Disaster Relief
Floor Speech
DISASTER RELIEF -- (Senate - September 17, 2008)
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday I had the chance, once again, to tour the devastated area in my State of Texas caused by Hurricane Ike, this time with the President of the United States and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Mike Levitt, along with David Paulson, the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It had been 2 days before that, on Sunday, that I had done the same thing in southeast Texas, in the Beaumont area, talking to the mayors and county judges in that afflicted part of the State, as well as having been to Galveston. Those two places, particularly Orange County and Galveston County, in the southeast part of our State, took the brunt of Hurricane Ike.
There are a lot of people hurting now in Texas. We have roughly 2 million people without power. Many people have left their homes under evacuation orders and do not know what the condition of their home is and certainly are dying to get back so they can assess where they are--whether they have been wiped out or whether there is something they will be able to rebuild, whether this is something from which they can recover.
At the same time, we know there are people who are in evacuation shelters set up by the Red Cross with FEMA's help, and others, where they are getting the necessities of life--food, water, and shelter. But these are the very same people who are eager to get back to their homes to see whether their houses are still standing, to see whether they can rebuild, as I say, or whether they are going to have to start from scratch.
The emergency response by the State of Texas, primarily the Governor and his team, as well as the leaders at the local level--county judges and the mayors--was about as good as I can imagine it could have been. Unfortunately, because of Hurricane Gustav, when it did not turn out to be as severe as many thought, and millions, literally, had evacuated, I don't think many people believed Ike was going to turn out to be as bad as it turned out to be. So many people hunkered down in place and did not take the advice of the local and State leadership to evacuate. Unfortunately, now they find themselves--roughly 2 million people--without power.
Yesterday, Mayor Thomas, in Galveston, pointed out that the toilets have not flushed since last Friday in Galveston. That not only presents an inconvenience and hardship, but it is also a public health hazard. We have many people who, yesterday, decided to give people a chance to look and leave. In other words, if they were worried about their home, give them a chance to come back on Galveston Island, check it out, and then leave because the air-conditioning, the refrigeration, the basic services provided by power were not available.
Unfortunately, if you saw, as I did, the entry and exit into Galveston Island, it was jammed with people wanting to come back under that look-and-leave policy. But the mayor decided, and I think wisely so, to suspend that because of the logjam.
In the worst of disasters, usually you find the greatest examples of the human spirit, neighbors helping neighbors. Faith-based organizations, for no other cause than serving their very basic mission, are out there making sure people are fed, making sure they are sheltered, doing everything they can to help people rebuild their lives.
We were fortunate in one sense that the storm was not as bad as originally predicted. At one point, there was an estimate that 125,000 homes would be lost; that the surge would reach up to 25 feet; that is, the water being pushed ahead of the storm would actually come all the way up the Houston Ship Channel and cause massive destruction and flooding and possibly loss of human life. While too many people did, in fact, lose their lives, fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been. Texans remember and history reminds us it was just 1900 when Galveston was hit by another hurricane where anywhere between 6,000 and 8,000 people died. Fortunately, the numbers were in the single digits in Texas. That is because of not only the preparation but because of modern building codes which created stronger houses for people who did decide to hunker down, and also because of the search-and-rescue operation conducted by the State and Federal authorities working together to try to get people out who had been trapped, literally, without electricity, without power, without gasoline. We were able to get many people out to safety in the shelters.
I think it is important for the people of this country to know that no matter who you are or where you live, we do have the systems in place both at the local and State level but also the Federal level to be of assistance to you if you need help. Of course, as I mentioned, many people are trapped, really, where they are. Maybe they went to a hotel. Maybe they went to a friend or relative's house.
Yesterday, the President announced the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Emergency Response Agency, had authorized people to basically stay in the hotel or motel, if that is where they are located, for up to 30 days while the power gets restored and while cleanup is ongoing and maybe downed power lines are removed. That ought to give people some relief, that they are not going to have to look for money they do not have just to be able to pay the bill to stay in place if they are in a hotel or motel for the next 30 days, if they come from the affected counties.
