Whereas, on September 13, 2017, the National Hurricane Center began tracking a tropical wave that ultimately became Hurricane Maria; Whereas Hurricane Maria became the tenth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record and the most intense tropical storm of the 2017 season; Whereas, on September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm with sustained wind speeds of 155 miles per hour; Whereas Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands (referred to in this preamble as the U.S. Virgin Islands ) just 14 days after Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were hit by Hurricane Irma; Whereas, on March 20, 2018, the people of the United States that live in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will mark 6 months since Hurricane Maria nearly destroyed Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; Whereas, 6 months since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, more than 120,000 people are still without electricity, and hundreds of thousands of people continue to lose power on a temporary basis; Whereas Puerto Rico remains under a state of emergency and reconstruction efforts are still underway; Whereas tens of thousands of people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still awaiting permanent shelter; Whereas more than 67,000 households in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands needed blue roof tarps as a form of temporary roofing for homes; Whereas Puerto Rico was struggling with a severe debt crisis and a deteriorating health care system prior to Hurricane Maria, the effects of which have exacerbated the suffering in Puerto Rico; Whereas more than 700,000 cubic yards of debris, or the equivalent of 190 Olympic-sized swimming pools, have been collected in the U.S. Virgin Islands; Whereas approximately 3,900,000 cubic yards of debris need removal from Puerto Rico; Whereas, when calculating customer hours of lost electricity service, Puerto Rico is experiencing the longest blackout in the history of the United States