[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18661]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HURRICANE SANDY RELIEF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for 2\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Let me thank Mr. King, my colleague from New York, for 
his remarks. I really appreciate what he said--that this is not a 
Republican or Democratic issue. It shouldn't be politicized. Natural 
disasters and responding to them are what I've seen over my 25 years in 
Congress, and they are what bring us together to try to help people. 
The Speaker should not use this opportunity to tear us apart.
  I was here last night when we got the word through Congressman King 
that the Speaker was going to pull this bill. And what the message said 
was, Well, we can do this in January. We'll do it sometime later in 
January in the new Congress.

                              {time}  1040

  As Congressman King said, we can't wait. My district was devastated 
by this storm. I would ask of Speaker Boehner, come to Sea Bright, New 
Jersey. Drive through Sea Bright, New Jersey. It's a town that has less 
than 2,000 people. The business district is totally destroyed. One or 
two stores have reopened; the rest are still closed. Most of the people 
still have not been able to return to the town.
  Go to Union Beach in New Jersey, also in my district, where you can 
see that now everything is exposed. We still have people that do not 
have a place to stay, that are looking for an apartment or staying in 
motels or looking for a trailer to be placed next to their home and 
still don't have it.
  We need to rebuild now. We need to act now. We can't wait for the 
next Congress or another couple of weeks or another couple of months.
  What I don't understand, Mr. Speaker, is how is it possible that this 
has become a political issue? It is clear that we're here today. We can 
vote on this. The votes are clearly there. We should have an open 
debate. That's what democracy is all about. And all of a sudden, 
because the Tea Party or some conservative element is worried that they 
have to vote on another spending bill, all of a sudden the Speaker 
says, well, we can't do this today. This is politicizing a situation 
that should not be political. It is another example of what I call the 
``do-nothing'' Congress.
  This Congress did very little. It had fewer bills passed than in 
anybody's memory. Rather than go out on this negative note about not 
bringing up an emergency because of a hurricane, a devastating natural 
disaster, why not do something positive on a bipartisan basis, Mr. 
Speaker. Bring this up. Let us have an open debate. We're still here. 
Don't let this Congress die on this negative note. Let it build on a 
positive note, so when we come in and we're sworn in on Thursday, we 
can show that we can work on a bipartisan basis.
  I have never seen anything like it. To me, it is just deplorable.

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