Government had its failings communities came together churches came doing faithbased groups like we know they have done to help to give people to people and so we obviously reflect on and pray for the lives that were lost and the devastation that was horrific but celebrate the recovery that is still so evident in the people of louisiana. Mr. Speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore under the speakers announced policy of january 6, 2015, the gentleman from louisiana, mr. Graves, is recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader. Mr. Graves thank you mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago, the scene flashing across our Television Screens showed what appeared to be a third world country. Literally bodies floating in the streets, people that were homeless, homes washed away one of the worst natural dasters in americas history. Mr. Speaker over 12,00 of our brothers, our sisters, our mothers fathers, uncles, aunts, our neighbors, our friends, perished in the disaster. On august 29, 2005. We lost over 1,200 people, mr. Speaker. And these vulnerables were not vulnerables that were un vulnerabilities were not vulnerabilities that were unknown. In fact, in the times pick union there were a series called washing away in years before Hurricane Katrina. It accurately predicted the outcomes of a direct hit of a storm like Hurricane Katrina on our communities. We saw what happened. Homes, businesses, monuments, schools, our history. Our dreams. Our hopes. Our future. Were all flooded. As a result of Hurricane Katrina. 10 years ago. Mr. Speaker, this wasnt a third world country. It was one of americas great cities that was under water. Many people look back at Hurricane Katrina and they view the impact as being parochial. Things that impacted louisiana and mississippi and alabama. Not something that impacted the nation. But mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. When the Mississippi River was shut down and all the ports associated with it across the gulf coast as a result of the devastating impact, the farmers in the midwest had no way of getting their crops out to market. There was no capacity within other transportation mediums to get these crops out. So therefore, the farmers in the midwest suffered as a result of Hurricane Katrinas impact on the gulf coast. Mr. Speaker, rail lines. Louisiana is one of only two places in the United States where we were all six class 1 rail lines. In many case the rail lines and associated infrastructure was destroyed. Therefore once again severely impacting americas Intermodal Transportation system. The economy. One of the places that has this amazing has these amazing Natural Resources, the petrochemical industry and many many others, severely impacted. Causing impacts not just again to the regional economy but to the national economy. Mr. Speaker, one great example of that is gasoline prices. Following Hurricane Katrina we watched gasoline prices spike 75 cents a gallon. Let me be clear, not in louisiana. Nationwide. 75 cents a gallon in the National Average price increase as a result of those 2005 hurricanes on the gulf coast. 75 cents a gallon. As i recall, i believe that translate into 450 million in higher Consumer Payments per day as a result of the impact those storms had, the 2005 hurricanes Hurricane Katrina and hurricane rita, haden the gulf coast had on the gulf coast and had on really the nation. Importantly mr. Speaker, the deficit. Much of the recovery that was funded by the federal government, in fact the majority of it was funded as a result funded by deficit spending. Funded by deficit spending. This wasnt spending that was offset. This wasnt reserve dollars that the federal government had sitting there waiting for this unbelievable disaster. This was deficit spending and our children, our grandchildren our great grandchildren will be paying for decades for this. I want to be clear mr. Speaker. This was preventable. Which im going to talk about in a minute. But also the impact to the environment. Here you see the u. S. Army corps of engineers and you see the e. P. A. Out there talking about the importance of wetlands and the importance of watters of the United States and writing all these extraordinary rules. To grant themselves more aggressive jurisdiction. Larger jurisdiction over our private lands. Yet, as a result of those storms alone in 2005, we lost over 200 square miles of coastal wetlands in the state of louisiana alone. Mr. Speaker, ill say again a lot of people looked at this, watched it on tv, and saw it as being a parochial problem, a problem of the gulf coast a problem of louisiana, mississippi, and alabama. Mr. Speaker, you could cut and paes that situation you could paste virtually any other coastal city any other coastal state in this nation and they potentially could face the same repercussion the same outcomes as we experienced in 2005 because this nation continues to have a reactive policy to disaster. And its something weve got to change. We could have take then 100plus billion dollars that congress appropriated following the 2005 hurricane to help recover, to help get these communities back on their feet across the gulf coast. We could have taken a fraction of those dollars and we could have invested them proactively and prevented it from happening. Mr. Speaker, any city on our coast could have experienced the same disaster we saw, and i are and i remind you, just in 2012rks we saw Hurricane Sandy cause profound consequences in new york, new jersey and other communities on the east coast. Ill say it once again. Disasters that were preventable. So this is something that we all need to be paying attention to. While in new orleans, while in south louisiana, mississippi, and in alabama. There were