American Red Cross and Hurricane Relief

AMERICAN RED CROSS AND HURRICANE RELIEF

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, yesterday morning I made a trip to meet with the head of the American Red Cross. ADM Marty Evans is an extraordinary person. She was born in Springfield, IL, and served in the U.S. Navy for 29 years. She rose to the rank of rear admiral and, after her retirement from the Navy, spent several years as head of the Girl Scouts of America. Then a few years ago, she was chosen to be CEO of the American Red Cross.

The American Red Cross is an extraordinary agency. There are some 4,500 employees in Washington, 30,000 nationwide, millions of volunteers. Those of us who have had the good fortune of working with the Red Cross know that the people working in Washington are important, but the volunteers in the field are absolutely essential--men and women from communities across America who, at the first warning signal, are prepared to give up their personal lives and move to where they are needed. The help they bring and have brought has made a difference so many times in the lives of victims.

As Ms. Evans told me yesterday, this is not just a matter of hurricanes and floods. They respond to house fires to try to make certain that families and individual communities have a helping hand. I asked her what she did in preparation for Hurricane Katrina, how the American Red Cross positioned itself. I asked what they were doing in anticipation of Hurricane Rita, which we are all watching so closely. She said they didn't wait for a Government signal. They knew what they had to do. They positioned their people, their resources in safe locations where they could move in as quickly as possible after the disaster. They gave a helping hand in the evacuation. But they were ready and prepared, if something terrible occurred. It was heart warming and reassuring to know that the American Red Cross and other extremely important charitable organizations such as America's Second Harvest based in Chicago, the Salvation Army, and so many faith-based groups are prepared and ready to move.

We are now watching, because of satellite imagery, the course of Hurricane Rita, praying that it will not strike with the force of a category 5 hurricane on the coast of Texas and Louisiana, and that somehow, some way, at the last moment we will be spared. But whether we are spared or not, we must be prepared.

This administration has been haunted by Hurricane Katrina for the last 3 weeks. President Bush has made at least five different visits to New Orleans to be visibly present during the rescue and recovery. He made a historic speech from Jackson Square about the challenge which Hurricane Katrina places on Americans. I thought what the President said was the right thing. I am a loyal Democrat, but I listened carefully to what the President said, and I thought the President showed the kind of leadership America needs at this moment.

I will refer later in my remarks to the question of what went wrong with Hurricane Katrina. But looking forward, as we must as a nation, we need to stand behind those victims, their families, the communities, and the States that were hit by Hurricane Katrina. It was a call to arms by the President for this Congress to join with him and the American people in standing up for the most vulnerable people in our country. That is as truly American as it gets.

Listen to the debate that has followed President Bush's announcement in New Orleans. We have had Members of Congress saying we can't afford to do it. We can't afford to provide the disaster assistance for these people to rebuild their lives and for these communities to rebuild their infrastructure and their homes. There have even been arguments from some that we can't consider spending this money because we have to keep our word to the wealthiest people in America that we promised we would cut their taxes.

The budget resolution we passed in the Senate and in the House this year promised that before we went home at the end of the year, we would give $70 billion more in tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America. We also promised in the budget resolution, which I opposed, that we would cut Medicaid, which is health insurance for poor and elderly people, and that we would cut student loan assistance. That was part of what I considered a poorly thought out budget resolution which passed with Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

Now with the intervention of Hurricanes Katrina and Ophelia, and the possibility of Hurricane Rita and damage, many Republicans are arguing: We have a solemn responsibility to cut the taxes for the wealthy first, to cut Medicaid expenditures for the poor and elderly, and to cut student loans, and we don't have the resources to help the victims.

That is unfortunate. It reflects a difference in values. It reflects a difference in priorities. This Senator from Illinois believes that our first obligation is to the most vulnerable in America. Our first obligation is to those helpless victims and those communities who, through no fault of their own, are suffering today. It is time for us to be straightforward. It is time for the President to be straightforward to Republican leaders in the House and Senate, to say clear and unequivocally: We cannot afford to go forward with more tax cuts for wealthy people as we fight a war in Iraq and Afghanistan and as we come to the assistance of our neighbors who suffered because of these terrible natural disasters.

