Virgin Islands Economy

Floor Speech

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Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, the Virgin Islands of the United States sits at the most southern, most easterly point of the United States. Because of this geographic position and its proximity to South America and its almost sentry lighthouse position to the rest of the Caribbean, it has been fought over; exploited by many nations; owned by seven; and used as a base by pirates, privateers, rum and drug runners, and even great corporations.

Despite so much potential, the benefits of our location, climate, our deep ports--one of the deepest in the Caribbean, our fertile soil--the people of the Virgin Islands have not received equitable return on investment and have instead been the spoils of others.

Our people continue to work to create economic benefits for our homes, jobs, skills, revenue, financial independence. Our journey in oil refining is one such chapter in that search.

In the 1960s, the Virgin Islands began refining oil. Our island of St. Croix became the second-largest petroleum refinery in America. In 2012, the refinery closed, exacerbating the shocks of the Great Recession, leading to unemployment rates of 18 percent. Our government made the decision to work to bring the refinery back and, after several years, the terminal and refinery reopened.

In the last few weeks, my office has been in contact with the EPA regarding air emissions incidents, odors, and emissions around the vicinity of the refinery, which threaten the health of residents and our environment.

On May 14, the EPA ordered Limetree Bay, the owners of the terminal and refinery, to pause all operations on the St. Croix refinery due to multiple improperly conducted operations that present an imminent risk to public health. Limetree Bay is in a community that is disproportionately affected by environmental burdens, and recent incidents have raised significant environmental justice concerns.

My office has continued to discuss with the EPA regarding the shutdown of the refinery, which, when fully operational, contributes tremendously to the Virgin Islands' economy. I have also been in contact with the owners of the refinery, as well as the Virgin Islands local government, and I will share with you all, with this Congress, what we can do to rectify the issue.

But part of my concern and one of the reasons I came to Congress was to create mechanisms and funding, incentives so that communities like the Virgin Islands, places long-neglected, can have the tools, funding, incentives, stable schools, healthcare, to create diverse sustainable industry.

As I have said in the past, and continue to reiterate, the current problems in my community further demonstrate the need for so many communities like it to have a diversified economy. This would provide flexibility. A diversified economy creates an economic health in a community, not tied to a single industry or market sector. It also creates and supports innovation.

Not only do companies support one another financially, but they engender an ecosystem of new ideas and product generation. I recognize that funding from the American Rescue Plan should not only be used by the Virgin Island's government to undergird our most vulnerable citizens, our children, mentally ill, our seniors; it should be used to support creation of clean resilient jobs.

I and other Democrats recognize that we must rebuild our communities and our economy better than before through the American Jobs Plan. Now is the time to think boldly with a once-in-a-century investment to create millions of good-paying jobs to ensure America can outcompete any other country in the world.

The President has promised to deliver clean drinking water, a renewed electric grid, high-speed broadband; build, preserve, retrofit more than 2 million homes and commercial buildings; modernize our Nation's schools and childcare facilities; upgrade veterans' hospitals and Federal buildings.

The President's plan includes $20 billion for new programs that will reconnect neighborhoods like the Virgin Islands, cut off by historic investments, and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, promote affordable access, safeguard critical infrastructure and services, and defend vulnerable communities.

President Biden will call upon Congress, our body, to ensure that new jobs create clean energy, and manufacturing and infrastructure are open and accessible to women and people of color. The House is working on this. We have a historic package to build back better, creating jobs and justice.

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