mr. speaker , time and time again here on the floor of the house i hear speeches : `` we will never forget 9/11 ; we will better prepare and defend america. '' but the most basic lesson of september 11 , where we tragically lost so many first responders in the collapse of the towers , was that they lacked secure interoperable communications . 
they could not talk and communicate with those first responders , and many died needlessly . 
we have not learned that most basic of lessons . 
in fact , president bush this year zeroed out federal assistance to local communities for secure interoperable communications . 
how quickly some have forgotten , yet they say it will never happen again . 
well , hurricane katrina was not a terrorist attack , but the federal response was worse and degraded from the capabilities that we had on 9/11 . 
on that day , fema was a high-functioning , independent , professionally run agency . 
today , it is subsumed into this gigantic morass of the homeland security bureaucracy , downgraded to subagency level with a political hack as its director , and most of the professional staff has resigned and gone on to run state management agencies around the country . 
there are still some good professionals there , but the leadership , appointed by the white house , and the fact it was subsumed in the bureaucracy at the insistence of the republican majority and the white house , they took away its independent agency status . 
we had a vote on the floor to restore its independent agency status . 
we predicted these problems , but they opposed that amendment . 
now they want to investigate themselves . 
will the other side of the aisle fess up , like the white house never does , that they were wrong to follow the lead of the white house to downgrade this agency , to politicize it , subsume it in a huge bureaucracy , and that we are less capable than we were on 9/11 to respond to these types of disasters ? 
i think not . 
mr. speaker , we need an independent agency outside of this highly partisan body . 
they will not admit to those mistakes . 
there were certainly mistakes made at the local level , and they will probably highlight those , and those should be rectified , too . 
but all mistakes should come out , the failings of the federal government , the state government , and the local governments , with an independent , nonpartisan commission . 
that would be greatly preferable to this coverup that is going to go on here . 
