Florida Sen Marco Rubio says he’ll oppose Hurricane Ian relief funding if there’s unrelated spending

Florida’s senior senator said Sunday he would vote against disaster funds for his state if the bills include unrelated funding for lawmakers’ “pet projects.”

Senator Marco Rubio spoke to CNN just as Floridians were beginning to recover from the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Ian last week.

He was forced to cash in on his current call for aid dollars with his 2013 vote against giving the Northeast $50 billion in funding to recover from Hurricane Sandy.

“I’ve always voted for hurricane and disaster relief,” Rubio told CNN State of the Union.

“What I didn’t vote for in Sandy is because they built in things like a roof for a museum in Washington, DC, for Alaska’s fisheries. It was loaded with a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with disaster relief.’

When asked if he would do the same in this case, Rubio said, “Of course.”

“I will fight it if it has pork in it,” he added.

“Pork” refers to measures and financing added to a bill that are not applicable to the intended subject.

‘That’s the key. We shouldn’t have that there because it undermines the ability to come back and do this in the future,” explained Rubio.

“We can do it, it’s possible to do it without loading it with these other things, because otherwise you’ll have people in the Senate, in the House who are going to vote against disaster relief because they see these disaster relief laws as ways for other people to pork and their pet projects done.”

At one point in the interview, host Bash argued against Rubio’s characterization of Hurricane Sandy’s relief efforts. She pointed out that the roof of the museum in Washington DC was damaged by the storm and that funding for Alaska was for another natural disaster that happened around the same time.

However, Rubio acknowledged in a separate interview with ABC News’ This Week that whatever financing bill comes through the pipeline will need help for more than just Florida.

‘[I]In our case, we’re not going to ask for the other five dollars, but for the one that has to do with emergency relief,” he said, referring to not asking for improvised funds.

“I imagine South Carolina and North Carolina, other states in the Northeast will have the same. And there are other natural disasters that happen – we may need to include Puerto Rico in that request, that they need additional funding.”

An aerial drone shot shows the damaged roof of an apartment building in the wake of Hurricane Ian in Daytona Beach, Florida

As of Sunday morning, Florida residents are still reporting hours of wait times at the gas station as the state begins to recover from Hurricane Ian

Rubio eventually voted for smaller-scale relief bills in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and later in 2017 voted for a package that included emergency aid for Florida after Hurricane Irma.

He also said on Sunday that Florida needs further help from the federal government to recover, and that some communities there “will never be the same,” while others have been “wiped out.”

“More will be needed. But as always and always, FEMA has been a great partner. The Biden administration has responded, as they have said, and so there are no complaints. These are professionals,” Rubio said.

As of Saturday, about 10,000 Sunshine State residents will be staying in shelters, according to the Miami Herald.

Residents have reported having to wait in line at gas stations for at least six hours all weekend.

At least 67 people have died in Florida alone, CNN reports.

And nearly a million homes and businesses are still without power Sunday morning, according to the website PowerOutage.us.