Vermont's congressional delegation plans to get personal in their big to encourage their colleagues to support a new $12 billion appropriation for federal disaster relief funds.
The legislation would provide the Federal Emergency Management Agency with additional money to help a number of states, including Vermont and Hawaii, recover from natural disasters this summer.
"We have to supplement FEMA funding," said Sen. Peter Welch. "The scope of the disasters, not just in Vermont but around the country, including most recently Hawaii, requires that we replenish the FEMA funds to make certain that the aid that folks are entitled to and desperately need is there."
Welch says many states have received critical FEMA funds in the past decade and he says Vermont's delegation is contacting all of the members from these states to make the case for this new funding bill.
"Sen. Sanders and Congressperson Balint and I are reaching out to colleagues who've had events in their own states that are on the other side of the aisle," Welch said. "We're all in this together, really."
Welch says he hopes the new FEMA funding bill will not get caught up in some expected budget battles between the Senate and the House in September.
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