On the recordMay 8, 2024
I thank the Senator from Hawaii. First of all, I want to acknowledge my great appreciation for the work that the Senator and his committee have done on bringing attention to the ongoing challenge that communities that have been hammered, like your community of Lahaina and my State of Vermont, from natural disasters, and I am going to speak in support of the efforts you are making to get supplemental funding for the absolutely essential, flexible funding that goes with the block grant Disaster Relief Fund. Thank you very, very much. You know, we are all in this together. What Senator Schatz said about the formality of a Federal disaster declaration--the formality is it is an acknowledgement that what happened, through no fault of anybody in Hawaii, through no fault of anybody in Vermont, is beyond the capacity of the communities in Vermont and Hawaii--beyond the capacity of Vermont and beyond the capacity of Hawaii--to handle the entire consequence of those events. What is more important, more essential for the Senate than to acknowledge that all of us as Americans, that there but for the grace of God goes our community when a natural disaster occurs? So we have to respond. There are two times that there is a response. One is in the immediate trauma of the event. It is all hands on deck. The community does everything it can.…
