VALDOSTA — U.S. Rep. Austin Scott said he is disappointed Congress was unable to get disaster relief passed.

Scott was in Valdosta last week touring a local non-profit and spoke about the desperate need to pass disaster relief to help South Georgia farmers and residents impacted by Hurricane Michael late last year.

“I’m extremely disappointed in the politics that have been played,” Scott said. “Our farmers needed help, and when you get into these smaller communities, that is the genesis of the economy in a lot of the counties that surround Lowndes County.”

It has been six months since Michael entered the southwest corner of the state as a Category 3 storm, inflicting about $2.5 billion in damages to the agricultural industry. A disaster relief bill that would have delivered about $13.5 billion in aid to several states, including Georgia, failed in the U.S. Senate earlier this month.

Recently, Gov. Brian Kemp and Agricultural Commissioner Gary Black urged Congress to resume disaster aid talks.

Kemp and Black voiced dismay for what they described as a moving goal post on aid for Puerto Rico, which is still struggling from a 2017 hurricane. Disaster aid talks reportedly stalled after Republicans balked at the Democrats’ insistence for more aid for the island.

But at least one Georgia official has also pushed for President Donald Trump to do more. Scott, a Republican from Tifton, said the White House’s budget office had not even submitted a request for disaster assistance.

“Never before have we seen American communities that were wrecked with catastrophes neglected like this,” Scott said from the House floor last week. “Calls to White House staff have gone unheeded, and but for one tweet on April 1, it seems the president has moved on.”

Scott said he’s been fielding calls from farmers and their lenders who say the impact from the storm is becoming increasingly more difficult to bear.

The failure of Congress to pass an aid package says a lot about the current state of Washington right now, Scott said, but he didn’t blame one party over the other.

“I blame it on both,” Scott said. 

He said the truth of the matter failed to reach people. He said the Republican side of the aisle failed to provide a formal request for disaster assistance, while the Democrats have used Puerto Rico as an excuse not to provide disaster relief for the areas that need it.

This has been lost on the American people, as well as how badly hurt some communities are from Michael even six months later.

“If President Trump hadn’t have wanted it, they would have probably been more than willing to pass it,” Scott said. “At the same time, our president should have submitted a formal request for assistance.”

Even with this most recent pit fall, Scott said the Georgia congressional delegation will continue working to get people the relief they need. 

Thomas Lynn is a government and education reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be reached at (229)244-3400 ext. 1256