[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 17 (Wednesday, January 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S479-S481]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                Disaster Relief and Funding Our Military

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on Monday, Democrats relented after 3 long 
days and allowed the government to reopen. They agreed to pass a 
continuing resolution to reopen the government until February 8.
  I am glad they finally decided to fund the Children's Health 
Insurance Program on which 9 million vulnerable children rely as well 
as fund our military and essential government entities

[[Page S480]]

that could not operate during the shutdown. Now we have to work on 
other items that have been stalled and held hostage too.
  The first is disaster aid, which has been held up for months. The 
House of Representatives passed an $81 billion disaster relief bill 
back in December, but so far that package has gone nowhere in the 
Senate. That is incredibly disappointing and exacerbates the hardships 
to the victims of Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, as well as the 
folks out West who suffered extreme wildfires, floods, and mudslides. 
They need to get access to that $81 billion of disaster relief funding 
the House passed last December, but that too has been held hostage in 
the U.S. Senate.
  It is especially disappointing in my home State of Texas. I just got 
off the phone talking with Governor Abbott, who is perplexed--the 
kindest word I can think of--as to why we would continue to delay 
disaster relief to the people who suffered as a result of Hurricane 
Harvey.
  I am sure Governor Scott in Florida feels the same way. I am sure 
Governor Brown out in California feels the same way. I am sure the 
Governors of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands feel the same way. What 
is wrong with Congress? Why can't they take up and pass an $81 billion 
disaster relief supplemental that the House sent the Senate in 
December?
  Last August, Hurricane Harvey devastated 28,000 square miles on the 
Texas coast. It has been called the most extreme rain event in history, 
certainly in the history of the United States. Highways were flooded. 
Thousands of homes were gutted. Places like Port Arthur, Beaumont, and 
Houston have not returned to normal. Routines are disrupted, shops and 
businesses remain closed, and houses are being renovated or rebuilt. 
But because of the size and the scope of the devastation, it is hard to 
get building supplies and it is hard to get the workers to rebuild 
these damaged homes and businesses.

  In Rockport, where I visited over Thanksgiving, Harvey made landfall 
with 150-mile-per-hour winds and a 13-foot storm surge. As of the end 
of December, 284 families were reported to still lack permanent 
housing. Some people are even living in tents.
  Rockport Mayor C.J. Wax said that 70 percent of businesses in 
Rockport remain closed--70 percent. According to the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency, one-third of Rockport is so badly damaged that it 
will be impossible to rebuild. Think about that. Think if this hit your 
hometown. One-third of your hometown is so badly damaged by a natural 
disaster that it will not be rebuilt, and 70 percent of the businesses 
in your hometown are closed and haven't reopened. Think of how you 
would feel.
  Over in Nueces County, meanwhile, which includes Corpus Christi and 
Port Aransas, officials have been frustrated because they haven't 
received the temporary housing assistance they need. Although FEMA--the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency--continues to marshal the full 
extent of its resources to help some people, for various reasons, many 
people are still living in motels and, as I said, even tents. This is 
completely unacceptable in the United States of America, especially 
while the House of Representatives has acted to produce a disaster 
relief bill, but it has been held hostage here in the Senate. This 
isn't a Democratic issue or a Republican issue; this is something we 
should be clamoring to solve--and not only clamoring, we should be 
acting to vote on that disaster relief today.
  Stories like these are why we need to move additional funds for 
disaster relief without delay. It is not just Texas, as I said, it is 
Floridians, Puerto Ricans, and people who live in the Virgin Islands 
and the wildfire-ravaged parts of California as well. The Senate has 
been dragging its feet long enough, and the longer we wait, the more 
people forget.
  I remember when the President and Mrs. Trump, along with the 
President's entire Cabinet, came down to Texas after Hurricane Harvey. 
The Speaker of the House, the majority leader of the House, and leaders 
on both sides of the aisle came down to Texas and said: We want to 
help. And the House has. The House passed an $81 billion disaster 
relief bill. But this unrelated immigration issue shut down the 
government. This is another one of the hostages that need to be 
released.
  June 1 is the beginning of hurricane season, and it is imperative 
that flood mitigation and storm surge protection projects begin without 
further delay. With support from Harris County, the city of Houston and 
members of the engineering community have identified the necessary 
projects, but we can't get started until we pass a disaster relief 
supplemental similar to the one the House passed in December. I talked 
to Mayor Turner of Houston, TX, one of the largest cities in the United 
States. He is beside himself, knowing that the House has passed this 
appropriation but that the Senate doesn't seem anywhere near to taking 
it up. It is hard for me to explain to him why the Senate has not 
acted. The simple fact is, this disaster relief should not be held 
hostage any longer.
  Amidst the disaster, I do want to mention one piece of good news on 
the hurricane front. I am glad that FEMA has responded to Members of 
Congress who asked that they accept applications for relief from 
nonprofits, like houses of worship, that were affected by Hurricane 
Harvey.
  This is a picture of one of the synagogues I attended in the 
Meyerland community in Houston, TX, which shows some of the devastation 
the synagogue there experienced. The rabbi asked me: Would you please 
go back to Washington and see whether, on a nonsectarian basis, you can 
get FEMA to expand its relief efforts to respond to houses of worship, 
many of which use or volunteer their facilities for community meetings 
and the like. So it is good to know that churches, synagogues, and 
other houses of worship will be able to get that sort of relief.
  This is the United Orthodox Synagogue that I visited after Harvey, 
where, as I mentioned, I saw this firsthand and had that discussion 
with the rabbi.
  The other issue we have to address is budget caps. This is another 
issue which has been held hostage by this unrelated immigration issue 
known as DACA, which everybody has heard so much about now. In 
conversations regarding the budget caps--these are the spending levels 
for this current fiscal year.
  The fiscal year of the U.S. Government lasts from October 1 to 
September 30, and we are already well into the fiscal year. We are in 
January. So we have already been on continuing resolutions because the 
spending caps have not been agreed to, and we all know why by now--
because our Democratic colleagues refuse to agree to the spending caps, 
so we can get a spending bill that funds the military and the rest of 
government, until they get a solution for the DACA issue. This is 
another hostage that has been taken. I am very worried about its impact 
on our military because we already know that our military is in dire 
straits when it comes to readiness, and they can't operate on a 3-week 
continuing resolution, which is the one we are on now. Even if the 
spending caps were agreed to today, it would take the Appropriations 
Committee a matter of additional weeks to come up with a bill we could 
vote on.

