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Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it was so wonderful to have time this month to kick off my annual 95-county tour, which is what I do in Tennessee each year. And I know that my colleagues across the aisle think they are here starting fresh with a new Congress, but that is not the way the people in Tennessee see this. As I have talked with people in our State, they continue to talk about what has happened this past couple of years with inflation, with crime, with that open border, with the supply chain issues. They are worried about that. They are worried about how that is going to affect them this year. My colleague from Texas has touched on some of these issues.

Now, in Tennessee, as they look at what has transpired over the last couple of years, we talked a lot about a tornado in December that ripped through Dresden, TN. I went into the Presbyterian church that was demolished on my last visit over there, and I saw the progress they are making to rebuild that wonderful church. One of the things they talked about was how inflation and supply chain bottlenecks are really thwarting their efforts to get this sanctuary finished so they can have their Easter celebration right there in that sanctuary.

In Waverly, TN, those individuals know exactly how the people over in Dresden feel because we had floods that came through Humphreys County, TN--devastating floods. There were 20 Tennesseans who lost their lives when the floods ripped through that town, destroyed that town, about a year and a half ago, and the town is trying to rebuild.

My team and I were able to help those folks there in Waverly secure a disaster declaration and the funds they needed to help get rebuilding, but the same issues--inflation and supply chains--those things that are hurting Dresden are hurting Waverly as they try to rebuild homes and as they try to recover.

Now, this President, this administration, and my Democratic colleagues have focused on big spending and little else, and it has really created a minefield for our local leaders, whether they are trying to rebuild or whether they are trying to expand. But those issues--supply chains and inflation--continue to come up.

West Tennessee, where I started my 95-county tour, is experiencing massive growth. Ford Motor Company is coming in there, and they have a big plant, a multibillion-dollar investment. Sonova is over in that part of the State. There are other companies that are moving their operations to the area. These communities are set to welcome thousands of jobs, homes, and new businesses, but they are not ready because the existing utility infrastructure cannot support the growth and expansion that are coming into that part of our State.

Until recently, most of this West Tennessee area was fields and small rural communities. These local leaders now are seeing growth, and they need to expand their utilities, their water, their sewer, their electric power distribution, and their telecom services, and they are having to do it quickly as these major employers ramp up. But something is standing in their way, and, again, it is all of this government spending that has driven this inflation and the supply chain crisis that is slowing down what they need. They can't get pipe to build out water and wastewater systems. They can't get telephone poles. If they could find a transformer to buy, they wouldn't be able to afford it because the price has increased by more than 400 percent--400 percent-- since Joe Biden was sworn into office.

I know that the Biden administration has an agenda, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to check these items off of their to-do list. They do have an agenda. It is all about government control. It is all about government spending. It is not the agenda the people have.

The way people in these communities in Tennessee see it is there is a disregard for how this Federal policy, as it comes down, how it affects them and how it makes their future difficult. It should not be this difficult to rebuild a home or run a sewer line or to finish a new road. Tennesseans know this, and they trust me, when I meet with them, to bring that message back here to DC, that decisions that are made here make their life at the local level more difficult.

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