they have gone through a major transformation since katrina. were very interested in hearing about the fact that they have increased their volunteer base from 23,000 to 90,000 we think it is not only a bigger but a better red cross and we are excited about hearing it because i think americans look to the red cross to give them particular strength and comfort at times of disaster and that of course has been a key role of the red cross for many years. finally mrs. janet durden joins us on behalf of a committee in northeast louisiana which i am very proud. my husband's hometown and in katrina, they did a phenomenal job through their 211 as the office is dropped off of their ability in south louisiana, north louisiana picked up as i am sure the same thing happened in texas and in alabama and mississippi and florida is the storms come in, the northern part of the state picks up the great amount of help. we want to hear about the increased activity of the 211 operation, which is sort of the go-to the operation when people need help and assistance. th

as you know the post katrina emergency format established positions of the administrator and provide for the authority additional functions we now have at fema, more tools as you pointed out last year began showing the improvement but again, we still have a way to go. and it allows us to further strengthen the relationship with our state partners, tribal and local governments as part of that community. it's contributed to our increased operational capacity to all types of emergencies. as you remember one of the challenges of of katrina was not being able to move and release audits until there was declaration and the challenge of prepositioning assistance that clarity has been brought because the work you are kennedy did that said we need to enable the administrator and the team to submit more productively. we continue that work in powering fema to do that and you point out we face a lot of hazards and we instituted starting this morning exercises to begin testing the team. we simulated a major earthquake in california at 6 a.m., no notice to the team to make sure we are reinforcing t

lost his nirm in katrina and fought to bring telecommunications to the residents. we boast the youngest member of this, aaron shock, illinois state republic and a member of congress, with whom we are privileged to serve. i thank the gentleman for joining me this evening. i thank our speaker, the gentleman from virginia, who was very patient with his fellow freshmen colleagues from the other party and look forward to the opportunity to have a bipartisan freshmen discussion at an early opportunity. with that, mr. speaker, i move that the house adjourn for the evening. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> these are president obama's remarks from cairo. after that, a ceremony at the capital march the 20th anniversary of the tiananmen square protests and the violence that followed. later, a house budget hearing

as far as the reserve component there's actually requirements provided post-katrina emergency reform act. for fema the bill building more response and training capabilities within our reserve force and so we are looking at that as far as a standing reserve, that would be something i would like to further research by the there are elements of that we are already seeing in the programs where we are not creating such a formal reserve process but to building community emergency response teams to start training, and it's in many cases building capabilities that are more adequately leveraged at the local level by enhancing through community emergency response team through citizen core capabilities people stand ready to help in their neighborhoods and communities when disaster strikes. >> thank you. general, i have one more question for you and then one more for mr. fugate and we are going to move to the next panel and a minute. when you all did your assessment on the joint task force, one of the issues that came up for the sick that cans of particularly the coast. all of the coast have por

we have the shelters before katrina, but after katrina we actually put those into a database of the first time in a computer database we can see where they were on short notice. what might be available and also when we actually have a disaster for local chapters will report how many shelters are open, members of people in the shelters etc. >> okay, and the school issue is interesting to me because obviously in a catastrophic disaster that we had and others have had, when people move into schools for a long time it is hard to actually operates schools and one of the essential ingredients of recovery for parents of children is to get their children back in school as soon as possible because and then and these were the children are in school the parents can go about all the work that they need to do to rebuild their home, their business, etc.. how does a the red cross mash the use of school buildings in areas that could potentially suffer catastrophic flooding and destruction in the you have a backup plan in the event that using schools and some areas might not be the best in that circumstan

that is the difference between a happened there and what happened in katrina were that nine of the storm 2 million people were summer other than their own bedroom and i don't think the country understands what is going to happen if this happens in new york or new jersey or connecticut or pennsylvania, virginia, any place and i think that people think they are not going to be impacted by category five hurricane. i think they think they built building strong enough to withstand them but i beg to differ so who will continue to make my voice heard to the president and the leadership and hope that we get through this storm season without facing a category three, four, or five and a major metropolitan area, not that orleans on dallas and houston, but in northeast metropolitan area has a lot more than city than even we do long the gulf coast because the numbers are staggering and i know janet. >> i do want a, first of all, thank you for your sense of emergency and i want to give an update regarding this critical issue of the urban parts of the northeast. new york city has excellent coverage of

