Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3, Northern Route Approval Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, as you're all well aware, it's been a tough week in the Southwest. In particular, it's been a tough few days in the Fourth District of Oklahoma.

Today, I rise to first thank you for your prayers and your thoughts and your good will, but I note also the tornado that rolled through Congressman Tom Cole's district in Oklahoma, from Newcastle through Moore and across the southern part of Oklahoma City. Congressman Cole is not with us today because he is still in Oklahoma, addressing the needs of and working with his fellow citizens and community members as they try to put themselves back together after this strike by an F-5 tornado.

Moore is particularly important to our colleague, Congressman Cole, because not only does he represent the community, but he was raised there, two generations of his family buried in the cemetery there. So it's a community that's important to him in many, many ways.

That said, the good folks in Moore and the other communities will, over the coming days, pull themselves back together. They'll finish sifting through every pile of rubble; they'll have made a determination that there's no one left to be saved, as they work frantically to try to do that; and they'll begin the process of laying to rest those who were lost and put their entire community back together.

While many folks are well aware of the importance of FEMA and the Federal response, Moore is a classic example--and this could be any community in the United States--of where, in the greatest tragedy, the most tragic loss of life, city government, county government, and State government come together to work seamlessly to help those in need and to recover those beyond help.

We in the Oklahoma delegation and our friends in the Texas delegation appreciate everything that you have and you will help do in this effort.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield to the gentleman who represents part of that area and just to the north, Oklahoma City, the great Fifth District of Oklahoma, Congressman Lankford.

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