[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 157 (Monday, October 2, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H7660-H7666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE IN NATURAL DISASTERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to 
include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, it is my great honor to rise today to 
anchor this CBC Special Order hour.
  Today, Monday, October 2, members of the Congressional Black Caucus 
will be speaking on the floor about the devastating impact of natural 
disasters, particularly hurricanes, and the critical role of the 
Federal Government's response.
  In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and now Maria, the Federal 
Government has already deployed assets to affected regions, from HHS 
public health resources, the Coast Guard, the Urban Search and Rescue 
Task Force, to Corps of Engineers flood-fighting projects.
  In the coming weeks and months, additional resources will help 
shelter displaced Americans and get businesses back on their feet. 
Congress must also ensure that the Federal response to these disasters 
is just and equitable, and that communities of color are not directly 
or indirectly harmed by recovery efforts.
  During this time, we will hear from other members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus and its friends to discuss this issue. For 
the next 60 minutes, we have a chance to speak directly to the American 
people on issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, 
Congress, the constituents we represent, and all Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), 
from the city of Newark.
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the Virgin 
Islands, Congresswoman Plaskett, for hosting tonight's Special Order 
hour on the Federal Government's response to natural disasters. I 
believe that Ms. Plaskett and the experience that she has had in her 
homeland can open our eyes to the devastation that has taken place in 
the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico as well.
  It is unthinkable what these American citizens have been through over 
the last several weeks and will continue to suffer for months into the 
future.
  Before I begin, I have a message for the families and the friends of 
the 58 innocent people whose lives were taken and the more than 500 who 
were injured in Las Vegas overnight: The country's compassion and 
thoughts go out to you. Our hearts break with yours.
  For those injured, know that the American people are praying for your 
recovery.
  To the first responders who put their lives on the line daily: Thank 
you.
  What went down in Las Vegas last night was an act of terrorism. There 
is no other name for it. A deranged man with a small arsenal of 
firearms in a hotel room shot into a crowd of people at a concert. For 
an hour and 12 minutes, people watched the chaos unfold.
  All the moments of silence in the world won't change what happened 
last night in Las Vegas, last year in Orlando, the year before in 
Charleston, and the list goes on.
  Moments of silence used to be for showing honor or respect. There is 
nothing honorable about keeping silent and doing nothing to prevent gun 
violence. There is nothing respectful about rejecting every single 
reasonable gun bill proposed in the past decade.
  What kind of Nation are we when we sacrifice human lives on the altar 
of the gun lobby?
  The time to act was yesterday. The Federal Government has a moral 
duty to protect the welfare of American citizens before tragedy 
strikes. Yet, when the news moves from one disaster to another, we 
often suffer a sort of amnesia. We don't seem to remember or learn from 
our mistakes. We forget to fix the problems our citizens call us about 
every single day, and the problems inevitably repeat themselves.
  One issue we seem to have repeated amnesia about is the high cost our 
constituents face when evacuating disaster areas, particularly after 
hurricanes. We read reports that, due to reduced capacity and high 
demand, flights are full or tickets are prohibitively expensive. Even 
if the airlines capped flight prices, like they did last week, Federal 
taxes and fees can increase the price of an evacuation by 20 percent.
  Recently, this hit home for me. One of my district staffers had 
family stuck in Puerto Rico. Because Hurricane Maria knocked out power 
and the telephone lines, my staffer had no way of knowing whether her 
loved ones were alive or dead. Many constituents have contacted our 
offices to let us know the difficulty they were having in trying to 
find out whether their loved ones were safe or not and how we could 
help.
  She tried to get in touch with her family for 8 long days before 
hearing that they were okay. Then, when my staffer tried to book a 
flight for her family to get out of Puerto Rico, the only tickets 
available were for first class. First class. That is over $700 on a 
flight full of disaster evacuees.
  My D.C. staff did a little digging. Here is what they learned. The 
American people rely on the goodwill of the airlines to cap the prices 
of flights from disaster areas. The airlines decide when to start the 
cap and when to end it.

                              {time}  2030

  The airlines decide whether to keep selling first class tickets, and 
the Federal Government never stops charging taxes on flights from 
disaster areas.
  American citizens deserve better, Mr. Speaker. That is why, starting 
this week, I will be introducing a series of bills to ease the 
financial burden Americans face when escaping natural disasters.
  The humanitarian flight fairness package will do four things. First, 
it will allow the Secretary of Transportation to declare an aviation 
humanitarian crisis at specific airports covered by a Presidential 
declaration of emergency.
  Second, it will allow the Secretary of Transportation to mandate that 
airlines charge no more than the median fair price of all seats sold on 
that route in the prior calendar year.
  Third, the package would require the FAA to waive the $5.60 passenger 
facility charge during an aviation humanitarian crisis.
  And fourth, the package would require the FAA to waive the U.S. 
international transportation tax, which is $18 on a flight from Puerto 
Rico and the Virgin Islands.
  American citizens, Mr. Speaker. Too often Congress reacts to crisis. 
It is time for us to be proactive. It is time for us to legislate 
before another disaster strikes. The humanitarian flight fairness 
package is a commonsense solution to a problem that directly affects 
our constituents.
  Mr. Speaker, I always try to deal in common sense. As a matter of 
fact, I have a constituent back at home who constantly reminds me of 
how shallow I am, so I can do nothing but rely on common sense based on 
this constituent's feelings about me.