Amazing Stories of communities coming together, of people coming together, of resilient families coming together to ensure that while this did knock them down, they were getting back up again, they were going to recover. Strong resolve from these communities all across the gulf coast. Mr. Speaker, one other thing that was truly amazing is watching the incredible outpouring of support, not just from the gulf coast but from all over this nation and countries around the world, committing to come help us recover. Across the gulf coast. It was an amazing opportunity for people to come together. To put down differences. And to all come together in support of the recovery of these communities. The recovery of these families. The recovery of these businessfuls. The recovery of the hopes and dreams of these communities across the gulf coast. Mr. Speaker, were going to continue to see this play over and over again. Were going to continue to see these types of disasters, over and over again until we turn the policies around in the United States. Until we see fundamental changes. But mr. Speaker i want to pivot back to the recovery. I want to pivot back to new orleans. I want to pivot back to st. Bernard parish, st. Tammany. I want to pivot back to lower jefferson parish. These communities in many cases were destroyed. Everything was under water. Everything. Ill say it again. The homes the businesses, the schools. The hope the dream the future. Under water. 10 years ago. 10 years ago. Unbelievable. I think that most people would have told you these communities arent coming back. They cant come back. Theyve been so profoundly impacted they simply cant recover from this. But thats not what happened. As you just heard mr. Scalise discuss, people came together. We now have an amazing progress amazing recovery of our schools in south louisiana. Amazing recovery in our economy. As a matter of fact, mr. Speaker, we now have tens of billions of dollars in Economic Development projects on the horizon while in other areas youre seeing people losing jobs, seeing businesses close. Youre seeing Small Businesses shut down and a trend of more Small Businesses closing than opening across the nation. But in louisiana mr. Speaker, tens of billions of dollars in new Economic Development projects on the horizon. As a matter of fact we have the largest Foreign Investment in u. S. History committed to projects in south louisiana. Were seeing a manufacturing renaissance. And its happening because our people are so resilient. Because weve come back. Because weve come together. And because weve plotted a path to the future. Using the Natural Resources that louisiana is so blessed work the amazing Maritime Transportation system we have. And the amazing Natural Resources in regard to the inexpensive, readily available natural gas, oil, petrochemical industry, the rail line the internodal transportation facility. We have been able to accomplish a manufacturing renaissance, not in mexico, not in asia, but right here in the United States in south louisiana. Mr. Speaker in closing, i want to say i pray that there is not another community, that theres not another city, that theres not another state in this nation that has to experience, that has to go through the tragedy, the travesty we experienced in south louisiana. The loss of over 1200 of our friends, our relatives, and our neighbors. To see the type of recovery, to see people come together, and to see us finally help to build a resilient protection system. Resilient ecosystem. To ensure that the next storm isnt going to cause the same devastation to new orleans as we saw 10 years ago. I pray mr. Speaker, that that doesnt have to happen again. But its only the only way we prevent it happening again is if people learn from the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. From hurricane rita. If they actually apply the Lessons Learned that we so painfully went through in south louisiana and mississippi and alabama. We apply those lessons around the United States, to make our communities more resilient, to make our economy more resilient. To make our businesses more resilient. To make our families more resilient. And mr. Speaker, most importantly, to ensure we can all accomplish the american dream. Mr. Speaker, i reserve i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. Under the speakers announced policy of january 6 2015, the chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mr. Richmond for 30 minutes. Mr. Richmond thank you mr. Speaker. I want to just thank my colleagues from louisiana for also talking about the devastation that we received in hurricanes katrina and rita which we call the sister hurricanes because they were only separated by a couple of days and what damage that Hurricane Katrina caused just a few days later hurricane rita came right behind it and exacerbated that damage. Let me just hit on a few of the misperceptions of katrina. Well actually, since ive had a little time and i want to make sure that everyone involved has a chance to have time to speak on this, let me just, i will yield time to my good friend from mississippi, Bennie Thompson who at the time was chair of the Homeland Security committee, with made sure that some of the deficiencies in fema and some of the other places that caused us undue headaches during the rebuilding, that those headaches were relieved a little bit or eased a little bit because of the hard work of Bennie Thompson whose state also incurred some damage. So with that, mr. Speaker i will yield to the gentleman from bolton mississippi, mr. Bennie thompson. Mr. Thompson thank you very much mr. Speaker. I appreciate the gentleman from new orleans yielding time. Mr. Speaker i rise for two reasons. One, to talk about what it is to be in the eye of