Dan Coats: “I know there is a lot of passion here on the floor regarding this particular legislation. There is probably not a Member…”

“I know there is a lot of passion here on the floor regarding this particular legislation. There is probably not a Member on this floor who has not had some semblance of a disaster in the State and for the people they represent. Sandy clearly rises to one of the top categories of something truly catastrophic, but many of us have experienced tornadoes and destruction and floods and a number of other disasters. One of the essential functions of government is to address those in immediate need and meet some of those emergency needs. With the cooperation of local and State and Federal authorities stepping up, we have been able to assure the American people that help is on the way, and hopefully help is on the way in an expeditious manner so that it gets to those who need that emergency help quickly. It is regrettable it has taken this long for some of this money to be appropriated. I personally think we could have expedited this had we gained support for an amendment I offered in December which would have immediately met those emergency needs, yet given the Congress time to work through the process of examining other aspects of the bill that, No. 1, were not related to Sandy and, No. 2, that fell on various Members' wish lists of things they wanted done for their States.…”