as you remember one of the challenges in katrina was not being able to move and release items until there was a declaration and the challenges of providing that assistance, that clarity has been brought because of the work your committee did and the findings that said we needed to enable the administrator and the team to support governors more proactively. we continue that work and empower fema to do that. we face a variety of hazards. we've also instituted starting this morning exercises to begin testing the team. we stimulated a major earthquake this morning at 6:00 am. no notice to the team to see and make sure that we are reinforcing these procedures so that as you point out we're n

and this is recognizing you don't want to just take five years but in an event like katrina where we have so much rebuilding to take place, that it's sometimes say it may be a simplistic measure but having been in government most of my life tax bases is a good indicator of the health of the economy. it tell us how many homes we have. it tells me people are buying permits and buying cars and i can provide for the services such as schools and other components and it gives me a chance to look at our programs that can come in such as hud dollars from community bloc development grant, training dollars that come from the department of labor, working with commerce and other groups and sba to make sure sometimes disasters happen as the community is pivoting economically and it doesn't make sense if you don't recognize just putting it back will not change the economic outcome and we still end up with a failure. so looking at something that may not be the best answer in all cases, but from the standpoint of being able to give us a focal point to start driving recovery not just merely the staff

and katrina was the yellow. and this was done before ike. and i'm going to put ike up there because it really ran smack in galveston. >> that would be interesting modern art. it's just scary that it represents hurricane, hurricane hugo came through south carolina and it was very devastating. i appreciate the work of the chairman of this committee. i've never met anybody in the entire congress more dedicated to a cause than of this subcommittee. i'm just trying to stay up with you. south carolina is certainly in harm's way. i want to thank all the folks at state, local, federal level who help our fellow citizens in disaster. in myrtle beach we had a huge fire. the fire did a lot of damage to myrtle beach. it's not just hurricanes. the red cross was there so hurricanes are what we're talking about. so coastal communities can be hit by many different ways. ron osborn, the director of the emergency management division office of the general could not be here but he prepared a report about hurricane preparedness and i'd like to submit it to the re

two-year period, i think the public needs to understand those 14 million are people, and during katrina those were people whose lives were being saved by the volunteers and the staff on the phone of 211. we did rooftop rescues, we did connecting people to the appropriate governmental entities, and the most vivid example happened with someone you know quite well, joe thomas' wife robin was serving as a volunteer and took a call from a man who went back into his home and found his mother's body. there was no one for him to call but 211. i think that your urgency to continue this funding and this legislation speaks to the need of american people, and i want to thank you for that. >> thank you very much. all right. any closing comments? >> senator, i just want to make, also add the thanks to it. you know, having spent a few years doing this, i've gotten pretty good at realizing there's not been a lot of advocacy on the hill on the issues of disaster response and recovery. and to your point and one of the things that we've seen with the ready communities initiative is i know you're focused o

what happened in katrina was one aspect of it. what is creating reverberations about this issue of hypocrisy that the caller was talking about is when people in the middle east selling was going on in iraq after the invasion, the chaos, and the effort by the bush administration to take democracy to iraq peepe. people then saw the issues around katrina. that caused confusion. how can a government with its own problems try to export democracy to other parts of the world and the middle east? i go back to my fundamental argument. that is that you cannot compare the arab world with the united states in terms of democratic systems. host: a what to remind our audience that they can log on to aljazeera.net for more information. the economy in health care are the remaining issues in the hour. first, here is an news update. >> president obama is traveling in europe, following each for of a former nazi concentration camp. he visited with wounded troops and a medical center. he will attend a ceremony tomorrow in france to commemorate the day.