a hurricane and be without basic necessities for over 10 days because of the hurricane, and what it is that our government should do when those situations occur, both at the federal state, and local level. So my comments well talk a little bit about what happened in august of 2005. And how in fact, so many people were impacted, and what we have done as a government, what we didnt do, and we should do going forward. For the most part, as the gentleman from louisiana has said, both hurricanes rita and katrina ravaged, texas louisiana, mississippi, alabama and little bit of florida. But ill limit my comments to katrina. Hurricane katrina there were over 1,800 people from texas to florida who died. 238 individuals died in my district. And what we had after that, we had over 2. Million Housing Units damaged. And in my home state almost 80e,000 were completely destroyed. Now in southern mississippi, that meant that over 60 of the singlefamily dwellings were either destroyed or rendered uninhabitable and the statistics were worst for rental units. Along the beautiful gulf coast, where we have the largest manmade beach in the United States, there were over 1 Million People displaced. One month after the storm 600,000 families that were still homeless and 114,000 were housed in fema trailers. Mr. Speaker, i dont have to tell you what happened to fema trailers. It was a mess. The governments response to the temporary housing situation could only be characterized as a mess. We fixed it. But during the time, we put people in trailers that had basically been pieced together and shipped to the good people of the gulf coast. Many of them had chinese drywall in those trailers that ultimately had impacted the health of everybody we put in the trailer for temporary housing. Obviously, we passed legislation to address some of it in terms of the health costs and other things and ultimately a lawsuit provided some relief to the families. What weve done in correcting that housing situation, we directed fema to not be the response and recovery agency, but we want to understand that when people are trouble, not only do you come, but you come with the right resources to make sure you dont create and make life worse for them. So we now, after our katrina experience, we have a more anymoreble operation. We have far better individuals who are trained, so when it comes, we can respond. Now the problem that i have goes back mr. Speaker, to the comments that the speaker on the other side made you know, when you are in a disaster, whether its a hurricane or flood or tornado, the last thing you want is for somebody to say who is going to pay for it. These are citizens of the United States of america. The only thing we should say in your darkest hour in your time of need, your government will not let you down. I would hope that people understand that we are a can great nation because we take care of all of our people, especially when the chips are down and have no lower place to turn to. I would hope we would not talk about issues of deficit spending when people are being plucked off the roofs of their homes and being dislocated hundreds of miles from their residences because they cant get back into their nadse. What i also want to talk about is the fact since katrina we have made sure that First Responders can communicate with each other. There are a number of stories talking about individuals who wanted to help who couldnt talk to each other. Hopefully, we started fixing that inopera built so those individuals, whether they are volunteer fire persons law enforcement, whether at the state, local level, they can communicate with each other. When we are involved this any nat tram disaster that is federally declared, the constituents that need our help dont want us to get bogged down. And part of the help is making sure these individuals can communicate with each other. We had nonprofit organizations, the red cross, was serially criticized because in their response to katrina because of a substantial number of the citizens impacted for lowincome minority communities, we started gettings responses from we dont know what to do in those areas, but if you are part of a National Preparedness system, you go and help. You dont try to qualify that help because part of that agreement we have with the organization is you will do better and respond when other organizations dont have the capacity and we will work on the Natural Disasters in this country. Sometimes they do a good job. Sometimes they dont. We have to make sure that every time they respond, they respond in a manner thats helping anyone regarding of socioeconomic status. I look forward to working on that. The other thing we have to work on is make sure that the monies that are sent to the devastated areas dont get did he verted to other areas. In my home state of mississippi, our governor at the time diverted over 600 million that was directed to low and middleincome housing problems to a port expansion, which had nothing to do with housing but the flexibility. But we had a number of permit who lost everything they had and didnt have any means to come back and the monies we sent back from washington to attempt to make those individuals whole and the reintroducing them to the community they were displaced, that money has been sent to the gulfport but dont take mons from congress to go from middle and lowincome housing. The requirements nor that money still has not meant the satisfaction of not only the hud officials but members in the community of the so we should not take monies in time of emergency and find pet projects. If those projects are worthy to be fund the and not emergency sources. Im concerned we do that. I want to pay a special tribute to the Mississippi Center of justice who has done a wonderful