[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 168 (Thursday, November 14, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6572-S6575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 6651
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I come to the floor today, and I am
ultimately going to be offering a unanimous consent for the body, but
beforehand, I want to talk a little bit about what happened in North
Carolina with the storm of Hurricane Helene. It actually starts a
couple of days earlier when a weather system came into Western North
Carolina and dumped inches and inches of rain on several--more than a
dozen--major river basins and saturated the land.
Now we have Hurricane Helene come in through the Florida Panhandle,
through Georgia, through South Carolina, and into North Carolina. It
largely maintained the integrity of a category 1 storm, tropical storm,
a couple hundred miles inland in a mountain range. It is a first-of-a-
kind storm that is the most deadly in North Carolina history--and,
folks, we have been hit by Florence, Matthew, Hugo; I can go through a
long list--over 102 people dead, some still missing. We have families
who are disconnected and will likely not even have electricity.
There is a community called Big Creek. Asheville is without drinkable
water today. Businesses are suffering. The Small Business
Administration is out of money. They are telling people who have had
claims processed that ``Your claim has been approved'' and that as soon
as the Federal Government replenishes the Small Business Administration
account, then they will get the money. Think about that. If you are one
of thousands of people in Western North Carolina in a land mass the
size of the State of Massachusetts--ladies and gentlemen, that is how
big the land mass was that had devastating storms. Mr. President, 102
people died, and hundreds of businesses are out of business.
I have a 20-mile segment of I-40 that is impassable. It is not from
rockslides; it is because the land underneath the roads no longer
exists. There are 5 miles that are going to have to be repaired. Twenty
years ago, when we had a three-tenths-of-a-mile segment, it took 7
months to repair it. And that was just removing a landslide; the
integrity of the roadbed was there. We don't have that anymore.
We have 80 miles of rail tracks gone. We have hundreds of businesses
out of business right now. We have a major water system that hopes to
have drinkable water by Christmas. We have people suffering. We have
businesses suffering. We have a disaster that we have to respond to,
and a lot of work is going to have to be done before the end of this
Congress and certainly in the next Congress, when the nearly $50
billion between State and Federal dollars is going to have to be
appropriated just to help North Carolina, not to mention the $3 billion
of agricultural damage in Georgia, and I can go down the list to
Florida.
We have a lot of work to do, but, folks, this is a time where you
don't question what we are doing. You don't question how you pay for
it. You get the money there, and you get these communities back on
track.
I am not saying that we shouldn't be paying for this. We absolutely
should. And up here in the rarified air of Washington, DC, we could say
``Well, let's just, you know, be responsible about this and let these
people suffer until we get it,'' but that is not how it works in
Western North Carolina. They need help now, today.
I will talk a little bit more about that before I offer my unanimous
consent request, but before I do, if I may, I would like to pass it
over to Senator Budd. I believe Senator Budd will pass it over to
Senator Warner, and then I would like to reserve recognition at that
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. BUDD. Mr. President, I want to thank my friend Senator Tillis for
his partnership not just for today but throughout this whole crisis in
our State.
Hurricane Helene represents one of the worst natural disasters ever
to happen to our State--in particular, Western North Carolina. More
than, as he mentioned, 100 people were killed and hundreds more
injured, and some are still missing.
Thousands of North Carolinians lost their homes and their family
businesses. Every day that I was present in the region, I was stunned
by the enormity of the damage. It is unlike anything I have ever seen.
Now, I went to college at Appalachian State in Boone, and you learn
very quickly how tough these mountain folks are. They are proud. They
are self-sufficient people. The citizens of Western North Carolina are
some of the toughest, most resilient people
[[Page S6573]]
around. They don't look for handouts. They don't complain. So when
there is a need like this, government needs to be ready, needs to be
there to help them.
They have to be able to access the loans from the SBA so they can
continue to rebuild and recover their communities. Now, this program
provides victims with low-interest loans to replace lost property or to
rebuild their businesses or their homes or shops. This is very
important because very few Helene victims--they don't have flood
insurance, and it covers--you know, anything that covers a disaster of
this magnitude.
Now, it is critical that this program be funded and effectively
managed to get loan dollars flowing to those in need immediately, but,
as my colleague mentioned, the SBA announced on October 15 that it ran
out of money.
Now, every day that this fund sits empty, it further slows the
process of rebuilding the lives for thousands of North Carolinians, and
that is why we are here. We have to replenish it, and we need to do it
now.
