Pallone Rails Against Boehner Plan to Slow Sandy Recovery

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) took to the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to rail against House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to pass only a small piece of funding over a larger, comprehensive Senate passed relief package for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Pallone, who represents some of the hardest-hit areas of the Jersey Shore characterized the $9 billion Sandy funding plan as “too little, too late” and noted that the delay in passing full funding for a Sandy recovery plan in the waning days of the 112th Congress has been an impediment to New Jersey’s storm recovery efforts. Instead of passing the $60.4 billion bill already approved in the U.S. Senate, Republican Leaders in the House chose to break the funding up into three, smaller separate parts, which will not be considered in the House for weeks.

The following are Congressman Pallone’s remarks on the House Floor today:



“Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to thank my colleague from New York.

“This action by the House Republican Leadership is too little, too late. I have to say I'm still very upset and I think it's deplorable that the Speaker did not bring this bill up and the whole package that addresses Hurricane Sandy relief in the lame duck session in the last days of Congress. It would have been passed, we had the votes. It would have been on the President’s desk, he would have signed it, and we would have started to rebuild the shore.

“Now we have another delay. I don’t know how many weeks it has been, nine weeks, ten weeks, whatever it is. I have no idea what the Senate is going to do. My understanding is that the Senate is mired in filibuster over the next three weeks and isn't coming back until after the inauguration. That means we could be waiting another three weeks. The rest of the package which is the most important part of it, might not come up until we return after a week's break. We're going to be on recess and then we come back on the 15th and hopefully the rest of the package comes out that day. That means we have three separate votes on this package that could have been passed and signed into law over the last couple days. Three separate votes. It is not acceptable, Madam Speaker.”