job in mur suing the extended these funds are consistent are what the inat the present time of what those funds are and the National Association for the advance mpt of colored people. They have provided witnesses and testimony and hearings in hearings as well as documentation about the questionable expenditures around Hurricane Katrina. As one of those individuals who experienced firsthand katrina, our government has to stop up and me our people in need. We have attempted to fix everything that weve identified that didnt work. We saw the interopera built problem. We provided whack vacation routes so they know ohio to lead whether they are handicapped in some form. We have created opportunities so pit wont be left alone. All of those things are very important because it goes to who we are as a people. How we treat the least of these in their most desperate hour, goes to the character of who we are as a nation. So as we mark this 10year anniversary of katrina, mr. Speaker, i want us to understand its still a work in progress that it doesnt matter whether you live in the house on the hill or you live in the house around the corner, that i a dead end. You are an american sit citizen. You ask be can be rest assured that your government will be johnny on the spot. As i step back from any microphone, i want to compliment the the gentleman from louisiana for having this time, because we shid really understand how difficult how katrina has been for those individuals. But let me also take a point of personal privilege to talk about the good jobs that the men of the United States coast guard did in response to katrina also. They did a tremendous job in working and managing a locality of the recovery and response to katrina also. With that, i thank the gentleman from louisiana for yielding me the time. And i yield back to the gentleman. Mr. Richmond mouch time is remaining . The speaker pro tempore gentleman has 17 minutes remaining. Mr. Richmond before i get into some of the misconceptions and perpses that still remain from katrina let me finish where the gentleman from mississippi left off. One of the shining stars from Hurricane Katrina after the rescue and recovery was the unions coast guard. They rescued people with helicopters and boats. They didnt care if they were hungry or tired, they did the job just like most of our servicemen. They were the shining star. One the perceptions that was inarc rat was it was a Natural Disaster and not just many who calls it a manmade disaster, the judge ruled that the federal government was liable for the damages because of because the original purposes was navigation. It was overturned by the u. S. Court of appeals by the fifth circuit. May 1 of 015, a federal judge, said it is liable for damages of flooding for katrina and that the damage caused in both st. Bernard parish which is not in my district and loehrl ninth ward was that the army corps of engineers was responsible and liable for the damage caused to their homes because the coast guard was responsible for the increased storm surge and flooding during Hurricane Katrina and it could have an effect. So judge braden had the government enter into settlement gokeses negotiations with residents of the lower ninth ward and st. Bernard parish. I would continue to urge the federal government to step up and do that because its the right thing to do. Some of the other things and i just want to spend a quick moment correcting, was that after the storm, there was violence in the streets, people were shooting at the rescue boats. That was just absolutely untrue. As i tout the success of the coast guard i have to now question and criticize the effort of both the red cross and our National Guard. In the days after katrina there were red cross buses on the side of the highway that lined from new orleans all the way to baton rouge because the buses were scared to go into new orleans because it was dangerous. The red cross and the National Guard had 18 wheelers and military trucks full of water that were designed to go into new orleans but they were on the side of the interstate, opposite the buses, because they thought it was too dangerous to go into new orleans. Well mr. Speaker, i just want to tell you. While the National Guard the red cross, and others were scared to go into new orleans, i, myself with another councilmember, we were driving a mini van into new orleans filled with water with no security, no protection and the only thing we encountered were grateful people who were looking for some help, some water, some food, and some direction as to how and when this recovery would start. And what i dont want is people to look at new orleans and remember back to those days and just believe the misinformation about all of those other things. And while im correcting that let me also touch on why people didnt leave. And many people have said people just chose not to leave for various reasons, they didnt know better. All of that is absolutely untrue also. The biggest reason people didnt leave was that the warnings were weak. And they were not enough notice. I remember watching the news and watching the mayor of new orleans say, well, im sending my family to dallas and if i were you, id evacuate. Well, in moments like this, you need stern warnings and you have to be blunt. I was on the Conference Calls where fema and red cross said they were sending 10,000 body bags. We knew this was the real one and it was time to show leadership and tell people to leave the city, in no uncertain terms. I remember having a Conference Call with governor blanco which she talked about all these things along with the red cross and fema and by the time that it was my turn to talk i said, governor, i understand that this is the real deal. However, theres 1,500 people across