  As a result of the shutdown, the Democratic leader--who said he voted 
against the 4-week continuing resolution because he didn't like 
continuing resolutions--has guaranteed us at least two more continuing 
resolutions even if the spending caps were agreed upon in the next few 
days. This is terrible for the Pentagon, the people we depend upon to 
defend us and keep our country safe. This is an impossible situation 
for them to manage and to be as effective and efficient as we want them 
to be.
  The Defense Department has been operating under continuing 
resolutions for more than 36 months since 2010--36 months since 2010. 
By way of comparison, in the previous 8 years, the military was funded 
that way for less than 9 months. The consequences are clear, and they 
are deadly. Many of the mishaps that have involved our naval vessels, 
such as the McCain and the Fitzgerald, are the result of sailors spread 
thin, budgets spread thin, not enough training, and not enough 
preparation for the challenges they face. So these mishaps occur, and 
people die.
  The Wall Street Journal reports that only 5 of 58 brigade combat 
teams in the Army are prepared to fight. Only 5 out of 58 are prepared 
to fight. Now, I

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don't think our adversaries should take any comfort from that because I 
know Americans well enough to know that if there were an imminent 
threat, we would rise to the occasion and make sure that all 58 of them 
were prepared to fight, but right now, 5 out of 58. The U.S. Air Force, 
which provides the airpower, is short 2,000 pilots.
  Our military dominance across the globe is never guaranteed, and we 
know there are many signs that our military dominance is eroding. When 
American power erodes, when we retreat, either for policy or fiscal 
reasons, there are other people more than happy to fill the void. When 
that happens, the world becomes a more dangerous place, miscalculations 
occur, and conflict breaks out.
  Defense Secretary Jim Mattis put the matter succinctly last year when 
he said: ``For all of the heartache caused by the loss of troops during 
[our recent] wars, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the 
combat readiness of our military than sequestration.'' He might have 
said ``Congress'' because Congress is responsible for sequestration. 
Unfortunately, General Mattis is right. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, 
and marines who so bravely serve our country deserve all of the 
political and financial support we can muster.
  We need to quit fooling ourselves into believing that our security 
won't be negatively impacted by our current funding approach. We need 
to quit dawdling and raise the defense spending caps without further 
delay. It is dangerous not to do so, and lives have been lost as a 
result of the lack of readiness caused by underfunding our military.
  Yesterday when the Senate Democratic leader spoke, he said that 
common sense and bipartisanship won and the government reopened. As 
conversations addressing spending caps and disaster relief continue, we 
need to make sure that those two things continue to prevail--common 
sense and bipartisanship--particularly when it comes to funding our 
military and other critical government functions, and to make sure they 
are no longer held hostage to an unrelated immigration issue that we 
are working on as hard as we know how to do. We understand the clock is 
ticking, and both political parties are demonstrating their good faith 
in working to solve that problem. So let's let these other hostages go.