If the President will do that, I can guarantee him this: There is plenty of room on this side of the aisle for Democrats to join him in a bipartisan response to a national disaster which paid no attention to party affiliation.

I can say that with confidence because after 9/11/2001, that is exactly what happened. Democrats and Republicans alike joined hands in the face of that terrorist disaster and said we will stand behind the victims and their families and the State of New York and that city that endured that great loss, as well as, of course, our friends in the Pentagon who were victims as well of 9/11.

We stood together on a bipartisan basis. We did some exceptional things, things to make our country stronger, things to respond to the attack that had taken place. The list is long, starting with resolutions condemning terrorism, appropriations bills, and special bills to put money after 9/11 where it was needed the most, the Airline Stabilization Act, Uniting and Strengthening America Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, the intelligence bills, the defense bills--the list goes on and on.

These were strong bipartisan measures taken in the wake of 9/11 by Democrats and Republicans. We need that same spirit today. We need that spirit to stand behind the victims of Hurricane Katrina and their families and, God forbid, if Hurricane Rita will wreak the same type of havoc, we need to stand behind those victims as well, making certain first we have the resources in FEMA to respond to national emergencies.

There was a feeling 4 years ago that America had received a wakeup call after 9/11, that we had to be ready and prepared as a nation to respond to whatever was thrown at us. Extraordinary measures were taken, extraordinary speeches were made, but when Hurricane Katrina struck, we were not ready.

There has been a lot of question about how to answer the question, What did we do wrong, what did we fail to do with Hurricane Katrina? We better get those answers and get them quickly, not just to point blame, which some say is what it is all about, but for accountability, to figure out what went wrong so it does not happen again. That is basic. It is not a blame game. There is no game involved. It is a matter of accountability.

Sadly, our friends on the other side of the aisle believe the only accountability can come about if a majority of those who are asking the questions are members of the President's party. We learned after 9/11 that it was much better to bring in an independent, nonpartisan commission to ask those hard questions.

The 9/11 Commission, cochaired by Gov. Thomas Kean, a former Republican Governor of New Jersey, and Congressman Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic Congressman from Indiana, did an exceptional job. The strong bipartisan commission came up with measures and recommendations which truly changed the way we govern America and changed the way we think about our responsibility in Congress, as well as in the executive branch.

We need exactly the same type of commission when it comes to Hurricane Katrina. But for reasons I cannot explain, the Republicans have steadfastly refused to appoint an independent, nonpartisan commission to find out what went wrong several weeks ago with Hurricane Katrina. That is the only way to come up with a credible analysis of that failing, whether it occurred at the Federal level, the State level, the local level, or right here in Congress. Let's have an honest, independent, nonpartisan commission, as we did after 9/11.

Instead, the Republican leadership says let's press forward with our own internal investigation. That has no credibility--or very little, I might say. I have been a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee where Senator Roberts, as the chairman, has promised he would investigate the misuse of intelligence information before the invasion of Iraq. That promise has been made for over a year. Nothing has happened.

We have called time and time again for a congressional investigation of the contracts in Iraq, the no-bid contracts in Iraq to companies such as Halliburton. We know there is evidence of abuse, misuse of taxpayers' funds, and yet this Republican Congress refuses to have a full-scale, honest investigation of Halliburton and the other contractors who are profiteering at the expense of our troops and at the expense of our taxpayers.

So it is time to concede the obvious. We cannot have a thorough, meaningful investigation of Hurricane Katrina without an independent commission. And we cannot come up with the resources to address Katrina and the other natural disasters until the President makes it clear to the Republican leadership in Congress that we can no longer afford the promised tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America.

It is time for us to assess the reality of the challenges we face in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and right here at home. It is time for us to dedicate the resources to rebuilding and strengthening America, rather than strengthening the coffers of a few corporations that happen to have political connections. That is our responsibility.

I hope my colleagues in the Senate and the House will gather together and understand that rebuilding our Nation is our first responsibility. We must understand that the least fortunate among us need our help today. They are more vulnerable than they have ever been.

We cannot change the past, but now with another hurricane moving across the Gulf of Mexico, we can work together in a bipartisan way to change the future. America can certainly do better.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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