the street from my house playing Little League and they dont get the benefit of hearing what you just said on this Conference Call. And it was later that day and next morning that people pushed but it was only a day out from the storm. And we never talked about extenses of evacuating, packing your family up, driving to another city, paying for a hotel, feeding your family, coming back. When that happens over and over again and they were false alarm, you dont give them a stern warning when you know its a real one, you know some people wont leave. And the last part of it, we came up with a bad idea of using shelters that were in harms way. We had thousands of people in the louisiana superdome thats located in new orleans. Well the superdome is right in harms way. One of the other perceptions and you heard it tonight, the new new orleans has a great School System that turned around education and the truth of the matter is its a work in progress at best. The state came in and took over most of our schools, all but maybe five or six of them. Out ofs those 5 schools they took over, seven are b schools. No a schools. 20 are cs, and 24 are d and f schools. We still have some work to do in the area of education. Weve made some improvements, but we have kids now that are being bused and staying on the bus almost two hours to get to school in the morning, two hours in the evening and thats not a system that we want. Our good schools dont have attendance zones. Its become a maze to apply and get into our better schools. Those are things that can be fixed if everyone is willing to come to the table and figure out the best way to do it and not look at everyone who has suggestions or criticisms of the School System as being the enemy. Public education even if you look at the brun brown vs. Board of education decision years ago 50, 75 years ago, that decision came about because the justices talked about how an education is important to being a good citizen, thriving, and being a success. And because of that we should spend more time in working to make sure that the new orleans public School System is a system that educates all of the kids, whether youre black or white poor or rich, whether you live in a great neighborhood or whether you live in a bad neighborhood. Every kid should have the opportunity to succeed. Another thing that people see a lot now, whether were hosting the super bowl, final four, sugar bowl. People assume the city is back because the areas they cover on tv, those are the areas that are back. If you look at canal street and bourbon street and those areas, and the superdome and the new orleans arena, theyre back. However, theres still areas that are not back. You still have areas where homeowners are still struggling to rebuild. You can look at the lower ninth ward. You can look at the upper ninth ward. You can look at gentilly and new orleans east. Those areas are still fighting to recoverer. And part of the reason, you can look at some of the complaints from homeowners when the road home process was set up. They complained they were fingerprinted and treated like criminals in the application process in the onset of asking for government assistance. Were talking about homeowners, the most responsible people in the community being fingerprinted and treated like criminals during the application process. Also, the federal government also prohibited grants exceeding the value of a property. So road home tied its calculations to a homes prestorm value as opposed to the actual cost of rebuilding. So when you look at the 36,000 grant recipient collection letters for alleged overpayments duplication of insurance proceeds or failure to comply with the covenants, you see 36,000 people that are being unjustly punished by the federal government. And i would just say that we said it very early on in the process that using appraised value was going to harm minority communities. Because an appraisal is subjective, depending on where you live. Homes in the more affluent areas of new orleans appraised higher. I can just tell you doing Electrical Work doing construction world, to rebuild a 1,500 square foot house in lake view or in the lower ninth ward sheetrock plywood, screws and nails will all cost the same. Instead of using apraised value we should have used rebuilding costs. Thats not just my opinion. I will tell you that the federal court rules that the method of calculating grants discriminated against africanamerican home onsers. That was back in 2010. The problem with the ruling was that in order for the state to stop using prestorm value to calculate road home grants but only for the future grants. By that time a majority of theant a majority of the grants had already been given out. I will just tell you that that 62 million in additional grants helped about 1,500 homeowners. But remember, we had over 100,000 properties that were damaged in the storm. So you see the vast you can see the abundance of people who did not get assistance. Some of the other remaining issues with road home was that we still have people who need money to get back in their homes because they have an unmet need. And h. U. D. Could have done something very simple to figure out where we are now. That is to figure out what people received from their insurance company, what people received from fema. What people received from road home. You add those up and then you figure out the cost to rebuild. And if the rebuilding cost exceeds those thats the unmet need we need help with government. Because there is money that is Still Available and i would say we need the federal government to actually take some time, investigate, and figure out how we can use the unused money to make people whole that were not made whole in the beginning. Also let me bring up just