[[Page H7661]]

  I want to thank the congresswoman again for hosting this Special 
Order hour, and I look forward to continue working with her as she 
addresses the issues faced by Americans affected by natural disasters, 
whether it is on the mainland or in the territories. They all are 
American citizens.
  When it benefits this Nation to have Puerto Rico and the Virgin 
Islands be a part of the United States, it does not hesitate. But when 
these American citizens are in trouble, they deserve the same rights 
that every American citizen benefits from in this great Nation--and it 
is great, and we want to continue to make sure that it remains great.
  I continue to make the point, Mr. Speaker, that these are American 
citizens we are talking about. This is not foreign aid. This is not 
mutual aid. This is aiding American citizens in trouble, in disaster, 
in peril, no insulin for diabetics, no dialysis for kidney patients in 
two or three weeks. That is a death sentence, Mr. Speaker, and we 
cannot allow it to continue.
  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Payne, my colleague, for those 
sentiments and that support to the people of the Virgin Islands and 
Puerto Rico and to all the people of the Caribbean region. I am 
grateful for his empathy, for his support, the support of his 
constituents, as well as all the Members who have reached out to the 
Virgin Islands in these last several weeks.
  The islands have been struck by something that is nothing less than 
cataclysmic in many respects, particularly in a time of year when we 
are preparing for what is right now our only viable and large industry, 
the tourism industry. We have lost that for this year. We have lost 
that on all of the islands, all of the regions at this time.
  I know that so many of you have seen and expressed--so many Members 
on both sides of the aisle have come up to me and said, or texted or 
called and said, that they are there for me, and I am going to hold 
them to that. I am going to hold them to that because what we are 
facing in the Virgin Islands, I feel guilty right now--and I told my 
staff--being here, having air conditioning, sitting in a room. I feel 
guilty because I know what the children of the Virgin Islands are going 
through right now.
  There is no air conditioning. There is no light on the islands right 
now. Many of the people, many of the communities are in utter darkness, 
and as the heat rises with the amount of moisture that is in the air, 
we know that there will be health hazards that are about to happen in 
terms of mosquitoes, with dengue, chikungunya, and all other kinds of 
diseases that are going to be occurring.
  Mr. PAYNE. Will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. PLASKETT. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. PAYNE. Let me just say in terms of your guilt. It is not a guilt. 
It should not be guilt. It is an obligation for you to be here in the 
people's House to represent your constituents here, to be their voice. 
That is why they sent you here to Washington. So do not be guilty about 
doing the job you have been sent to do.
  Ms. PLASKETT. I know that that is why I am here because I need to be 
their voice, because they are voiceless right now. If you look on 
national media, you hear about what is happening in Puerto Rico, and, 
Lord knows, I feel for our fellow islanders, our brothers and sisters 
over there, but very rarely do you hear about what is happening in the 
Virgin Islands.
  On September 6, Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic 
storms this century, destroyed the islands of St. John and St. Thomas, 
the islands that are part of the district that I represent. Three weeks 
later, the island of St. Croix was devastated by Maria, a second 
Category 5 hurricane ripping through the U.S. Virgin Islands in less 
than a month. Both Hurricanes Irma and Maria have wreaked havoc in the 
U.S. territories of the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and other 
Caribbean nations.
  We forget that there are other places in the Caribbean that have also 
been struck, St. Martin and Sint Maarten, Barbuda, Anguilla, our very 
close neighbors, the British Virgin Islands, Tortola, Anegada, Virgin 
Gorda, Jost Van Dyke, places that Americans love to go to, to vacation, 
to enjoy themselves, not thinking about the lives of the people that 
are there or not there anymore.
  We know that right now the island of Barbuda is without an 
inhabitant, without an inhabitant in centuries. There is no one on 
Barbuda after the hurricane.
  Turks and Caicos, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, one that also strikes me is 
Dominica. Dominica was not hit by the first Hurricane Irma, and that 
little island nation reached out to the U.S. Virgin Islands, reached 
out to Puerto Rico and said: We don't have much, but we are going to 
give you the money that we have. We, as a government, will give you 
200,000. We will bring relief. We will bring whatever we can.
  And 2 weeks later, Hurricane Maria struck them and has devastated 
that island.
  Their Prime Minister went to the United Nations a week ago and 
begged, begged the support of the free world, begged the support of the 
members of the United Nations to support them.
  Although the full extent of the two hurricanes' impact has yet to be 
assessed, it is clear that, in the Caribbean, the damage from these 
storms appears to be unparalleled.
  President Trump issued major disaster declaration for the Virgin 
Islands and Puerto Rico. Dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries have 
been reported alongside widespread infrastructure damage all throughout 
the Caribbean.
  I received a text just this morning from members of my family who are 
still looking for loved ones on the island of St. Croix. That is why, 
in the days and months ahead, we must continue to work together to 
ensure that the individuals and families impacted by these devastating 
storms receive all the aid they need. The catastrophic destruction 
caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria demands massive amounts of aid to 
address the overwhelming needs of the countless victims who now face 
the daunting task of rebuilding their lives.
  FEMA has been on the ground in the Virgin Islands even before Irma 
hit the islands of St. John and St. Thomas. There are now more than 
12,600 Federal staff engaged in response and recovery operations from 
Hurricanes Maria and Irma in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, 
representing nearly three dozen departments and agencies.
  Storms of this magnitude require the full attention and support of 
the entire Nation. The people of the Virgin Islands have lost their 
homes and possessions. Businesses have been lost alongside hospitals, 
schools, utility systems, and other vital infrastructure.
  To give you an example, after Irma, Roy Schneider Medical Center, the 
only hospital on the island of St. Thomas, was partially destroyed, its 
roof ripped off, its walls caved in, windows blown out. Patients needed 
to be evacuated to the island of St. Croix and to San Juan to be at 
Juan Luis Hospital on St. Croix and additional hospitals on San Juan, 
as well as the veterans facility there.
  Of course, people were thinking that St. Croix, after Irma, would be 
the base. As people on St. Thomas and St. John were reeling from the 
devastation of Irma, post offices were gone, schools annihilated, mud 
slides began after additional rains, people in Coral Bay on St. John 
felt lost, isolated, trapped. Many people had days, almost weeks before 
they could get out and be in the rest of the public population.
  When Maria came, Maria struck what we thought would be our base camp, 
the island of St. Croix, and as luck would have it, the only functional 
hospital left in the Virgin Islands, the hospital of Juan Luis was 
breached by Hurricane Maria and has now been condemned by the Army 
Corps of Engineers.
  What facility will Virgin Islanders use? Will we continue to be in 
tents manned by the brave men and women of our military who have come 
down to support us? Will we operate from an operating room, an 
emergency room in a box, what they have given us thus far?
  That can't be. We have one functioning operating room that is being 
held together by the good graces and MacGyvering of the men and women 
of Juan Luis Hospital right now. Should that be for American citizens?
  I went on distribution lines. I went to grocery stores where people 
were waiting for hours. I am telling you hours--3 hours to get gas; 3, 
4 hours, the entire time of a curfew, to go on a distribution line to 
get a couple of packs of

