Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. National Defense

Floor Speech

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for including my two amendments in this en bloc.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of two of my amendments that are included in this en bloc. The first authorizes Federal funds for two grant programs under the Maritime Administration.

My amendment focuses on the often overlooked but critical maritime industry. It is especially important to my district, which includes the Maritime Center of Excellence campus and the Port of Houston.

My amendment authorizes $30 million for a grant program to colleges which offer high-quality maritime workforce education and training programs. It also authorizes $30 million for the small shipyard grant program which supports training programs for shipbuilding and ship repair workers.

Congress must support the next generation of maritime workers, and Congress must support our supply chain workers. This amendment does that. It is just that simple.

The second amendment I led supports a pilot program on the sharing of suspicious financial activity. This pilot program allows financial institutions to share any suspicious information with their foreign branches, subsidiaries, and affiliates. Put simply, this program is designed to promote transparency and prevent illegal financial activity. It became law as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 included in the NDAA. Currently this pilot program is authorized for 3 years with a start date of January of 2021. Regrettably, the program is yet to begin.

With the adoption of my amendment, which is just a technical fix, the pilot program will be authorized for 3 years following its actual inception. This allows ample time to implement and to also measure its success.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the en bloc amendments and the underlying bill.

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague, Mr. Green, for his leadership on this very important amendment.

I am not shocked by this amendment. I am pleased with this amendment. This is something that is desperately needed because this amendment would permanently authorize the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program.

This important program does provide States and communities like mine in Houston with flexible, long-term recovery resources for building affordable housing and infrastructure after a disaster.

This amendment would ensure that these essential services go to the most deserving communities, those hit hardest by a disaster. It builds safeguards to ensure that funds are not diverted away from the lowest- income survivors.

Further, it reforms disaster recovery allocation formulas and protocols to ensure equity, prioritizes transparency and oversight and discovery, disaster recovery, protects civil rights in fair housing, and supports disaster mitigation efforts.

Mr. Green and my hometown of Houston is no stranger to disasters, and Mr. Speaker, I would submit that if the folks on the other side of the aisle think that this is not a good program, and they don't want the dollars because it takes too long to get them, we will gladly accept them in Houston because we get hit almost every year or every other year. We get hit hard, and we get hit in the most vulnerable populations.

So, again, I urge support of this amendment, and I urge all my colleagues to do the same.

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