Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008
Floor Speech
HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT OF 2008 -- (Senate - July 25, 2008)
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DISASTER IN IOWA
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to remind my colleagues and the American people, once again, about the deadly tornadoes, storms, and floods that affected the Midwest earlier this year. Iowa, my State, was especially hard hit by this severe weather event. The people in Iowa have great pride and resiliency. They don't like to complain, and it is even harder for them to ask for help. However, I wish my colleagues to know that Iowans are hurting, similar to people in other natural disasters. I see it in their eyes as they sort through the rubble and try to rebuild their lives.
As their Senator, their friend, their neighbor, I am asking my colleagues to help and to help now. I thank my colleagues who have come to me and the rest of the Iowa congressional delegation and other Members whose States were affected. We have all had colleagues come to us to share their condolences and ask how they can help.
However, I have heard some comments that this disaster was not severe enough to warrant special legislative attention. Washington doesn't seem to understand the devastation. That is the way I see it. In other words, it is not on television for 2 months in a row such as it was in New Orleans, so we don't seem to be getting the attention of colleagues such as we did from Hurricane Katrina. But we do have an emergency, and Congress needs to respond such as we did after 9/11 for New York City or after Katrina for New Orleans.
Ten States were affected by this severe weather system. In Iowa alone, 340 communities were affected by these tornadoes, storms, and flooding. Iowa suffered well over $10 billion in damages. Of this amount, approximately $4 billion was agricultural loss, $4 billion was business loss, and $1 billion was housing damage and loss. Right now, those are very rough figures. I think they are only going to climb every day after these initial estimates.
The floods in Iowa were well over a 500-year flood event level in many parts of my State. For example, the Cedar River in the Cedar Rapids area was 11 feet over record flood stage. Since we began keeping records in the 1850s, the highest flood level had been 20 feet. The levees protecting the city are at 22 feet. In June, Cedar Rapids had 31 feet of water, well over the 22 feet of the levee protection and the the previous record of 20 feet.
Even my small hometown of New Hartford, IA, was first hit by an F5 tornado, which caused several deaths and severe damages and, just 2 weeks later, hit by severe flooding. Mr. President, 240 out of 270 homes had moderate to complete damage. Many of the businesses also suffered severe loss. They are trying to figure out how to stay in business. Unfortunately, for my small town, several have decided not to reopen.
On Monday, I visited the home you see in this photo. This is one of my constituents in Cedar Rapids, IA.
As you can see, they have already taken out the moldy drywall. Here, this lady, Shirley, is showing how high the water was on the first floor, and that is after the basement had been completely filled with water. We also couldn't go to the second floor in this home because half of the steps were washed away.
So we are not just talking about standing water. At one point this was rushing water, turning over appliances and leaving boats in people's living rooms. It is people such as Shirley, who are in limbo because Congress is not acting, needing to know what assistance can be provided. They do not know whether the Government will help. Should they stay or should they leave?
Then we have business owners who are worried about their employees not having homes. Will they leave town because they do not have a place to live? Then will the small businesses be closed because customers who use the local diner won't be there or the local flower shop won't be there? It is a vicious circle when you don't have housing for your workers.
My colleagues in the Midwest and I have been working with appropriators on additional emergency assistance to help us with the recovery and with the rebuilding process. I happen to be concerned that this additional emergency assistance is being held up by nonemergency, nonrelated, and, in fact, quite controversial provisions. I believe we should do what we did for New York and what we did for New Orleans: consider the emergency portion separately from other appropriations that people think need to be done, and do it before the August congressional recess.
Aid to the Midwest should not be held hostage to politics. Iowans are beginning to notice the inaction in Congress. I get asked why--why hasn't something been done? I would like to read to you parts of an editorial running in the Waterloo Courier. Waterloo is close to my hometown. I am not going to read it all, but, I want to include the entire editorial in the Record. I will read from just portions of it because it tells what Iowans are thinking about the inaction in Congress and that maybe there is a double standard.
The headline is: ``Congress Needs To Make Time To Help Iowa.''
Iowans who don't agree with the recent minuscule approval ratings of Congress may want to take a second look. Congress has delayed consideration of a bill that includes further disaster aid for Iowa until after Congress' August recess.
The editorial goes on:
That's quite a slap in the face to those people and businesses already confused by which direction to take concerning housing and rebuilding issues. The Senate Appropriations Committee was scheduled to take up the supplemental package on Thursday, but Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, the committee chairman, announced late Tuesday it was putting off consideration until after the recess.
Then they quote Senator Byrd:
There is no opportunity to begin consideration of a supplemental appropriations bill during the next 10 days.
