U.S. Sen. Bob Casey wants the people to know the federal government is working to try and improve the lives of people across the nation in times of crisis.

On Thursday, the senator visited the Carbon County Commissioners' meeting on Thursday to talk briefly about two pieces of legislation that can relate to not only the county, but Pennsylvania and the United States on a whole.Prior to speaking about the legislations, Casey said that the commissioners have to deal with "many difficult issues."He added that many of the challenges counties face are similar, including creating jobs, building a strong economy and creating a better life for families.Casey spoke about the Community Economic Assistance Act or Senate Bill 142, a bill he introduced recently.The bill aims to focus immediate help for communities who get hit with substantial job loss and compared it to function similarly to the Federal Emergency Management Agency response in times of natural disasters."We have a federal response to a natural disaster that is immediate and overtime substantial in terms of monetary support to a community," he said. "We need a similar strategy and dynamic for when a community gets hit with an economic disaster, heavy job loss, devastating economic impacts."He said that there would be four ways counties could be designated for help and once designated, could be assisted either in bonding authorities up to $100 million in tax credit bonds, the new markets tax credit program, direct employer incentives to hire in the form of employment credits; or allowing businesses to expense up to $600,000 in investment in equipment."What we're trying to do is get the community to develop a plan and once those plan priorities are identified the federal government helping provide immediate aid to that particular community," Casey said. "We hope there isn't a need for this. We hope that there wouldn't be that kind of disaster that a community gets hit with but when it happens, the federal government needs to be a full partner."This led into the second legislation, which has not been introduced yet, but will be in the coming month. It deals with infrastructure, a problem area many communities around the country face.This piece of legislation proposes rebuilding roads and bridges, as well as schools; and investing in water and sewer systems, rail and bus systems, ports, airports and waterways, energy infrastructures, broadband Internet and the veterans administration hospitals and buildings.