Because of the major disaster declaration that occurred, both public assistance in terms of helping to rebuild the affected areas in the State and also personal assistance is available through FEMA. We tried to announce the first step to the public yesterday. But, obviously, people do not have Internet access when their power is down. They do not have televisions to watch the announcements or maybe even radios to be able to know what to do. But it is important for the public to know, and I think not just in the affected regions, that they need to register with FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for personal assistance. That is the first step to getting back to their houses, making sure any damages are appropriately assessed, and making sure the affected people get the help they are entitled to under the law.
I would add, in addition to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Web site and their 1-800 number, if my constituents will call any one of my offices, either here in Washington, DC, which we kept open 24-7 during the storm, and also any of my regional offices in Tyler, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Harlingen, Lubbock, or Austin, we will reach them and get them the help they need and to which they are entitled.
I have heard some rumors from the other side of the Capitol that Speaker Pelosi was talking about moving a stimulus package, a huge additional spending package of roughly $50 billion, and there were going to be some provisions in it for disaster recovery and wild fires and other things.
I would welcome that with this caution: that we not allow politics and the opportunity to use this as a sort of Christmas tree for a bunch of bloated spending that is not necessary to restore people to their homes and to repair the damaged infrastructure; that this not be used as an occasion for politics. To me, the most cynical thing possibly that could happen in Congress is we look past the people in immediate need, and we look for political opportunities to perhaps spend the taxpayers' money on programs that would not otherwise pass because they are somehow bundled up with emergency spending for storm relief.
There is one other thing I learned in this disaster that I think is very important as we look at dealing with our energy crisis generally, with the high price of gasoline, and high price of oil, which, perhaps, is the No. 1 economic concern of the American people today. The gulf coast is indeed a laboratory of energy that supplies the daily needs of our country. When a big hurricane comes in, like this one did, of the 25 refineries--these are the places that actually make gasoline out of oil--representing more than one-quarter of the Nation's refining capacity, 17 of the 25 had to be taken offline because of the storm. In addition, nine different oil pipelines--these are the major oil pipelines that transmit oil from the gulf to various parts of the country--also had to be shut down because of Hurricane Ike. That is going to have an impact on America's oil and gas supply.
Hopefully, the first indications are going to prove to be true, and there were no major environmental spills or problems associated with this hurricane. To me, it was just another reminder of how much Congress needs to remember that we cannot put all of the Nation's energy--or at least 25 percent of it--in one place. It is literally like putting all of our eggs in one basket. As the saying goes, if you put all your eggs in one basket, you better take care of that basket.
The fact is, as we look forward to hopefully removing the moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf drilling and exploration and production of oil and building of refineries at home so we have to depend less on imported energy from the Middle East, that we will remember the lessons of Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.
Frankly, I think putting so much of our Nation's energy capacity in an area that is from time to time going to be affected by these natural disasters is something we ought to take note of and do something about. By producing the ability, or at least allowing the ability, for more exploration and development and building of pipelines, building of refineries in other parts of the country and, producing more at home, we, as we use less by conservation measures, can produce more American energy so we are less reliant on imported oil from the Middle East.
There have been a lot of interesting proposals being made. I want to caution my colleagues against some of the proposals that claim to do more about drilling but which in fact create further obstacles to further American oil exploration and drilling. As a matter of fact, one of the initial proposals we saw--I know this was in good faith. I am not questioning the good faith of the proponents. But the effect of it would actually be to raise taxes and diminish domestic oil production and actually limit energy exploration.
It is true, we would go from 85 to roughly 70 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf that would be available for drilling under this proposal, but what we would in effect be doing is putting a 60-vote barrier on going into that other 70 percent in the future. I do not know why, if we are willing to acknowledge the fact that modern drilling technology will allow for the exploration and production of oil in one place, such as the Outer Continental Shelf, why we would restrict it in other places on the Outer Continental Shelf, or developing the oil shale out West or perhaps even in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--in a 2,000-acre piece of frozen tundra in the middle of a 19 million-acre wildlife refuge--something that can be developed, I believe, in an environmentally responsible way.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
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