Mary Landrieu

I think what America is looking for first are lower energy prices that are stable.

This report is as much an indictment of what went wrong as a blueprint to move forward

Most people, if given the chance, can really begin to move themselves firmly into the middle class.

I think our government, if it wanted to, could look and find models that actually work and do both at the same time.

I really do believe that while we do need to stabilize the rental market and expand it, we should always have an opportunity or a pathway to homeownership.

I think you raise a very important point which programs do not seem to really recognize that many of those families...

What I am trying to communicate here is nothing about this is normal, and we need to have some flexibility or some modifications so that when these disasters happen, you take your normal government programs, but apply a screen of what a…

Do you understand the dilemma that some families are in that were homeowners--not homeless people, but homeowners.

So I hope you will take back to this new President that message, and to Secretary Donovan...

I just cannot tell you how upsetting it is to homeowners who were literally washed out of their homes...

That the lawyers required those homeowners to pay in full their small business loan back, which to me defeats the whole purpose of the grant.

Do you have any estimate of what those resources might be at this point?

If we are given the authority and the financial resources, yes, we are the agency that can do it, can do it well, and can do it quickly.

One size does not fit all, there are different needs in different parts of the country.

There is still a huge problem for people in the Gulf Coast area.

Many of the people that I represent engaged in none of that behavior, and Mother Nature and the Corps of Engineers, when their levees failed, foreclosed on their homes.

The whole country understands the tremendous challenges that HUD has before it with the unprecedented housing crisis now engulfing the Nation.

I would hope that the new Administration would think that there is some better way than just, again, the trailer option for housing people.

I would hope so because you can imagine how heart-wrenching--that is really a good word--it is to me to have really pressed so hard from a policy perspective to have a rental repair program adopted.

It signaled to me a real basic understanding that this catastrophe is going to have to be a multi-faceted approach from a variety of different Federal agencies.

It is so disturbing to find out that not only are we not in tip-top shape, we could potentially be the worst FEMA-run office.

I think it is very important for that exercise to continue because the people that this office is attempting to serve are very interested in how this office is functioning.

A plan to put people in travel trailers and mobile homes in Times Square or in Long Island will not work.

I want to really commend you for your extraordinary leadership joining with so many of us, both Democrats and Republicans to open up some additional acres of drilling that had been shut off to development.

I don't believe the President could have made a better choice if he had looked all over the world, seriously, for a person to lead this Department than you.