Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. STAUBER. Mr. Speaker, Congressman Kind talked about the deer camps and the stories. I remember the very first time at 16 years old when my father brought me up to the hunting shack with my uncles. It is a special time for those of us who recreate and deer hunt. I am proud to cosponsor this legislation with him, and I thank him and others for their work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of legislation I proudly cosponsored, the Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act. CWD threatens Minnesota's legendary whitetail deer herd and, therefore, our hunting way of life up North.

Whitetail season is an annual tradition for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans. Every year, we meet at our respective deer camps, reconnecting with family and old friends. We retell stories from previous years, and maybe embellishing a little bit, as we pass on the traditions and culture to our children.

However, deer harvests were down 8 percent throughout Minnesota this last year due to a myriad of issues. And if deer harvests keep trending downwards, it means fewer stories to share at camp around the fire, fewer deer for new hunters and kids to see and experience. Therefore, our hunting traditions trending down directly correlated with those harvest numbers. And in Minnesota, this trend will only be exasperated by further spread of CWD.

In my district we have CWD hotspots cropping up seemingly every other week. Whether it be in Brainerd, the Bemidji area, or in other corners of the State, these troublesome reports are evidence of CWD creeping across our hunting lands. And that is why this legislation is so important right now. This CWD Research and Management Act authorizes needed funding for State agencies doing crucial on-the-ground work, like our DNR.

Funding from this bill will help drive the research and testing needed to wrap our arms around the problem by letting the experts get in the field and the laboratory. It will also empower our State fish and game industries to partner with grassroots organizations that can reach and educate hunters across the State.

The Minnesota Deer Hunters Association has a statewide reach with a finger on the pulse of their membership. Helping the DNR help them is a true partnership that is necessary to combat the spread of CWD.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge passage of this legislation in both the House and the Senate, and I look forward to it becoming law.

Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota.

Mr. Speaker, I thought Mr. Kind, Mr. Stauber, and Mr. Scott said it all very well. This is important because chronic wasting disease can wreak such havoc upon our herds.

I want to start by thanking Chairman Scott for facilitating the timely consideration of this bill, and not just this bill, sir, but also livestock mandatory reporting, the cattle contract library, and Ms. Schrier's forestry bill.

These came together, sir, and I want to thank you for that. I want to recognize Mr. Kind, as well as Mr. Thompson, for the work that they put into this important bipartisan solution.

I also want to express my appreciation for the coalition that Mr. Kind mentioned, such a broad coalition of stakeholders from the farmed and wild deer stakeholder groups and the sportsmen community at large. They provided a tremendous amount of insight so we could get this legislation right, and they were relentless in working with all of us to find common ground to craft this legislation and make sure that it was able to pass out of committee unanimously, and, hopefully, we can get a similar vote off the House floor.

As it has been said, but as it bears repeating, chronic wasting disease is a contagious, neurological disease that affects deer and elk and moose. It is always fatal. Unfortunately, it is not a highly localized disease particular to a particular State or region of the country. CWD has been detected in 27 States. Given the lack of any known cure, I fear that that number of States will only continue to grow.

H.R. 5608 authorizes up $70 million of much-needed appropriations each year with the funding split evenly between CWD research and management efforts, all of this with the hope of one day eradicating this disease altogether.

The funding would support high-priority research to improve CWD detection methods and to continue invaluable research on genetic resistance. It would support the use of the latest and most effective on-the-ground management tools and strategies at the State and Tribal levels.

The bill would also help improve public awareness of the disease by requiring the development and dispersal of educational materials which would be based, obviously, on the latest available science.

Mr. Speaker, I know combatting this devastating disease would be a slow and challenging process, but I think we should all acknowledge that passage of this bill would be a critically important step in that journey and can help us protect those vulnerable deer populations.

I appreciate my colleagues' attention to this matter, and I urge the entire House in casting a resounding ``yes'' vote on the bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a very proud day and a proud moment for us here in the House of Representatives. This bill is going to help our agriculture industry, our deer, and a lot of our other animals.

This chronic wasting disease has been so devastating. Ron Kind has been working on this for several years. He has not just jumped on this, he has dedicated a lot of his time to this, and it is a great monument to him as he leaves his service here in the Congress. Job well done, my friend. Job well done.

Mr. Speaker, we have no more speakers. As we are concluding our four bills today, I am so proud of the great work that our House Agriculture Committee has done. We have them all moving over to the Senate, and so our work, again, begins anew as it goes over.

We have good friends over there working. As I mentioned before, we are working with my colleague, Ms. Stabenow from Michigan, who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee; and as I mentioned before, my friend, Senator Grassley. We are all going to come together and improve these four bills even more so.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Johnson. I want to thank Kim Schrier. I want to thank our entire committee. This has been a great day, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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