[[Page H7662]]

water and some MREs for a family, standing out in the hot Caribbean 
sun. People were sharing umbrellas, sharing water, singing with each 
other trying to keep their spirits up.
  I met a man who had his veteran's cap on, Vietnam vet, people who are 
members of The American Legion and asking me: ``I fought for this 
country; I am an American citizen; do they think about us? I have not 
seen us on the news. My family tells me that we are not on the news,'' 
because, of course, his TV is not working, because almost all of the 
Virgin Islands is in darkness.

                              {time}  2045

  We have been able, through the valiant effort of our water and power 
authority and the linemen and others who are out there, to bring power 
to critical structures; to our government house; to the main blocks in 
Christiansted; to parts of Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the Virgin 
Islands; to the airport so that relief planes can come in and out. That 
is who is in light right now.
  But for so many others and children right now, it is darkness for 
them. The couple of hours that they have outside of the curfew are to 
be making the rounds to get ice, to keep insulin refrigerated in their 
homes, to keep milk for children and formula for babies cold before it 
goes bad. That is the daily struggle now of Virgin Islanders, American 
citizens, veterans, people who pledge their allegiance to this flag, 
people who are proud to say that they are American citizens.
  As we saw on the mainland in the United States following Hurricanes 
Katrina, Sandy, and, most recently, Harvey, Americans need to come 
together again with compassion and care. I have heard commitment from 
the President and my colleagues in Congress to the U.S. territories 
receiving the support they need.
  Moving forward, I am hopeful, but vigilant, and I will make sure that 
they keep to their promise and their commitment that President Trump 
and this Congress delivers on the promises to support their fellow 
Americans in the Caribbean region. This is a plea by me on behalf of my 
people to keep us in your thoughts, prayers, and support in the coming 
months and years. May our collective attention span endure enough 
through the constant new cycle so that we can come together to move 
beyond relief to healing and prosperity.
  This is an opportunity. I keep trying to tell our young people on the 
islands who are in despair, who have low morale, that this is an 
opportunity for us to leapfrog technology, to create the kind of Virgin 
Islands, for the Virgin Islands to be the beacon in the Caribbean 
region, the beacon of what American might can do when it does what it 
is supposed to do.
  It is this Congress' constitutional responsibility to the 
territories. The benign neglect that this Congress has gotten away with 
for the last 100 years needs to stop right now. They need to stop 
wagging their finger and telling Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands 
that they have not done what they are supposed to do when this Congress 
knows that they are not doing the right thing by those territories. Our 
formulas are different. The money that we receive is different. We get 
the short shrift on every bill that comes on this floor. Yet, still, 
you expect us to stretch that out like the poor stepchild that you 
think we are to make do and keep quiet.
  But it is going to stop right now. We cannot be quiet anymore, 
because not only are we hungry, 30 percent of the children of the 
Virgin Islands live in poverty, but now we are blind as well. There is 
no cell reception in most of the areas of the Virgin Islands. While I 
was down there last week, my staff and I roamed the islands with our 
cell phones, sitting in bypasses, sitting in areas with others, trying 
to get a signal to plead with the National Security Council, plead with 
FEMA, and others to do the right thing by the Virgin Islands.
  Given the enormity of the challenges ahead, the Virgin Islands will 
require the coordinated and sustained financial commitment of the 
United States. For this reason, I ask that Members of Congress fully 
support inclusion of funding in forthcoming disaster supplemental 
packages that will aid in short-term as well as long-term relief, 
recovery, and reconstruction of the Virgin Islands. The international 
community, including the United States, has an obligation to work with 
affected governments to restore infrastructure, provide critical 
relief, and help recovery and build back our islands. We must act 
quickly to save lives, ensure that those in the Virgin Islands are back 
on the road to swift recovery.
  Listen, I know we are hearing that FEMA is on the ground, that 
supplies are there, and that things are moving along. I must admit, 
FEMA is on the ground. I see the supplies in the cartons, in the 
containers on our ports, and I hear the discussions at daily briefings 
that go on at our local emergency management system to how they are 
working hand in hand with FEMA. I believe that the Army Corps and the 
Department of Defense and FEMA are there and they want to lend a hand.
  But something is not working, whether it is in the local government, 
a dysfunction there, or dysfunction in communications, or dysfunction 
at the highest levels of the Federal Government. Because when I go to 
neighborhoods like Whim, when I go to Tutu High Rise, when I go to 
Coral Bay, when I go to Hannah's Rest, when I go to Frederiksted and 
talk with people and they tell me they haven't had water in a week, 
something is wrong, and something needs to be done by this Congress 
that has the responsibility for the Virgin Islands.
  How can a child in the United States say that they don't have water? 
How can a child in the United States say that water is streaming over 
them because many of the roofs in many of these areas are completely 
gone?
  So what I wanted to do was to walk the Members of Congress and you, 
Mr. Speaker, through the destruction that I have seen with my eyes in 
the Virgin Islands.
  What you see right here is a home. This is a private homeowner's home 
completely gone. It looks like a construction site. It looks as if they 
are trying to start building when, in fact, this was someone's home 
before.
  Additionally, this is another home that now looks like a construction 
site that people are living in. People can no longer be here. They have 
abandoned--they have had to leave this home.
  I have additional things that I would like to show you.
  This is a line right now of people to fill up some containers with 
gas so that they can keep generators going for a couple of hours a day 
so that their children can read, so that they can wash themselves, so 
they can find out what is going on in the outside world. People can 
listen to a radio to find out what is not being said about them by 
others.

