Bill Lee: “I want to thank our ranking member for yielding time to me and for her tireless leadership. Mr. Speaker, as a…”

“I want to thank our ranking member for yielding time to me and for her tireless leadership. Mr. Speaker, as a Representative from northern California, let me just say that my thoughts and prayers are with our neighbors in the North Bay. I remember the Oakland Hills. I represent Oakland and Berkeley, California; and just as many helped us then, we will help our neighbors now. I am deeply grateful to our firefighters and our first responders who have been working around the clock to extinguish these fires. Mr. Speaker, I also rise in strong support of this emergency supplemental. Our neighbors in the North Bay, the Gulf Coast, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Texas, they need our help, and they need it now. Communities are devastated, and many are still without power and water. This is a life-and-death situation for so many. Make no mistake, the recovery process is just beginning, and we cannot forget our Caribbean neighbors who are also suffering. Mr. Speaker, the supplemental is a good first step. It is a good first step in a very long process, but we must provide more long-term assistance to help communities rebuild and to help them recover very quickly, and we must leave no one behind.”