[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 13803]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      FUNDING FOR FLINT, MICHIGAN

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am happy to see the progress that has been 
made in the House of Representatives with respect to Flint, MI. This is 
a step in the right direction toward advancing funding for the people 
of Flint in the lameduck. However, I do have some concern. The 
statement of my Republican colleague, the leader of the Senate, was 
that he and Senator Inhofe would work toward funding. This should be 
easy. Why can't they just say they will do it? This is not deficit 
spending; this is money that the people of Michigan have allowed--
Stabenow and Peters--to be given up. It is Michigan money that is going 
to be used in a different way. The money is already there. We 
overwhelmingly supported it.
  So, as I have said before, we will continue to exercise caution 
moving forward, but I am glad to see that progress has been made. If it 
were up to me, I believe these three nationally declared emergencies--
Louisiana, $2.8 billion--what happened in Baton Rouge and other parts 
of Louisiana was devastating. There were rainstorms that even the coast 
of Louisiana had never seen before--never seen before. Thousands of 
structures were damaged, and hundreds of them were destroyed. I think 
they are entitled to work on fixing all of that. We should do as we do 
with emergencies.
  The Presiding Officer is from Texas, and we have stepped forward 
every time there has been an emergency in Texas and taken care of it, 
whether it was an explosion that blew up a facility there, whether it 
was floods. The many problems Texas has had over the last decade, we 
have taken care of them, as we should.
  I think West Virginia, which has an emergency declaration of $310 
million--that should be taken care of.
  A much smaller one but a very important one to the people of 
Maryland--small in proportion to the two I just mentioned--that is 
nationally declared. We should take care of it.
  So I hope we will not continue to mourn the fact that these 
emergencies occur, these national disasters occur; we have to take care 
of them. I hope we can do that. It would be the right thing to do.
  I look forward to continuing to try to work something out on the CR. 
We are not there yet, but I hope we can get that done expeditiously.
  Mr. President, I ask that the Chair announce the business of the day.

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