Bill Clinton: “First, let me thank all of you for meeting with me today. I'm very interested in this project. One of the things that I…”

“First, let me thank all of you for meeting with me today. I'm very interested in this project. One of the things that I promised myself when I ran for President was that if I got elected, I would give this country a first-rate disaster response operation through FEMA. When I was the Governor of my home State, Mayor Harris' other home State--[laughter]--and Mr. Witt was my State emergency services director, we had the highest frequency of tornadoes in the country. And we had some very serious flooding and a lot of other natural disaster problems. And it seemed to me that the United States Government owed it to the American people, basically in a completely nonpolitical way, to have the highest level of confidence, as well as common sense and humanity, in response to emergencies. And we have worked very hard to give that to the American people, and unfortunately, we've had more opportunities to practice in California than any other place in the country because of all the difficulties that the people here have faced. But it's terribly important. Yesterday I was in Florida dealing with the worst tornado there in 50 years and had, as you know, almost 40 people killed there. And we are very well aware of all the difficulties of El Nino here. But I just wanted to begin by saying I think this is an important part of our national obligation to one another, to deal with these things in the proper way. Now, I want to talk a little bit about the project here, but first let me say that the people of California and now the people of Florida are giving the people of the United States some very painful examples of the excesses of this El Nino, which is apparently the strongest one in this century. We are doing what we can to help. Mr. Witt and I have been talking about this now ever since we were in Florida yesterday and flying up here. Based on his recommendations, we're adding four more California counties to the disaster list: Los Angeles, Orange, Stanislaus, and Trinity. We're announcing that all 35 counties are available for public assistance, and they will be eligible also, the ones on the disaster list, for individual assistance and for help with debris removal and other emergency proceedings. The Federal Highway Administrator is here. We are releasing another $20 million, in addition to the $20 million announced last week by the Vice President, to help rebuild the road system. FEMA has already sent about $5 million for disaster housing assistance. And SBA, HUD, and Labor are also providing support. But we are going to provide another million and a half dollars for emergency watershed funding from DOA to repair flood damage in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. So we're going to do the very best we can to help deal with these problems now. The thing that I think is important as I have seen Californians deal with flooding, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, you name it--I told somebody after the Northridge earthquake that California had been through so much I kept waiting for the pestilence to appear. [Laughter] But one of the things that I've been most impressed by is how quickly some visionaries in California have moved from dealing with the disasters to trying to prevent them and trying to accept the fact that there is a high probability of natural hazards in this area but that with enough work they might be prevented, or at least some significant number of them might be prevented from becoming devastating disasters. For every dollar we spend on prevention, we save two or more in future disaster cost. We know that. Therefore, the balanced budget plan that I presented contains $50 million to launch this Project Impact to build disaster-resistant communities through partnerships with the private sector, volunteer groups, community organizations. FEMA has already launched seven of these pilot projects, and we will have a Project Impact community in every State by this fall. So I think that's very good news. I'm glad that Harris Wofford is here. Our AmeriCorps volunteers are going to be joining our efforts by the spring break initiative, coordinating disaster reduction efforts in communities of Project Impact. And in Oakland, the Collaborative Agencies for Responding to Disasters is joining the Corporation for National Service and FEMA to mobilize hundreds of high school students to carry out preventive measures in over 500 low-income and elderly housing complexes. That's very, very good news. It seems to me that Project Impact can become a real model for every community in the country. And it's an example of my idea of the proper role of Government as partner, as catalyst, as giving people the tools to deal with their own challenges and make the most of their own lives. In Seattle, the business community has matched a million dollars that we put into Project Impact with $6 million in private money. And they're undertaking a really very impressive comprehensive effort. We'll have 50 Project Impact communities, and we need 500 business partners by the end of this year. I hope we will get them. I think we will. Let me say I look forward to the discussion today. I want to hear from you. I want to get the best ideas I can about what else we can do. We want common sense, innovative opportunities to help people deal with profoundly human challenges. Mr. Witt, you might want to give us a little update on where we are in southern California, and then we'll just go around the table. I'd like to hear from everybody here. [At this point, the roundtable discussion began.]”