Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2017--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Louisiana for all the hard work he has done to try and make sure those folks he talked about, and those tragedies he has brought to light for all us, are getting the best assistance they deserve.

I think every State, whether it is Louisiana, West Virginia, Georgia, or wherever we live, we are all subjected to a national emergency at some point. It could be a flood, fire, large snowstorm, windstorm, or tornado--any of these events could happen to any of us. That is why I have always, through the course of my legislative career, looked favorably to try and help particular areas of this country that need extra assistance. Senator Cassidy has been particularly effective here, and it has been my pleasure to work with him and others on this subject.

I have already talked on this topic earlier in the week. We are close to having a vote on this legislation, and hopefully it will pass so we can bring badly needed relief not only to Louisiana, West Virginia, and other places but to also have the funding that will carry us through December.

I am a member of the Appropriations Committee, and the Senator from Louisiana is a member as well. I think we are both frustrated that we are at a point where we have a continuing resolution after passing our appropriations bill out of the Appropriations Committee in a bipartisan way. I think we worked well together to provide the greatest impact and voice on individual bills, but unfortunately that process broke down.
We are where we are, and in between the time of those appropriations bills, West Virginia suffered one of the worst floods we have seen.

A State like West Virginia has small communities, such as Clendenin, Rainelle, Richwood, and Clay. These are small towns much like every small town in America, and there are people who are still not able to get back into their homes and water systems that have not been running since June. Banks of creeks and water systems are still in disrepair.

In order for folks to get their needed assistance, we need to pass this continuing resolution. Our Governor has identified 310 million additional dollars through the Federal Community Development Block Grant Program, and an overwhelming amount of this--90 percent of the homes that have now been impacted--was not covered by flood insurance.

The $310 million, which the State has identified as a real need, was supposed to go to putting folks back in their homes, new homes, and homes that any one of us would want to live in, but unfortunately they were not able to do that.

More than 5,000 homes in the State of West Virginia were identified as a loss. Twenty-three people lost their lives in the flood because it came so suddenly. West Virginia has beautiful hills, but we also have some valleys as well. When the water rushes, it rushes fast and quickly fills those valleys, and unfortunately some of the families had very tragic circumstances. Many families, thousands of them, lost everything. Small businesses are unsure if they can rebuild and workers don't know if they still jobs. I know the town of Clendenin--19 miles from where I live in Charleston--has a very uncertain future, and that is why it is very important that we get this downpayment of emergency relief for our State and States like Louisiana and Texas. We are going to work together to make sure we can secure additional funding, if that is what our Governors--and I think both of our Governors have identified additional problems.

I thank the leader, Senator McConnell. I think this has been a week of pushes and pulls and ups and downs. I think he was very skillful by working with the Democratic leader and the leaders over in the House, and we now have a good pathway forward. I wish to express my appreciation to him for his leadership and his ability to, I think, find an answer to some very difficult questions.

I also thank our Appropriations chair, Senator Cochran, for his work on this bill.

I wish to speak about Flint, MI, for a few minutes. Nearly 7 months ago, I was one of the very first cosponsors of the bipartisan legislation that Senator Stabenow introduced, along with Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Boxer, that would direct resources to address the serious water problem in Flint. I strongly supported the inclusion of the Flint provisions in the Water Resources Development Act, as did many of us, and the vote was 95 to 3, 2 weeks ago.

I know the leadership is committed to taking final action to help Flint later in the year, and I wholeheartedly support that.

Unfortunately, West Virginia had a water crisis, too, and although the impact we had was different than what we saw in Flint, we know how devastating it is for businesses and residents to not have clean drinking water. This also has critical funding for our veterans and the opioid and heroin crisis we see sweeping across the country.

I see my colleague from Maryland is here. Her State has also had some flooding as well. We are right next door to one another, and I thank the Senator for her leadership.

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