So I stand ready to work with my Senate colleagues to cut through the
delays and provide the folks of Western North Carolina and the whole
Appalachia region the resources they need as quickly as possible. So in
this spirit, I strongly want to support Senator Tillis's RELIEF Act to
refill the SBA's Disaster Loan Program, and I hope the Senate can pass
it today. I also strongly support the quick approval of a supplemental
bill to help fund the long-term recovery for the folks in Western North
Carolina. Congress should take up this bill without any further delay.
I either yield to Senator Tillis or to Senator Warner.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my friends from North Carolina,
Senator Budd and Senator Tillis.
Let me acknowledge in front of you that you guys got hit the hardest,
but we got hit as well in southwest Virginia, and we have got
communities that without this relief are going to die.
I want to echo what both of my colleagues have said in that this
RELIEF Act is bipartisan. It is what we do as a matter of course when
an entity like the SBA runs out of money. Since October 15, 34,000
businesses across the country have applied for SBA relief. Many of them
have gotten approved, but they get a response that says: We will give
you money when Congress does its job. This is done as a matter of
course, and, frankly, the SBA screwed up a little bit on not getting
better numbers before we broke before the election.
Let me take one moment and tell you about a community in particular
in southwest Virginia.
Damascus, VA, was an old town. Basically, its economy had
disappeared. It came back because there is something called the Creeper
Trail, with biking and hiking. I bike this trail.
And, Senator Tillis, parts of that trail are gone now. We have 34
road trestles, and 18 of them are damaged or gone. We have got part of
our road that gets to the top of the mountain that is gone as well. I
went to Damascus, and I went to 10 jurisdictions in southwest Virginia,
but in this little town, every business and home was affected. One guy
had three businesses--two restaurants and a bed and breakfast. He paid
out of his pocket to try to keep his workers on, even though it will be
months before anything happens, even if the money were there.
We owe it to the folks in Damascus, across southwest Virginia, in
North Carolina, and across all of the jurisdictions in our country that
have been hard hit to do our job. Just like the folks in western North
Carolina, the folks in southwest Virginia are proud, and they have an
enormous amount of self-help. But this kind of assistance, whether it
is FEMA dollars or SBA loans, is not charity; it is their right as
Americans. It is what we pay our taxes for. Instead, thousands of
Virginians who have asked for that right to apply for this loan have
gotten a note, saying: We can't send you the money until Congress does
its job.
We have a chance today for unanimous consent to take this bipartisan
piece of legislation, to pass it through, and get those businesses the
funds they deserve.
I thank my colleague.
I yield back to the senior Senator from North Carolina.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, there are 233 people dead--102 in North
Carolina, 7 still unaccounted for; the total damage estimated to be
between $30 and $48 billion across seven States; in North Carolina,
1,400 landslides, 6,000 miles of road damage. One million-plus houses
and businesses lost utilities. Some municipalities, like Asheville,
like I said earlier, may not have drinkable water. This is a major
urban center in western North Carolina that may not have drinkable
water for tens of thousands of people before the end of August. That
includes businesses that are struggling right now--think restaurants.
Struck during the peak of western North Carolina's season, the
majority of our revenue occurs in western North Carolina, starting in
October and ending in November. We have lost that. They are gone. A lot
of these people lost loved ones who have businesses. Now they are just
trying to keep their businesses afloat while they are going to
funerals. And we tell them: Well, we have just got to wait for Congress
before we can send you a check, because for the first time in this body
we are going to demand a pay-for for disaster recovery.
Down about where the pages are sitting, a few months ago, Brian
Schatz came to me--he is a Senator from Hawaii--and he said: Thom, I
hope you will support me on the supplemental for the fires in Maui.
I said: Count me in, Brian, because--do you know what?--I have no
doubt--and count me in every time for a disaster supplemental because
this is when we cut the crap and do our jobs. So count me in because I
am pretty sure, before this season is over, I am going to have to come
to you for help in North Carolina.
I had no idea that it was going to be a record-setting deadly storm,
but if we want to keep these communities vibrant--Asheville will come
back. It has the critical mass. Canton, Clyde, Burnsville--I can list
dozens of towns that are hanging in the breach. Let's give them a
chance. And if we don't, then businesses are going to make the right
business decision. There are two here, OK? We have the small
businesses, and, hopefully, they can bridge the gap and recover.
