Iraq War Supplemental Bill

Floor Speech

IRAQ WAR SUPPLEMENTAL BILL

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the issue of the Iraqi supplemental that we are currently about to redo.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, the President in his regional message indicated that the bill ``is loaded with billions of dollars in nonemergency spending that has nothing to do with fighting the war on terror.'' He went on to say that Congress should debate these spending measures on their own merits and not as a part of an emergency funding bill for our troops.

Mr. Speaker, for 19 months now, we have been trying to get this administration to pay attention to the people on the gulf coast. We have for weeks and months been trying to get the President to support our efforts to make sure that many of the families and friends of our troops, who have been affected in Louisiana, Mississippi, and even in Florida and Texas by this catastrophic event perpetrated by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, get help. Today, we have not been able to get the President to support our efforts as we have tried to address these emergencies.

And so, Mr. Speaker, since we are doing an emergency spending bill, we thought it very appropriate for us to do both international and domestic emergencies all in one piece of legislation. Consequently, we have moved in this legislation to address issues such as the East and West Bank Levee Protection and Coastal Restoration System in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes by inserting into this legislation $1.3 billion. We have added another $30 million for K-12 education recruitment assistance, another $30 million for higher education assistance.

I plan to be in Baton Rouge next week to address Southern University's commencement exercises. I would hope that, as I go there, I can carry them more than mere promises to get them to feeling, once again, that we in this body are paying attention to and responding to the problems that they are suffering, many of them having lost a full year out of their educational pursuits.

I would hope that those children in K through 12 can begin to feel that here in this Congress, with this emergency supplemental, that we are going to respond to them as well.

And then there is the Community Disaster Loan Forgiveness Program. We have put language in this bill to address that issue, $4.3 billion for FEMA disaster recovery grants. These State and local grants will be waived, meaning that the Federal Government will be able to finance 100 percent of the grants.

We have been trying for a long time now to get this administration to treat the victims of Katrina, Rita and Wilma in the same way we treated disasters after 9/11 in New York, the same way we treated the earthquakes in California, the same way we treated the Hurricane Andrew down in Florida some years ago and Hurricane Anika out in Hawaii. In each one of those instances, we waived matching requirements. In this instance, we have not. And so we want, in this administration, to waive those requirements of the Stafford Act, the matching requirements, so that we can begin to address these emergencies.

There are other emergencies that we plan to address here, and that is the Children's Health Insurance Program. We think, with 14 States out of money, another 3 States expected to be out of money by September 1, it is an emergency for the children in those 17 States, and I would hope that when we put the final bill together to send back to the President, we will address these emergencies that we have with our people here at home.

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