Then the editorial goes on to say that Byrd said the Senate was busy debating legislation on housing, energy, defense policy, and taxes before the recess.
Continuing to quote the editorial:
Our response to Senator Byrd and the rest of the Congress is: Make the time. Delay the recess if you have to. We'd also like to remind the Senator of his comments just last month after areas in West Virginia were ravaged by storms.
The editorial refers to that statement, with Senator Byrd saying this:
Once again, West Virginia has suffered at the hands of Mother Nature. Every moment counts in the recovery efforts, and every little bit of help is crucial.
Then the editorial repeats again the last words of Senator Byrd's statement--``every moment counts.'' That was his plea then.
It goes on to say:
Sounds very similar to situations faced today by many Iowa communities, businesses, families, and individuals. It appears that Byrd's view on timely assistance doesn't extend to the Midwest.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the entire editorial so people can read it in its entirety.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From The Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, July 25, 2008]
Congress Needs To Make Time To Help Iowa
Iowans who don't agree with the recent minuscule approval ratings of Congress may want to take a second look.
Congress has delayed consideration of a bill that includes further disaster aid for Iowa until after Congress' August recess.
That's quite a slap in the face to those people and businesses already confused about which direction to take concerning housing and rebuilding issues.
``Congress doesn't seem to understand the devastation,'' Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said. ``We've got an emergency, and Congress needs to respond. If my colleagues doubt me that this is an emergency, I'm in Iowa every weekend and I'll be happy to show them around.''
Don't expect too many of Grassley's cohorts to take him up on his invitation.
On Tuesday, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver met with a congressional delegation and said he was asking for an additional $1 billion in disaster relief. The government has already approved $2.6 billion in assistance.
The Senate Appropriations Committee was scheduled to take up the supplemental package on Thursday, but Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia--the committee chairman--announced late Tuesday it was putting off consideration until after the recess.
``There is no opportunity to begin consideration of a supplemental appropriations bill during the next 10 days,'' Byrd said in a statement.
Byrd said the Senate was busy debating legislation on housing, energy, defense policy and taxes before the recess.
Our response to Sen. Byrd and the rest of Congress is: Make the time. Delay the recess if you have to.
We'd also like to remind the senator of his comments just last month after areas in West Virginia were ravaged by storms.
``Once again, West Virginia has suffered at the hand of Mother Nature,'' Byrd said. ``Every moment counts in the recovery efforts, and every little bit of help is crucial. I appreciate the willingness of the Bush Administration to extend relief to additional counties in our state. This wise decision will bring much needed FEMA aid to these struggling communities so they can begin the difficult task of rebuilding.''
Just to reiterate: ``Every moment counts,'' was his plea then.
He had previously written to the president asking for a disaster declaration as soon as possible, as the damage was ``beyond the capabilities of the State of West Virginia and the affected local governments.''
Sounds very similar to the situations faced today by many Iowa communities, businesses, families and individuals.
It appears Byrd's view on timely assistance doesn't extend to the Midwest.
Sen. Byrd's Web page is www.byrd.senate .gov. An e-mail address can be found there. If you feel compelled to leave him a message, please make it brief. We would hate to take up too much of his time.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have also, as an individual Senator, been working on a comprehensive plan to provide tax relief to flood, tornado, and severe storm victims in the Midwest. My Midwestern colleagues have been helping me with this effort. We urge Congress to act quickly on enacting a tax relief law because we acted very quickly--within 3 weeks--after Katrina for New Orleans.
On Wednesday, I introduced this tax bill with Senators Harkin, Bond, McCaskill, Coleman, Klobuchar, Durbin, Obama, Roberts, Brownback, Lugar, and Bayh and called it the Midwestern Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2008. The same bill was introduced in the House by the Iowa congressional delegation in a bipartisan fashion.
Federal tax relief has proven to be very helpful to disaster recovery efforts in recent years. We modeled this legislation after the tax legislation that Congress passed to help victims of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005, and the tornadoes of Kiowa County, KS, in 2007. We took into account the lessons learned from the other disaster packages, so we have been able to slim down this package and tailor it to meet the needs of this major natural disaster and not repeat the mistakes we made for Katrina, where some people who weren't hurt by the disaster were able to take advantage of it.
