(Washington, DC) -

Statement on the Katrina portion of HR 4939

Representative Cynthia McKinney, June 13, 2006

Madame Speaker, This week, several of my colleagues and I are circulating a chart listing 176 Katrina bills, out of which only a dozen bills have become law to date.  As we sit here today, dozens of survivors are protesting the injustices suffered at the hands of FEMA.  Hurricane season is upon us again, and FEMA continues to deny housing assistance to tens of thousands of needy families, many of them now rendered homeless. 

New Orleans remains a toxic disaster zone that still looks much like it did the day after the hurricane, despite the tens of billions of dollars spent on no-bid, sweetheart contracts, much of it wasted.  Will the 163 Katrina bills sitting in committee also go to waste?  Or will Congress address the on-going specific needs of the survivors by moving existing legislation and checking fraud and abuse by providing real oversight of appropriations?  The choice is ours.