what happened in katrina was one aspect of it. what is creating reverberations about this issue of hypocrisy that the caller was talking about is when people in the middle east selling was going on in iraq after the invasion, the chaos, and the effort by the bush administration to take democracy to iraq peepe. people then saw the issues around katrina. that caused confusion. how can a government with its own problems try to export democracy to other parts of the world and the middle east? i go back to my fundamental argument. that is that you cannot compare the arab world with the united states in terms of democratic systems. >> another reminder, a chance to see the president's speech sunday morning at 10:30. the president held a press conference with german chancellor angela merkel today in dresden. he said the buchenwald camp is the ultimate rebuke for those who deny the holocaust. he will mark the 65th anniversary of the deep-day invasions' tomorrow. -- of the d-day invasions tomorrow. >> panels and offers on the economy, globa

we faced a similar challenge with relief funding related to hurricane katrina. in the wake of that storm, we created a task force to investigate cases of fraud and corruption, and to identify areas of abuses -- abuse was most likely to take place. for the work of that task force, we have 246 convictions in mississippi and louisiana. today, we face a much different kind of storm, but the opportunities for criminal behavior and indeed the underlying greed remain the same. we have trillions, trillions of dollars at stake. from the purchase of troubled assets to improvements in infrastructure, healthcare, energy, education, even a small percentage of fraud would result in substantial, substantial taxpayer losses. we must collect the intelligence necessary to target the potential waste and abuse at all levels, and we must do so before it fully developed. to that and we must be able to follow the money all the way down the line. we are working with the sec, the inspector general for the tarp, other multi- agency task forces and inspectors general to identify where the

local levies in the south louisiana failed again, a failed with katrina, a failed with rita, gustav, ike, as the said mr. ritter knows because he is from florida of south florida is concerned about their water management issues and whether the dikes and levees will hold that is the subject of another hearing. was continuing to be a cumbersome process despite many improvements which i well mentioned we are still relying mr. fugate to much nine trailers to jump-start recovery and we will be pressing hard on new housing and shelter options broken to new to say to provide these communities with $5 million in the community long-distance is probably not what charleston or savannah or miami or new orleans or atlanta or batteries are in a number of committees that can do much with $5 million and that is all the law allows them to borrow. the administrator 55 from fema will discuss the 2008 response and the agency's work on an alert system evacuation plans and from his perspective if we are better situated in it 2009 season opens. major general from the northern command will outline the depar

katrina was yellow and i said the reverse and i a portion of the patterns better than anyone so when hurricane rita was in the blue white and katrina was the yellow dot and this was done before haworth hurricane ike because it really ran smack into the allyson and i'm sure you has a major storms in your time. senator, let me recognize you at this time. >> thank you madam chairman, that would be interesting modern art, scary that represents hurricanes. hurricane hugo came to south carolina and was very devastating so i appreciate the work of the chairman of this committee. i have never met anybody in the entire congress who are dedicated to a cause and then to the subcommittee. i'm trying to stay up with you, but south carolina certainly is in harm's way and i want to thank all the posts of state, local and federal level will help our fellow citizens with disaster in myrtle beach which a huge fire. the fire did a lot of damage to myrtle beach, not just hurricanes, the red cross was there some hurricanes are what we're talking about today but also committed these can be hit in many dif

i'm very interested i understand the red cross since katrina has gone through a major reorganization and we are looking forward to hearing some of the outcomes today. and finally, last but certainly not least this is janet durden, president of north west united way serves as coordinating council person for louisiana 211 but this is a nationwide emergency response system that i think can be very helpful in all of the issues we have talked about this morning. so, mr. foresman, if you will begin. thank you. >> senator, thank you very much -- [inaudible] >> can you pull the microphone a little bit closer, there you go. >> normally might booming voice works wonders. senator landrieu, thank you for the opportunity to be with you this morning and talk about the important work of the community partnership. we've provided written testimony respectfully requested it be included in the record. the ready come into partnership is an initiative of corporate crisis response officers association six to identify and implement best practices that helps support improvements in public and private sector

