Rather than bickering over the issues not under our control, we should be working together to improve the lending, contracting, and entrepreneurship development landscape on the island.

I would like to thank my colleague Congresswoman Velazquez for her long history of working to help Puerto Rico.

However, obtaining conventional credit can be particularly difficult for small businesses, making a Small Business Administration lending program critical to filling this gap.

In order for small firms to play their traditional job-creating role, a number of factors must be in place.

Namely, the SBA 504 program helps small businesses obtain long-term financing for major assets, such as real estate and equipment.

I think also, the external event also showed something that normally you wouldn't have seen. Unfortunately, the shooting and the violence occurred. I think made us, was on the floor, was at the briefing, (INAUDIBLE) Democrats and Republicans, and we recognize, looking at ourselves, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and recognize that if we are to send a tone to our constituents, it's how we conduct ourselves. If we want change, we have to start with ourselves.

I can't tell you how nice it is just to be able to have a beer and watch a game after what's transpired over the last 36 hours.

I look forward to working with Congress to ensure that we have a research program that is focused on developing solutions and providing state-of-the-art technologies to improve management decisions on farm and on forest lands.

Adequate access to food, especially healthy food, is a national problem.

I have always said that food policy is foreign policy, and we know that food is a bipartisan issue that we all have to eat.

I am very much interested in a very specific way about access of people of color taking advantage of these opportunities.