|
Washington, DC - Questions and Comments by Rep. Cynthia McKinney
1. Question: Mr. Chairman, I've submitted voluminous material for the record. Will that information be included in the official record of this committee?
2. Question: I requested the document from the Administration asking Governor Blanco to federalize the Guard, and the State's response was that Governor Blanco was asked to sign. Do we have it yet?
I would like to direct my opening comments this morning to Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, and all the good citizens of the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans. I want to express how painfully aware I am of the situation that hundreds of thousands of you find yourselves in today, the tragedies and the losses you have endured, and continue to endure.
We come here today, three and a half months since Hurricane Katrina made its devastating landfall, to once again pore over the details of what went wrong in the days before and after the storm. And even as we sit here, tens if not hundreds of thousands of evacuees wait in temporary shelters and FEMA-subsidized hotel rooms, uncertain of their next move. Meanwhile, returning New Orleans residents await a clear sense of direction on what to do next, because they just don't know whether the city of New Orleans is actually going to be rebuilt, if and when basic services in their neighborhood are going to be restored, or what level of assistance they can expect from the federal government.
A major American city has been depopulated to a fraction of its former size.
While visiting New Orleans a few weeks ago, all I could think was that the city had been "hollowed out."
The last time a major North American City was so depopulated may have been 1900, when Galveston, Texas lost between 6 and 12,000 of its 38,000 inhabitants to a hurricane.
And before that, we have to go back to somewhere between 1250 and 1400 AD, when the native American city of Cahokia, a city also settled along the Mississippi, with a population of between eight and forty thousand, was mysteriously abandoned.
This . does . not . happen . every . day.
This is not business as usual, and should not be taken as such by Congress or the White House.
But, here we are, at a Committee that has given itself the narrow mandate of examining what went wrong with the preparations for and immediate response to the disaster. I do not say this is unimportant. It is imperative that we learn what went wrong so we don't do it again. But at the same time, I sit here embarrassed and ashamed at the inaction of both Congress and the Executive Branch even as tens of thousands of evacuees face homelessness and unemployment when their temporary assistance runs out in a matter of weeks. A dozen or more "Katrina bills" lay stalled in Committee, but thus far Congress has taken very little action, even as we head into the coldest season of the year.
Obviously, the magnitude of this ongoing calamity has not sunk in here on Capitol Hill.
But there are some in Washington who do get it. Even as the citizens of the Gulf States sleep in tents, haggle with insurance companies reluctant to pay for damages, fear to touch the bacteria-laden layer of sludge left by floodwaters, lest they catch the "Katrina cough" . Halliburton, Blackwater, and the rest of Washington's corporate sweethearts, with their no-bid contracts, understand the magnitude of this calamity very well indeed, a magnitude they measure in dollar signs.
So I ask that as we proceed with today's hearing of this Select Committee, we bear in mind that to those facing homelessness, to those who cannot decide whether to rebuild their homes or abandon them entirely, the question of which level of government is most at fault is not the pressing issue of the moment. Last week we heard from evacuees who accepted that every level of government failed them. If they are right, then to whom should they turn for help today?
I hope that today's hearing avoids getting contentious. Please. The people of the Gulf Coast are looking for guidance and they need our support.
Now, with my remaining time, I want to briefly address last Tuesday's hearing. The Chair has indicated that the Government Reform Committee will be holding a hearing to specifically address the breaking of the levees. While I want to address this issue, that was not the focus of last week's hearing. Discrimination was.
As one of the legal experts stated in her testimony, it is precisely in situations where written, protective regulations are lacking that racism can creep in. Any acts of racially motivated cruelty that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina are deplorable and unacceptable. And hate crimes are subject to prosecution under the law. Last week we heard at least two first-hand accounts of situations in which whites were bused out of evacuation sites before blacks, who were then left to face deplorable conditions under which some even died.
The number and the consistency of complaints points to a pattern of civil and human rights violations which were racially motivated. Congress and the American people needed to be informed. At the same time, I am sure we all recognize that everyone in the affected Gulf Coast areas has suffered tragic loss: Black, White, Asian, Latino, and Native American.
I have asked the Committee Chair to agree to arrange a trip for this Committee to visit the Gulf States before it writes its report. I would like to see that those of us sitting here on the dais go and see for ourselves the current conditions facing Hurricane Katrina Survivors:
. that while in Louisiana we visit the Ninth Ward;
. that we see first-hand the dry public housing, all boarded up when it could be used to shelter people;
. that we see how residents manage to bury their dead when volunteer mortuaries and morticians have been frozen out;
. that we witness the challenge of reuniting families that were dispersed and sent into diaspora;
. that we look into how the right to vote is or is not being upheld for evacuees.
And finally, we could do a needs assessment:
. for schools;
. for hospitals and mental health facilities;
. for unemployment compensation and temporary assistance to needy families;
. for housing construction and rental assistance;
. for child care; for small business relief and tax relief;
. and for environmental clean-up and protection
-all of which and more are covered in a bill introduced last month by the Congressional Black Caucus. If assessing current and ongoing needs of the victims is outside this Select Committee's mandate, I urge the formation of a new Select Committee with a new mandate.
Ultimately, it will be up to the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild their cities and communities. But they need the support of the Federal Government, and Congress needs to act soon to rectify the wrongs, starting with FEMA and DHS. After all, in the aftermath of this devastating hurricane-flood, what good is it to have a Department of Homeland Security if it cannot ensure that American citizens find security in their own homeland? |
