Washington D.C. – Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland (WA-10) calls out efforts to defund transportation safety, Coast Guard healthcare, and disaster relief, highlighting the real costs to working families, servicemembers, and vulnerable communities. Strickland’s remarks are transcribed below, and can be viewed here:
Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland: Today, we are considering a bill that cuts $50 billion from job-creating programs established under the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant Program. In 2024, the City of Tacoma, that I represent, secured a $1.3 million planning grant to study how crossings on Interstate 5—a major highway that includes a six-and-a-half-mile transportation barrier that bisects the city—can be made safer for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians.
I’m unsure if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle intended to rescind funds that help reduce road fatalities and make our streets safer, or if the word “equity” is so triggering because you think inclusion is a bad word. But the outcome is the same, our localities will have fewer opportunities to face higher costs to pursue projects that create good-paying jobs, strengthen our local economies, and improve regional and local transportation efficiency, community mobility, and safety in our districts.
But I want to acknowledge that there are glimmers of positivity in this bill, including almost $15 billion to invest in the Coast Guard’s cutter fleet to optimize operations, enhance maritime security, and open new economic opportunities—as well as $3.25 billion to rehabilitate crumbling shoreside infrastructure and $75 million to address underinvestment in autonomous maritime systems and key provisions to support the U.S. shipbuilding industry.
I also applaud the nearly $15 billion investment in our air traffic control system, including $2.6 billion for ATC tower and terminal radar approach upgrades to aging facilities, nearly $5 billion for improvements to telecom infrastructure, and $1 billion for controller recruitment, hiring, and training. And this is why I strongly support Ranking Member Larsen’s amendment to support the Coast Guard and our air traffic controllers.
But I want to pull the lens back to where we are today and why we’re here. This is part of a larger legislative plan that House Republicans are putting together to pay for massive tax cuts for a short list of the most wealthy people in this country. And make no mistake: when House Republicans talk about offsets to fund President Trump’s agenda, they’re talking about the tens of millions of working Americans they’re offloading these costs onto. And again, we’re talking about people who are low-income, middle-income, and yes, upper-middle-class folks will all pay this price.
When we talk about “pay-fors,” they mean America’s most vulnerable—children, grandchildren, and seniors—who ultimately pay the price for Trump’s unserious and harmful policies. In my district alone, they’re talking about 65,000 children who depend on Medicaid. They’re talking about the 400,000 households in my state that receive SNAP for food. And they’re talking about more than half of Washington state’s aging parents and grandparents in nursing homes right now who will lose health care coverage if this House Republican agenda becomes law.
And here’s the bottom line: they don’t care if you get hurt, they don’t care if you lose your job and can’t pay your bills, and they certainly don’t care if you’re safe or healthy. We know that the random and slapdash cuts that Elon Musk and DOGE are making across agencies show a couple of things. Number one: they know very little about the agencies that they’re slashing. They’ve put veterans out of work, pulled the plug on Alzheimer’s research, and cut off access to critical cancer screening for women.
We were promised lower costs. Yet nothing that President Trump has put forth has brought down grocery bills or other everyday expenses. In fact, Trump’s policies are proving to do the opposite. What’s also interesting, too, is the stunned silence of my colleagues across the aisle who don’t speak up about this. As my colleagues and I discuss and debate policy provisions in this document, let’s not forget again, this is part of a bigger picture—the bigger picture of chaos, cruelty, dismantling the middle class, and hurting families, children, and seniors.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland: Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
Chairman Mike Rogers: Please designate.
Committee Staff: An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to the Committee Print offered by Ms. Strickland of Washington, number 024.
Strickland: Thank you. I’m offering an amendment that will protect and improve the Coast Guard’s ability to provide health care for servicemembers and their families. My amendment provides $1 billion for the Commandant of the Coast Guard to hire additional medical professionals, provide incentive bonuses and retention pay, construct new clinic facilities, and modernize existing medical infrastructure.
The Coast Guard’s leadership has made clear that readiness and the ability to execute its missions are directly tied to servicemember quality of life. Coast Guard members face unique obstacles navigating health care. Coast Guard personnel rely on a combination of their own health service facilities, DoD military treatment facilities, public health service officers, and civilian providers. Not every duty station has a physical clinic—or even a doctor. For the places that do, the clinics are woefully understaffed, and many of the clinic facilities need upgrades and repairs.
