Blumenthal pushes more help for Puerto Rico

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Monday accused Congress of being “complicit” in the shooting deaths in Las Vegas, while he also took the Federal Emergency Management Agency to task for its response to infrastructure repairs in Puerto Rico.

Blumenthal and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, DMass., held a telephone conference call with reporters after the lawmakers had met with officials at FEMA headquarters.

But the pair first addressed the shooting deaths of at least 59 people in Las Vegas, where lone gunman Stephen Paddock, 64, also injured another 500 at a country music concert — the Route 91 Harvest Festival —outdoors near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

Blumenthal called the images of people cut down by gunshots and fleeing from the concert “stomach churning.”

“The time for hand wringing is over,” he said of the usual response after yet another mass shooting in the United States.

He said nothing has been done since the 2012 deaths of 20 first-graders in Newtown to lessen the likelihood of more mass shooting by individuals using high-capacity assault weapons.

Blumenthal said lawmakers should first drop a proposal to make it easier to sell silencers for weapons. Las Vegas concertgoers were able to run from the shooter because they could hear the weapons being fired.

Warren said thoughts and prayers for the victims of the shooting “are not enough. We need to move now.”

Blumenthal said beyond these mass shootings, 90 people die every day from guns.

On the situation in Puerto Rico, Blumenthal said the humanitarian crisis there after Hurricane Maria knocked out the electrical system, while destroying roads and bridges, continues unabated.

Blumenthal said the FEMA workers are doing their best, but there is a lack of leadership at the top needed to put an aggressive recovery plan in place.

He called for a “Marshall Plan” to address needs of people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, who need food, water and fuel, as well as the allocation of $15 billion to begin the infrastructure recovery.

“I hope the president takes charge,” Blumenthal said of President Donald Trump, who visited Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

The Connecticut senator said nearly two weeks after the storm hit, 45 percent of the island does not have drinking water; half of the roads are impassable; only 5 percent of the electric grid and only 11 percent of cell towers are working.

On Sunday, FEMA Administrator Brock Long told Fox News the relief efforts in Puerto Rico were the "most logistically challenging event that the United States has ever seen.”

The FEMA website on Sunday said “millions of meals and millions of liters of water” had been sent.

Warren said she would rather see a report on what still needs to be done and a timeline for reaching that goal.