Again, these are also people who have lost loved ones, and many of
them lost their own homes. So while they are trying to figure out a
place to live, they are all trying to figure out how they can run their
businesses and how they can keep people employed.
Now, big businesses are looking at what the business network--or what
the ecosystem is going to look like. We have major employers who may
make the decision to leave if we don't send a signal that we are going
to be there to help them recover.
I could go on ad nauseam, but I am telling you, when I tell you it is
a crisis in North Carolina when a major road like I-40 is going to be
down for years, I can't tell people, just because I don't like the way
it gets appropriated, it sucks for you that you may have to go out of
business while I try to fix the dysfunction in Washington. This is a
time for us to act and do like we have done every time with a disaster
supplemental.
So--oh. And, by the way, in advance, Senator Paul is going to offer
an amendment that I love so much I would like to marry it. I am also
going to object to it because it is the right amendment at the wrong
time. I am looking forward to having that incorporated in a vehicle
that my Democrat colleagues are going to hate that I hope we get passed
in the next Congress, but there is no time for that now. I have said
that, in spite of the fact that I support it, I want to be the one to
object to it because I want mission certainty here. My mission is to
get this disaster supplemental for the Small Business Administration
passed through like we have on every other disaster supplemental to
this day.
Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent
that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No.
465, H.R. 6651. I further ask that the Tillis-Warner substitute
amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the
[[Page S6574]]
bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I lived
for 4 months in Asheville and worked at the VA hospital, so I have fond
feelings for western North Carolina. I have an uncle who lives just up
the road from Asheville. I know about the devastation. One of my best
friends from my wedding lives in Asheville as well.
But the thing is, the reason why we won't do this in a responsible
way is because the Senate voted to send all of your money to Ukraine.
The Senate voted to send $200 billion to Ukraine.
I have been all over the mountains of Appalachia. When I ask people,
``Would you rather your Senators take care of you here in Asheville or
here in Pikeville or here in Appalachia or would you rather them send
your money to Ukraine?''
I don't get anybody wanting to send a penny to Ukraine.
Look, you can have all kinds of sympathy in the world for Ukraine and
hostility toward Russia being the aggressor nation, but we don't have
the money. We are $2 trillion in the hole. Interest this year is going
to be $1 trillion.
As far as passing this, I am willing to let it pass today. He is
going to object to passing his own bill today simply because it gets
paid for. How crazy is that? He will not even let the other side object
to it. He is going to object to his own bill. I am willing to let the
bill pass, but take some of the fluff and boondoggle subsidies from the
Green New Deal and put it into here. The money is sitting here. We put
it into here for disasters. We help Asheville today.
``Oh, no. It is not the time or the place to pay for things.''
The question before the Senate is whether, on behalf of the American
people, we should borrow and spend an additional $810 million for small
business loans.
Do you know who gets small business loans right now? Ukraine. We are
funding--``60 Minutes'' did a special on this--a purse and dress store
in Ukraine. We fund the Ukrainian Government's pensions. Look, half of
our State governments are short in pensions. Our U.S. Government is
short in pensions, and we are funding them in Ukraine.
So some of the same people who want this immediately--now, now, now,
now; we don't want to pay for it--are happy to pay for crap all over
Ukraine, including government salaries and pensions and small business
loans to Ukraine.
Do you know what? The job of legislators is to make decisions to set
priorities. We don't have an infinite amount of money, but we do have
enough money to take care of them in Asheville and in Virginia. Simply
pay for it, but realize the people assembled will object to their own
bill today. I am offering their bill. All we have got to do is take
some money that is laying around in a pot of money--Green New Deal
boondoggle money going to big corporations--and put it in for a
disaster. We can do that today. If you still want to subsidize green
energy, come back and do that next year. Pay for it now.
We don't have to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to bail this
program out, but Congress has a habit of refusing to do what you and I
would do if faced with a new and large expense: Congress refuses to cut
elsewhere even when saying yes to every new spending proposal and
program that has led to record high inflation. Americans have been
forced to learn the hard way that they are the ones who have to pay for
Congress's addiction to spending.
So I offer a fiscally responsible path to pay for the bill and spare
Americans from increasing the hidden tax of inflation.
My amendment would rescind $810 million from the Department of
Energy's boondoggle green new energy deals. It is a $4.75 billion
program that has had repeated bankruptcies in it previously. It is
absurd to force taxpayers to subsidize rich companies--with vast
resources of their own--to gamble on energy projects that the private
sector finds too risky. And, actually, it should be about priorities:
the people in Asheville or the Green New Deal. No. This is the best
time to put them in contrast, not some other time when people are not
hurting, when people can't see the contrast.
