Speech Comes as Senate Prepares to Pass Bipartisan Continuing Resolution with Dedicated Disaster Funding
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) took to the Senate Floor last night to speak on the continued fight to fund the government in a bipartisan way, and support Vermont’s small businesses, farmers, families, and communities through the flood recovery process.
“It’s really a basic question here: Number one, do we use shutdown threats and shutdown reality as a tactic? We in this body have rejected that. And the second is: Do we find a way to make certain that when citizens throughout our country, not just Vermont or Hawaii, but any citizens who are in harm’s way when a natural disaster occurs, that we are here so they can count on us to help them get to the other side,” said Sen. Welch during his remarks. “We have an opportunity to begin the process of keeping government functioning and rejecting the politics of shutdown threats. And we have the opportunity to work together again to replenish the FEMA disaster relief, the farm relief, that’s so essential so that our citizens who have been in harm’s way can get the recovery funds that they need.”
His remarks from the Senate Floor come as the Senate considers a bipartisan Continuing Resolution (CR), which, if passed, would fund the government through November 17th and avert a government shutdown. The CR includes roughly $6 billion in emergency funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) to support states, like Vermont, experiencing natural disasters. Senator Welch will continue to work with his colleagues to fight for additional funding to support Vermont as it recovers from the recent flooding, while working to prevent a government shutdown.
Watch Senator Welch’s full remarks here:
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