Mitch Landrieu: “I rise today not to speak about the Iraq war or the supplemental, which has been the focus of this morning's debate. I…”

“I rise today not to speak about the Iraq war or the supplemental, which has been the focus of this morning's debate. I wanted to take a minute this morning, while we had some time, to speak about a bill I intend to introduce later this week with my cochair, the ranking member of our new Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska, and other members of my subcommittee, Senators Carper and Pryor, as we begin to lay down pieces of legislation that are apparent and necessary to improve the general disaster response for this country, which has been found to be severely lacking. The bill I will introduce later today is called the First Response Broadcasters Act. As my State continues to rebuild out of the rubble and destruction and devastation of the first and third worst natural disasters to hit the country, we learned one of the most vital lessons was that information--good information, accurate information--was not only vital, but it was essential as the first building block to our recovery.”