Political Quotes

“I want to thank my colleague from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond) and the chairman from North Carolina for their help in getting these amendments put together, both the last one and this one. As my good friend from Louisiana indicated, this is the result of lessons learned, unfortunately, from countless disasters in our home State. What this does is it assures conformity between this appropriations bill and law, as indicated, the Disaster Recovery Reform Act that was signed into law in October, to ensure--and let me be clear, Madam Chair. That bill passed the House of Representatives three times, the last time by voice vote; and I think the second to last time it passed with maybe 12 opposing votes in this entire body, but not because of this provision. None of those opposing votes had anything to do with this provision. What it does is it simply says, in the aftermath of a disaster, if you applied for a loan, that doesn't make you ineligible for grants that anyone else can apply for. We shouldn't penalize people for leaning forward, being proactive, and seeking loans, and then tell them later they can't be eligible for a grant. The alternative is they stay in a FEMA-supplied hotel room, incurring taxpayers more cost, and it delays recovery. So what Mr. Richmond's provision does is it ensures conformity to the changes in law that occurred in October in this appropriations bill, the duplication of benefits as applied in a consistent manner.…”