  Here is another home in the Virgin Islands. This is the kind of 
destruction that took place on the islands that I represent, the 
islands that are my home. This is all of St. John. Our transportation 
system between the islands has been completely obliterated. This is a 
ferry that was used between St. Thomas and St. John to bring goods, to 
bring people between those islands. The islands of St. John, Cruz Bay, 
Chocolate Hole, and Coral Bay now feel cut off, left out, because the 
ferry system has been down for many weeks.
  Look at this. This is what is happening in the Virgin Islands right 
now. This is the main street in Christiansted. If you look over here, 
this is the government house, and this is what our roads look like 
after the hurricane. You can see that this roof is actually a part of 
the roof over here that has completely been sheared off by Hurricane 
Maria and strewn across the street. Lines are down and poles are down.
  This is a commercial business on the island of St. Croix, a business 
that will take months, if not a year, at least, to recover if FEMA 
moves quickly on supporting a small business loan so that they can have 
the support that they need to be able to do that.
  These are the things that you don't see on the news that the people 
of the Virgin Islands are dealing with right now. What is our greatest 
asset--and has been for some years after our oil refinery was closed, 
after this Congress in 2004 changed the rules for the American JOBS Act 
that took away many of our knowledge-based businesses, our financial 
services sector--is we have had to rely on tourism.
  And this is a hotel room in one of our major hotels. This is what the 
destruction of the hurricanes look like in the

[[Page H7663]]

Virgin Islands right now. This is a hotel room that will not be 
available for the coming months for the people of the Virgin Islands to 
be able to sustain themselves with employment.
  What I am showing you now was, at one point, two homes, two 
homeowners' families. You can see the two houses look literally as if a 
hurricane just came across them and smashed them with a fist from the 
top. You can barely make out what was once in these homes. These homes 
no longer exist. These people have no homes.
  There is no temporary shelter designation right now. People are 
living in shelters in some of the few schools that are still intact, 
which means: Where are our children going to go to school?
  Many of our schools have also been destroyed. What will happen to the 
children of the Virgin Islands? What will happen to us all?
  Here is what some of the roads look like when we talk about the 
utility system and the need--or why we are in the dark in the Virgin 
Islands right now.
  This is a major road. Can you imagine having this next to your house? 
Can you imagine this amount of transponders, transformers, in front of 
your home?
  This is why most of the Virgin Islands are in the dark right now. 
This is what is happening on these islands.
  This is someone's home. This is our industry. This is tourism right 
now in the Virgin Islands. This is a hotel room in one of our major 
resorts. Places known over the world--Caneel Bay on St. John--are gone, 
are obliterated, will be no more for 2 or 3 years.
  What are the people of the Virgin Islands supposed to do? Are we 
asking for much?
  We are asking for support. We fight in your wars. We begged when we 
became part of the United States to be part of the draft because we 
want to take on the responsibility of American citizenship. But under 
the Constitution, it is this Congress, Mr. Speaker, which has 
responsibility for the territories: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin 
Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas. And I have to 
tell you that it has been a poor job that you have been doing of that 
responsibility thus far.
  We get the short shrift in Federal funding in formulas. Let's not 
talk about the Affordable Care Act. We don't even have an exchange to 
have been upset that we lost an exchange. That was never given to us. 
The Virgin Islands, with 30 percent of the children living in poverty, 
still don't get the disproportionate share for hospitals that the rest 
of the United States get.
  Why?
  I can't get a straight answer about why we shouldn't have it, but we 
don't. Neither do the smaller island territories.
  This is what we are left with. And we are asking you for your 
support. I am asking you for their support. I am begging for support 
for the people that I represent, because many Virgin Islanders are not 
going to beg you for support. That is not in them, that is not who they 
are. The biggest phrase that people have right now when I go around the 
islands after Irma and after Maria--both Category 5 when they struck 
the U.S. Virgin Islands--and I ask people, ``How did you make out?''--
that is now our new greeting for one another: ``So good to see you. How 
did you make out?'' And people's response is continually: ``Thank God I 
have life. I am blessed I have life.''

  And when you have to press them to ask them, ``What happened to your 
home,'' then they will just shake their head, ``It is no more. My home 
is no more. But thank God I have life. I am good. We are good.''
  That is the kind of people who are the people of the Virgin Islands. 
So they are not going to beg this Congress for support. I am going to 
beg for them, because you haven't been doing it out of your own 
volition or what you know is right to do. You haven't done it thus far. 
What is happening in Puerto Rico is happening in the Virgin Islands 
right now.
  As the sole representative here in Congress representing the Virgin 
Islands, I will continue the work that I have been doing in support of 
the islands' overall recovery efforts, including facilitating 
generators and security for local grocery stores, businesses so Virgin 
Islanders can get fresh food and goods, working with local shipping 
companies to clear the ports and bring commerce and relief packages to 
the islands, coordinating with housing support for the Red Cross and 
local shelters, as well as rebuilding efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers.
  Additionally, I will continue to update my residents and businesses 
around the ongoing efforts to make sure that the U.S. Virgin Islands 
continue to receive the attention and support they need during these 
difficult times.