Everybody in Asheville should wake up today and find out their
Senators are going to reject the disaster money because it is paid for.
That is it. They are going to reject taking it from the Green New Deal
boondoggle and sending it to Appalachia. It can go today. It can go in
10 minutes. I approve of the money. Just take it from somewhere where
it is being wasted. Ideally, I would take it from Ukraine, but that is
not available right now, but a lot of the money went to Ukraine also.
A 2015 report from the Government Accountability Office found that
when five companies defaulted on these Green New Deal loans, the
government--the taxpayers--lost $800 million. It is not a good program
to begin with, but it is an easy place to go looking for something that
is more important, like the people of Asheville in North Carolina.
This money would have nearly covered today's disaster loan funding,
but it was needlessly squandered previously, but there is still money
in the fund today. I offered this identical amendment to pay for
another bill a month ago, and every Republican voted for it. So I don't
understand why Republicans would rise today and object to a pay-for
they all voted for last month. If the Small Business Administration
must have this additional money, the least we can do is respect the
taxpayers and act as good stewards for their money.
Therefore, I ask the Senator to modify his request to include my
amendment, which is at the desk, as this would allow the bill to pass
if my amendment is attached to it; that the amendment be considered and
agreed to; that the bill, as further amended, be agreed to; and that
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator so modify his request?
The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I was
wondering if the Senator from Kentucky would yield for two questions,
and then I would like to speak on the--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Kentucky yield?
Mr. TILLIS. I think I know the answer to this, Senator Paul, but I
just want to confirm it. Do you recall how you voted on the PACT Act?
Mr. PAUL. I don't think we have--we have an objection. You know, I
have asked for a unanimous consent. He either objects, or he doesn't
object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Kentucky yield?
Mr. PAUL. I don't have the floor.
Mr. TILLIS. I thought he did.
Mr. PAUL. I have made a motion.
Mr. TILLIS. And I reserve the right to object to that motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Carolina object--
Mr. TILLIS. I have subsequently asked the Chair--
The PRESIDING OFFICER.--to the modification?
Mr. TILLIS. I have subsequently asked the Chair--
Mr. PAUL. You have got to respond to the motion.
Mr. TILLIS.--if the Senator from Kentucky--
Mr. PAUL. I have made a motion to pass the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Order in the Senate. This is not debatable.
The Senator from Kentucky has not agreed to yield.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. In reserving the right to object, the question I would
have asked him is how he voted on the PACT Act. I don't know the answer
to it. I think he voted against it. I am not sure. The other question I
was going to ask him is has he ever voted for a disaster supplemental
that wasn't offset. Those were the two questions I was going to ask. I
will find it out later on.
Look, our State motto is ``Esse Quam Videri.'' It says, ``To be
rather than to seem.''
This is a disingenuous offer to amend my bill. Let me tell you why.
Maybe it will even be in a fundraising campaign later this week: ``I am
fighting to dismantle the Green New Deal, and Tillis objected to doing
that today.''
[[Page S6575]]
This bill, if it got amended, has no prayer. I came to the Senate to
make a difference, not to make a point. I get the point.
There are a lot of things in the Inflation Reduction Act and in the
Green New Deal that need to be clawed back, and I look forward to,
under President Trump's leadership, having that vote.
I assume that Senator Paul knows how to count votes. He has to know
that he doesn't have the votes to get this bill done if it is amended.
To be rather than to seem. I am focused on getting North Carolina
back on track and not playing a game on this Senate floor. I am going
to object to this, Mr. President, in a minute because it is a game.
We never fund disaster supplementals because we know that people are
hurting.
You take that case to Ukraine, to Asheville. You take it to
Burnsville. You take it to Banner Elk. You take it to Cashiers, Senator
Paul, and I will go with you, and I will see if they are as worried
about that or if they are just worried about making sure that their
families have a place to live and their businesses have a chance to
survive.
Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard to the modification.
Is there objection to the original request?
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. PAUL. The insinuation is made that there is a better time--we
will vote on this at another time; maybe, you know, young man, it is
just not the time. It is not the time nor the place.
Actually, it is the time or the place, and the only vote against the
disaster bill today will be the Senator from North Carolina. He will,
today, vote to kill the disaster aid. He says: Well, there aren't
enough votes.
