Kendrick Meek: “Thank you, sir. I mentioned earlier, I'm from Florida. June 1 is a very important date to those of us that are in…”

“Thank you, sir. I mentioned earlier, I'm from Florida. June 1 is a very important date to those of us that are in Hurricane Alley. June 1 is the beginning of hurricane season. Hurricane season will be, this hurricane season has been predicted, Mr. Speaker, to be one of the most active seasons in recent time. And Florida is probably the most prepared State as it relates to response because we've gone through it so much. And the reason why we're able to respond to a number of natural disasters and hurricanes, which we have a number of wild fires that are going on right now in Florida, is that we have one of the best National Guard units on the face of the Earth, period. But 53 percent of the diesel or used equipment that they had to respond to storms, because they're the first responders, they're already staging outside of the hurricane zone to respond as first responders. They don't even have the equipment that they need to respond. In Kansas, Mr. Ryan, the Governor of Kansas said, you know, our emergency management plan called for a response from the National Guard. Those that are still left in the State of Kansas, but, they're having to use their personal vehicles. They're having to do other things to make up for the equipment that's jammed with sand over in Iraq. We must have accountability now. We must have benchmarks now. It's almost saying to school age children that it's okay, you can go to school, we won't grade you on anything. There'll never be a test.”