                              {time}  2100

  While the devastation of this hurricane season has been felt in many 
parts of our country, it is imperative that we make sure our Virgin 
Islands continue to be remembered and supported as we begin the long 
and arduous process of our recovery. We are hopeful. Virgin Islands' 
motto is ``United in Pride and Hope.'' That is who we are.
  I want to thank the Virgin Islanders who are living in the mainland 
because they, through their efforts, have bridged the gap. Our office 
gets calls continually from Virgin Islands associations in places like 
Houston, Atlanta, New York, Tampa, Orlando, Miami, good Virgin 
Islanders like Tim Duncan, who, through his own efforts, brought 
planeloads of support to the people of the Virgin Islands because we 
want to take care ourselves. We don't want to ask for your support. But 
it is your responsibility, Mr. Speaker, it is the responsibility of 
this Congress to ensure that that is done.
  I think back on, as a child, hearing stories about Casper Holstein. 
Many of you may not know the name, but many of you may know him from 
gangster movies, discussions about New York at the turn of the 20th 
century. He was a Virgin Islander who created something that everybody 
calls the numbers system in New York.
  After a hurricane and a tsunami in the Virgin Islands, he, of his own 
pocket, reached in, commissioned a ship, and sent that ship filled with 
goods for his fellow Virgin Islanders back home.
  That is what is happening now because we can't always count on the 
Federal Government to do what is right by us. We have to count on 
ourselves. But I am going to make sure, and I will fight continually 
with those colleagues on either side of the aisle, whomever is willing 
to, to support the people of the Virgin Islands, to ensure that their 
efforts are not in vain.
  Let me give you a statistic when I talk about veterans and us willing 
to fight. In the last five conflicts, Virgin Islanders have paid the 
ultimate price, have greater casualties, three times the national 
average per capita. We send our sons and daughters on the regular to 
fight our wars. That is not a duty that we shirk from.
  Are you shirking from your duty to us, of your responsibility to us?
  I understand, as I have said, FEMA is on the ground, but there are 
children who are not getting water. There are old people who are eating 
MREs that others have brought back to them. Is that what should be 
happening?
  Not everybody can get to a distribution center. Not everybody can 
carry packs of water on their shoulders, on their heads, on their back 
a mile, whatever it is, to get back to their home because, as crazy as 
it sounds in this day and age, not everybody owns a car, not everybody 
can do that. So this Congress has got to figure out a way.
  I know that Ranking Member Cummings and I issued a request on 
September 29 for my good friend--and he is my friend, Trey Gowdy, 
chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee--to express 
our extremely grave concerns about the dire status of recovery efforts 
in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, requesting that the 
committee hold an emergency hearing this week with officials from the 
Department of Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, as 
well as from the White House.
  The committee this week, I know, has no hearings, no business 
meeting, no activity scheduled for the entire week, and this issue is 
in desperate need of rapid and robust oversight. Millions of American 
citizens residing in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are facing 
massive calamities, widespread disease and death, and we need to help 
them now.
  Lieutenant General Russel Honore, who commanded Joint Task Force

[[Page H7664]]

Katrina, recently warned the administration's response to this 
humanitarian crisis is replaying a scene from Katrina. Admiral Paul 
Zukunft, the Coast Guard Commandant, warned this week that the victims 
feel betrayed, they feel isolated, and they are probably getting a 
sense of betrayal of ``where is the cavalry?'' Everybody else is seeing 
what other individuals in Puerto Rico have said and their concern for 
what is happening.
  Now, I want my colleagues to know, I am not necessarily saying that 
it is the Federal Government's fault. If it is the fault of local 
government, then shame on them and let's expose that for what it is, 
because all I am concerned about is the welfare of the people of the 
Virgin Islands, not protecting local government, not protecting 
bureaucracy, whether it be at the Federal level or at the local level.
  Let's have this hearing. Let's get that information out.
  The fact that there is no functioning hospital in the Virgin Islands 
should scare the heck out of us. I was in the hospital at Juan Luis on 
Wednesday and watched doctors and others creating lists of people, how 
to get them off the island, how to get our disproportionate amount of 
dialysis patients off the island, how they were going to deal with 
those who have shunts, heart disease patients in the coming weeks with 
one makeshift operating room that they were working out of.
  How were they going to do that? How were they going to operate out of 
a tent that the Army was setting up when we still have a month and a 
half of hurricane season in the Virgin Islands, in the Caribbean? We 
are not going to be able to continually ship people off the island, fix 
them up, triage them, and get them off.
  Our labor and delivery: What if there is a child with special needs 
when they are born? What about neonatal services, if that is needed, 
for a child that is born during this time? God help us. And if you 
don't act, God help you in this time of need of your fellow Americans.
  I want to thank those Members who have reached out to me and who have 
expressed their desire to support and help us. Thank you. I am calling 
on you now for that help to make sure that the people of the Virgin 
Islands do not continually feel forgotten.
  I want to thank House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who recently 
issued a statement calling for the swift and immediate financial 
commitment to help rebuild the Virgin Islands.

