Agriculture Disaster Relief

AGRICULTURE DISASTER RELIEF -- (Senate - September 29, 2006)

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Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague said it well. This is a picture of Frank Barnick walking in a creekbed that used to provide water for his cattle. One day this summer, it was 112 degrees in North Dakota. You can see the devastating drought that has occurred. The land looks like a moonscape.

Frank Barnick said this:

It is the worst drought I have ever seen. You do a lot of praying and wondering how you are going to get through it.

One way you get through these things is when Congress decides to reach out with a helping hand and say: We want to help you, you are not alone. We have always done that. Somehow, this year it hasn't been quite as urgent to do it. I don't understand that.

Senator Burns and I have twice moved legislation through the Appropriations Committee. The Senate has twice passed agricultural disaster aid. It has moved through the Appropriations Committee a third time. My colleague, Senator Conrad, taking the lead in drafting, with many of us assisting, created the disaster legislation now pending that we should, by consent, move through the Senate. Yet somehow it remains blocked. It is not urgent for some. This isn't about the major industries--the pharmaceutical industry, the oil industry, or about another big industry--this is about individual families living a hard life, trying to make a living during tough times.

Will Congress help? We have helped endangered species. We can deal with them--birds, bats, butterflies, black-footed ferrets, and prairie dogs. When they are endangered, we say: Let's help. There is a species called family farmers and family ranchers who are out on the land living alone, trying to make do by themselves. When tough times come, when weather-related disasters come, they need help.

With the Katrina victims, when those who live on farms in the gulf were devastated by Hurricane Katrina, this Congress passed agricultural disaster aid for them. This Congress said yes. So did this President. They just said to all the rest of you in the country out there on the farm or ranch who got hit by an agricultural disaster, a weather-related disaster: You are out of luck, we don't support you. That was the message from the President. So he blocked it.

These are Republicans and Democrats on the floor of the Senate today working together to say this needs to get done. This is a priority. I hear the President and others go all around the world when there is trouble to say: Let us help. We are there to help you. What about here at home? Do we need to help here? You bet your life we do. We need to do it now.

The question of whether these folks will farm and ranch next year depends on whether we do what we are required and responsible to do. The answer for the last year now, and recent months, is that somehow we don't have time or the urgency and that we cannot quite get this done. That is the wrong priority for this country. This country has a responsibility to reach out to help its own, reach out to help people who are in trouble.

These are American all-stars, the people who live on the farms. They produce food for a hungry world. They don't ask for very much. When a weather disaster strikes--a hurricane, a drought, or a flood--and their entire income is washed away, they would hope, I would hope, and I think the values of our country would expect, that we would reach out a helping hand and say: We want to do this now. It is a time-honored tradition.

We are not asking for something strange or different. We have always helped during tough times. Let's make this an urgent priority this afternoon; we can do this. Let's make this a priority and decide we are going to do the right thing for America's family farmers and ranchers.

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Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me just follow up on the point that this would be a bipartisan vote here in the Senate today. I want to point out that the piece of legislation Senator Conrad has worked on and that I have added as an appropriations measure twice has passed the Senate. Twice I was in conference with that. Twice it was defeated in conference. I wish to make that point because the implication was the Department of Agriculture didn't have much to do with that. The fact is the House conferees defeated this because the President threatened to veto it, and the House conferees were listening to the Department of Agriculture, which also opposed it.

Look, it seems to me we need the administration to understand what is going on here. This is bipartisan on the floor of the Senate. We need some help downtown as well from the Department of Agriculture as well as the White House to get this done.

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