't able to do it quite as
efficiently as some would like. Those are the lessons we're going to
continually analyze. That's what you ought to expect of those of us who
have been given the high honor of serving you, to constantly look for
ways to do things better. And I just want to assure you, we are. We are.
But there's some other lessons learned where we don't need to
change: the lesson of courage. We saw great courage. I'll never forget
going to the hangar to see those Coast Guard kids that were flying those
choppers. I think it's something like 30,000 citizens were saved by
rescue efforts by Coast Guard men and local responders. And the people
here on the frontlines of saving lives showed great courage during
Katrina.
I remember seeing the determination of our citizens. One of the
lessons learned is when people are determined, they can get things done.
At the Pass Christian school system, for example, this is a place where
they consolidated all the schools at the elementary school. It was kind
of inconvenient, when you think about it, but the inconvenience didn't
bother the people in charge of that school system. As a matter of fact,
they viewed it as a fantastic opportunity to be able to come together
and share--and that school was up and running, with broken windows and--
but there wasn't a broken heart, and their spirit wasn't broken.
One of the lessons, of course, as I mentioned, is the compassion of
our fellow citizens. Think about lonely folks being sent out, having all
their property, their material goods destroyed, wondering what the
future meant for them, and there's a loving family saying, ``I love you,
brother. I love you, sister.'' Think about a country where the
compassion is so strong that a neighbor in need can find a stranger that
wants to help them get their feet back on the ground.
One of the lessons of this storm is the decency of people, the
decency of men and women who care a lot about their fellow citizens,
whether they be elected officials or just folks on the ground here just
trying to make somebody else's life even better than it was before. So
we learned some lessons about how to respond, and we're going to change.
But some of the lessons shouldn't change, and that is the decency and
character of the American people.
It's been an amazing experience for you. You just got to know,
though, that a lot of people in this country, many of whom have never
been down here, care for you; they pray for you, and they're pulling for
you. God bless.
Note: The President spoke at 1:47 p.m. at St. Stanislaus College. In his
remarks, he referred to Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and his wife,
Marsha; Mayor Edward A. Favre of Bay St. Louis, MS; Brothers Ronald
Talbot, president, and Ronald Hingle, principal, St. Stanislaus College;
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana; Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New
Orleans, LA; James L.
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Barksdale, chairman, Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and
Renewal; and Donald E. Powell, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, in his capacity as coordinator of Federal gulf coast relief
efforts.