David Obey: “I am confident we will find overwhelming support in the House for this measure. I am certain it will be bipartisan to a…”

“I am confident we will find overwhelming support in the House for this measure. I am certain it will be bipartisan to a very great degree. I certainly expect to be voting for it. I would simply make one observation in the process, however. We should not be surprised that FEMA is at this point running out of money, because in the conference on the legislative appropriation bill last year when additional supplemental funding for FEMA was being attached, a number of us on this side of the aisle warned at that time... we warned at that time that because we were appropriating $800 million less than the historical average of the last 5 years, we would not have enough money without additional funding. And now because of that shortfall, it is obvious we have no choice but to move tonight. I would simply say I hope in the future any administration, regardless of party, will request the amount that represents their full expectations of national need in terms of dealing with disasters. I would also hope in the long run we can come up with a better way to finance national disasters...”