Lloyd Bentsen: “For the last 40 years, while the Democrats may have controlled the House, the history I learned showed that the…”

“For the last 40 years, while the Democrats may have controlled the House, the history I learned showed that the Republicans controlled the other body, off and on on a number of occasions, and there are two bodies in our system. That is how legislation is done. Second of all, let me say that at least in my State of Texas, and I cannot speak for the other States, I only represent part of Texas, I find that it is the State legislature that sets the regulations, along with the school boards. I was in a school in my district not long ago. The teachers I talked to did not say one thing about Federal regulations. What they talked about was the fact that they had an air conditioning system that was 35 years old, and that the school was crumbling, that the foundation was cracked. If they had any gripes, it was not even with the State legislature, it was with the local school board. So every State is different and everybody's situation is different. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce legislation, the Repetitive Flood Loss Reduction Act of 1998, to reform the National Flood Insurance Program by improving pre-disaster mitigation and facilitating voluntary buyouts of repetitively flooded properties.”