Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the concern everyone in this Chamber has about the jeopardy of disaster assistance to the communities that so desperately need it. We had an agreement. We had an agreement that was reached between House Republicans and Democrats--a bipartisan agreement--here in the Senate. And it was to provide desperately needed disaster relief to citizens who were in the eye of storms in Vermont, in North Carolina, in Iowa, in Texas--$100 million.
And what that meant in Vermont was that communities that had put money out to fix culverts, to repair bridges, to realign roads, and who were expecting the money from FEMA in this disaster assistance suddenly are on hold. Will they get it? We don't know at this moment.
Farms, where farmers had lost their crops in July of 2023--and we had another flood in July of 2024--and where couples who were running these farms and making existential decisions about whether they could keep farming--and we need them; we need them to be able to keep farming; we need it for Vermont; and we need it to show respect for our farmers-- are awaiting an answer as to whether this disaster relief will come through.
This is going to have a huge impact on Vermont. Our property taxpayers who suffer from enormously high property taxes will be pounded if that relief doesn't get back to those communities where they fronted money for that culvert repair, the bridge repair, and road repair; and our small businesses that have been hammered as well and are awaiting an answer on whether they can get relief from the assistance in that program; and homeowners who have been told that they can get money for a buyout because their home was destroyed in a flood--and what a horrible thing for folks to have to go through. A lot of that happened in July of 2023. But then to have to go through the constant uncertainty and bureaucratic delays that have been so rampant in FEMA, and we had this moment where $100 billion was going to be available to help in Vermont and other States where this relief was necessary. And it is not right that after we have this agreement, negotiated on a bipartisan basis, it is pulled out from underneath us.
And, by the way, one of the great experiences I have had in the U.S. Senate was working with colleagues--my Republican colleagues like Thom Tillis and like Ted Budd, from North Carolina--whose citizens suffered an enormous loss from what happened in Hurricane Helene. It wiped out bookstores in Asheville, restaurants in Asheville needing help. And it was so gratifying to me to see that all of us, whether we represented folks in a red State or a blue State, whether the constituents who were in need voted for Trump or Harris, it just didn't matter. Our obligation was to help them. And that is a basic responsibility that this Congress has when our citizens, through no fault of their own, suffer enormous economic loss as a result of a natural weather event.
We had this agreement. What happened? Literally, we had this agreement. Speaker Johnson signed off on it. Leadership here signed off on it. Mr. Musk sent out a tweet. He didn't like it, and he blew the entire thing up. And how is it that one person can have so much power to destroy something that the American people really need? A $277 million contribution to a campaign gets you a seat at the table--maybe the head seat at the table. And that, flatout, is wrong. The American people--those folks who suffered in Asheville, NC, in Lyndonville, VT-- they are entitled to immediate action.
So we don't know what the next few hours are going to be, but what I know is that I will not abandon Vermonters. I will not abandon Americans who are counting on this disaster relief. I am going to hang in there to make certain that I do every single thing I can to help the Vermonters and the North Carolinians and the folks in Iowa and Texas and Louisiana who have been in the path of these terrible storms.
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