Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of September 29, 2021, I call up the bill (H.R. 5305) making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2022, and for providing emergency assistance, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

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Ms. DeLAURO. 5305.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act. By extending government funding through December 3, this bill provides tens of billions of dollars to support working families who live paycheck to paycheck.

It ensures that vital education, health, housing, and public safety programs continue to serve those who rely on them. And at a time of economic devastation in many parts of our country, we need a government that looks out for the middle class, for working families, for small businesses, and the vulnerable who work hard.

The funding in this bill will grow opportunity and lift up hardworking American families. It will support our early childhood education programs, our schools, and our high-quality job training. It will continue to help the hungry put food on the table and keep food safety inspectors on the job.

It will safeguard our consumers from product safety hazards and protect our environment from polluters, and it will ensure the most vulnerable remain healthy and housed with access to lifesaving resources and support services that they need.

As I have made clear, this bill is not a permanent solution. I look forward to soon beginning negotiations with my counterparts across the aisle and across the Capitol to complete full-year government funding bills that reverse decades of disinvestment.

In addition to the temporary funding extension, this bill responds to recent emergencies such as hurricanes, storms, wildfires, extreme heat, and severe drought. Thousands of Americans across the United States are still suffering from the impact of these many recent disasters. That is why this bill provides $28.6 billion in desperately needed Federal aid to all corners of our Nation, including $7.5 billion for Hurricane Ida so that struggling families, small businesses, and hard-hit communities can get back on their feet and rebuild their lives and their livelihoods.

Further, in addition to responding to these recent natural disasters, this bill addresses the humanitarian needs resulting from the end of 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

Today, we are providing $6.3 billion for urgent humanitarian assistance in the region, including assistance for vulnerable populations, including women, girls, and minorities. And it honors our commitments to our Afghan allies and their families who are now in the United States.

This bill supports temporary housing, security screenings, and long- term resettlement of these Afghan evacuees, and it paves the way to ensure that people who risk their lives for us can make a new life here where they will contribute richly to the fabric of our Nation.

Madam Speaker, I am proud of this bill. The moral test of government is defined by how we treat those who need our help. Investing in our citizens and delivering relief where it is needed lays the groundwork to build back better from the devastation of the pandemic.

The American people are worth the investment. The American people are capable of building a future that is stronger and more prosperous as long as they have the tools they need to do it. This bill helps ensure that they have those tools.

Madam Speaker, I especially thank the hardworking staff on both sides of the aisle of the Committee on Appropriations for their work on this bill, including majority staff director, Robin Juliano; deputy, Matt Washington; the front office staff, and the clerks of the 12 subcommittees; and the communications team.

I thank Ranking Member Granger for her partnership and the work of the minority staff, including staff director, Anne Marie Chotvacs, and deputy, Johnnie Kaberle.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. This has been a bipartisan and a bicameral agreement in an effort of which we are proud.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I really am pleased that we are here this afternoon to take up the continuing resolution bill.

I would just make one point. It is a bill where the debt limit is not attached. My colleague on the other side of the aisle brought up the issue of the debt limit. It is very hard for me really to understand the reluctance of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, both in the House and in the Senate, for their willingness to raise the debt limit. The debt limit is a shared responsibility of both parties. In the past, Democrats have voted to increase the debt limit under Republican Presidents, because it certainly should be well-known here-- maybe the general public doesn't understand it--but I do it because when they incur bills and the bill comes in the mail, they don't have the luxury of saying, I am opposed to paying my bills, and I will not do it.

Ordinary people in this country understand that when you incur debt that you have to pay for it. You don't have the luxury of saying no. Maybe our colleagues in both the House and the Senate believe that this is a luxury that they can just say no. But throwing the United States into default and destroying the full faith and credit of the United States is not governing. It is not a shared responsibility or shared principle of values and who we are.

As it turns out, just because the prior administration was in the hands of my Republican colleagues, 97 percent of that debt was incurred under the prior administration, Republican administration. So this is not about paying for--as some of my colleagues would like to say-- spending going forward. It is not the case. It really is not the case. It is about paying for what we have already incurred.

And in a bipartisan way, I might add, we did incur debt. We passed what was necessary, in a bipartisan way, to address the issues of the greatest economic and healthcare crisis that this Nation has experienced in a generation with the pandemic.

And we came forward with CARES packages, with a rescue package, and we said it is a necessity. We have to make sure that we have an airline industry. We have to make sure that restaurants can stay open. We have to make sure that we have childcare facilities. We have to make sure that our hospitals can cope with what is coming in the door. We have to move to testing, and we have to look at how we are able to get people in this country vaccinated. And we came together to incur that kind of a debt. Now it is time for us to recognize that we need to raise that debt ceiling in order to do that.

I just might add--and I will speak personally about this--when the prior administration instituted the tax cut, $2 trillion in a tax cut that went to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of the people in this Nation, I was opposed to that. I couldn't support it. I spoke out against it here on the floor of the House, in my own community.

But yet, when President Trump called for an increase in the debt limit, I said yes, because I believed it was my duty. It was my responsibility to make sure that the full faith and credit of the United States was addressed. So I still do not understand the reluctance, except maybe for political reasons, but nevertheless, we are here today.

Madam Speaker, I would also make a comment on the Iron Dome, and as we pointed out last week, as I did, that we needed to, in fact, always really be there for our ally in the Middle East, our trusted ally in Israel, and we moved forward with a freestanding bill and a suspension, which we passed. And it is my understanding that the Senate is going to move in the same direction.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), the chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, here we go again. Just last week we were here urging our Republican colleagues to help us avert a government shutdown.

