WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) took to the Senate floor today to urge Congress to pass disaster aid in the final days of the 118th Congress. In his remarks, Senator Welch highlighted extreme weather disasters that have impacted communities in Vermont and across the country since 2022, the last time Congress passed comprehensive disaster aid.
“The longer we wait to help disaster victims, the more disaster victims we will have. The list of needs will only grow. Delay hurts, it doesn’t help. That’s why I am asking my colleagues in the Senate and the House to act now, and act quickly,” said Sen. Welch today on the Senate floor.
Watch the Senator’s full remarks below:
Key quotes from Senator Welch:
“If the 118th Congress was a baseball game we’d be nearing the bottom of the ninth. And as every Senator is well aware, our ‘to-do’ list for the next two weeks is long. There are very important issues we need to resolve before the last vote of the year. We need to keep the government open. We need to extend the Farm Bill and vote on NDAA. And, critically for Vermont, and for so many states around the nation, we must pass a comprehensive disaster aid package.
“Legislating is a team sport. If we work together and find common ground, we can send a bill to the President’s desk before the end of Congress and deliver for those communities that desperately, desperately need action from the United States Senate. You know, despite our differences, whether they’re political or geographic, communities from Vermont, in Montpelier; to Mankato, Minnesota; from Houston, Texas; to Asheville, North Carolina; to Maui, Hawai‘i…are all asking for Congress to help with the devastation that’s happened in those communities.”
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“We need to fund FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, and we need to do that for the benefit of all Americans.
“And we need to provide those farmers, and producers, and ranchers with dedicated recovery assistance to help them with their losses so they can farm and ranch again.
“We need to get our communities the flexible funding—and I emphasize flexible, and locally-driven funding—that they need, through programs like the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funding.
“And we need to rebuild our infrastructure, and we have to reimburse our States, whose budgets have been hammered. And reimburse our communities that have spent big to get folks back on safe roads.
“We need to fix our wastewater and drinking water systems for the health and well-being of our citizens.
“And we have to help those small businesses—that aid has to come sooner rather than later—the delay has already been really brutal on their ability to keep the lights on.”
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“The longer we wait to help disaster victims, the more disaster victims we will have. The list of needs will only grow. Delay hurts, it doesn’t help. That’s why I am asking my colleagues in the Senate and the House to act now, and act quickly. For Vermont, and for every state hit by a disaster since we last passed a disaster bill so many storms ago…We cannot wait. We have common ground in our common crisis. We must send a disaster bill to President Biden’s desk.”
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