[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 2, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H337-H338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, the 2020 election brought with it 
tremendous opportunities for the territories, particularly, after the 
devastation of unprecedented natural disasters in our global pandemic.
  The American Rescue Plan of 2021 offered tremendous promise of full, 
robust recovery for our islands. Our island governments will now 
receive full Federal funding for important workforce development tax 
credits, like the earned income tax credit, child tax credit, and the 
child dependent care tax credit. This will be significant relief to 
budget and revenue offices in the territories.
  In the Virgin Islands, my home, the earned income tax credit alone 
accounts for almost 40 percent of our tax returns in any given year. In 
addition, each of the territories have received at least $500 million 
in State and local government fiscal aid. These funds have broad 
eligibility, including to provide services threatened by declining 
revenue; make investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure; 
support public entities involved in transport of passengers or cargo; 
special purpose units of local government, or nonprofits that aid the 
homeless.
  The Virgin Islands will also receive investments from the bold 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that became law in November. The 
EPA, FAA,

[[Page H338]]

and the Army Corps of Engineers are agencies providing substantial 
support.
  Much of this funding will take us far, however, aside from 
supplemental funds made available in the act, in the area of primary 
formula funds for traditional infrastructure, surface roads and 
highways, I am afraid the territories remain significantly underfunded 
or under-included.
  The territories have endured severe infrastructure funding cuts since 
1998, when the preexisting set-aside formula for the Territorial 
Highway Program funding was scrapped. Since then, the territorial share 
of overall Federal highway program funding has progressively declined 
by 50 percent. These severe cuts have negatively impacted everything 
from safety to emergency response, law enforcement capabilities, to 
commerce, to disaster relief management.
  The Build Back Better Act would restore the significant equity 
investment in infrastructure for the territories in the House-passed 
bill. It contained $320 million in supplemental funding for the 
Territorial Highway Program in order to restore the investment in the 
territories to a similar share of overall Federal highway funding that 
they once received before 1998. We must continue to fight for those 
objectives.

  The territories will have a hard time competing for any of the 
billions in funding set up in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act for projects of national significance, or the Rural Surface 
Transportation Grant program because project eligibility under these 
new programs is mostly tied to States or projects connected to the 
National Highway System, which by definition, does not include the 
territories. That impediment, along with having sufficient private 
partners to allow us to ramp up, have care, capacity and competence, 
make it hard for us to go after the competitive grants. The territories 
will need assistance with vying for the competitive funding that they 
are eligible for, identifying those programs, and connecting those 
programs to projects.
  The viability and sustainability of energy in the territories is of 
the utmost importance for the well-being of our rural communities. The 
territories are not connected to the national grid, and energy costs on 
our islands are higher than anywhere else in the country. Our 
geographic locations leave us vulnerable to climate change but also 
provide opportunities for adoption of innovative energy resources.
  We need help from the Department of Energy and Agriculture, and many 
others, for energy efficiency, energy storage, smart grids, microgrids, 
as well as renewable energy technical training.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans living in the territories live in areas with 
brownfields and are susceptible to climate change unlike other areas. 
We are rural-isolated and we have unemployment much higher than others. 
However, we have geographic strategic advantages for our country. Our 
young people disproportionately enter the military because they want to 
work. They want to be productive. We sit in a vortex of alternative 
energy raw resources, in a majority minority community.
  As it says up here on the wall by Daniel Webster, ``Let us develop 
the resources of our land, call forth its powers. . . . '' I am asking 
my colleagues in Congress to ensure that the territories can do that 
through this Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

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