Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for working with us on this and for yielding time. I also want to thank the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the ranking member for all their assistance. Mr. Speaker, this bill doesn't just include money, which, of course, is very, very important. It also includes language and changes that I would consider to be priceless. It includes things like applying lessons learned, reducing disaster response costs, and, importantly, speeding up recovery--things outside Washington called common sense and applying it to how we handle disasters. It pivots from being reactive and spending billions of dollars after disasters to being proactive. You can look back since 1980. We have had well over 200 disasters in this Nation that have cost over $1 billion each. In fact, when you add it all up, we are looking at approximately $1.3 trillion in disaster costs in this Nation. As the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said, this bill includes text from H.R. 4460 and H.R. 4438 that transforms this process: instead of just coming in and picking up the pieces after a disaster, actually leaning forward and making sure our communities are more resilient, making sure they are prepared for disasters, making sure they are prepared for the future.…”