Congress has passed two supplemental appropriations bills to provide immediate relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Combined, these will provide $61.3 billion to the response and recovery efforts.

I have co-sponsored the National Emergency Management Improvement Act to restructure FEMA. FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina was slow and ineffective both because of a lack of professional experience at the top levels of its leadership and because it was buried within the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. This bill would reestablish FEMA as an independent agency with a director that reports directly to the President.

I supported efforts by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to form a Select Hurricane Relief Task Force composed of Members of Congress to focus on all of the pressing needs of the Hurricane’s aftermath: health, infrastructure, economic opportunity, education, etc. While the formation of this task force was rejected by the Republican leadership, I will continue to support efforts to make sure the needs of Hurricane victims are met.

The Energy Information Administration this week revealed that the costs of heating oil are expected to increase by 30% this winter, and the costs of natural gas by 71%. These enormous price increases greatly concern me. I will meet with representatives from the energy industry and consumer groups in the coming weeks to determine how we can keep costs down. While some of these price increases are due to Hurricane Katrina’s impact on our energy infrastructure, they are also due to the leadership’s failed energy policy – gas was already nearly $3 a gallon before the hurricane. I will also support efforts to invest in alternative energy sources and find ways to bring down costs, rather than providing giveaways to the energy industry.

I joined my colleagues to write a letter to Speaker Hastert asking him to delay the budget reconciliation process, which would expand and make permanent President Bush’s $70 billion tax cuts for millionaires while cutting billions of dollars in Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other assistance.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee this week, I spoke out against efforts to strip $10 billion from Medicaid. Last year, 1.1 million Americans fell from the middle class into poverty. With so many Americans living in poverty and 46 million uninsured (including 8 million children), this is not the time to dismantle Medicaid.