Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of my bill, the FISHES Act. I represent Florida's 19th Congressional District in southwest Florida, which has a significant coastal presence. In southwest Florida, hurricanes are common, which often bring about significant damage to critical infrastructure, businesses, and communities alike. When people think about disaster relief, FEMA and the SBA often come to mind. However, we must not forget about the critical disaster relief that NOAA provides in the aftermath of a federally declared fishery disaster. For background, during the fishery disaster relief process, States must submit a spend plan to NOAA which lays out how the State will spend disaster relief it receives from the Federal Government. Currently, the Office of Management and Budget can voluntarily decide to insert itself into the Federal fishery disaster relief process, which it often does, to review a State's spend plan. Unlike most other aspects of the process, OMB has no deadline to review a spend plan. Predictably this has led to unnecessary delay in allocating crucial Federal relief post disaster. For example, the State of Florida alone has requested fishery disaster relief on seven different occasions since 2012, however, for each occasion, over 2 years had lapsed from the time of approval to when fishery disaster relief funds were ultimately made available. This is simply unacceptable.…”