OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Establishing the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investgate the Preparations for and Response to Hurricane Katrina

Date: Sept. 15, 2005
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Infrastructure


ESTABLISHING THE SELECT BIPARTISAN COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE PREPARATION FOR AND RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA -- (House of Representatives - September 15, 2005)

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Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, calling this partisan Republican scheme ``bipartisan'' reminds me of those tinhorn dictators who attempt to mask their authoritarian regimes by calling their countries ``democratic.

We need an independent citizens commission like the 9/11 Commission to explore the failures of every level and every branch of Government. The administration and its House Republican cohorts oppose this independent citizens commission just as they opposed the 9/11 Commission and just as the administration erected roadblocks to that Commission's work at every turn.

I say to them: Save the stonewall to rebuild the levees. With thousands stranded, this administration would not lead, and now it wants its buddies in the Congress to lead the cover-up.

As with the formation of the 9/11 Commission, if enough Americans get informed and demand a genuine, independent investigation, we can end this Republican charade.

Our safety demands real accountability. With such incompetence and indifference, what reason is there to believe that what we have witnessed might not happen in our own backyard, that the fate of those we saw in New Orleans would not be the fate of other people, be they poor folks in the Rio Grande Valley from hurricane, flooding or any other disaster, be it human-caused or natural or both? Without knowing objectively what, why, and how the rescue mission failed, there is no way to ensure that the horror that we have seen would not be repeated in our own communities.

There is nothing to prevent these folks from having all of the congressional investigations, all of the budget hearings that they want to have. What we are asking for today is that you not have a sham ``bipartisan'' commission. You bring in the citizens from around the country and have the kind of independent inquiry that led to a best-selling book, by the 9/11 Commission.

We owe it to the dead, to the displaced, to all who could become the next victims of a catastrophe to support a true and genuine, independent inquiry.

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