what happened in katrina was one aspect of it. what is creating reverberations about this issue of hypocrisy that the caller was talking about is when people in the middle east selling was going on in iraq after the invasion, the chaos, and the effort by the bush administration to take democracy to iraq peepe. people then saw the issues around katrina. that caused confusion. how can a government with its own problems try to export democracy to other parts of the world and the middle east? i go back to my fundamental argument. that is that you cannot compare the arab world with the united states in terms of democratic systems. >> this weekend, the midwest's largest literary event. it is saturday, starting at 11:00 a.m. eastern throughout the day. there are panels on the economy, globalization and the american worker, homosexual rights, former illinois gov. rod blagojavich, the mob and counterfeiting, and a look at the graphic adaptation of "working." later, stanley greenberg is interviewed by sandy madeleine. bill ayers talks about

the blue line is hurricane katrina which was the greatest among all of those storms depicted there by a significant amount in terms of size of damage and hurricane it rita which ranks second among those storms in terms of damage and i would like to show you the next graph it is even more startling which are the storms since 1851, led to the president. when we in the gulf coast talk about the threat to combat it is real, it is frightening and it is important to this committee and all committees of this congress to continue to focus as best we can on the threat of hurricanes that is getting more and more predictable. we can be better focused on where they will hit and when they are hitting of like earthquakes although our science is getting much better on

strengthening and that is what this committee we'll focus on and has focused on since the wake-up call of katrina which will be four years august 29. we want to be sure that desai is necessary to make more predictions and warnings for people so they can move out of the way of these powerful storms. . . ççÑçÑÑÑÑÑÑççÑçÑç

the blue line is hurricane katrina which was the greatest among all the storms doe picket ed there by a significant in terms of size of damage smed and then hurricane reeda which ranks second among t the storms in terms of damage. and i would like to show you the next graffedt which is even more startling are the storms since 1851 to the present. we've gotten pretty good at predicting where these storms will hit. there's very little we can do to stop them but we can certainly prepare our people better for the threat that they are facing. it's important for us to understand our capacity to deal with these real and ongoing and in some people's minds ever strengthening thretsd, and that is what this committee will focus on and has focused on since the wakeup call of cailttedna which will be four years august 29. we want to make sure that we continue the science necessary to make more scientific based predictions and warnings so they can move oudoffed way smedwepped to make sure that there evacuation rusde are secure and clear smed and that the rules and regulation of involving are clear

so rita was the blue and katrina was the yellow. and this was done before ike. and i'm going to put ike up there because it really ran right smack into galveston and i'm sure you've had some major storms in your time. but senator, let me recognize you at this time. >> thank you. that would be interesting modern art. it's just scary that it represents hurricanes. hurricane hugo came through south carolina and was very devastating. so i appreciate the work of the chairman of this committee. i've never met anybody in the entire congress more dedicated to a cause than you are to this subcommittee. we -- i'm just trying to stay up but. but south carolina is certainly in harm's way. i want to thank all the folks at state and federal and local lell of who help our citizens with disasters. in myrtle beach we had a huge fire. the fire did a lot of damage. and it's not just hurricanes. the red cross was there. so hurricane is what we're talking about today but coastal communities can be hit in many different ways. ron osborne, the director of the emergency management divi

her career and katrina it is a result of several reports -- hurricane katrina is a result of several reports. we have to focus more resources on cornish with state and local governments. with support from team up, -- fema, we got full-time representatives for offices and also have two additional staff working at the national headquarters. we also have passed a staff member to work with the housing task force. we have been working with governments, state governments, in improving planning. for example, the red cross in louisiana is working toward a single, unified sheltering plan. discussions continue with the state department of social services and the governor's office of homeland security emergency preparedness about mutual logistics' for people with transportation needs. the major disaster exercise emerges, with category 4 hurricanes affecting savannah, georgia. we also participated in a cabinet-level exercise that dealt with category three, making landfall in new york city. identifying new and strengthening existing partnerships continues to be a strong priority of my organizatio

