mr. speaker , i yield myself the balance of my time .  mr. speaker , the united states of america has gone through the worst natural disaster in our nation 's history .  time and time again , we have been hearing people say that .  it is unimaginable what people have gone through .  i have to admit i can not imagine the suffering .  i have seen it on television , i have heard it reported by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have been victimized themselves , but it is impossible , it is impossible to imagine how horrible this has been .  we do know one thing , both president bush , republican , and the democratic governor of louisiana , governor blanco , said that mistakes were made leading up to hurricane katrina and mistakes were made in the aftermath of hurricane katrina .  everyone has acknowledged that .  we have an opportunity , we have an opportunity to come together , as we have in previous disasters , and deal with it , meet our constitutionally mandated responsibility for oversight of the executive branch to investigate and look at what happened at all levels of government , local government , state government , the federal government , even the private sector .  we have a chance , mr. speaker , now to do that .  that is exactly what the gentleman from illinois ( speaker hastert ) has proposed , working with our colleagues in the other body , to come together with a committee that will allow members of both political parties to raise any question that they want , to allow this committee to have the authority to subpoena witnesses , bring them forward .  i have to say that it is very obvious to me that this is our chance to do it .  we are dealing with a hurricane right now in the carolinas .  we are dealing with other potential disasters on the horizon .  i believe i have a responsibility to the people whom i represent , i have a responsibility to all the american people , just as we all do , to make sure that the problems that we faced leading up to and in the aftermath of hurricane katrina never happen again .  mark my words , everyone , democrat and republican alike , wants to ensure that we are able to address those concerns .  that is exactly what the establishment of this commission will do .  i am perplexed , mr. speaker , with the arguments that i have heard from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle .  they want to increase their level of participation , they want to be able to get to the bottom of this , and yet they are saying let us give up our responsibility under article 1 , section 8 of the constitution that charges us with this duty .  this is our responsibility .  this is a very important part of the reason the american people elected us as representatives , to come here and do their bidding , to do their job , to make sure that we find the answers to these very important questions .  i hope that we will be able to have that sense of solidarity , and so i am saying on behalf of the gentleman from illinois ( speaker hastert ) , i know that he looks forward to having our colleagues on the other side of the aisle appointed , along with those who he will appoint to serve on this very important committee , and with that , with our quest of trying to ensure that we never go through what we have gone through in the past several weeks , i urge support of this very important resolution .  