Obamacare

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues to support this cloture motion this afternoon and move forward in passing the continuing resolution to fund our government through December 9.
Flooding is a national emergency. I have heard many Members talk about the flooding in Louisiana, West Virginia, and Texas.

It is a devastating circumstance we find ourselves in in the State of West Virginia. Twenty-three West Virginians lost their lives.

Amazingly, the last victim was found--a 14-year-old girl--probably just a month ago. Twelve counties were declared Federal disaster areas. For some areas of West Virginia, this was a thousand-year event. It came up so quickly. Some of our oldest and our poorest communities suffered serious destruction, and nearly 90 percent of the homes and businesses affected did not have flood insurance.

I toured most all of the affected areas and talked to some very brave people and very brave local mayors, who were doing a great job. There are 5,100 homes and businesses that have suffered a loss, as verified by FEMA. Seventy-five percent of the affected homes have been deemed unsafe by inspectors, so we have thousands of people who are not living in a permanent home situation. Some are still living in temporary situations that are unsafe, and certainly, moving into the fall, it would be very unhealthy.

There is a significant need for resources to help communities, individuals, and small businesses to recover, and disaster-related needs go beyond the disaster reimbursement provided by FEMA. Our Governor, Earl Ray Tomblin of West Virginia, wrote to President Obama earlier this month outlining the significant need for disaster aid. The Governor's letter identified $310 million in flood-related needs from the Federal Community Development Block Grant Program.

I am a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. I very much appreciate our chairman, Senator Cochran, coming to the floor today to implore, after all this hard work trying to get this continuing resolution confirmed.

I have worked hard to secure the resources in this bill for our West Virginia flood victims. The legislation we will vote on today takes an important step to address flood recovery in disaster-stricken portions of West Virginia and certainly for our friends in Louisiana and other parts of the country. I thank my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee. I thank the leader for listening to me. I thank Chairman Cochran and Senator Collins, who chairs the subcommittee, for responding favorably to my request for these desperately needed resources.

This bill begins to address this by including funds for the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program. Those funds will help meet housing and infrastructure needs in communities impacted by the flooding in West Virginia and all across the country.

Given the need in my State and other States, such as Louisiana and Texas, additional disaster funds beyond those in this bill will be needed. This is an emergency. This means now. These floods occurred several months ago.

I could have easily come to the floor today and heralded the record funding this bill includes for our Nation's veterans or the important resources it provides to help combat our opioid and heroin epidemic--something that is devastating my State and many States across this country. These are needs facing all States. They should have been addressed by our regular appropriations bills.

No one likes the fact--well, I don't think anyone likes the fact that a continuing resolution is necessary. The Senate Appropriations Committee, of which I am a member, passed all 12 of the appropriations bills. Many of them were bipartisan and worked out between the chair and the ranking member. I wish the Senate had acted on all of these. We tried for weeks and weeks to get cooperation to move through these bills in a predictable and very responsible manner so that we could have addressed our Nation's priorities in a fiscally responsible way.

But this bill today keeps our government open and provides the additional resources to help our flood victims who are still suffering so much. It helps our veterans, and it helps to address those who are suffering this new and devastating scourge of opioid and heroin addiction. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

I yield the floor.

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