I will commit that we will be doing a meeting in Washington with your delegation through my subcommittee on this.

A disproportionate share of our Nation's debt and deficit reduction has come from spending cuts as opposed to increased revenues.

With help from all levels of government, Long Beach will rebuild stronger, smarter, and safer.

I rise today to honor Wayne Leonard, who served as Entergy's chief executive officer from 1999 and chairman/CEO from 2006 until January 2013. Over the course of those years, his visionary leadership as Entergy's top executive also…

And you can also, for new building, we have a lot of slabs that were built that should not have been built, but they were.

It is just imperative for us to really push forward to get particularly these small businesses back up and running.

I know from personal experience that it is not just the money. It is how the money comes, under what categories, and with what flexibility.

I am urging FEMA to extend temporary assistance for 120 days to eliminate that worry and anxiety.

I come to the floor today to speak on an issue that is of great importance to my home State of Louisiana: Federal disaster assistance. As you know, along the Gulf Coast, we keep an eye trained on the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season…

As a result of the lessons learned from the Hurricane Katrina experience, I worked to include Stafford Act reforms in the Hurricane Sandy relief bill that passed the Congress in January.

I encourage FEMA to extend temporary assistance to 120 days and eliminate that worry for families.

the Congress, as you know, provided $11.5 billion in needed FEMA funding for response and recovery for Hurricane Sandy and other ongoing disasters.

Well, I am very excited to hear that. And I don't know if the local officials realize what a great benefit this is to you all that we did not have in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the difference that it could possibly make.

I am going to commit right now to have a hearing in a short period of time.

I am disappointed that we could not reach agreement on a thoughtful way forward to reduce the deficit.

Why would we spend $50,000 for a hotel bill for this family? What if you took that $50,000 and put it with the insurance they had?

I just think it is very important for the public to understand that there are no cheap solutions to this dilemma, but there are better solutions than others.

The Netherlands does not have private insurance. Their government funds completely their flood insurance.

In the past, it was difficult... to do collective oversight of Federal expenditures because there was no aggregate tally across all the agencies.

So your annual budget is $82 million, and you have $291 million in damage.

I am not underestimating the importance of responsible insurance. It is a system that the United States uses.

if the Congress nickels and dimes FEMA, as it has a tendency to do... they end up having to slow down recovery all over the country.

We have a $40 billion backlog--$40 billion--of which your project was one of those backlogs.

We fought very hard to get a more flexible program.

$300 a night when you could add that money up and put it to the rebuilding of their home in a smarter way.