Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005
GULF OPPORTUNITY ZONE ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - December 07, 2005)
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Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
First, I would like to thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery) for joining me in introducing this important piece of legislation. I also want to thank the chairman of the committee, Mr. Thomas, and our ranking member, Mr. Rangel, for their efforts in bringing this bill to the floor. I also would be remiss if I failed to thank both the Republican and Democratic staff of the committee for their extraordinary bipartisan effort to put this tax relief package together.
And I want to do something which is a little bit out of order, and that is to thank someone who is not properly a Member of this body, our mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, who is here with us today. He has, as much as anyone, pushed this House and this Senate and our Congress and our President to make sure that our region is not forgotten; and I want to thank him for his presence here in the Chamber.
Mr. Speaker, the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 provides much needed aid and comfort to the victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma across the gulf coast and provides a much-needed shot in the arm to the many thousands of businesses that have been shuttered, suffered serious damage, or have seen their customer bases erode significantly or disappear in the wake of horrible storms.
The economy of the gulf coast and particularly that of my home State of Louisiana has been severely compromised by the ravages of two terrible storms. One of our Nation's largest and most economically important cities, the city of New Orleans, was evacuated and commercially shuttered for most of the fall. Even today, as New Orleans slowly regains her footing, most of her citizens remain in a hurricane-forced exile as the city's businesses struggle to rebuild and to make a fresh start with a significantly diminished customer base, extraordinary costs of repair and reconstruction, and a distressed infrastructure.
Mr. Speaker, the cities, parishes across the gulf coast, and counties across the gulf coast are struggling to recover from a deluge that laid them low. My constituents and those of my gulf coast colleagues, however, are a resilient people. They have confronted natural disasters before, and they have emerged triumphant and stronger still. I have every confidence that the same is true today. With the right tools in their tool box, New Orleanians and our neighbors in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida will rebuild and recover and a brighter future will emerge.
Today, Mr. Speaker, with the passage of this important piece of legislation, we provide the entrepreneurs of the gulf coast a sturdy set of tools with which to jump-start our recovery. We also address an unprecedented housing crisis with unprecedented resources to rebuild and rehouse the thousands whose homes are damaged or destroyed by these vicious storms.
We also are keenly aware of the financial crisis that the States, our cities, our parishes are confronting. In order to ease those burdens, this bill also provides several important tools to give our hometowns access to the capital they need to survive in the short term and thrive over the long run: $500 million in tax credit bonds to meet debt service needs, $3 billion in partially guaranteed general obligation bonds, and $7.75 billion in private activity bond authority. I am confident that by properly leveraging these tools, the States, our cities, parishes, school boards and others will emerge from the hurricane stronger than before they struck.
Mr. Speaker, with the passage of this act, businesses in New Orleans and surrounding parishes will enjoy tremendous tax advantages for the next few years that should give them the boost they need to survive and a little leg up to get ahead over the longer term: expanded section 179 expensing for small businesses; bonus depreciation; expenses for demolition and clean-up costs, including brownfields clean-up; an enhanced rehabilitation tax credits; and increased net operating loss carry-back among others.
By affording these tools to be combined with effective economic planning, the House today greatly enhances the opportunity for a great, but shattered, community to rebuild, not just to recover, but to become more survivable, more sustainable, more equitable, and more prosperous over some time, but all at once.
Mr. Speaker, the efforts of my colleagues in providing the relief we need in the gulf coast have been unparalleled to any I have witnessed during my tenure in Congress. For that I am extraordinarily grateful. However, we still have a long way to go before we achieve the full recovery that I know we all want. I look forward to working with each of you in the coming weeks and months as we rise to the challenge of ensuring that, like the Phoenix of myth and fable, New Orleans rises from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina as a bright shining model of American ingenuity and opportunity.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would like to make brief remarks to again thank all who have worked on this bill, particularly Mr. Thomas, Mr. McCrery, and Mr. Rangel for their work and support. It is going to mean a lot to our region, a lot to my city and my district. And a great part of what we have to do, of course, is to give business the tools it needs to partner with our government to get businesses stood up, to get people back into jobs, to get housing back into our communities so that we can restore our depopulated city and other depopulated parts of parishes around Louisiana and throughout counties in Mississippi and Alabama, and this bill is going to go a long way toward helping us do that.
Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would like to make brief remarks to again thank all who have worked on this bill, particularly Mr. Thomas, Mr. McCrery, and Mr. Rangel for their work and support. It is going to mean a lot to our region, a lot to my city and my district. And a great part of what we have to do, of course, is to give business the tools it needs to partner with our government to get businesses stood up, to get people back into jobs, to get housing back into our communities so that we can restore our depopulated city and other depopulated parts of parishes around Louisiana and throughout counties in Mississippi and Alabama, and this bill is going to go a long way toward helping us do that.
Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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