Sen. Landrieu to Senate:
Don't Go Home for Christmas
Before Helping Hurricane Victims
November 18, 2005
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U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., took to the Senate floor this morning to point out in an impassioned speech that while the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) plans to evict as many as 150,000 displaced Gulf Coast residents from hotel rooms on December 1st, Congress and the White House have failed to yet address the significant long-term needs of victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the levee breaks that followed.
"The people in this country must know that our work is not yet finished," Sen. Landrieu said. "We are going to break for the holidays, but for hundreds of thousands of people, there will be no holiday table to go home to."
Not only has Washington fallen short in working to provide much-needed housing, Sen. Landrieu said, it has also failed to provide real health care, economic and education relief or a long-term commitment to a Category 5 hurricane protection system and robust coastal restoration effort - all elements of Sen. Landrieu's "5 Keys to Reopening Our Home."
In response to comments by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., noting that the Senate has already passed 21 pieces of hurricane relief legislation, Sen. Landrieu agreed that bipartisanship has led to important short-term steps, particularly in the Senate. But she said it is "not the quantity of legislation [that matters], but the quality."
"Just because we have done our job doesn't mean the same thing is happening on the other side of the Capitol," Sen. Landrieu added - a reference to the House of Representatives' Republican leadership opposition to and inaction on several Senate-backed measures, including $1.6 billion for schools that have taken in displaced students, $1.4 billion in coastal restoration funding, $450 million in bridge loans for small businesses and $3.5 billion in rental assistance for displaced residents.
Cooperation across the aisle did, however, result today in the passage of additional borrowing authority for FEMA, so that it may continue making flood insurance payments well into January. The bill, which passed the Senate unanimously, increases FEMA's borrowing rate to $18.5 billion - or $10 billion more than the House originally passed. It is expected to pass the House later this afternoon.
"I am pleased that the Senate has decided to expand FEMA's borrowing authority for the National Flood Insurance Program before adjourning for the Thanksgiving recess," Sen. Landrieu said. "FEMA will now be able to pay flood claims to people desperate for them.
"We will need more funding than this later on, but for now, this will give some much-needed peace of mind to thousands of people along the Gulf Coast through the holidays. I urge the House to pass this measure, and hope the President signs it into law as soon as possible."
And yesterday, after a meeting with Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works John Paul Woodley, Jr., Sen. Landrieu said the Army Corps of Engineers head had pledged to be a "strong advocate" for Louisiana's hurricane protection and coastal restoration needs, as well as Sen. Landrieu's plan for those efforts to be funded by offshore oil and gas revenues.
Woodley, a Shreveport native whose sister's New Orleans home was destroyed by the Katrina floods, also expressed a strong interest in joining Sen. Landrieu and other state leaders on their trip to the Netherlands next month to study the nation's world-class storm protection and flood control systems.
"Louisiana has good friends in high places who haven't given up," Sen. Landrieu said. "But we need to keep pushing forward together."
While FEMA threatens to leave the people of the Gulf Coast "homeless for the holidays," Sen. Landrieu said in her speech today, Congress leaves for Thanksgiving tonight having not acted on a pending Supplemental Appropriations bill that would free up some of the more than $30 billion currently sitting unused in a FEMA account.
"I'm going to say it for the last time," Sen. Landrieu said. "We are not dealing with a regular hurricane. We are dealing with an unprecedented natural disaster caused by the collapse of a federal levee system that was not invested in or maintained. It is a disaster for the region and the nation.
"We've tried to be cooperative. We've tried every strategy, but we're running out of strategies."
Sen. Landrieu closed her remarks by announcing that while she would not work to block an essential budget extension measure, and thereby prevent a Thanksgiving recess, she would cast a vote against that measure. If Congress does not more fully address the problems on the Gulf Coast when it returns to session, Sen. Landrieu then intends to draw on parliamentary procedures to prevent a Christmas holiday recess.
"If we do not come back in December and pass a robust supplemental appropriations bill that reflects the values of this body and takes care of these emergency items, we will not be going home for Christmas," Sen. Landrieu said.
"We will not be going home for Christmas until the people of the Gulf Coast have a home to go to as well - if not this Christmas, some Christmas soon."
Photographs of Senator Mary Landrieu
Photo Credit: United States Senate
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