while there is a chart that shows significant growth, during katrina, people's lives were saved by the volunteers and staff of 211. we did connecting people to the appropriate governmental entities, and the most vivid example is a volunteer took a call from a man who went back into his home and found his mother's body. there was no to call the 211. your urgency to continue this funding and legislation speaks to the need of the american people. >> thank you. any closing,? >> i have come to realize there has not been a lot of consistent advocacy on the hill on the issues of disaster and response recovery. one of the things we have seen with the initiative is i know you are focused on it. we have had a bit of a shakeup in the los angeles region, with eight pandemic. and the one thing i encourage you to do is let's make this about the need for better capabilities to deal with catastrophic events, particularly housing, in respect of of the cost. because as the senator from illinois pointed out, he is more concerned about tornadoes these days, and we need to make sure we are resonating that

book and it will be coming out on august the ninth which is the four year anniversary of hurricane katrina. and they may also have a book which is a young adult narrative, he is the cousin of emmett till's. he was there during the emmett till's line and this is his story as written for young adults so they understand the historical importance for the civil rights movement. and justice and peace. >> when is that coming out? >> that will be later on this fall just-in-time for our january for black history month. >> what is boomtown? >> it is a really interesting case study the way wal-mart change bentonville, arkansas. the way the sociological expiration of those economic expiration, how it immigration changes from within a class society, have gone through with large corporation and how it is actually brought a lot of diversity to the company. >> and finally i want to ask you about one more book over your shoulder, absent. >> this is our best selling author. he writes for make magazine and does a lot of dy i. he is known as mciver. in fact the founder of mciver says if you want to know where

we face a similar challenge in funding related to hurricane katrina. in the wake of that storm, we created a task force investigated fraud and corruption, and to identify serious abuse which was likely to take place. we have two hundred 46 convictions in mississippi and louisiana. today, we face a much different kind of war, with opportunities for criminal behavior and underlying agreed remain sustained. with trillions and trillions of dollars at stake, the purchase of troubled assets, improvements to infrastructure, health care, energy and education, even a small percentage of fraud results in substantial taxpayer losses. we must select the intelligence is necessary to target waste and abuse at all levels, and we must do so before we get fully -- it gets fully develop. we must be able to follow the money all the way down the line. we are working with the fcc for the tarp, the task forces and inspector general's to identify where these funds are going and for what purpose. we want to ensure that these funds will be appropriately utilized, and we will i

. >> caller: to talk about corporate greed and what happened during katrina. i studied state farm for four years, eight to nine hours a day, reading court documents, absolutely blown away by what i was finding out. so i blog all the insurance journal. i wrote the untouchables, and it's heartbreaking to me to find out that we can have the worst thing happen in this country and in the courts, our judges, the insurance industries, it really doesn't matter. they raped these poor people and nobody cares. and i'm sorry i'm -- i'm not sorry i'm upset. i am shocked. i'm sickened by it. i have culled over 800 numbers to try to get them to write the untouchables. nobody would do it. i talked to a reporter at the sun herald in mississippi. anita lee. she knows what is going on with storm farm and nobody cares. they can fill up records in the courts it's okay. now they're telling people we're moving because we had to pay you so much movement i'm thinking where are the real reporters in the world? i did a story about darfur and i was shocked the amount of people in this co

did i read that one of the intentions of you working with the subject matter is you want to use katrina as a bit of making an analogy to the federal government's performance with let's say regulating the head of the financial crisis? is that correct? >> that sounds so it didactic as to be a room clearer. [laughter] >> we're still here. >> i think there is an analogy to be made in of a character to say anything that directly it would be cut out of the script, but it is true. new orleans was hit with a category two, high category two. not even in category three hurricane. the hurricane, if you tell people from new orleans their city was john by a hurricane there will get very angry and rightly so. their city was drowned by a corps of engineers and by shoddy workmanship and stuff that wasn't built to code. in bad decisions in terms of the transportation policy. the ineffectiveness of congress in terms of dealing with mississippi river issues. this is our country and you compare to the dutch to have managed to keep most of their country out of the north sea for generations. it is humiliatin

