Debbie Dingell: “we confront a hideous problem in this Nation. People are dying. People are dead. And people need help. The hospitals are…”

“we confront a hideous problem in this Nation. People are dying. People are dead. And people need help. The hospitals are full and nonfunctioning, and the suffering is tremendous all across the southern part of the United States. The first task we have is to assure that we take care of the people, and we resolve the problems of seeing to it that their suffering is ended and that the rebuilding begins. But while we are doing that, we can commence looking at one thing, and that is the structure of the Federal Government to address problems of these kinds. At the time we passed the Homeland Security legislation, it was very plain that inserting FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security was a prodigious mistake. Events in the southern United States associated with Hurricane Katrina have proved that to be so. I am introducing at an early time legislation which sees to it that FEMA becomes an independent agency, with the head reporting directly to the President of the United States, whose responsibility will be set out in statute and whose qualifications and that of his two principal assistants, also subject to confirmation by the Senate, will have to meet certain tests, and that is the need to show ability and experience in areas of emergency management.…”