April 8, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 60 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S2287-S2288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Disaster Relief for Puerto Rico

  Now, on another matter, Puerto Rico. Last week, Senator Leahy and I 
offered this Chamber a chance to pass a natural disaster funding 
package that would have addressed everyone's concerns in the Senate.
  The ``all of the above'' solution we presented contained $16.7 
billion in relief for all Americans affected by natural disasters. I 
would add, I see my two friends from Iowa on the floor today, one in 
the President's chair, one ready to speak. That would have included far 
more money for the Midwest than the Republican bill because the 
Republican bill that was on the floor, while it added 2019 to disaster 
relief, didn't add in any more money despite the devastation in Iowa 
and Missouri and Nebraska.
  Well, our bill added an additional--an additional--$2.5 billion in 
funding for the disasters of 2019, and the vast majority of that would 
go to Iowa, to Missouri, and to Nebraska, but it also provided much 
needed aid for the people of Puerto Rico and other territories. They 
need the help, too, and they are Americans citizens as well.
  Let's face the music, folks. Everyone knows what is going on here. 
Democrats and Republicans had agreed, as we always do, when there is a 
disaster, we help. The original bill that was put together had aid for 
Puerto Rico, as

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well as aid for the other areas of disaster. The original bill was put 
together before the Midwest so it didn't have that.
  What happened? Is it that somehow our Republican friends from the 
Midwest and elsewhere thought Puerto Rico didn't deserve the aid? No; 
President Trump went to a Tuesday lunch, banged his fist on the table--
figuratively, I suppose--and said: I don't think any aid should go to 
Puerto Rico.
  Did our Republican friends, especially those from States with 
disasters and who needed the aid, say: No, no; we are not going to do 
that; we are not going to let you divide us? No; they went gamefully 
along with it, hurting their States.
  We all know that if there is no real aid for Puerto Rico, the House 
will not pass the bill. We in the Senate on the Democratic side do not 
want to hold Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and the other States, Florida, 
Texas, Alabama, that are getting the aid hostage for what we want, and 
our Republican friends shouldn't hold Puerto Rico hostage for what they 
want.
  This grand tradition seems to crumble here day by day, minute by 
minute, of helping States that need help; that when one American is 
hurt in one area, Americans in every other area come together and say: 
We are going to help. That is why we have disaster aid because the 
enormity of a tornado or a wildfire or a hurricane--the taxpayers of 
that State can't afford to do it all themselves. So citizens throughout 
America have had, in effect, a compact that says, when one area is 
hurt, we all come together.
  Look, I suffered a little from that when New York had Sandy. We had 
some of our Senators from the very States--from the very States--that 
now are requesting aid say: Don't give aid to New York for Sandy. I 
have never done that. I have always been for aid to States that are far 
away from New York and just have Republican representation. We don't do 
that here--until now. Until now.
  So I would say to all of my friends on the other side of the aisle, 
there is a way out of this--provide the aid that originally Senators 
Shelby, a Republican, Leahy, a Democrat, agreed on. Don't let Donald 
Trump's nasty temper tantrum somehow about Puerto Rico get in the way. 
Do the right thing, and he will sign the bill. We know he will sign the 
bill. He is not going to stop aid for Texas or Florida or Iowa or any 
other State because this body and the House have put in aid for Puerto 
Rico.
  Let me just mention, just as the people in the Midwest are suffering, 
people in Puerto Rico are suffering. That island has had a slower 
recovery from a storm of greater magnitude than any others we are 
talking about.
  So we need to vote on this legislation. It is not an either-or 
situation. To say you are putting $600 million in food stamps for 
Puerto Rico so people will not starve, when they are not getting the 
same aid everybody else gets--CDBG, FEMA--that is not right, that is 
not fair, and that figleaf will not cover up the real motivation of 
President Trump, which, unfortunately, I don't think most of our 
Republican colleagues agree with, but they go along with. Everyone is 
afraid on the other side of anything President Trump does--right or 
wrong. Unfortunately, he is wrong far too often.
  Puerto Rico needs aid so they can rebuild. They need the food aid, 
but they need more than that. Trump wanted to cut out all of it. 
Someone on this side said: Well, you have to at least do food aid. He 
said: Well, I will do that and nothing more. That is not right. Should 
we do food aid just for every State? Should we do food aid just for 
Texas or just for Florida or just for Iowa? No rebuilding? Let all of 
those houses and homes and factories and stores suffer? No. We wouldn't 
do it for those States. We shouldn't, and we shouldn't do it for Puerto 
Rico.
  So then we decided to compromise even more. There is $20 billion of 
aid already for Puerto Rico that hasn't been allocated. The President, 
in his nastiness to the people of Puerto Rico--citizens, they are 
American citizens--refused to allocate that money.
  Well, Senator Leahy then said: Let's just take $8.3 billion of that 
and free it up. Our colleagues will not even do that.
  So when the American people want to know what is holding up this 
bill, when the people in the flooded areas and the areas that have been 
hit by wildfires and hurricanes want to know what is holding it up, it 
is Donald Trump picking one part of the country and saying: ``I don't 
want to give aid to them,'' and too many--just about every one of our 
colleagues, at least thus far--going along.
  Elections have consequences. The House is now Democratic. It is their 
strong view that we ought to give aid to Puerto Rico. It is a view I 
share, but if we don't do the right thing in this body, where we have a 
tradition of coming together, and you say President Trump will not sign 
something, when he originally had nothing to do with putting together 
this bill, we are all going to be stuck for quite a while. We are all 
going to be stuck for quite a while. Let us in the House, in this body, 
the Senate, come to a compromise that satisfies the Midwest, that 
satisfies the hurricane States of Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, and 
Alabama, that satisfies Texas, and get moving. That is what we should 
be doing.
  This idea that we are holding up this bill, when the House wouldn't 
pass it anyway; the idea that we are holding up this bill, when we know 
the history that President Trump went into that lunch and changed 
everything around in the nasty way that he can't even explain--uh-uh; 
that is not going to fly. That is not going to fly.