i read that one of the intentions of the working with the subject matter is that you wanted to use katrina s an analogy to the federal government's performance as regulating the financial crisis? >> that sounds so didactic as a room clearer. i think there is an analogy that needs to be made. if any character would to say anything that directly, it would be cut out of the script. new orleans was hit with a category 2, not even a category 3 hurricane. if you tell anybody from new orleans and say they were drowned by a hurricane, they will get mad at you. their city was drowned by shoddy workmanship and bad decisions in terms of transportation policy and the ineffectiveness of congress in terms of dealing with mississippi river issues. this is our country and you compare it to the dutch which has been able to keep their country out of the north sea for generations. it is humiliating. if you think about those canal walls, how badly they were built, how much corruption went into the poor maintenance and poor planning of them, and you think about the sec and all of the regulation that was not th

and we did this despite the terrible aftermath of hurricane katrina where everybody, republicans and democrats alike, agreed that we should hold back a week on the hearings so that we could all concentrate the nation's resources on hurricane katrina. and so that required a week's delay. and then 72 days after, if we followed the same schedule 72 days after judge sotomayor was designated to the supreme court, would be august 6th, and we're not even having the week of katrina. now, the hearing's the opportunity for all senators on the judiciary committee, both republicans and democrats, to ask questions, raise concerns, evaluate the nominee. our republican colleagues say they intend to ask her about her judicial philosophy. now, it doesn't take four months to prepare to ask these questions. in fact, most have already raised the questions. they'll be surely prepared to ask them more than a month from now. and during that month, we have a week's vacation from the senate. now i intend to use that week without the interruption of committee hearings, without the interruption of votes, witho

and we're not ian having the week of katrina. now, the hearing's the opportunity for all senators on the judiciary committee. both republicans and democrats can ask questions, raise concerns, evaluate the nominee. our republican colleagues say they intend to ask her about her judicial philosophy. now, it doesn't take four months to prepare to ask these questions. in fact, most of them have already raised their questions. they'll surely be prepared to ask them more than a month from now, and during that month we have a week's vacation from the senate. now, i intend to be using that week without the intrups of committee hearings, votes, regular senate business to prepare for the hearings. i would advise those senators who feel they have to have extra time, forgo your vacation. spend that week preparing for the hearing. because this is an historic nomination. this is an historic nomination. and i hope all senators will cooperate. it's a schedule that i think is both fair and adequate. fair to the nominee, but also adequate to the un

million service hours have been spent helping gulf coast communities recover and rebuild after hurricanes katrina and rita. that's a four million -- that's four million hours of service made possible by the organizations and the individuals who choose to participate in the americorps programs. this resolution recognizes one week where we salute current and former americorps members for their important work. it also allows us to thank all community partners who make it possible for americorps members to serve. i want to take this opportunity to thank my fellow co-chairs of the national service caucus, representatives matsui, ehlers, and price. i ask my colleagues to support this and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. tonko: does the gentleman have further speakers? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. platts: i yield the distinguished gentleman from georgia mr. broun as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york reserves the balance of his time and th

on the emergency of katrina. if you look at days where the record is available -- and it's been available right from the get-go here -- and no vacation, no intervening long recesses and things like that, the nominee knee will have -- or the minority leader or any senator here will have more time to scrutinize this record than we've had for most other judges. and, again, underscored by the fact that the record is public, open and ample. it's not, you know -- no one has to go look for needles in a haystack to try and figure out what the record of judge sotomayor is. it's very extensive and ample. with justice roberts, we only had a few years where he was on the bench and all the rest of his record was in executive -- in the executive. and it took us weeks -- and i think if the chairman probably remembers this better than me, months to get the record. so with with, that i'll yield te floor. i know we want to get on with the vote. mr. durbin: mr. president, i ask consent to speak for up to three minutes before the vo

