Ralph Hall: “I want to join the chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), in strong support of H.R. 4687. Of course, he…”

“I want to join the chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), in strong support of H.R. 4687. Of course, he has well laid out the provisions of it, the need for it, and the action that was taken. We all look back to September 11, 2001, when our country was subjected to a cowardly attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These attacks, of course, will rank with any of the great tragedies of American history. As with any tragedy, we need to look for lessons that can help us against possible future tragedies. I know that we also need to carefully examine our emergency preparedness, our evacuation procedures and emergency responses as well as the structural integrity of our tall buildings. That is a tall order. And H.R. 4687 is the result of careful evaluation of how the various governmental agencies, State, local and Federal, investigated the collapse of the World Trade towers, and also emergency response and evacuation proceedings. During the course of the hearings and in consultations with professional societies and citizen groups, the Committee on Science discovered the Federal Government's inability to quickly deploy a building investigative team to the World Trade Center site. The committee found valuable data was lost because we had no one with the authority to sequester or to set aside for future observation. In haste, and amidst tragedy and disbelief, trails to analyze were lost.”