Providing for Consideration of H.Res.437, Establishing the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane...
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H. RES. 437, ESTABLISHING THE SELECT BIPARTISAN COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE PREPARATION FOR AND RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA -- (House of Representatives - September 15, 2005)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, President Bush said that he took responsibility for the recent failure of the Federal Government to fulfill its ultimate duty of saving the lives of its own people within its own borders.
But what does responsibility mean? If it means anything, it means the sincere concern for what has happened under his watch. It means stopping at nothing to find out why a Nation led by officials who claim to care about keeping Americans safe presided over a recovery effort which left behind so many innocent men, women and children as they were crying out for help. It means caring about the truth, and it means putting people before politics.
Today, this Congress has to offer the American people its own definition of responsibility. The appalling aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which swept over citizens from Louisiana to Alabama to Mississippi, was the product of a combination of failures: failures of planning, failures of execution, failures of accountability. It is the responsibility of this body to examine why our Federal Government was behind so many of those failures.
There is only one way to do this and only one path the public will respect, only one route to producing real answers to real questions which the American people will trust. We need a 9/11-type commission for Hurricane Katrina. The 9/11 Commission was our government's response to the tragedy of September 11, 2001; and after an exhaustive study, it produced a report that was trusted by the American people and by the members of our government.
This trust was earned. The 9/11 Commission was not beholden to any interests besides those of its own integrity and the good of the country.
This honorable response to the tragedy of September 11 puts to shame what has been proposed today in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. What was perhaps our Federal Government's greatest failure to date to defend life at home is being met with a failure of leadership and openness and honesty in this Chamber today.
The Republican leadership of the House and Senate has called for the creation of an overtly partisan congressional committee to investigate the government's pre- and post-Katrina actions. They have specified that it would be a committee appointed by Republicans, with a Republican majority. They would give Republicans control of every aspect of the proceedings, and they alone would control who would be subpoenaed. They alone would control which documents could be examined, and they alone would control the scope of the investigation. They would have the power to take the investigation in any direction they chose, with no checks, no balances and no incentives to get real answers. They have nominated the fox to guard the hen house.
Mr. Speaker, I do not object to such a plan because Republicans would be in control as opposed to Democrats. I object to it because it is the Republican Party which controls the levers of government and, as such, manages FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security and every other Federal institution which must be examined.
The conflicts of interest that are present are so obvious that it is incredible anyone would deny them, but the members of the majority do not only do this, but they put forth one justification after another for their plan, each one less convincing than the one before it. They tell us that the structure of the committee is based on precedent and cite the bipartisan commission which investigated the Iran-Contra affair as evidence of this. Never mind that in that situation a Republican President was being investigated by a Democratically controlled committee, eliminating the political pressure to sweep truths under the rug.
Last night, in the Committee on Rules, they told us, rather incredibly, that nobody is better to evaluate in this body than its own Members. But the American people do not believe that. After all, accountability has not exactly been the hallmark of this Republican leadership.
This majority did not investigate those who concealed the Department of Health and Human Services' real estimate of how much the 2003 Medicare legislation that we passed would cost. It did not investigate the role of top Bush campaign contributors in writing Vice President Cheney's energy plan. It did not investigate the Valerie Plame scandal. It did not investigate what led to our dehumanizing and shameful treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Why did these investigations not take place? The majority has no answer, except promising to us that this time things will be different.
Last night, the chairman did offer his personal assurances again and again that the commission would allow the Democrats to ask questions. It probably never occurred to us that we would not have been able to do that, but this is ultimately a promise that he cannot keep.
Only allowing a hand-picked group of witnesses to be questioned prejudices the investigation before it has even begun. If a true interest in a fair, open, thorough and independent investigation runs that deep with my Republican colleagues, why not just create the independent panel?
That is the central question I have for my colleagues today. Why will you not support the creation of an independent commission? What are you afraid of? The American people clearly had faith in the 9/11 Commission model. Why do you not?
A commission controlled by the politicians of one party charged with investigating itself will face tremendous internal political pressure to eliminate embarrassing truths from the public eye, to defer blame and to hide facts. That is the fundamental truth, because we all know how politics works.
Politics, by the way, is exactly why those recent scandals I just mentioned were never investigated.
Is the creation of an independent commission an abdication of our responsibility? Absolutely not. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case. If we intentionally create a partisan, political investigation, that, Mr. Speaker, would be an abdication of our responsibilities.
The American people need answers, they need true accountability, and the only way that we can live up to our responsibility and give them answers they can trust is through an independent commission.
The public already overwhelmingly supports the creation of such an independent commission by 76 percent, and over 160 Members of this body, representing more than 100 million of our Nation's people, have already supported the creation of such a commission through a substitute resolution by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), my colleague. Its findings would not just help us to prevent another terrible disaster from taking place, they would also help our government to regain its credibility in the eyes of the public.
A Newsweek poll from earlier this week found that fully 57 percent of the general population has doubts that government officials will respond well the next time a disaster strikes. Those doubts would not be reduced until people believe that a real, independent investigation of Katrina has taken place. But the findings of the congressional commission being proposed by the Republican leadership will be forever tainted by the pervasive public belief that details were overlooked or truths hidden for political reasons. We have plenty of evidence to believe that.
Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago, our government missed an opportunity to rise to the occasion when it was sorely needed. The consequences were worse than we could have imagined. We cannot afford to miss another opportunity here today, and we object to the fact that this resolution is titled ``bipartisan commission'' because, truly, there will not be one.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, if an independent commission is an abdication of our authority, why did we all vote unanimously to establish the 9/11 Commission?
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
I ask for a ``no'' vote on the previous question so I can amend the rule and allow the House, instead of H. Res. 437, to consider H.R. 3764, which creates an independent 9/11-like commission to investigate the events involving Hurricane Katrina. I offered this amendment in the Committee on Rules last night, but, sadly, it was rejected.
I want to reiterate that 76 percent of Americans in a recent ABC/Washington Post poll preferred that a commission of outside experts, similar in nature to the 9/11 Commission, and, in fact, I wish for the same people, to investigate the devastating events surrounding Hurricane Katrina, and that is not just Democrats that were asked. Sixty-four percent of Republicans in that same poll said they, too, supported an independent commission to investigate the government's preparedness and response effort.
Please vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can authorize an independent commission that will not be influenced by partisan politics instead of a Republican-controlled committee investigating the failings of a Republican-controlled administration. Too many people's lives were turned upside down because of the failure of governmental officials to adequately prepare for and respond to the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Let us not fail them a second time.
I urge a ``no'' vote.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment be printed in the RECORD immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://thomas.loc.gov