  I want to thank my Republican colleague, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon of 
Puerto Rico. She and I have been continually texting. I remember 
texting with her through Maria as she and her brother were holding the 
door of their home in Puerto Rico, trying to ensure that Maria did not 
get in that house. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your 
sisterhood as we both go through this, and how ever you need me, I am 
there for you.
  Republicans must join Democrats; Democrats must join Republicans in 
Congress to address the needs of the communities in crisis by swiftly 
passing a robust relief package that provides assistance not only 
today, but throughout the long road to recovery. This is our chance in 
the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to show American might, to show 
American technology, to show American strength.
  President Trump, you have complained about the other islands not 
wanting to support us when we go to the United Nations or the 
Organization of American States against places like Venezuela or Cuba 
or China. Show that they can vote with us because Americans do what 
they are supposed to do for the islands that they have responsibility 
over.
  How are they going to trust us if we can't even take care of what 
belongs to us?
  Our fellow Americans in the Virgin Islands deserve to know that their 
government will be there for them without question or hesitation.
  I want to thank the country of Denmark, our previous owner. Many of 
you know that the Virgin Islands have had seven flags that have been 
flown over those islands. We are a very valuable place. We are 
geographically situated in the mouth of the Caribbean Basin to support 
the United States. That was why we were purchased in 1970.
  But we have maintained close ties with Denmark, and I want to thank 
the Ambassador and the Prime Minister, who reached out and said that 
they wanted to support the territory and submitted the request of the 
Danish Government to our own U.S. Government to bring their own 
additional emergency management agency to the Virgin Islands in support 
of ongoing efforts in areas such as healthcare, water purification 
systems, and experts, command control support, logistics for clearing, 
and security support. Thank you for your continued commitment to us.
  Let that not be the only commitment that we have. I know that the 
Federal Government, the executive branch, is doing its part. Let this 
Congress do its part. Let this Congress show, in this time of crisis, 
that it can rise above partisanship and support the islands of Puerto 
Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
  Let those 3.6 million Americans living in those territories--more 
than many States in this country--know that they have the full support 
of this Congress, of the American people, that they are not just a 
sound bite, that they are not just a rum and Coke and a pina colada 
when you decide that you want to get away from where you live, that we 
mean more than that to you, that we are, indeed, full citizens in this 
American experience, in this democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the 2017 Atlantic 
hurricane season was among one of the most active hurricane seasons on 
record. Four major hurricanes--Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria--left 
terrible devastation in their wakes as the United States and its 
surrounding neighbors were hit with historically catastrophic storms. 
As we know far too well, these storms caused billions of dollars in 
damage across Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, the U.S. Virgin 
Islands, Puerto Rico, and other areas in the region. Much like 
Hurricane Katrina, the effects of this devastation will be felt for 
decades.
  The frequency and intensity of these storms continue to be an ongoing 
issue for our country, and it is a problem that is only further 
exacerbated by global warming. Warmer oceans and extra heat in the 
atmosphere caused by climate change provide even more fuel for weather 
systems. Studies are already demonstrating that storms are intensifying 
significantly faster today than they did 25 years ago. Additional water 
vapor in the atmosphere is also leading to extreme precipitation. In 
fact, Hurricane Harvey brought more than 50 inches of rainfall to the 
Texas Gulf Coast, representing the greatest accumulation of rainfall 
ever recovered in the contiguous United States from a single tropical 
storm.
  As the costs of natural disasters continue to increase, we need to be 
cognizant of the impact of these costs on communities all across the 
United States--particularly communities of color or other areas where 
our most vulnerable populations reside. Federal disaster response needs 
to be fair and equitable across the board. Communities of color suffer 
greatly from natural disasters as many are left without housing or jobs 
to return to after the storm. Low income individuals and minorities 
suffer even greater when these events occur, making a strong and 
equitable federal response that much more important.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to be looking at what we can do as Americans to 
support our fellow citizens and the steps that we can take to build 
more resilient infrastructure in the wake of such devastating natural 
disasters. Each and every American shares in the responsibility to face 
these natural disasters together as one nation, and we cannot afford to 
ignore entire segments of the population in the wake of these 
disasters.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in the 
Congressional Black Caucus in drawing attention to this year's 
catastrophic hurricane season that has severely impacted the Texas, 
Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this Hurricane Season.
  The biggest challenge for residents of the 18th Congressional 
District is accessing the assistance that is available to them.
  From getting rooms in hotels for those displaced by flood waters to 
finding Disaster Assistance Centers that are accessible--when so many 
cars were damaged by Hurricane Harvey flood waters.
  This past Saturday, I joined with representatives from FEMA to 
provide critical information to Houstonians attempting to recover from 
the catastrophe of Hurricane Harvey.
  Many of them are still waiting for home inspections and need answers 
regarding the appeals process and how best to utilize Home Inspection 
Teams.

[[Page H7665]]

  I am calling on FEMA to create a new app to provide homeowners with 
instant status updates on the inspection process,'' said Congresswoman 
Jackson Lee. ``This app should speed up the process of scheduling FEMA 
inspectors for a home visit if your home has not been inspected in more 
than 10 days.
  This will help the many who are struggling to get their lives back in 
order.
  This week, FEMA announced the creation of a new housing program under 
the Direct Housing Assistance Program, which allows FEMA disaster 
relief funding to go to individual homeowners or to local governments 
to provide housing. To be considered for this program, people must 
first register with FEMA at www.DisasterAssistance.gov.
  Local government immediate disaster assistance housing options are as 
follows:
  1. Multi-Family Lease and Repair:
  Direct assistance to repair or improve existing multifamily housing 
such as apartments in order to provide more housing for survivors.
  Properties must be three or more units, with each unit providing 
complete living facilities for cooking, eating, and sanitation. Hotels, 
motels, and extended stay hotels are not eligible at this time.
  2. Direct Leasing:
  Direct Leasing: Enables local governments to lease a property that 
typically would not be available to the public, such as corporate 
lodging.
  Local government enters into the lease agreement on behalf of 
individuals or households. Various types of housing properties may be 
eligible.
  Manufactured Housing Options (Mobile Homes and Recreational 
Vehicles):
  Direct housing places manufactured housing units on private land or 
commercial pads.
  Local permitting may apply.
  There are conditions to receiving housing assistance, but no 
assistance will be available if an application to FEMA is not made.
  It is problematic for constituents from the 18th Congressional 
District, when I know that 81,950 FEMA applicants have been rejected.
  I know that tens of thousands are still displaced with over a 1 
million cars having been destroyed by flood water it is difficult to 
get to the Disaster Recovery Centers.
  I continue to work to get more Disaster Recovery Centers opened 
before the October 24, 2017 deadline to make sure that FEMA resources 
are as accessible as possible.
  We know that site for housing must be suitable.
  There will be Hauling and installation included only for those people 
who have applied for FEMA assistance and have be approved to receive 
assistance.
  An inspection of the site to determine suitability will be scheduled.
  Partial Repair and Essential Power for Sheltering (PREPS):
  PREPS provides minor repairs to homes in locations with limited 
housing options.
  For eligible properties that have incurred limited damage displacing 
individuals from their homes.
  PREPS provides basic, emergency home repairs--not to include finish 
work.
  3. Direct Assistance for Limited Home Repair:
  Program provides partial repairs to homes with significant damages.
  Program can include partial repairs to a damaged home where 
alternative housing is not available or is not cost-effective.
  FEMA will determine eligibility for permanent housing construction on 
a case-by-case basis.
  All other forms of housing assistance must be exhausted before the 
program can be considered.
  Some Hurricane Harvey survivors are getting an extension to stay 
temporarily in hotels while they look for an alternative place to live. 
October 14 is the new checkout date for the Transitional Sheltering 
Assistance (TSA) program, which pays for short-term hotel stays.
  All applicants for FEMA recovery assistance have the right to appeal 
if they are dissatisfied with FEMA's determination letter. All appeals 
must be in writing and explain the reasons why FEMA's decision may not 
be correct. The appeal should include any documentation that FEMA 
requests or that supports your claim. Appeals can be submitted via 
computer by opening a Disaster Assistance Center (DAC) account at 
www.disasterassistance.gov.
 In addition to all of the needs of family are the needs of small 
businesses who are going to be instrumental in rebuilding our 
communities.
  I will soon introduce a bill to provide grants of up to $100 thousand 
to qualified small business owners to help them with Hurricane 
Recovery.
  I thank my Colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus for joining 
in this Special Order and I look forward to our efforts to meet the 
needs of people who are impacted by this hurricane Season.
  I would also like to include in the Record an article from Vox 
regarding climate change:

