[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 87 (Wednesday, May 19, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H2556]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         VIRGIN ISLANDS ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, the Virgin Islands of the United States 
sits at the most southern, most easterly point of the United States. 
Because of this geographic position and its proximity to South America 
and its almost sentry lighthouse position to the rest of the Caribbean, 
it has been fought over; exploited by many nations; owned by seven; and 
used as a base by pirates, privateers, rum and drug runners, and even 
great corporations.
  Despite so much potential, the benefits of our location, climate, our 
deep ports--one of the deepest in the Caribbean, our fertile soil--the 
people of the Virgin Islands have not received equitable return on 
investment and have instead been the spoils of others.
  Our people continue to work to create economic benefits for our 
homes, jobs, skills, revenue, financial independence. Our journey in 
oil refining is one such chapter in that search.
  In the 1960s, the Virgin Islands began refining oil. Our island of 
St. Croix became the second-largest petroleum refinery in America. In 
2012, the refinery closed, exacerbating the shocks of the Great 
Recession, leading to unemployment rates of 18 percent. Our government 
made the decision to work to bring the refinery back and, after several 
years, the terminal and refinery reopened.
  In the last few weeks, my office has been in contact with the EPA 
regarding air emissions incidents, odors, and emissions around the 
vicinity of the refinery, which threaten the health of residents and 
our environment.
  On May 14, the EPA ordered Limetree Bay, the owners of the terminal 
and refinery, to pause all operations on the St. Croix refinery due to 
multiple improperly conducted operations that present an imminent risk 
to public health. Limetree Bay is in a community that is 
disproportionately affected by environmental burdens, and recent 
incidents have raised significant environmental justice concerns.
  My office has continued to discuss with the EPA regarding the 
shutdown of the refinery, which, when fully operational, contributes 
tremendously to the Virgin Islands' economy. I have also been in 
contact with the owners of the refinery, as well as the Virgin Islands 
local government, and I will share with you all, with this Congress, 
what we can do to rectify the issue.
  But part of my concern and one of the reasons I came to Congress was 
to create mechanisms and funding, incentives so that communities like 
the Virgin Islands, places long-neglected, can have the tools, funding, 
incentives, stable schools, healthcare, to create diverse sustainable 
industry.
  As I have said in the past, and continue to reiterate, the current 
problems in my community further demonstrate the need for so many 
communities like it to have a diversified economy. This would provide 
flexibility. A diversified economy creates an economic health in a 
community, not tied to a single industry or market sector. It also 
creates and supports innovation.
  Not only do companies support one another financially, but they 
engender an ecosystem of new ideas and product generation. I recognize 
that funding from the American Rescue Plan should not only be used by 
the Virgin Island's government to undergird our most vulnerable 
citizens, our children, mentally ill, our seniors; it should be used to 
support creation of clean resilient jobs.
  I and other Democrats recognize that we must rebuild our communities 
and our economy better than before through the American Jobs Plan. Now 
is the time to think boldly with a once-in-a-century investment to 
create millions of good-paying jobs to ensure America can outcompete 
any other country in the world.

  The President has promised to deliver clean drinking water, a renewed 
electric grid, high-speed broadband; build, preserve, retrofit more 
than 2 million homes and commercial buildings; modernize our Nation's 
schools and childcare facilities; upgrade veterans' hospitals and 
Federal buildings.
  The President's plan includes $20 billion for new programs that will 
reconnect neighborhoods like the Virgin Islands, cut off by historic 
investments, and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance 
racial equity and environmental justice, promote affordable access, 
safeguard critical infrastructure and services, and defend vulnerable 
communities.
  President Biden will call upon Congress, our body, to ensure that new 
jobs create clean energy, and manufacturing and infrastructure are open 
and accessible to women and people of color. The House is working on 
this. We have a historic package to build back better, creating jobs 
and justice.

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