Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GUEST. Madam Speaker, I want to first thank Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves for bringing this important bipartisan legislation to the floor.

H.R. 2016 would begin the critical process in working to consolidate the overlapping disaster response programs that delay disaster assistance for citizens in Miss Gonzalez-Colon's district, as well as in my district.

Mississippi has withstood flooding, hurricanes, and tornadoes over the last 2 years, and many of these response efforts are still underway today. This is no fault of the Federal agencies that are tasked with responding, but it is, instead, the product of overlapping programs that result in duplicative assessments that delay the recovery process.

This bill would establish a Federal working group to help identify a more streamlined approach to helping Americans respond to natural disasters.

This commonsense approach to solving delays in Federal disaster response would help expedite recovery and give Americans confidence in the Federal response.

I appreciate Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon's leadership on this issue, and I ask my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

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