                     [From vox.com, Sept. 28, 2017]

One of the Clearest Signs of Climate Change in Hurricanes Maria, Irma, 
                        and Harvey Was the Rain

       Warmer temperatures are increasing the energy and moisture 
     available to hurricanes.
       The intensity of Hurricane Maria, which made landfall on 
     Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on September 20, was part 
     of why it was so devastating to the island and its weak 
     infrastructure, leaving Puerto Ricans in a humanitarian 
     crisis.
       But this year's intense Atlantic storm season had another 
     element tying its biggest events together: a monstrous, and 
     sometimes deadly, amount of rain.
       Images of the flooded metropolises of Houston, 
     Jacksonville, and San Juan with overtopped dams, billowing 
     sewage, and flooded homes show that torrential rain can be 
     one of the most devastating consequences of hurricanes, 
     especially in urban areas where concrete makes it harder for 
     water to drain and where people can drown.
       Scientists say the extreme rainfall events that feed these 
     floods are on the rise for many parts of the world, and this 
     year's hurricanes fit that trend. In particular, rising 
     temperatures in the ocean and the air alongside booming 
     construction in vulnerable areas are fueling the increased 
     risk from massive deluges.
       Of the seven hurricanes this year so far, Harvey, Irma, and 
     Maria stand out not just for the amount of rain they dropped, 
     but for how fast they dished it out.


      Why hurricanes under warmer conditions can dump so much rain

       Downpours go hand in hand with hurricanes, since the 
     cyclones are powered by evaporating and condensing moisture.
       Warm ocean waters provide the fuel for hurricanes, and warm 
     air causes the water to evaporate. This moisture-laden air 
     then precipitates as rainfall during a hurricane, dissipating 
     the heat energy from the water.
       ``Tropical cyclones are very, very good at converging a 
     whole lot of heat in one place at one time,'' said Kossin.
       Air can hold about 7 percent more water for every degree 
     Celsius increase in temperature, Kossin explained.
       That means warmer air and warmer water could lead to 
     larger, more intense hurricanes, which in turn lead to more 
     rainfall. (The Saffir-Simpson scale only accounts for 
     windspeed, but precipitation is closely linked to a storm's 
     intensity.) Scientists are studying these links to understand 
     how future storms will respond to these conditions.
       ``Hurricanes live and die by the amount of rainfall they 
     make out of moisture,'' said George Huffman, a research 
     meteorologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
       But where that water lands depends on the speed and the 
     course of the storm, and not all areas are equally 
     vulnerable.
       ``We know that in particular that [the regions around] 
     Houston, Louisiana, and Florida are prone to some of the most 
     extreme precipitation events in the United States,'' said 
     Sarah Kapnick, a researcher at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid 
     Dynamics Laboratory. ``We do see signs of precipitation 
     extremes increasing in these regions.''
       It's challenging to make direct comparisons between extreme 
     rainfall events since their weather systems (e.g., 
     hurricanes, thunderstorms) behave differently, so scientists 
     draw on several benchmarks depending on the situation.
       These include the peak rate of rainfall, total volume of 
     rain, the three-day average rainfall, and the maximum depth 
     of rainfall. And all of these are separate from flooding, 
     which is governed by local geography and how people use land, 
     in addition to the rates and total amounts of rain.
       ``There is a difference between a 100-year rain event 
     versus a 100-year flood event,'' Kossin pointed out.


 Harvey was able to dump an extraordinary quantity of rain because of 
                     how it held still over Houston

       Hurricane Harvey hovered over the Gulf Coast in late August 
     and dumped 33 trillion gallons of water on US soil, according 
     to some estimates, and is now the wettest storm in US 
     history.
       ``When a storm stalls, that has more to do with the larger 
     scale flow fields it's sitting in,'' said Kossin. ``That was 
     just very, very bad luck.''
       The total volume of rain is easier to calculate when a 
     storm remains over a fixed area, but it much harder to suss 
     out when hurricanes remain mobile and dump water over a wide 
     swath of land and ocean.
       NASA's satellite measurements reported rainfall rates from 
     Harvey as high as 5.8 inches per hour (meteorologists define 
     ``heavy rain'' as greater than 0.3 inches per hour), while 
     the National Weather Service showed that a ground-based 
     rain gauge in Nederland, Texas, reported 60.58 inches of 
     rainfall, a new record.
       Meteorologists still have to vet this number, but if 
     confirmed, it would best the previous record--52 inches in 
     Hawaii from Hurricane Hiki in 1950--by 8 inches.
       The US Geological Survey reports that flooding causes an 
     average of $6 billion in damages and 140 fatalities each 
     year. And this year was not an average year, with Harvey 
     alone costing upward of $180 billion and killing more than 
     75.
       The waters from flooding can linger for days, causing 
     injuries, spreading disease, and hampering relief efforts. 
     The majority of Harvey's victims drowned after the storm, 
     while others were delayed from life-saving care. In one case, 
     a woman died from a flesh-eating bacterial infection after 
     falling into the festering Harvey floodwater in her house.

