Garret Graves: “I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for his comments. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota…”

The reason that we purchased Alaska was largely the geography, as well as the natural resources, and the abundance of that State is profound and just critically important.

I want to publicly thank Representative Hoyle for her work on the bill. It is a great bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Ezell).

I think that is fair, and I think they deserve it.

The Federal Government used to just throw billions and billions of dollars in the aftermath of a disaster and didn't pay appropriate attention, in my opinion, on the front end of what we can do to actually avert disasters.