McGovern Rejects Republican Push for Bipartisan Katrina Committee
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 -Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., emphatically rejected a resolution the House passed Thursday calling for a bipartisan congressional committee to investigate the federal government’s preparedness and response to Hurricane Katrina. The resolution passed, 224-188, and has yet to be agreed upon in the Senate.
McGovern joins a long list of Democrats who have opposed a bipartisan congressional committee composed of House and Senate members. Democrats have favored an independent commission, similar to one formed for9/11. They also have expressed strong displeasure with the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
“The federal response to Hurricane Katrina was absolutely unacceptable,” McGovern said during House debate. “The American people deserve to know what went so terribly wrong and what we must do to make sure it never happens again.”
Before the vote in the House, McGovern said he expected the resolution to pass and forecast a similar result in the Senate.
“It’ll pass,” he said. “Republican leadership is telling Republicans to ‘vote or else.’ There’s a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. Partisanship is the wrong way to do things.”
McGovern also said that if legislation forming a bipartisan committee was adopted, Democrats would boycott the committee altogether.
“[Senate minority leader] Harry Reid and [House minority leader] Nancy Pelosi have already said that they will not appoint any Democrats to the committee,” McGovern said. “We’re not going to participate in this sham.”
Democrats fear that a bipartisan committee run by Republicans would jeopardize the minority party’s role in the investigation. Democrats also have said that an independent investigation would avoid the role that partisan politics has played in Katrina’s aftermath thus far.
“After the flood comes the whitewash,.” McGovern warned. The committee would be required to report its findings on local, state and federal responses by Feb. 16.
Republicans have argued for a bipartisan committee that avoids placing blame in the hurricane’s wake and focuses on finding answers about what went wrong. Republicans also have said that Democrats will have an equal say in the investigation under the regular rules of the House.
“The minority members of the select committee will have the same rights to call witnesses,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), who introduced the resolution Wednesday to create the bipartisan committee. “This resolution provides that our select committee should operate in concert with a similar Senate committee to get to the bottom of what went wrong.”
McGovern supported an alternative plan offered by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) to form an independent commission.
“Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker,” McGovern said on the House floor. “The purpose of this commission established in Mr. Hastings’ bill is not simply to assign blame. Rather, an independent commission would take a tough, honest approach to an incredibly complicated problem.”
McGovern added, “This commission will show whether or not, as I believe, FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] lacked appropriate leadership and then recommend ways in which the agency can better be prepared, both in terms of personnel and resources.”
McGovern said that the independent 9/11 commission was effective and a “meaningful force for change,” and noted three problems with a bipartisan congressional committee: that representatives’ time could be better spent with the immediate recovery, that Republicans would be “investigating” other Republicans and that some of the problems on the Gulf Coast included “bad funding choices made by Congress itself.”
“What the American people deserve at the end of this process is a document that doesn’t necessarily agree with everything I say, or doesn’t cover the president’s back,” McGovern said, adding that Americans need a document that “actually helps fix the problems that Hurricane Katrina exposed.”
