Jack Kingston: “I just wanted to readdress some of the points that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) had made briefly on this…”

“I just wanted to readdress some of the points that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) had made briefly on this disaster money that the motion to recommit requests $1.55 billion to be funded, which is what the administration's original request was for FY 2003. However, this bill already has money in it. So if we went ahead with this, this is in addition to the $983 million that we put into disaster relief in July, that would mean we would be a billion dollars above the President's request. Now, that might be good, but we do not know how much Isabel actually costs. The preliminary damage assessments started on Tuesday. It will be several days, weeks, in fact, months before we really know how much money is, in fact, needed for this disaster. Hurricanes are something that we in coastal Georgia do take very, very seriously. I know that the money will be there for FEMA when we know what that amount is, but at this point, we just do not know.”