So we are curtailing the cost considerably. But there is another inconsistency. I have been told by the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel, that our disaster tax relief package needs to be offset. Well, he didn't hear Chuck Grassley say the tax package we passed for New York City after 9/11 had to be offset. It was an emergency. New York City needed help and New York City got help from this Senator, chairman of the committee at that time. I guess at that time I was ranking member, but still helping. And when Katrina came along, I was chairman of the committee once again, and we did not ask for offsets for Katrina. People in New Orleans were hurting and we passed the legislation and the President signed it 3 weeks after Katrina. We appropriated $60 billion within 5 days after reconvening after Labor Day in 2005.
So I don't want anybody telling me that we have to offset a disaster relief package for the Midwest where people are hurting, when we didn't do it for New Orleans. Why the double standard? Is it because people aren't on rooftops complaining for helicopters to rescue them, and you see it on television too much? We aren't doing that in Iowa. We are trying to help ourselves in Iowa. We have a can-do attitude. It doesn't show up on television like it did in New Orleans for 2 months.
So we are going to move ahead. We have targeted this assistance in this tax bill to those who have suffered damage and lost specifically from this severe weather event--individuals and businesses located in presidentially declared disaster areas due to floods, tornadoes, or severe storms, in just these States--Iowa, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin--just where the harm has happened this spring.
Among other provisions, this legislation would let disaster victims with damages to their primary residence tap their assets and access cash by withdrawing money from retirement plans without penalties and suspend limits on tax incentives for charitable contributions, thus strengthening local and other fund-raising drives collecting money to help small businesses and families recover. We also create tax-credit bond authority to help local governments rebuild infrastructure with interest-free loans; increase the amount of tax-exempt bond authority to help businesses receive below-market interest rate financing; remove limitations on deducting casualty losses due to natural disasters; and reduce the 2008 tax burden for businesses by substantially increasing the 2008 deductions from depreciation and expensing the business property.
We tried to add a disaster tax relief package as an amendment to the housing bill--and I have to say Senators Shelby, Dodd, and Baucus were very helpful in that process--but we didn't get all these details ironed out in time to get it in the housing package.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 4 more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY. We have agreed to pursue Midwestern tax relief either as a separate bill, which would have to start in the House of Representatives, or on another tax bill that is over here under consideration in the Senate. I want to thank Senators Shelby, Dodd, and Baucus, though, for their consideration of putting that in the housing bill.
We have had further discussions since then with Chairman Rangel and Baucus. It is our hope that we can swiftly reach a bicameral agreement with Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committee on our proposals. I think we basically have it ironed out, except for this offset issue. And we should pass this tax bill in both the House and Senate by unanimous consent before we leave for the August recess. That would get it done in still a longer period of time than it took me to get tax relief for New Orleans.
Once again, assistance to Iowa and the Midwest should not be held hostage to politics and gamesmanship. We treated the victims of the gulf coast with quick and fair action, as I have indicated twice during my remarks. We passed $60 billion in appropriations bills within a week of returning to Washington after the August recess--Katrina happening just days before Labor Day, during our recess--and we passed that tax relief bill that I have mentioned that was signed by the President within 3 weeks. Those were clean bills. They weren't loaded down with controversial extraneous positions and didn't need offsets.
Efforts underway by Democratic leadership are letting down the people of the Midwest. They are trying to use this disaster assistance as a vehicle to promote an agenda and pet projects, and I will give you some examples. The majority would like to include a provision to give $1.2 billion in tax credits to New York City, even though New York City does not pay Federal taxes. This proposal is widely reported to fund the building of a train from Manhattan to John F. Kennedy Airport through the use of New York Liberty Zone tax credits. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress has never before provided a limited tax benefit such as this to a government unit.
This provision is very controversial, is nonemergency, and it would slow down getting assistance to the Midwest, and Iowans, where people are hurting and hurting right now. I reiterate that politics should not get in the way of helping the victims of the storms and tornadoes in the Midwest. To cut through this hogwash, we ought to pass the Midwestern disaster tax relief bill by unanimous consent even this week.
As Iowans and others in the central United States start recovering and rebuilding their lives and communities after these record deadly storms and floods, they need and deserve swift Federal action. The assistance should not be held up over politics.
I am often asked by constituents not to forget them. Therefore, I am asking my colleagues in Congress this very minute not to forget my constituents or other constituents of Midwestern States. We only ask that Congress give Iowans and those in the Midwest the same consideration we gave victims of other disasters--and most often I mention New York City and New Orleans--nothing more, nothing less.
If any of my colleagues doubt that this is an emergency and that Federal aid is needed, I am in Iowa every weekend--except this weekend, I am sorry to say, because we are in session on Saturday. But whenever they come, I will be happy to show them around. I have all kinds of pictures, which I think my staff has been putting up from time to time, to demonstrate this disaster that we have had in the Midwest.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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