Nita Lowey: “I thank the distinguished, distinguished ranking member, Mr. Meeks, for your eloquence, as always. Madam Speaker, I rise…”

“I thank the distinguished, distinguished ranking member, Mr. Meeks, for your eloquence, as always. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation, and I would like to thank Chairman Garrett for introducing this legislation and for his efforts to bring it to the floor with bipartisan support. The National Flood Insurance Program has hit its limit. Without an increase in borrowing authority, it will be unable to pay for claims as early as next week. And that means that 120,000 flood insurance claims payments will be delayed, nearly all of which are due to Hurricane Sandy. However, this bill is just not enough. It's not adequate. In December, the Senate passed an emergency assistance package to aid in the Sandy recovery, which included this legislation. Earlier this week, I expected, as did my colleagues, that the House would vote on a complete emergency assistance package to aid those in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York who have lost homes, businesses, and their livelihoods. Sadly, the 112th Congress ended without action, and now we are starting over on important legislation which is absolutely critical to help storm-affected areas that should have and could have been signed. We know that there's no reason it wasn't signed in 2012.…”