CJ's Home Protection Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

CJ's Home Protection Act Of 2009

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WITTMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 320, CJ's Home Protection Act of 2009. I would like to thank the chairman for his assistance in expediting this important bill to the floor. And I'd like to thank my colleague and author of the legislation, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Ellsworth), for putting this bill together.

This bipartisan bill amends the Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 by requiring the installation of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radio in all manufactured homes built or sold in the United States. These weather radios will provide immediate broadcast of severe weather warnings and civil emergency messages, including tornado and flood warnings, AMBER alerts for child abductions, and chemical spill notifications.

The legislation is named in memory of CJ Martin, a 2-year-old boy who was killed during a tornado in southwest Indiana in 2005. His mother, Kathryn, helped pass a State law requiring the manufactured housing industry to install NOAA weather radios in all newly built units and spoke at the news conference in support of similar Federal legislation. Manufactured housing in this country has replaced a lot of substandard housing, and it provides very affordable housing. It is clean, and it provides an extraordinarily good home.

Despite rapid advances in tornado warning technologies, residents of manufactured housing communities often do not have adequate access to proper shelter. Many residents of homes have a place to go in the event of a tornado, whether it is a basement or an interior room. That is why Congress passed the Tornado Shelters Act, which was signed into law in 2003. That bipartisan bill authorized communities using community development block grant monies to construct or improve tornado-safe shelters located in manufactured housing parks. Unfortunately, this program is not used often enough.

H.R. 320 represents the final link in protecting families and residents in these communities. These weather radios will get warnings out, sometimes as much as half an hour or more before a severe storm arrives. We have the ability to build shelters. Now we are going to give residents an opportunity to hear these warnings earlier so they can take shelter from these storms. The cost of installing these radios is minimal, and this is going to save lives. It is going to save families.

We will never go back and know whether CJ could have survived had this legislation been passed. We do know, though, by talking to people throughout the United States that these radios have in many, many cases already saved lives and will save lives if we install them in manufactured housing. We have a shot at significantly reducing over half of the deaths from tornadoes simply by taking the step together and passing this legislation. I again want to commend the chairman and ranking member for expeditiously moving this legislation, and I commend the Member from Indiana (Mr. Ellsworth) for his thoughtfulness and his care and passion and dedication to this issue.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WITTMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Madam Speaker, in closing, I do want to thank Ranking Member Bachus. He has done a tremendous job in pushing forth this bill, along with the chairman. And I also want to thank again Mr. Ellsworth for his passion and his leadership on this issue. We all know that we dread times of storm. We've just gone through one in Virginia where, luckily, we didn't lose any lives. But we all know that when there are ways to prevent death and destruction, we ought to act in that way. Mr. Ellsworth and his leadership, seeing the need, seeing where we can save lives, stood up, assumed that leadership role and has really done, I think, a great thing for folks that have manufactured homes throughout the United States. Again, thank you for your leadership. And thank you again to Mr. Bachus, the ranking member, for his leadership on this and to the chairman for pushing this important legislation through.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source