i think everyone along the coast is more ready than they were before hurricane katrina, but we have a long way to go. here are a couple of examples. you can look at a map of all the shelters -- the majority are red cross shelters and they are school. if you have a catastrophic flood and people have to flee to shelters, let's say schools better on this map, what happens two or three weeks down the line when you want to open the schools for the children who should be going to those schools? there is no backup plan. number two, unfortunately, the bush administration was stuck on trailers. why? i do not know. if they just could not come up with something else. the obama administration has inherited this plan with trailers. if a hurricane five hits manhattan as it did in 1938 on long island, i don't know how many troops can fit in times square, but it will be interesting to see. -- how many trailers can fit in times where. we finally have a good fema director and has a vision and leadership ability. we finally have a very excellent homeland security director who was a governor and had to d

working at the holocaust museum after spending a year in new articles in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. those who knew mr. johns called him "big john," a genera gentle, friendly and helpful. even those who did not know him are deeply saddened by the loss and inspired by hi the heroism. it is our duty to keep alive his memory. today the holocaust museum is closed. flags fly at half-staff. when it opens tomorrow it will continue to serve as one of our nation's most poignant reminders of the inexcusable racism, hatred, violence and cruelty we must never stop working to erase from the world. when it opens tomorrow, and every day thereafter, stephen johns, courage and courtesy, will be mixed. madam president, our plan to fix america's broken health care system is based on a simple premise: when it comes to keeping ourselves and our loved ones healthy, people -- not corporations -- should be at the driver's seat. we have a land to right that rock. that plan is guided by three goals. the number one, lower the high cost of health care. number two, ensure every american has abscess to quality,

i would equate this to sending diplomats to katrina-destroyed new orleans in 2005 instead of the national guard. we're going to send diplomats to louisiana. we aren't going to send national guard or emergency service, we're going to send diplomats. as opposed to giving general petraeus, as the president asked for, funding to help out in pakistan and afghanistan, we're going to send diplomats. so they can talk to taliban and talk to al qaeda, they can talk to the madmen who cut off people's heads, that's what the state department's going to do. this is the wrong move. the republicans have it right this time. give the president full authority, let him come up with a plan and let general petraeus implement that, this substitute the republican substitute is the right way to go. we need to make sure that pakistan is fighting for pakistan and that pakistan doesn't think it's only fighting for american dollars. that's what we need to do. as once more a united states marine that saw state department ineptness and cowardice, while i was in afghanistan, it's almost personally insummitting we're goi

we know the international help that came to us during hurricane katrina, we know what we ask with the tsunami, this is a terrorist tsunami. and i want to say that the government, albeit we disagree with its strength, i believe they love democracy. these conditions that may be opposed will workity way through congress but if we didn't -- work its way through congress but if we didn't act today we would continue to have the burials of so many people that are going on in this country. the kind of massive bombing that the terrorists think they can do to intimidate the people of pakistan. so as a co-chair of the pakistan caucus, i am grateful that we made a first step. i want the american people to know that your neighbors are pakistani-americans, they are doctors, they are lawyers, they are entrepreneurs, they are retailers, they love this country and they want to help their country as well. i am glad we made this first step. let me move quickly to a domestic issue and put an exclamation point on what we did right for pakistan and say that i stand here today and support a restoration and

to a question by the bankruptcy judge, judge gonzalez, his dealership had been ruined by hurricane katrina. but he reopened it five months later and during the course of hurricane katrina, he provided fleet vehicles to police departments and fire stations and every parish of louisiana that was affected by the hurricane. also provided vehicles for the state of louisiana and the city of new orleans. he says i'll probably end up living out of my car as a result of this set of decisions. now, it brings me to i think where the gentleman was going and that is the clue travel edition, who is this task force and who made the decision to close eight chrysler plants without telling the workers it was going to happen? throwing 9,000 people out of work. who made the decision to be more aggressive and throw 200,000 people out of work that work for autodealers? before i talk about the auto task force qualifications and where we are going to go with the game of clue, i have to tell you i mentioned mr. manzo, the chrysler restrucring expert, and you may recall, mr. speaker, there was some discussion about