[[Page H7666]]

  



                     Irma's peak rain was over Cuba

       Hurricane Irma, meanwhile, set a record for its sustained 
     intensity.
       ``Irma was a complete standout: 185 mph and stayed there 
     for a day and half,'' Kossin said. ``These storms do not stay 
     there that long.''
       This intensity was matched with a firehose of rain, dumping 
     water at 10.8 inches an hour, reaching depths of 20 inches in 
     Cuba and 15.8 inches in Florida.
       The downpour led to flooding from 23 rivers and creeks in 
     Central and North Florida, forcing highways to close. The 
     state reported at least seven deaths from drowning.
       In Cuba, Irma's storm surge overtopped the Havana seawall, 
     while unrelenting rain turned the capital's streets into 
     rivers, killing at least 10 people .


    Maria took direct aim at Puerto Rico and then regained strength

       With tropical force winds reaching 230 miles from its 
     center, Hurricane Maria completely engulfed Puerto Rico as it 
     bisected the 100-mile wide island, picking up steam again one 
     it was clear.
       Satellite measurements already show that it poured as much 
     as 6.44 inches of rain per hour and has left Puerto Rico 
     shrouded in darkness.
       The Cordillera Central mountain range that forms the spine 
     of the island of Puerto Rico acted as a juicer for Hurricane 
     Maria, Huffman explained.
       Perhaps the worst blow from Maria was the 150 mph winds 
     that knocked down 80 percent of the island's power 
     transmission lines and 85 percent of its cellphone towers, 
     leaving people in the dark and struggling to contact each 
     other. But the flooding from rainfall has been a hazard too, 
     including threatening to breach Guajataca Dam in the Western 
     part of the island, forcing hundreds to evacuate.
       At least 18 fatalities have been reported in Puerto Rico so 
     far, including two police officers who drowned.


          The climate signal in deluges like these is emerging

       No single weather event--even an extreme one--can be 
     ``caused'' by climate change, as Vox's David Roberts has 
     explained in detail. And when talking about hurricanes, 
     researchers are quite hesitant to even estimate how much 
     climate change is to blame. Huffman said he's not yet sure if 
     this storm season is ``unprecedented'' in its ferocity.
       However, rising average temperatures are definitely an 
     important element of huge storms like Harvey, Irma, and 
     Maria.
       Warmer temperatures are driving sea level rise, which is 
     increasing risks from the storm surges that often herald 
     hurricanes.
       Increasing heat is also warming up the ocean, and hotter 
     air holds onto more moisture, increasing the available energy 
     for hurricanes.
       And independent of cyclones, extreme rainfall events are on 
     the rise.
       Kapnick noted that even individual rain storms can be 
     overwhelming, like storm that drenched Baton Rouge last year 
     with 31.39 inches of rain and three times the volume of water 
     of Hurricane Katrina throughout Louisiana in 2005.
       As the chart below shows, the amount of rain from a once-
     in-every-30-years rainstorm like the one that immersed Baton 
     Rouge has gone up due to warming:
       ``In this region where we have known precipitation 
     extremes, we have been able to detect an increase in 
     precipitation extremes due to a warming climate,'' Kapnick 
     said.
       And scientists are getting better at figuring out when the 
     torrential downpours are coming.
       ``If you pay attention, we've had a really remarkable 
     series of forecasts,'' said Huffman. ``For Irma, we knew four 
     to five days in advance that there would be a sharp right 
     turn. Twenty years ago, you wouldn't have dreamed of doing 
     that.''
       ``Everything we see is consistent with what we expect 
     climate change to do,'' Kossin said.


  Instruments sometimes can't stand up to the extreme weather they're 
                           trying to measure

       Huffman explained that researchers aim to combine different 
     instruments to get a robust handle on rainfall.
       ``The gold standard is rain gauges because they physically 
     collect the rain,'' said Huffman.
       The next option is ground-based radar, which covers a wider 
     swath of the weather than rain gauges, but less directly 
     measures rain.
       But take a look at what happened to a weather radar station 
     in Puerto Rico:
       This illustrates part of the challenge of attaching numbers 
     to extreme weather events. Many of the systems used to track 
     them are also vulnerable to them, leaving only indirect 
     figures and estimates.
       What's more, both rain gauges and ground-based radar have 
     limited ranges, leaving vast stretches of ocean where 
     hurricanes spend most of their existence unmeasured. And when 
     a hurricane does make landfall, gales can knock them down.
       ``We don't really have anything on the surface [of the 
     ocean] to tell us the details,'' said Huffman. ``When the 
     chips are really down, sometimes satellites are the only 
     choice.''
       That means the full accounting for the rainfall from 
     Harvey, Irma, and Maria could take months to deliver as 
     meteorologists piece together their models with the 
     measurements they have.
       However, scientists are eagerly waiting for the dust to 
     settle so they can confirm their suspicions about the record-
     breaking storms this year. The American Geophysical Union 
     added a last-minute session for researchers to present their 
     findings on Harvey and Irma at their December meeting.
       ``There's going to be a tremendous amount of research 
     coming out in the next few months,'' Kapnick said.

                          ____________________