Sheldon Whitehouse: “reserving the right to object, may I say that I appreciate that Senator Scott would like to accelerate disaster aid to…”

“reserving the right to object, may I say that I appreciate that Senator Scott would like to accelerate disaster aid to his home State. But let me observe that disasters have taken place not only in Florida but in the Presiding Officer's home State of Hawaii, in Vermont, in New York, in Louisiana, and other States as well. And in response to that, what President Biden did was made a request to Congress in August to pass a comprehensive emergency supplemental that includes an increase in funding for FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund. It also includes $45 million for the Department of Ag and $15 million for the Department of Interior to support more than 20,000 firefighters who are out there braving this explosion in new wildfires that are taking place across our country. This is driven by climate change. Let's be clear about that. We have had 14 named storms so far in the 2023 hurricane season. If you look back at last year, weather-related damage in the United States topped 165 billion. We have had testimony in my Budget Committee from OMB that climate change will cost the Federal budget $2 trillion per year. We cannot address this piecemeal, and we cannot address it only by providing disaster relief and not doing anything useful to head off these risks. Some of these are what economists call systemic risks.…”