[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 141 (Wednesday, September 11, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S5971]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Disaster Relief Funding

  Mr. WELCH. Madam President, I have come to the Senate floor time and 
again and said to my colleagues that disaster relief funding is 
absolutely urgently needed. Today, the future of government funding is 
imperiled right now in the House, and the future of disaster funding is 
still unknown in the Senate.
  And let me be clear, there are families across America, in Vermont, 
and in communities impacted by natural disasters all across our country 
that need us to help, and they can't recover without us. FEMA's 
Disaster Relief Fund is running out of money, forcing FEMA to function 
on what is essentially reserve funding.
  This is no fault of FEMA's. It is all a result of the catastrophic 
weather events that have been occurring rapidly, frequently, throughout 
our country and in Vermont.
  This past year and a half has brought brutal floods in Vermont and 
terrible fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes across our country.
  Louisiana right now is bracing for the worst as Hurricane Francine 
moves onshore, and our prayers in Vermont are with the people of 
Louisiana. We know their heartbreak and their pain right now.
  These communities--and it is especially the case with rural 
communities--cannot weather these storms alone. Some of those that are 
hardest hit are being financially destroyed. It is a function of the 
effects of climate change, and those communities don't have the 
resources to dig out, make repairs, and rebuild in the resilient way 
required for the future.
  They can't handle a 100-year flood, and many in Vermont have had two 
100-year floods in a year, in some towns even three in 12 or 13 months.
  It is very important that disaster aid be flexible. We can't expect 
our communities--and it is from Vermont to Mississippi to Hawaii--we 
can't expect that those who are ravaged by disaster to fight this fight 
alone. The entire country has been hammered by climate change and by 
these weather events.
  We need, in addition to the supplemental funding for the Disaster 
Relief Fund for FEMA, we need flexible funding which is available 
through the Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block 
Grant Disaster Recovery Program. The CDBGDR Program is a great example 
of how aid can be controlled by communities because there is so much 
more flexibility with that fund.
  Our Senator Schatz of Hawaii, as chair of our Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, is 
leading the push for this funding, and I join him in that effort.
  Also, the experience I have had visiting communities, visiting farms, 
visiting businesses, and visiting Vermont homeowners immediately 
following our State's flooding has given me, No. 1, enormous respect 
for Administrator Criswell. She was right there after the flood along 
with her wonderful FEMA staff doing everything they could to help 
communities.
  But once the immediate event has come and gone and the repair and 
recovery has to start, it is going to take, oftentimes, a year or more 
for communities to repair bridges, for families to get an answer on 
whether they do or don't get a buyout, for farms to get what meager 
relief may be available. And what we have seen is that at that point, 
the centralization of decision-making authority and responsibility with 
various FEMA offices located around the country and the FEMA office in 
charge of Vermont that has to make these decisions about yes or no on 
moving forward on a bridge or a buyout--things that are really 
crucially important to Vermonters, to our local governments, to our 
homeowners--is in Puerto Rico.

  And what I have seen is that the energy and the effort and the 
resources and the talent is at the local level. So if you are on the 
selectboard in Lyndonville, you have got the responsibility to your 
voters to get that bridge fixed. You actually know who the best 
contractors are. You know how to get it done. But the way it works 
right now, those decisions about moving forward on a recovery project 
are made in a distant location.
  I have talked to many of my colleagues about a similar aftermath of 
the original event: The immediate aid is provided, but then when you 
are talking about a contract, you are talking about implementation, the 
reality is we have to have, in my view, much more local control, much 
more local responsibility, and much more local capacity with the 
resources that are available through FEMA. It means the decisions will 
be made sooner, the work will be done in a more cost-effective and 
efficient way.
  I raise that because I am talking to colleagues who have had similar 
experiences, some in States that are Republican-led, some Democratic-
led. It really doesn't matter. It is about trying to get that authority 
at the local level so that the local people--whether it is Mississippi 
or Vermont--have much more authority, responsibility, and capacity to 
carry out those very, very needed repairs.
  So that will be something I will be inviting my colleagues to work 
with me on.
  This last summer, I spent a good deal of time traveling to the 
flooded communities--and there are too many of them in Vermont--to see 
what has happened to our homes, our small businesses and farms, to 
roads and bridges that were washed out. And folks across Vermont--in 
places like Moretown and Plainfield and Barre and Barnet, St. 
Johnsbury, Peacham, Lyndonville, and Hardwick--are all reeling from 
what has happened. They are pulling together; they are coming back. 
Neighbors are helping neighbors, but it is not going to get done unless 
we provide the supplemental funding with the disaster relief fund that 
is essential to the well-being of Vermonters, as well as the well-being 
of folks who have suffered from these catastrophic weather events 
across the country.
  Vermont will hang in, but we do need help. And we are ready, as we 
always have been, to help others.