I am currently touring New Orleans and the Gulf Coast with a delegation of Democratic lawmakers. What has shocked me one year after Katrina is how little has been done. The problem isn’t more money. Congress has already appropriated $110 billion.  One year later though, less than half of it has actually been spent.

There is a great deal of fraud in the Gulf rebuilding, with the 10 largest contracts going no bid. It is estimated that about $2 billion was lost because of waste fraud and abuse. There are 128 schools in New Orleans and only 56 of them will be open for enrollment this month. There are 10 acute care hospitals in New Orleans, and only three of them are able to receive patients. The largest one, Charity Hospital, took 95 percent of the city’s indigent patients and is still completely closed because it was flooded out and has to be torn down. Clearly, the dollars are not reaching the causes most in need.

The situation in New Orleans and many parts of the Gulf Coast is unacceptable and has got to change. The federal government must get its act in gear and get the money down where it is needed.  Reports of insurance fraud by major companies are especially troubling. Congress needs to hold hearings on the waste, fraud and abuse that is taking place. One year later, it’s a disgrace that so many of these people are still homeless, so many communities have not been rebuilt and so many peoples’ basic needs continue to go unmet.

I’m pleased with the re-opening of beef trade with Japan, but frustrated by reports out of Japan that consumer confidence in U.S. beef is weak. Considering the extensive efforts to lift Japan’s ban on U.S. beef and the importance of the Japanese market to the Nebraska and U.S. beef industry, it’s bothersome that U.S. beef has not even made its way to a majority of retailers and restaurants because many are still cautions about offering the product.

I sent a letter last week to U.S. Dept of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Johanns asking the agency to outline its plan to revive the fledgling Japanese market for U.S. beef. America’s beef producers have already endured enough delays in lifting Japan’s ban. Now that we’ve cleared that hurdle, we shouldn’t experience any more delays on behalf of the USDA’s lack of foresight and planning. According to a recent news report, the last time the ban was lifted the U.S. exported 700 tons of U.S. beef to Japan between Dec. 16, 2005 and Jan. 20, 2006 when trade was first reinstated. Since Japan re-opened its trade once more this month, the U.S. has only exported just over 17 tons of beef between Aug. 7 and 17, 2006.

I know the beef industry and exporters are doing their best to try and regain the confidence of Japanese consumers and I want to ensure that the USDA is also engaged in these efforts. I’d also like to offer my assistance in helping U.S. beef find market acceptance in Japan.

I don’t want to be too ominous, however. Just this week one of Japan’s largest barbeque chains announced it would be receiving its first imports of U.S. beef. I hope to hear more hopeful stories like this in the near future. Now that we’ve jumped the bureaucratic hurdles and resumed trade, we need a plan to reassure Japanese consumers of something I’ve long believed—that U.S. beef is the highest quality and safest beef in the world.

Today we say thanks to our fellow citizens, including many from our district, who contributed financially and played a critical role in the rescue and recovery efforts on the ground during Katrina and its aftermath. However, we must also reflect on what went wrong, so we do not repeat our past mistakes. What we witnessed a year ago was heart wrenching and terrifying; what we have seen in the last year from Washington in the millions wasted on no-bid contracts is inexcusable. The federal government has promised to fix FEMA and to improve emergency planning and preparedness, but where has the oversight been? How much more prepared will America be if another Katrina happens? The people of this district deserve better than ‘FEMA-style’ government. They deserve a new direction in the way Congress handles the critical needs of the American people.

The United States Senate and the House of Representatives have passed two very different plans to address illegal immigration.  Congress has spent a tremendous amount of time and energy trying to find common ground that could result in a compromise bill supported by both the House and Senate.  Such a resolution is becoming more and more unlikely as the Senate continues to advocate for their “guest-worker Read more...

One year ago today, we watched in horror as Katrina bore down on the Gulf and laid waste to an entire region. Yet as horrific as this storm was, what came next was in many ways worse. Who can forget the thousands of people stranded in New Orleans, waving from roof tops, wading through polluted water and left stranded at the Convention Center and the Super Dome.

The Administration's immediate response to Katrina was marked by chaos, confusion and gross incompetence. The Federal Government left thousands of people stranded in New Orleans for days without basic services or even food and water. The response to Katrina became a great shame for our nation.

In the aftermath of this disaster, President Bush tried to restore people's confidence in his Administration by making many promises of support to the desperate residents of the region. Sadly today, most of those promises have proven to be hollow. Thousands of families are still waiting on FEMA trailers, most homeowners are still waiting on federal loans, less than half of the public schools will open this fall and only three hospitals in New Orleans have re-opened.

