Western Drought
Mr. President, in listening to my friend from New York talk about homeland security and the work we will be doing, she agreed to cochair the A 9/11 caucus. I invite other Members of this body to get interested. We found out cell phones…
Mr. President, in listening to my friend from New York talk about homeland security and the work we will be doing, she agreed to cochair the A 9/11 caucus. I invite other Members of this body to get interested. We found out cell phones worked pretty well during 9/ 11. Communications worked fairly good. There were some weak points, but those are being addressed. When we talk about 9/11 and wireless communications, there will be several of those issues that will come up in this Congress. We welcome the input of our colleagues as those issues move along.
Today we did take care of part of the unemployment compensation problem, extending it to workers involuntarily and who became involuntarily unemployed during 9/11 or as a result of 9/11. There is not one in this body who was not sympathetic to their cause. However, I have another segment of the American economy that is hurting just as badly. I will talk a little, by the way, today about the situation called drought. It is expanding throughout not only the upper Midwest but through the western part of Kansas, Nebraska, Dakotas, Montana, and Colorado, and extending down into New Mexico and the panhandle of Oklahoma.
There are always islands and spots that get enough moisture. In this morning's newspaper, the Billings Gazette in my hometown of Billings, MT, it was reported the water contents in the lower Yellowstone Basin snow pack rank the third lowest on record. It is only 63 percent of average. That one year at 63 percent average does not give cause for alarm. However, when
you look at the sixth year of these situations, you get alarmed.
Last Friday, I drove to Sheridan, MT. I have never seen in the Big Horns, in the range west and northwest of Sheridan, WY, a snow pack that is as small as it is for this time of the year. The same is true in the Bear Tooth, but further west it is better. In the area important to irrigators and water users in my State, those snow packs are very low.
Agriculture in those droughted areas is just hanging on. If not relief this year, then we do not have to worry about them next year. They will be unemployed, too, and for reasons beyond their control. It is beyond anyone's control. Yet they do not qualify for unemployment benefits that we have approved today. A disaster package is being worked on. There are some folks averse to that.
Many of my colleagues in the Senate and in the administration continue to cite the farm bill as a solution for drought-stricken American agriculture. This bill is not retroactive, folks. It does not account for the losses incurred in 2001 and 2002. I remember the debate on that farm bill. The amount of money going to the Department of Agriculture sounded huge, spending almost $74.4 billion a year with the USDA. But they ignored that 27 percent of that figure was dedicated to farm programs and no money dedicated for disaster. Regarding the rest of the money, the American taxpayer should be overwhelmingly thanked for their generosity by those who perhaps cannot speak for themselves. That is, the working poor, women, infants and children, and food stamps. Mr. President, 63 percent of that humongous figure that people thought would go to production agriculture does not even go near production agriculture.
We thank the American taxpayer for making sure that, yes, there are food and nutrition programs dedicated to those seeing tough times in other sectors the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, school lunches and breakfasts, food stamps, WIC, a program administered by the counties, to make sure young women, and usually young, single women, know something about nutrition, and of course the programs that feed them and their infants.
There are other programs under the umbrella of the USDA not directly to the producer, such as a nonagricultural loan and grant program to communities and individuals. How about this, folks? A historic barn preservation; or studies of animal welfare to see if mice should be used in scientific research. All this is from the huge pot of money that made every headline, in every newspaper across the Nation as excess spending for production agriculture.
So we thank the American taxpayer for funding those programs. We are trying to work on a bill, to be introduced before this week is out, for drought assistance. We cannot fight a natural hazard. If there were a way I could do it, I would. But we need just plain old rain and we need it before the spring thaw sets in.
So we passed the unemployment benefits today. What I am saying is there are other wants and needs in this country, too, and they have to do with the security and the safety of a good, strong agricultural food program. Once the legislation is introduced, the debate will begin, and it will be an interesting debate.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.