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Floor Speech

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Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, on Saturday, I was in Western North Carolina for the day because that marked the 1-year anniversary of the landfall of Helene in a place that a hurricane has never really been before, about 200 miles inland in the Smoky Mountain Range.

In North Carolina alone, it had an impact landwise equivalent to the State of Massachusetts. About a dozen river basins were at historic, 100-year flood levels, and the damage was tremendous. The loss of life: 108 people in North Carolina alone, more than 250 people by the storm, and $59.6 billion in damages.

It is actually the most expensive storm in North Carolina's history, breaking the previous record of $30 billion by Hurricane Florence back in 2018: 74,000 homes damaged or destroyed; 5,000 miles of roads damaged or destroyed, including major portions of I-40, which are still only one lane in each direction for about a 20-mile stretch between North Carolina and Tennessee; I-26 was damaged; Blue Ridge Parkway has just opened up; 848 bridges damaged and destroyed; 20,000 farms and 800,000 acres of timber damaged; 163 water systems damaged, with Asheville not having drinkable water for almost 2 months after the storm.

When I was in Western North Carolina, I heard someone say that the one community I was in was back on its feet. But for every community that is back on its feet, there are still several communities that are on their knees or flat on their back. In fact, there are some communities that we wonder whether or not they ever will come back.

And the reason I talk about it, in addition to being the 1-year anniversary, we have got real problems in the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund and resources available.

The President, rightfully, acknowledged that there was a release of money about a month ago, but all of that is money that is already-- those are reimbursements. Those are costs that have already been incurred. We haven't even gotten to a point where we are trying to become more resilient or to prepare for the next storm.

When I was riding from Old Fort to Chimney Rock, I was going down a stretch of highway--not a stretch of highway, a stretch of State road. There are still cars in the creekbeds. There are roads that are in the creekbed because they are trying to figure out where they are ultimately going to put it, back on a hillside, when they can get stabilization there and actually have the funding to build the roads.

I know a lot of people have moved on, but in Western North Carolina, we haven't moved on. We are suffering as much today as we were the day or 3 or 4 days after the storm last year.

According to the latest FEMA Disaster Relief Fund monthly report, the major disasters account balance right now is at $1.4 billion. That is dangerously low.

Last month, FEMA approved 7.5 billion from the major disasters account.

In 2024, there were 90 FEMA-declared major disasters, nearly double the 30-year average of 55 declarations per year.

Already this year--and we are really ramping up in the hurricane season right now--we have had 40 major disaster declarations in 22 States. FEMA simply doesn't have the funding needed to respond to a major disaster.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a shutdown posture right now. We have storms in the Atlantic and more storms forming off the coast of Africa, and we are not prepared for another major disaster should it hit this weekend, nor do we have the money that we need to help communities across this country, especially in Western North Carolina, recover from Helene.

The House-passed continuing resolution that we tried to vote on this week had $22\1/2\ billion for the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund. But that money is not here today because we are in a shutdown posture. We are not funding any area of government, but we are especially hurting the Disaster Relief Fund and FEMA. And the only thing standing in our way is a simple vote to continue funding at levels that my Democratic colleagues have agreed to before.

Ladies and gentlemen, we don't have a CR that the President or that the majority leader has decorated with ornaments. We call it decorating some of these spending bills like a Christmas tree. This is a simple continuing resolution to spend at the level we were spending yesterday. There is nothing more to it. There is money in here to help with disaster relief, but there is nothing more.

This shutdown is hurting people in North Carolina. This shutdown will hurt more people. We lost the season last year--the tourist season--in the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountain parks. That was a hurricane. That was an inland hurricane disaster. This year, it is the disastrous vote of the Democrats, not allowing us to continue to fund at the levels that we did yesterday.

We are not asking for anything more than that. We are asking for time to negotiate the premium tax credits, the ACA credits. I am on record saying we do need to find a good place for that. It is not about canceling them. But, folks, we can't even get to that if we can't agree to something as basic as this: Can we spend today what we did yesterday?

And I know that there are several Members on that side of the aisle that would like to move with a clean CR and get to that negotiation. I am just speaking on behalf of people in North Carolina, particularly in Western North Carolina, who are struggling mightily. I hope that we can get back to funding the government where we can plus-up the Disaster Relief Fund and that I won't have to come to the floor next week to see who is going to be against this unanimous consent for doing just that.

Let's do our job. Let's get back in business. Let's get the government funded. Let's help the people in North Carolina and in dozens of disaster-declared places all across this country.

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