Date: 2010-01-26
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Madam Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of this Senate bill. S. 2949. As Representative McDERMOTT described. it will provide assistance to thousands of Americans returning from Haiti following the devastating January 12 earthquake there. Let me reiterate that we are helping American citizens with this legislation. The bill. entitled Emergency Aid to American Survivors of the Haiti Earthquake Act. will ensure that State and local governments and charitable agencies on the ground in Florida. for example. and elsewhere have the resources to do exactly that. Funding for those local efforts is provided through the Repatriation Program administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Each year. that program provides temporary assistance in the form of loans to U.S. citizens and their dependents arriving in the U.S. following an emergency. By law. currently the program is capped at $1 million per year. This bill. which passed the Senate last night. temporarily increases that cap for 2010. As the legislation makes clear. and the Congressional Budget Office score confirms. this increase is entirely paid for by reducing spending in other areas. It does not raise the national debt. This is similar to how Congress responded when demand for repatriation assistance swelled following the American evacuation of Lebanon in 2006. Congress stepped in to provide for the additional funds that were needed and paid for that additional funding through savings. That is the right approach. And. frankly. my constituents would like to see this balanced budget approach applied across the board. not just to the smallest items. For my part. I wish we were cutting funds in the bloated State Department budget to pay for this emergency. As I am sure my colleagues would agree. Congress should be looking for ways to save taxpayer dollars all the time. not just when new spending emergency needs come up. Unfortunately. since we are acting on a Senate bill. these concerns will have to wait for another day. Before I yield. I would like to note the special importance this bill has for the State of Florida. Since so many of our returning citizens are arriving through my home State. I truly appreciate my colleagues supporting this bill and making sure that State and local agencies have the resources that they need to respond to this emergency. The State Department suggests that there were approximately 45.000 U.S. citizens in Haiti and that they were there when the earthquake hit. As of yesterday. some 14.000 had already returned to the United States. I commend all the workers in Florida and across the country. whether with State or local government agencies. the Red Cross. our Armed Forces. or other agencies who are helping fellow citizens as they travel to their final destinations in the United States. The House and Senate are to be commended for acting very quickly on this legislation. Passing the Emergency Aid to American Survivors of the Haiti Earthquake Act today is important to thousands of Americans who have been displaced and who need a helping hand to return home. I encourage support for this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.