Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007
Floor Speech
GULF COAST HURRICANE HOUSING RECOVERY ACT OF 2007
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Mr. MELANCON. I thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Chairman, first let me talk about the fraud. The fraud was perpetrated by people throughout this country in Florida, in California, in Colorado, that used addresses in Louisiana. The money that was spent was spent by the Federal agencies, and not misspent by the State of Louisiana.
I am speaking today to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Gulf Coast Recovery Act and against the Price amendment, which would keep in place a major roadblock to Louisiana's recovery from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Rebuilding in the wake of these two hurricanes is the biggest challenge people on the gulf coast and, for that matter, in this country, have ever faced.
Katrina was the worst natural disaster ever in the United States history. Rita, which has been dubbed the forgotten storm, was the third worst catastrophic event in this country. Local governments are valiantly moving forward to try and rebuild, but without the ability to have the tax base that they need just to do day-to-day operations. If you have lived in a gulf coast community, you know the communities come back under normal circumstances. That is not happening.
This was devastating, totally devastating. Bureaucratic red tape is holding us back. Our local tax base in south Louisiana is gone. Local governments have no way of coming up with money for the 10 percent match. For some parishes, the cost of local match for projects is many millions of dollars and could go as high as $1 billion across the devastated area. Ninety thousand miles, square miles, of devastation was caused by these two storms the size of Great Britain. We are sitting here and worrying about a 10 percent match that was harmful to these small communities and the City of New Orleans but has devastated this entire area.
One thing that I need to point out: The President has the authority to waive the local match requirements with the stroke of his pen. In fact, this authority has been exercised 32 times since 1985 for other major disasters.
In 1992, George H.W. Bush waived the requirement when the per capita recovery cost of Hurricane Andrew reached $139 per person. It was also waived for New York City following the attacks of September 11, $390 a person.
But despite a $6,700 per capita recovery cost following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the administration has refused to waive the local match, despite repeated requests. How is this fair to Louisiana? I am a fiscal conservative, but this policy is ridiculous. It is dooming the recovery to failure, and it's time we correct it.
I emphatically urge you to defeat the Price amendment, and pass the Gulf Coast Recovery Act, which will help thousands of people return home and begin rebuilding their lives.
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