feingold talk about corporate greed and what happened during katrina. i read court documents, absolutely blown away by what i was finding out. i blog on the insurance journal, the untouchables. it is heartbreaking to me to find out that we can have the worst thing happen in this country, and in the courts, our judges, the insurance industry, it doesn't matter. they raped these poor people and nobody cares. i am sorry--i am not far that i am upset, i am shocked, i am sickened by it. i called over 800 newspapers to try to get them to write the untouchables, nobody would do it. i talked to a reporter at the sun herald in mississippi gounod's with is going on with nd ne farm. it is like nobody cares, they can do whatever they want, they can fill up records in the hurts, now they are telling people we are moving because we have had to pay you so much ldney. where are the real reporters in this world? i just did a story about darfur and was shocked by how many people don't even know what that means. >> host: which one of you would like to answer? >> some of t

read that one of the intentions of you working it that subject matter is youd to -- you wanted to use katrina as making analogy with the federal government's response in writing ahead a a financial crisis? >> that sounds so die deck tick as to be a room clearer. >> no, true or no? >> i think there's an analogy to be made. but if any character were to say anything that directly it would be cut out of the script. but it is true. new orleans was hit with a category 2, a high category 2, not even a category 3 hurricane. the hurricane, if you tell people from new orleans that their city was drowned by a hurricane, they'll get very angry with you and rightly so. their city was drowned by the corps of engineers and by shoddy workmanship and stuff that wasn't built to code and bad decisions in terms of transportation policy. and the ineffectiveness of congress in terms of dealing with mississippi river issues. you know, this is our

the columbia shuttle recovery efforts in 2003, as well as serving in louisiana following hurricane katrina. kyle was commissioned in the united states army as a second lieutenant on the eve of his college graduation ceremony and subsequently deployed to iraq on october 3, 2006. in addition to his dedication to his unit and his country, kyle is equally remembered for his devotion to his family. and to his friends. as recalled in a may 31, 2007, article in "the austin american statesman," kyle was a devoted son, a protective big brother and a loyal friend who was still known in his old neighborhood for rounding up friends to take care of a local problem while all the adults were at work. mr. speaker, first lieutenant kyle west's life stands as a testament to the bravery and devotion of the heroic men and women who have served and continue to serve our nation at home and abroad. it is my sincere hope that we can honor this young soldier through the passage of h.r. 2422 and rename the georgetown, texas, postal facility as the lieutenant kyle g. west post office building. i urge my colleagues t

the crippling tragic because by definition these are folks who were flooded by one of our hurricanes, katrina or rita or gustav or ike. that is why they are ripping out old drywall and putting in this new stuff, so by definition virtually every one of those folks were hard hit by a hurricane or just recovering or finally have put their house back together and then they discovered this and they have to start all over. and their house is a loss, sometimes complete loss yet again. so it's doubly tragic for folks in that situation. i am certainly continuing to work with senator nelson, senator landrieu and others on legislation and funding, which has thus cpsc studying this issue and has it on a more accelerated timetable to study three things in particular. number when the relationship between the drywall and health sometimes. so what's the bottom line on health, number one. number two, the relationship between the drywall and electrical and fire safety issues. and number three, the tracing of the origin and distribution of the drywall. so i know that's going on. the big issue is timing. even --

market and it's contributed an enormous amount of money to refinancing after 9/11, after hurricanes katrina and wilma. after the hurricanes last year it's been a very responsible market in paying its claims. >> mr. chairman, i didn't say they weren't responsible, and i didn't say they didn't pay claims. i said they all had the same rate in my state which seemed coincidental. >> thank you very much. the chair notes some members may have additional questions for this panel which they may wish to submit in writing. without object the record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit written questions to these witnesses and place their responses in the record. before we adjourn, the following written statements will be made part of the record of this hearing. the center for insurance research, the property casualty association of america and the cea, a trade association of european insurers. without objection, it is so ordered. i want to thank this panel for their contribution today and taking all the -- we did it in three hours which is pretty good. maybe next time we can keep it for f