We won't know because he is objecting. He isn't allowing the
Democrats to object because they always object to anything that is pay-
for. But, by his objection, he is not allowing the system to play out.
If the Democrats want to object, we will find out that they are opposed
to pay-fors, and we will further the definition of who is for not for
paying for stuff and who is. But to say that we, as Republicans, are
never for paying for disaster relief is to say that we are equally--or
the Republicans who are for this--are equally complicit in the
accumulation of $35 trillion worth of debt.
So no matter how good the cause is--I don't care whether it is a fire
or aid or a flood or rain or all the damage--it all should be paid for.
It is the responsible thing to do, no matter how terrible the disaster
is.
And it is not like I am saying: Well, let's just wait 2 years until
we can earn enough money to pay for Asheville. We have the money. We
are a rich country. It is sitting here. I just simply ask: Take it from
something here--that is a wasteful corporate bailout to green energy
companies--and put it over here.
But the fact is that the Senator from North Carolina is going to kill
his own bill today. He is going to vote not to allow it to be heard.
And we have no idea whether there are enough votes or not. He can say
there aren't enough votes, but he is now the vote that stops the
spending from getting easy passage.
What we are going through is a procedure of easy passage. This is
allowing things not to go to committee, not to be deliberated but to
easily pass. And I am in favor of doing that because of the emergency,
because of the tragedy. We allow this to easily pass by simply taking
some money from a pile of money over here. If he weren't to object and
the Democrats don't stand up, it passes like this.
But then it is not on me; it is on them. They decide that they don't
want to pay for anything. And disasters should never be paid for? Well,
that is how we have this disaster of a $35 trillion debt, because
nobody pays for anything. Nobody cares. It is never the right time.
Well, now is the right time. So if you want easy passage, you have to
hear what the problems we face are.
So I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Ladies and gentlemen, I have prided myself on working on
a lot of legislation over the last 10 years, and I am proud of the fact
that I figured out how to get votes in this Chamber and get votes in
the other Chamber and get bills to the President's desk. Let me explain
to you how this process works. We were going to pass a bill out of
here. Even if it is not funded, I am pretty sure that the House is
going to insist on some sort of a pay-for.
What we are doing here is playing a game of being disingenuous.
Folks, I support what Senator Paul does. By the way, I will be checking
the fundraising emails to see if we are fighting to--that Tillis is
against the Green New Deal dismantling. Count me in for that.
What I am not for is putting a poison pill in here that prevents this
bill from going to the House. My colleagues in the House intend to get
a pay-for. They intend to get a pay-for. I mean, how hard is it? I have
got a community college education, and I am smart enough to figure this
out. So are a lot of other people from community colleges. But this is
a game. It will be paid for in the House, or it won't pass. We have a
majority there. So instead of facilitating the process to move it there
and thus find a way to offset it, we are trying to kill it here.
I support so many provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act and the
American Rescue Plan being repealed and using the money for better
purposes, and disaster recovery is one of them. But that is not what we
are here to do today in this Congress with that President. That is what
we are going to be here to do next year, in the next Congress, with a
different President.
So I just want to set the record straight. I don't like games being
played. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know I try to be
evenhanded. I told Senator Mark Warner I was going to object because it
was a procedural game. And if it is characterized as anything other
than that, let me know who you are because I will educate you. Thank
you.
Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. TILLIS. Yes. I am back to the happy Thom now.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I just want to say, I am prepared to
object as well.
And is it not the case, even when it comes to SBA--frankly, if SBA
had gotten their act together a little earlier and had a better
accounting so we knew how much we needed to refill the pot, we might
not have been here.
But this is--if we want to change the law about how the SBA operates
and disaster relief, that is a fair debate, and I will take on anyone
in this Chamber. In the meantime, whether it is in your community or
mine, people are sitting there with a piece of paper that says: You
will get your loan, you have been approved, once Congress does its job.
Would not your bill, my bill, our bipartisan bill, if it had been
able to go through today, wouldn't those folks in North Carolina,
Virginia, and across our country who have been hit be one step closer--
those small businesses--to getting the SBA loans that they have earned,
deserved, and should be funded?
Mr. TILLIS. Without a doubt, Senator Warner. And, quite honestly,
there are some people today saying: If I have got to wait until next
Congress, I have got to fold up. I am trying to find a place to live,
and I am also trying to keep my business afloat.
Absolutely, it gives them hope. And our failure to act doesn't.
Mr. WARNER. I yield the floor.