one other thing with so you can get a full idea of the picture of new orleans. If you just look at rent, in the nine years since katrina the share of people paying 50 of their income for rent is now 37 . So what youre saying is that secure housing cost burdens 50 of Household Income and that indicates a serious problem in housing affordability. In 2004, just to give you a reference in 2004, the share of severely cost burdened renters in new orleans was 24 . And now its 37 in new orleans. And its 26 nationally. Thats a problem and we really need to work on it because if you cant live in the city, you cant work in the city and this government is better than that. So the other thing i would just say is that people think were back and were rebuilt and thats not the case. But the other thing is that people think that we received everything we need to rebuild. I would say that congress and the government and the president did a great job in immediately sending down 14 billion to new orleans. And putting it in a fund. Its unheard of congress in take money and just put it in a fund and say corps of engineers, as you rebuild the levees, spend this money, protect new orleans, and they did it, they did a good job of doing it. But we still have outlying areas that need Flood Control and if you look at the cost of ka tria and ill give you a few figure, youll see we still have a gap. 150 billion in damages. And most of the federal spending went for relief, not rebuilding. 120. 5 billion in total spending. Emergency relief was 75 billion and rebuilding funds was 45 billion. So if you look at the federal funding, private insurance claims and charitable giving, it still leaves a gap of about 60 billion. And when you talk about a gap of 60 billion, i want you to understand what that means that means every community, every neighborhood, including mine, you will see five houses where people have come back, saved up money and rebuilt using both insurance savings, retirmente, fema, government money, then youll see a house or two thats not rebuilt at all. And then if you go down to the lower ninth ward youll see one house thats rebuilt and then youll see six or seven house that are not rebuilt houses that are not rebuilt, where the grass is higher, just as high as trees, where if youre that one home oners that took time to come home and rebuild and you have to pass that every night, its just not a safe situation and we as a country can do better than that. What i would hope is that as we continue the process of helping new orleans and louisiana recover from katrina, that we look at the Lessons Learned and we find the people who still have unmet needs, we find the people that are still not back in their homes, who want to be in their homes and we figure out a way to help them. Thats what h. U. D. Is for. We still have the money and in fact, citizens and Community Groups and i can think of a bunch of them, community voice, justice and beyond, all those groups have been asking congress and the Inspector General to do an audit and investigation of where how much funds we received, where did they go, whats left, how do we move forward and make sure that everyone who wants to come home has the ability to come home . Now, all of those things are things and Lessons Learned in this and misperceptions of katrina, i think we have to take those same things and look at sandy and other hurricanes but what i wanted to d before we went home far break and celebrate the 10th anniversary of katrina is to let people know we still have needs still have things we have to do to complete the recovery and also thank congress for what they did do. With that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. The chair lays before the speaker pro tempore the chair lays before the house the message. The clerk section 202d provides for the automatic termination of a ng emergency within 90 days of the anniversary date, the president publishes in the federal register that the emergency is to continue beyond the anniversary date in accord angs with this the enclosed notice that the National Emergency with respect to lebanon that was declared in the executive order is to continue beyond august 1, 2015. Certain ongoing activities arms transfers to hezbollah that includes sophisticated weapons systems, contribute to the instability and constitute the unusual and the threat to the Foreign Policy of the United States. For this reason i have determined it is necessary to continue the National Emergencies with respect to lebanon. Signed serly barack obama, july 29 2015. The speaker pro tempore and referred to the committee on foreign affairs. The chair leaves before the house a communication. The clerk the honorable, the spr house of representatives sir, on july 23, 2015, pursuant to section 07 of title 40 United States code, the committee on trfings considered 15 resolutions fiscal years 2015 and 2016, Capital Investment and leasing programs, the committee continues to work to reduce the leases of the of the 15 resolutions the nine authorization projects will address safety repowers or allow for safety consolidations. They are offset by reductions and other projects. They include off sets and spendening. A will result in significant redubses for the reduction of state and total the represent 237 million. I have enclosed copies of the resolutions on july 23, 2015, signed sincerely bill shoeser. The chair the the speaker pro tempore under the speakers announced policy of january , 015, the chair recognizes the gentleman from arkansas for 0 minutes. Something that is good for our environment and citizens and the passage of the resilient force act of 2015. Mr. Speaker, this bill is good for trees. And when we have healthy trees and healthy foffers and better air quality and better