Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that information. First, I want to start by saying that the majority leader and I and four other Members of the House had an opportunity to visit both Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands last weekend since we had our last colloquy. First, I want to thank the majority leader for organizing that trip and including me on it. It was an eye-opening trip. The majority leader and I have done an op-ed, which will be appearing sometime in the near term, on our observations. One of the things, Mr. Speaker, that I know the majority leader and I had the opportunity to see, we were in Marathon, where you had housing that was built after Andrew and housing that was built before Andrew. Now, the difference was, after Andrew, that extraordinary hurricane, the building code was changed. We saw the stark difference between housing that survived essentially Maria and Irma and housing that did not, and the difference was, of course, that the housing that survived was built to different standards after Andrew. The majority leader and I discussed this matter, along with Mr. Bishop, who chairs the committee that oversees both Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and I think all of us are convinced that it would be penny-wise and pound-foolish not to build back, as Florida did, to standards that can withstand storms of this type. So I wanted to thank the majority leader for his leadership on this issue.…”