While Katrina was not only a natural disaster, the aftermath was a man made one that exposed many ugly truths about how we treat our nation's least fortunate. I was ashamed at the Federal Government's response then and, sadly, I am still ashamed one year later. We must do better.

The United States has an immigration problem.

But it is simplistic to think that we can control our immigration problem simply by controlling our borders.  For years, that has been the line of thinking.  And, for years, we have spent more and more money to reinforce the border.  And, for years, more and more immigrants have come across that reinforced border.  So, we need to do more than apply simplistic analyses to this very complex problem.  Certainly, we need to look at border problems.  But we also need to look at U.S. businesses and their need for labor – both now and in the future.  And we need to look at our need for high-skilled immigrants.  And, clearly, we need to look for a realistic approach for dealing with the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in the United States for years.

Our Immigration System is Broken.  The root of the current crisis of undocumented immigration is a fundamental disconnect between today’s economic and labor market realities and an outdated system of legal immigration. Undocumented immigration is driven in large part by a U.S. labor market that is creating a higher demand for less-skilled workers than is being met by the native-born labor force or by the current legal limits on immigration. Migration from Mexico in particular has increased over the past two decades as the U.S. and Mexican governments have actively promoted the economic integration of the two countries. As the past decade and a half of failed federal border-enforcement efforts make clear, immigration policies that ignore these larger economic forces merely drive migration underground rather than effectively regulate it.  In short, there is an unsustainable contradiction between U.S. economic policy and U.S. immigration policy, and economics is winning. The problem is not undocumented immigrants, but a broken immigration system that sends the dual messages “Keep Out Read more...

Recently, my campaign began airing a commercial on cable television that notes the disappointing direction Bush Republicans have taken our country in these past few years. The President and his rubber-stamp Republican Congress have failed us in Iraq and in the fight to lower the cost of prescription drugs and gasoline prices. We need common-sense change in Congress, and we need it soon. Watch my commercial and let me know what you think.

This week marks the third anniversary of a report that laid bare one of the most disastrous failures of government I have seen in my 30 years as a legislator. In 2003, the EPA Inspector General released a report that confirmed what I had been saying from the beginning of the recovery process -- the EPA had failed abjectly and miserably to fulfill its mandate in the aftermath of September 11th.

The 2003 Inspector General’s Report detailed misleading and falsely assuring statements make by EPA officials about air quality post 9/11, and specifically cited White House interference as a major factor in those statements. It also found that the Agency’s 2002 so-called "Indoor Air Residential Cleanup Program" was deeply flawed in design, too limited in scope, utilized inadequate testing and cleanup methods, and therefore did not meet "the minimum criteria for protecting human health the EPA established. . . ." Since the publication of this damning internal report, there has been plenty of talk by the EPA, but to this day, a complete failure to act in the manner called for by the IG.

Three years later, I, along with my colleagues from the New York Congressional
Delegation in the House and Senate are calling on the EPA to finally comply
with the findings of the Inspector General's Report issued on August 21, 2003.
This week marks the third anniversary of a report that laid bare one of the most disastrous failures of government I have seen in my 30 years as a legislator. In 2003, the EPA Inspector General released a report that confirmed what I had been saying from the beginning of the recovery process -- the EPA had failed abjectly and miserably to fulfill its mandate in the aftermath of September 11th.

In a letter we sent to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, we demand that
EPA “make a full and complete disclosure to the public about the health risks
associated with World Trade Center contamination, and institute a proper testing
and clean-up program for all buildings contaminated by the terrorist attacks.

This week, House Democrats launched the Waste, Fraud and Abuse Truth Squad. Congressman Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and I will serve as co-chairs for the Truth Squad and we will be joined by Congressman David Obey (D-WI), Congressman John Tanner (D-TN), Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and Congressman John Tierney (D-MA).

The Truth Squad will conduct oversight of the Bush Administration’s handling of taxpayer dollars. Under the Bush Administration’s watch, billions of taxpayer's dollars have been squandered, contributing to the largest annual deficits in our nation’s history. Despite documented instances of waste, fraud and abuse, the Republican Congress has failed to provide meaningful oversight or hold the Administration accountable.

To kick start the Truth Squad, we have released a new report on wasteful procurement spending in response to Hurricane Katrina. In the year following Hurricane Katrina, citizens of the Gulf Coast needed government to be at its best. Instead, they got the cronyism, corruption, and incompetence that has been far too commonplace under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress.

The Republican leaders in Congress and the White House have abdicated their responsibility to manage our nation’s finances. Congress cannot continue to buck its constitutional duty of checks-and-balances. Future generations will have to pay for the money the federal government is borrowing from other countries to spend in Washington.