Now, wait for it. We are back because congressional Republicans refused to pass the government funding bill since it included a provision to ensure that America pays our bills for debt already incurred on their watch under the Trump administration.

The brinksmanship and the last-minute, hand-wringing, gut-wrenching angst that we are put through and that America is put through every single time when the Republicans just refuse to be fiscally responsible is jaw dropping.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this clean continuing resolution because, first and foremost, it will keep government open through early December. It extends funding for critical education, for health, for housing and public safety programs.

Secondly, the bill will provide millions of Americans with emergency assistance to help rebuild from recent hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and blizzards.

Third, Afghan evacuees will receive urgent humanitarian assistance to help them settle here.

And, finally, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, for her help with this, as well as Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Cartwright. The bill includes $22 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to investigate the Surfside building collapse in my district.

Madam Speaker, we have years in front of us to determine just exactly how this building collapse occurred, and to adopt policies to make sure that it never happens anywhere in the country again.

Now, Republicans voted against all of this last week. We need to pass this CR today, but we also need to address the debt limit. You know, Republicans always talk as if the U.S. Government were a business, even though it is a specious and wildly inaccurate analogy.

Nevertheless, for argument's sake, I ask my Republican colleagues: If you were running a business and decided not to pay your creditors, would you think that is a smart business move? How long do you think your business would remain in business? Not very long.

But at the end of the day, the government is, of course, not a business. We are the globe's leading economic power, and the dollar is the world's reserve currency. In many cases, deficit spending by the U.S. Government can jump-start our economy, support the global economic system, and quickly create American jobs.

And Republicans seemed to strongly agree with all of this during every year of the Trump administration, when they passed record-high budgets and didn't pay for nearly any of it.

Well, I say to my friends, the bill has come due. Let's pass this continuing resolution today and keep the government open.

And tomorrow, let's stop this legislative vandalism and get responsible about making sure we pay our bills and raise the debt ceiling.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Carter).

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I said a moment ago that the bill before us delivers to the survivors of recent disasters.

One of things I am most proud of with this bill--and we did work on a bipartisan basis in this effort--is understanding that all parts of this Nation have suffered, whether it is a drought, whether it is a hurricane, or whether it is a wildfire, whatever it is, we have experienced these disasters all over our country. That was what was most important when we looked at how we wanted to address this, which is why we put in $28.6 billion in disaster relief. All over this country we are experiencing difficulty, and so this bill addresses that.

If I take a look at where we are overall, agriculture has been mentioned. We have got $10 billion to cover the losses from natural disasters that occurred in 2020 and 2021. We do $275 million for emergency watershed protection programs to help the communities address the damages that were made to infrastructure caused by natural disasters, and that impaired watersheds.

When we talk about our Commerce-Justice-Science we look at--and my colleague from Florida talked about this--$22 million for investigations into building collapses. We saw the horror of those scenes every day and every night in the sadness of families who were not able to say goodbye to loved ones who were caught in the rubble of that collapse. But the funding is there. It is the proper role for the Federal Government to help to reduce the risk of future similar building failures.

Again, with legal services as it applies to disaster relief; $25 million to cover unanticipated Hurricane Ida-related costs.

In defense, we had damages to our defense industry, our Air Force facilities, in which case we have put in funding to address that effort.

Our colleague, Congresswoman Kaptur, spoke about the Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee; $100 million to study potential projects in order to reduce risk from future floods and hurricanes. Army Corps of Engineers, $3 billion to accelerate construction of flood and storm damage reduction projects to reduce risk from future floods and hurricanes. The Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi River tributaries, to look at flood and storm damage reduction projects. It is vast. The central Utah project, $10 million to address damages from wildfires.

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Energy--Small Business Administration disaster loan programs; $1.2 billion to support $6.2 billion in low-interest loans to help businesses, nonprofit organizations. Homeowners, renters, helping them to recover from disasters that are beyond their control.

This is the proper role for the Federal Government to be engaged and involved in these efforts.

We have Federal highways; $2.6 billion to reimburse States and territories for damage from natural disasters to roads and bridges in our National Highway System. Community Development Block Grant, which is a lifeline to our communities; $5 billion, long-term disaster recovery relief. It is restoration of housing and infrastructure, economic revitalization, and mitigation measures.

As I said years ago in the aftermath of Katrina, a journalist wrote that government had a covenant, if you will, with our communities in the face of natural disaster. And when he wrote about Katrina, he said, when the levees broke, that covenant was broken.

We do not want to break that covenant again because of a natural disaster. We want to make sure that we can help to rebuild our communities and make sure that they have what they need in order to move forward.

Again, as I mentioned, this helps to deliver for the survivors of the needs of Afghan refugees and evacuees. This is, as I have often said, really about our moral responsibility and imperative to be with those who helped us with sacrificing their lives and the lives of their families.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Madam Speaker, again, as I try to point out over and over again, besides natural disasters and besides Afghan evacuees, the critical services that have to do with healthcare, with education, and with nutrition are carried over in this bill. And this is for people who live paycheck to paycheck.

Today let us send this bill to the President's desk and keep government open and serving those in need.

Tomorrow let us continue the fight for funding bills that deliver for the people and truly build back better prioritizing working families who have been left behind by decades of disinvestment.

Madam Speaker, I urge support for this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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