On Monday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Now,” California State Sen. Ben Allen (D) reacted to suggestions that federal disaster aid for California should come with conditions by stating that “reasonable conditions, I’m happy to have that conversation. Obviously, we want to do everything we can to prevent this from ever happening again. And that should be a really important part of our planning and our recovery process.” And that he’s okay with something like a panel investigating how to prevent future disasters, but also stated that “We’ve always been very supportive of your efforts to recover and have supported federal funding for your parts of the country and I’d hope you’d extend that same courtesy to us.”
Allen said, “Oh my gosh, listen, when there were terrible storms in the South and along the Gulf Coast, I wasn’t opposing federal support or saying that it’s their fault for not having better planning for those disasters or better land use decisions or not taking climate change more seriously. Look, listen, reasonable conditions, I’m happy to have that conversation. Obviously, we want to do everything we can to prevent this from ever happening again. And that should be a really important part of our planning and our recovery process. So, if that’s what he’s talking about, then, fine, of course. We don’t want to ever want to see this happen again to our residents. But I also think we have to remember that we have provided robust assistance to people all over the country, nearly every disaster could at least be mitigated — certainly, not avoided — but mitigated in one form or another and I just ask people who represent other parts of the country that have their own natural disasters to please remember that. We’ve always been very supportive of your efforts to recover and have supported federal funding for your parts of the country and I’d hope you’d extend that same courtesy to us.”
Host Connell McShane then asked, “So, if the condition was something like, alright, we want to have conversations in the future, have some sort of a panel look into what could be done to prevent this, that you’re okay with? But…generally speaking, your point sounds to me, it’s like, alright, we need help, we helped everybody else, no conditions for us?”
Allen responded to McShane’s question on a panel by saying, “Sure.” And added, “It’s not unreasonable to ask questions about what happened and to make sure that we move forward in a way that will make this less likely. That’s not unreasonable. But we do need help, and we need it now. And so, let’s work reasonably together to get the support to our fellow Americans that need that help, and, yes, let’s work together to make sure that we do everything we can to make this kind of disaster much less likely in the future.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
