Florida senator Marco Rubio said he will vote against any relief bill to assist his state’s recovery from Hurricane Ian if it has “stuff that’s unrelated to the storm.”
“Sure. I will fight against it having pork in it. That’s the key,” Rubio told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union”. “We shouldn’t have that in there because it undermines the ability to come back and do this in the future.”
“We can do it, it’s possible to do it without loading it with these other things, because, otherwise, you will have people in the Senate, in the House that are going to vote against disaster relief because they view these disaster relief bills as ways for other people to get their pork and their pet projects done,” Rubio added.
Though officials are still assessing the damage caused by Hurricane Ian, experts predict that losses could fall anywhere between $28 billion and $47 billion, which would make Ian one of the most expensive storms in Florida’s history.
At least 67 people have been killed by Ian, according to CNN. About 35 deaths were reported in Lee County alone, the county Sheriff Carmine Marceno said Saturday.