To provide for the designation of a Department of Agriculture disaster liaison to assist State and local employees of the Department in coordination with other disaster agencies in response to a federally declared disaster area as a result of a disaster.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3157) to provide for the designation of a Department of Agriculture disaster liaison to assist State and local employees of the Department in coordination with other disaster agencies in response to a federally declared disaster area as a result of a disaster, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3157, a bill to designate and deploy U.S. Department of Agriculture liaison teams to areas of the country declared disaster areas, was approved by the Committee on Agriculture on October 29 of this year.

The bill seeks to ensure prompt Federal assistance to agricultural producers in rural areas affected by natural disasters that have been declared by the President or the Secretary of Agriculture. The teams will coordinate the activities of USDA employees assisting agricultural producers within the disaster area. The teams will facilitate the making of claims and applications for economic assistance of affected producers and others as they deal with the agencies designated under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.

During the business meeting to consider H.R. 3157, the committee considered and adopted as a substitute amendment four changes to the legislation as originally introduced by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt). These changes include directing the Secretary of Agriculture to use USDA Food and Agriculture Council as a point of contact for the liaison team, requiring the Secretary to make the deployment only when FEMA has been sent to the disaster area, providing that the team will conduct and conclude its business within 30 days of the deployment, and, finally, adding wildfire as a specific disaster under a secretarial disaster declaration.

The bill before the House this afternoon makes a minor amendment to the

committee-reported bill by returning to the Secretary of Agriculture the full discretion to assign USDA employees to the liaison positions, instead of acting through the Department's Food and Agriculture Council.

As I am certain my colleagues can understand, natural disasters over large geographical areas often are followed by chaotic circumstances on the ground. Traditionally, USDA has had a significant role along with FEMA in assisting farmers, ranchers, and other rural residents; and this bill attempts to make those circumstances more orderly and more predictable for our rural constituents during a time when those residents and the communities in which they live need Federal help.

I hope the House will join with me in supporting this bill that seeks to improve Federal disaster assistance on our farms and in rural communities.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3157 would require USDA to designate employees of the Department to serve as disaster liaisons to State and local emergency agencies in a federally declared disaster area. These liaisons would be responsible for coordinating interagency programs and assisting agricultural producers in the area to navigate through the bureaucracy of Federal Government support.

I want to thank Majority Whip Blunt for taking the initiative to introduce this legislation on behalf of farmers and growers in the United States. I was more than happy to sign on as the lead cosponsor because of a situation faced by a handful of growers in my congressional district earlier this year.

During this past April, an unusual hailstorm descended upon Merced Country, ruining acres and acres of peach orchards. That event set off a chain of events involving numerous agencies within USDA, which in turn led to me and my staff to negotiate on their behalf with countless officials and administrators throughout USDA attempting to elicit some type of assistance from the Federal Government. It was a trying experience to say the least.

When a disaster happens now, multiple USDA agencies involved with numerous programs actively assess damage in a disaster area, while compiling information from hundreds of phone calls and by talking to numerous disaster victims. This information is then assembled and sent to representatives of the State. The farmer is left to fend for himself or herself with no point of contact for follow up.

Those situations are what Mr. Blunt and I are trying to avoid with this legislation.

When enacted, H.R. 3157 will require USDA to recognize the importance of quick response time to agricultural disasters by deploying an experienced disaster specialist to an affected area. This official will facilitate such things as crop insurance claims processing and other applications for economic assistance as well as provide one legitimate source of information and comfort from the Federal Government.

My growers affected by the hailstorm were continually given conflicting information from different USDA employees. It is imperative that growers, especially the more skeptical growers in my home State of California, be able to receive clear and concise information on how to proceed after a Federal disaster as been declared in order to most efficiently proceed to the next crop year.

H.R. 3157 is the right thing to do for America's agricultural industry and I am proud to be a sponsor of this bill.

Again, I would like to thank Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Stenholm, and Majority Whip Blunt for recognizing the importance of the legislation. I urge an aye vote on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge support for the Rural Disaster Liaison Bill (H.R. 3157).

This past May, my district saw devastating losses in the aftermath of a series of tornadoes.

Estimates indicate that our agriculture community in southwest Missouri lost an estimated $27 billion in damages.

On the ground at home following those tornadoes, I noticed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had no staff in the statewide disaster field office (DFO) where officials from FEMA and the Small Business Administration were helping individuals and business owners.

Because Disaster Act declarations make no arrangements for a USDA representative, a single voice from USDA was noticeably absent on the ground in Southwest Missouri during disaster response discussions in the days and weeks after those terrible tornadoes.

This legislation will bring greater coordination from the USDA's three major agencies--Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Farm Service Agency and Rural Development--by requiring that a liaison from USDA be a member of future Federal disaster response teams. This individual would be dispatched to a disaster to work side-by-side with representatives from the local Farm Service Agency (FSA) for 30 days to help find relief for those disaster victims. Once the 30 days are up, the liaison will return to his or her post in Washington, DC, and continue to work on behalf of the farmers and others who need the services that the USDA provides.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that a disaster response team is never necessary in any of the districts my colleagues represent. However, should disaster strike, let's make sure that our agriculture communities are represented and that they get the help they deserve in a prompt fashion.

I urge my colleagues to support the passage of H.R. 3157.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3157 is a bipartisan piece of legislation that attempts to address the very serious issue of USDA program coordination and information dissemination during times of federally declared national disasters.

Currently, there is no statutory requirement that USDA make a representative available at the Emergency Operations Center following a catastrophic disaster. As a result, if a farmer or rancher suffers a loss due to a natural disaster, there is no USDA point of contact on site to answer questions or provide information about departmental relief programs. Such information is obviously critical, and this legislation simply ensures that farmers and ranchers will have access to an on-site USDA point of contact.

While expressing support for this bill, let me briefly address a bigger issue for farmers and ranchers that have been adversely affected by a disaster. The fact is there are only minimal standing disaster programs within USDA to help farmers and ranchers deal with the variety of losses that can occur as a result of a natural disaster. In effect, all that USDA on-site points of contact can do is to tell farmers and ranchers, Sorry, the United States Department of Agriculture cannot help you. In addition, farmers and ranchers do not qualify for Small Business Administration programs and, in point of fact, receive very little help from FEMA.

So again, while I support H.R. 3157, the bigger question is what can be done to provide farmers and ranchers with greater certainty in terms of permanent disaster programs so that they may have some hope of recovering from such disasters.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3157. I am proud to support this legislation that will help farmers recover from national disasters because I believe that far too often, farmers are not thought of during times of emergency.

Representative Blunt has authored a good bill. I supported it in the House Agriculture Committee and I even introduced an amendment that would make sure that the people in my home State of California, who suffered from the recent wildfires, could be helped by this bill.

Too many Californians have no idea how they will get by without their orchards, olive groves, and other farming operations that burned to the ground.

This legislation will compel the Department of Agriculture to create disaster liaisons and dispatch them to disaster zones.

In California, we have suffered greatly from several wildfires that have caused great damage throughout the state.

In San Bernardino County, over 40,000 people were evacuated from their homes, and nearly 1,200 buildings burned to the ground.

Far too many people lost their homes, farms, and in some cases--their lives--to these wild fires.

This bill and my amendment are only a small step in the right direction. We must funnel Federal attention and resources to rebuild after these deadly wildfires and help prevent similar events in the future.