mr. defazio: thank you. my time has expired. i was going to ask the corps regarding the removal of the very large generators that they delivered if i could, mr. chairman. i don't know if they've actually been removed or planning to remove them. i guess i would question why you would do that now with the beginning of the hurricane season since their grid still seems somewhat fragile. >> sir, there were three what we call megagenerators rented and brought to the territory. two in palasteco. they remain in operation today. mr. alexander: there are no plans for immediate demobilization. mr. defazio: of good. that may have been bad information we received. mr. alexander: and there is one that will be demobilized effective midnight tomorrow. and that is a decision that was reached based upon assessment by prepa, the status of the grid in that area. it was concurred. that decision to demobilized was collaborated and concurred by a group that has a representative from the governor's office there who concurred with that. mr. defazio: ok.

mr. defazio and especially mr. garamendi for their leadership and cooperation in getting these bills out of committee and to the floor today. with that, mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from california, mr. garamendi, is recognized. mr. garamendi: i thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. garamendi: mr. chairman, first, let me thank chairman hunter for his work on this bill and on the other work we've been able to do with the coast guard and the legislation. it's been a great pleasure to work with him. i rise in support of s. 756, the save our seas act of 2018, as amended, to include other important bills addressing maritime safety and ocean technologies. as explained by the majority manager, marine debris, especially plastics, is a persistent and growing threat to the global marine environment. many countries, including the united states, contribute to th

mr. defazio. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon is recognized. mr. defazio: i thank the ranking member and gentlelady from nevada. during the markup of the national flood insurance program, a number of us suggested that perhaps there is a way to help this bankrupt program save substantial funds. right now the program is $20 billion in debt, and we have a temporary extension from the march omnibus that expires in july. this -- the issue is that 2% -- 2% of the properties in america the accounted for 24% of spending by the national flood insurance program. more than 30,000 of them have flooded five times each and been rebuilt by the bankrupt federal flood insurance program. and some have flooded over 30 times. this is insanity that we would keep rebuilding in these flood-prone areas, rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding, and piling up debt and raising the insurance premiums for everybody else on the program who presents way less risk. so we decided a way to go would be to provide a significant incentive to these people and the incentive would be they woul

mr. defazio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks for holding this important hearing on recovery efforts from 2017 and looking forward to the 2018 season. we already have fires burning in the west, and it's going to be another bad fire year and we don't know what will happen with hurricanes. on friday, we finally got fema's after-action report on 2017. they admitted in that report what everyone knew -- the agency's response was inadequate to put it mildly and in the case of puerto rico and the virgin islands outrageously inadequate. they admit that they did not preposition enough commodities such as food, water, generators before irma and maria struck the virgin islands and puerto rico. they acknowledge they experie e experienced delays in delivering supplies to territories despite the fact that in 2014 they led a national-level exercise indicating that delays could be a problem during a disaster and should be addressed. that's three years before these disasters. president trump, living in a different reality, ignored the obvi

mr. defazio. we have three. the mission ape sign. ends 18 augment on the i'm land, federal coordinating officers are working with the corps and puerto rico on potentially extending that mission assignment for several more months into the fall. >> if that does not work out, the deadline is august 18th. >> that would not be our decision, ma'am. the current mission assignment ends 18 august for pallaseco. >> the avacoa generator will be demobilized tomorrow evening. >> i just want to be sure that's clear. sounded like you weren't going to demobilize the other two, that there wasn't any question about it. >> also, now, i would like to go back to the point that we were making about animals. we know that people are much more likely to leave a disaster area if they can take their pets or they know what's going to happen to them. but we saw in the last disaster, i think it's harvey, pet shelters, m gardner, you are well aware of this, all over texas, they were taking in rescued animals. they used fema resources to do that. yet, there is litt

mr. defazio, for five minutes. a year ago i was on a congressional trip with the judiciary committee into the balkan region. a number of the countries there living in the shadow of russia and also the aggression of the serbian allies of the russians were very concerned about their security and their future. russia has obviously invaded the crimea, supporting rebels in the ukraine and is deeply involved in syria to support the dictator there. and now in this last week our president went to europe and he went to a meeting of our closest allies and nato, which these countries on the reviousry of mr. rush:a, and he did deliberately so dissent and insult our two longest and strongest allies in nato, germany and england. he seemed to be facilitating the russian agenda there. let's weaken nato. of course he wouldn't be doing that. no, he was just being a businessman and trying to extract bigger payments out of them. he didn't mean to weaken or threaten the future of the alliance. and then yesterday in sort of very bizarre

mr. defazio. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon is recognized. mr. defazio: it's hard for many people to understand how important water is in the west. what a precious resource it is in the west. and how complicated the issues regarding water are. in the case of the bureau of reclamation, 140,000 western farmers, one in five, who get irrigation water, get it through 8,000 miles of canals through the bureau of reclamation. 500 dams run by the bureau of reclamation, flood control for -- ensure flood control for tens of thousands of westerners, millions, actually. and it also provides water for residential, municipal, industry it will use, serving -- industrial use, serving 31 million people. this is not something to be lightly tampered with, with the privatization agenda of the -- of this administration. remember, we were going to have a trillion, then on the state of the union day, trillion and a half dollar infrastructure plan. where is it? doesn't exist. in fact, they haven't put forward one penny. in fact, they have proposed to cut funding for infra

with me and also chairman shuster and ranking member defazio for helping shepherd this bill to the floor along with highway subcommittee chairman, mr. graves. i'm proud to have route 66 run through the middle of my district and i believe it's important we celebrate the history of route 66. in 1926, route 66 became our nation's first all-paved highway under the federal highway system connecting chicago, illinois, to santa monica, california. early on, the road was used by hundreds of thousands of americans seeking to escape the dust bowl and provided critical employment opportunity for road crews paving the road during the great depression. during world war ii, the highway transported troops, equipment, and supplies to military bases across our country and was used after the war by thousands of troops returning home to their families. by the 1950's, route 66 began to see a rise in tourism and became the true symbol of american freedom and independence that we all know today. in april of last year, i went ton an extended tour of illinois' stretch of the highway with my colleague, representative darren lahood, and also many state and