Major Hurricanes

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to join the voices that echo the deep, troubling concern that we shared this weekend when we saw our President engage in a sterile fight, a childish, almost, type of fight with the NFL players. We all know that football, baseball, and many of our sports have been a level playing field where many people of different races, ethnicities, and economic backgrounds come together and cheer for a particular team from their hometown or their region.

Instead of concentrating on bringing healthcare to millions of Americans or retreating on failed attempts to repeal and replace ObamaCare, the President chose to engage in another activity: tweeting that insulted Americans across the country.

Instead of engaging in a real, substantive discussion about the Dream Act and DACA recipients, looking at the provisions of the bipartisan legislation that has been put forward and cosponsored by close to 200 Members of this House, led by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida, and Lucille Roybal-Allard, a Democrat from California, instead of going through the provisions of that bill that could bring relief for 800,000 young people who otherwise would be potentially deported-- they are larger than any of the congressional districts that any one of us may represent in this House. Instead of looking at the provisions of that, rolling up our sleeves and coming here this week to discuss how we bring relief to 800,000 young people who are working, going to school, and are members of our Armed Forces, he chose to engage in distraction.

Instead of looking at a real humanitarian crisis about to ensue in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and some of our neighboring countries of Barbuda, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean, as well as the challenges of Florida and Houston, instead of taking a look at a potential humanitarian crisis that may ensue in Puerto Rico and bringing about relief for those 3.5 million Americans, he chose to look the other way.

We remember how a President hovered in his airplane over New Orleans and Louisiana as people drowned and died without getting the help they needed. This could be our modern-day Katrina, and yet our President chose to look the other way. He could have engaged in bringing about results. Today, I join Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and Congressman Adam Smith in signing on to a letter asking the Department of Defense to step it up in Puerto Rico.

We ask for a senior general to be appointed to work with FEMA to manage the crisis in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands the same way it was done for Katrina. We ask for Department of Defense engineers and aviation assets to be deployed to Puerto Rico, as many of the municipalities up in the mountains are still cut off from the general population and have not been heard of for nearly a week.

We ask for technicians and experts to bring restoration of power and to work with telecommunications on the island because people are still disconnected from government, from hospitals, from the police department. There is no cell service; there is no energy on the island; and we ask for that as well.

We ask, in this letter, for the USNS Comfort, an offshore medical treatment facility, to be deployed to the island of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico only has two hospitals that have been able to restore power, yet the President looked this weekend the other way.

For three major pieces and issues that confront the American people: healthcare, as it pertains to close to maybe 30 million people that may lose their services if this failed attempt to repeal and replace ObamaCare goes through; DACA, impacting over close to a million young people who go to school, who work, who are part of our future economic recovery, who are members of the Armed Forces; and the humanitarian crisis, a new-day Katrina that is about to ensue in Puerto Rico--for those three issues of great importance to America, our President looked the other way.

He chose to engage in tweets; he chose to insult our local athletes in an un-Presidential manner; he chose to turn his back on the American people.

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