Often stationed in very remote locations, civilian providers are few and far between, leading to unacceptable delays in accessing health care. In many cases, Coast Guard members are forced to board a plane and fly to a completely different city or state in order to receive specialty care. We can and must do better. And we must not shortchange investments in Coast Guard medical facilities just so this President and my Republican colleagues can claim they saved a few bucks.
The last 100 days have seen crippling attacks on our civilian federal workforce that have resulted in decreased readiness and worsening outcomes for those in uniform. While Coast Guard civilians have not been eligible for the deferred resignation program, the actions of President Trump, Elon Musk, and Secretary Noem are already hurting the Coast Guard by making civilian federal service a less attractive option to our most talented health care professionals.
No one in this room is going to argue against eliminating government waste. What is unacceptable, however, is not doing it with precision or thought—taking a chainsaw to our workforce in a way that hurts our servicemembers, hurts our dedicated health care providers, and it hurts the United States of America.
We cannot lose sight that this entire partisan process unfolding today is in service of giving the wealthiest Americans trillions of dollars in tax cuts paid for by the working people—by taking away programs, including Medicaid and SNAP. The least we can do is ensure that our Coast Guard personnel receive the best level of care possible. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on my amendment and guarantee access to healthcare providers and modern facilities.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland: I’m offering an amendment to allow disaster-hit communities to gain access to much-needed federal resources. My amendment directs the President to approve major disaster declaration requests made by the states of Washington and Arkansas, which will unlock the federal dollars these states need to fully recover and finish rebuilding from recent natural disasters.
Once there is a disaster declaration, FEMA disaster assistance programs unlock. FEMA would cover at least 75% of qualifying expenses. Disaster declarations allow states to submit repair projects to FEMA and assess the cost of damage—which can’t happen until after a President makes a disaster declaration.
Last November, my home state of Washington was hit by one of the most severe winter storms in recent memory—classified as a “bomb cyclone” because of its hurricane-force winds. This horrific storm caused approximately $34 million in damages to critical utility infrastructure, transportation networks, and homes and businesses across six counties and it killed two people. In East King County, more than 400 miles of transmission lines were impacted. In Grays Harbor County, a device critical to preventing dam failure at the Wynoochee Dam was damaged, endangering thousands in downstream and nearby communities. Across the entire state, millions were left without electricity to heat their homes and power life-critical medical devices. Some were cut off for more than four days.
Five days before President Trump took office, the entire Washington state delegation led a letter of support for Washington state’s request, reiterating the urgent need for federal resources to help repair unsafe roads and highways, restore utilities, and complete cleanup efforts to get impacted businesses back on their feet and families back in homes that are safe. The Trump Administration denied Washington state’s request without any explanation, an insult to injury for Washington communities that have been waiting months for relief.
But this is not about blue states versus red states. Over the past two months, tornado outbreaks and generational floods in Vice Chair Crawford’s home state of Arkansas have destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, causing approximately $8 million in damages. According to preliminary assessments by FEMA, an estimated 250 households are in need of housing assistance, and that’s just from the March 14th tornadoes. Yet Republican Governor Huckabee Sanders’ request to the Trump Administration for a major disaster declaration was denied.
Worse yet, the Administration appears to be digging its heels in on depriving disaster victims of essential federal resources. Last Friday, Acting FEMA Administrator Hamilton recommended raising the threshold that states must meet to receive federal aid after disasters. It’s clear that this Administration is trying to shirk the government’s responsibility—and FEMA’s mission—to help people before, during, and after disasters by trying to lower overall disaster costs.
The people of Washington state, and Arkansas, and other states that have been impacted by major natural disasters know that raising the threshold does not make disasters or their real impacts or costs on American families and businesses disappear. This reckless and irresponsible move will hurt disaster victims the most.
Believe people when they show you who they are. The President and my Republican colleagues are willing to cut support for disaster victims—no matter where they are or how they vote—if it means funding Trump’s partisan agenda. Washington state and Arkansas have done everything they can to recover. It’s now on the Administration to finish the job as past administrations have done in a bipartisan manner when disasters strike.
I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote yes on this amendment to ensure that the federal government pays its share to rebuild our disaster-hit communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
###