wildlife habitat, we protect public and private property and its a win winwin situation for our National Forests and winning situation for our america as we conserve this valuable resource that we have. This bill does is it allows us to actively manage our forests. We have qualified personnel, people who are trained, people who have the expertise and experience to manage these forests in a sustainable way. Our manage iris have been tied. They have been working hard with local constituents and local stakeholders to come up with Forest Management plans so they can manage the forests that are good for the local economies and good for the health of the forest. Yet these Forest Management plans have been held up through through or use groups that file a suit against these plans and hold them up in court and the forest isnt managed properly. We have seen an increasing amount of forest fires and because of this, we are destroying our valuable natural resource. Not only zrighzwroig our resource. The sing the greatest course is the suppression ap next cost is litigation and where the cost should be and management of the health of the forest comes in third. What the resilient forest act of 015 would do would take the focus off of Fire Suppression and put it on fire prevention. These are practices that are being carried out in my home state. In my th district i have 5. Million acres on the National Forest on the owes arc National Forest and four different u. S. Fish and Wildlife Service areas. In ar cap saw, we have been able to manage these forests. A lot of this was to protect the species and what we have done is gone into the forests and determined what is the great habitat and found that a habitat one in which has large nesting trees is great habitat for the woodpecker and thin it and then develop a fire regime to keep the underbrush out. You might think that burning the forest would cause a decrease but we saw quite the opposite. Our forests are much like the ones across the country. They have been cut as much as a september try ago and allow to grow back with the monl management. What happens in a situation like this forests are dynamic and continue to grow and start competening. And they get weak. And you get more more fuel that falls under the forest floor. And you get weakened timber and a lightning trike and burns the whole forest down. When you manage the foofert and manage the burns, you open the floor ap see a flesh of fawna. Tamente as plant life increases you get a flesh in wildlife in arkansas. We saw an increase in the wood pecker and quail dear and several other species. It is good for the wildlife and creates cleaner water and air. By applying these management practices, this will be applied differently. As we let the local stakeholders manage the forest the way it was intended to managed, it is good for the local communities where these forests or located. Another thing we have done in this bill is we have strengthened the schools provisions. And 25 of funding has to go into local comminets that fund schools and this is where forest activities around the National Forests vr decreased over the past several decades. We cut 12 billion board feet. Many of these local economies depended on these forests. As we quit cutting timber, tchess communities suffered where they are located. This bill will allow funding to go to these communities so they continue to provide commrg funding and continue to provide fund for education. Another provision in this bill it allows the salvaging of timber after of a stroffics event. It milk mix a wild fire. When you have a filed fire it castes the damage when the fires occurs and forestry terms the land has been clear cut when the fire happens but you will have deadstanding trees. They have value,. They can refofert the land and not only the value of the land but cleans up the lapped so you can reforest it. What has happened in the past the salvage cuts should be held up again and tim per the next time the fire comes through it mikes it dankous. What this bill does, it requires an environmental area and prevents so the timber can be salvaged and the revenues to be used into to reforest these lands and the practices to have healthy forests. What happens now after a stroopic eent, we get 3 percent of refrors administration of the land of the we have to have 75 after refroffers administration and it gives them time to asks the efforts they have come in to correct the problems they have had in restoring this forest. This bill is very crital and very much needed and has the support of 115 different organizations from Wildlife Organization and tribes across the country. People recognize the been physician of this bill and the benefits that can come to our country if we enact this legislation the bill is held up in the senate and we see more and more of our forests going up in flames it should become for the smat to take up this bill and pass and president sign it into law. The forests dont Pay Attention to what we legislation late here in d. C. They continue to grow and they are more reactive to what happens in nature. We need to manage these forests, managing them to be healthy and managing them to be resilient and i call on the senate to take up this legislation to pass it and move America Forward with healthy forests. I yield my time to the gentleman from washington. Mr. Newhouse thank you mr. Speaker. Ive got something that i think is very important and something that i think youre going to enjoy. You know, sometimes we learn about some very remarkable people. Individuals that, when you hear about them, they make you pause, they make you stop and think about how much they inspire and really make a difference. Today i want to recognize one such person, a young lady of 12 years old by the name of