Judd Gregg: “I rise to respond on this amendment. I want to make a couple of points, initially. First, this amendment is not Katrina…”

“I rise to respond on this amendment. I want to make a couple of points, initially. First, this amendment is not Katrina related. That is important. It is an attempt to bootstrap an idea that has been offered on the floor a number of times using the disaster, the catastrophe which occurred in the Gulf with Hurricane Katrina. It is not Katrina related. The breakdown in communications in the Katrina event was not an interoperability event. The breakdown was because the capital structure which supported the systems collapsed. Both the hard line and the wireless lines were not functional as a result of the infrastructure collapse. There was also a breakdown which was a function of the portable radios that were being used having to be recharged by electronic device and there was no electricity to recharge them, rather than being battery driven. That is the initial conclusion. It wasn't a question of the inability of one group to speak to another group, although that is obviously always an issue. It was a fact that the entire infrastructure which supported the communications systems collapsed. More importantly, the proposal to add $5 billion to create a new grants program is not Gulf States-focused. It is for the Nation. That is a position that the Senator from Michigan has always taken. This should be a nationwide effort. She talks about her own State needing more funds in the area of interoperability.…”