Joe Manchin: “I rise this morning to address a situation that is very hard for me to believe, and I am sure for many of my colleagues…”

“I rise this morning to address a situation that is very hard for me to believe, and I am sure for many of my colleagues, and maybe the Presiding Officer as well. It makes no sense to the people of our great State of West Virginia. For nearly 2 weeks, hundreds of thousands of West Virginians have been deprived of basic necessities such as water and electricity because of massive storms--not just West Virginia but up and down the east coast. At the peak of the outage, FEMA estimates that 688,000 West Virginians didn't have power. That is a third of our State. One-third of our State was completely knocked out. Hundreds of thousands of people had to throw away all of the food in their refrigerators and freezers because of the lack of electricity. Our National Guard and first responders did a superb job of keeping people safe. But this country learned just how vulnerable and inadequate our infrastructure is and how much we have come to depend on it. Up and down the east coast, our electrical grid was crippled by this storm because there is no backup plan--none whatsoever--that could keep the vital necessities of life running during these horrific storms. The fact is we have to invest in our Nation's infrastructure. We all talk about it but still very little is being done. Power outages cost this country between $79 billion and $164 billion every year.…”