By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Disaster assistance for Midwestern farmers impacted by flooding hangs in the balance as a $17 billion aid package moves from the House to the Senate.
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves expects the Senate to approve the bill which contains $3 billion to offset losses to agriculture. Graves says money is needed immediately to make emergency repairs to the broken Missouri River levee system.
“They want to stop the water from coming in so that we can start doing more permanent repairs and trying to figure out, too, if some of those levees, where there are choke points, if they need to be moved or if we leave them in place the way they are; there’s just a lot of decisions that we’re trying to come up with,” Graves tells KFEQ Farm Director Melissa Gregory.
Central Missouri Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, points out the bill also contains $500 million for Emergency Conservation Program, a program which funds repairs following natural disasters.
“With all that farmers have lost, it’s really important we get this done and the Senate is working on a similar package, so I’m hopeful within the next week or two we can come to resolution and get this across the finish line, not only for farmers in Missouri, but also for those in Georgia and in Florida who were impacted by the hurricanes last year and those in California impacted by the wildfires,” Hartzler says.
Kansas Congressman Roger Marshall expresses frustration at the slow pace of Congress to approve disaster relief for Midwestern flood victims as well as others.
Marshall understands damage assessments haven’t been completed for flooded areas of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas.
“Goodness, we still haven’t even taken care of the disasters from the hurricanes from over a year ago, the farmers down in the southeast still trying to recover,” Marshall tells Gregory. “Again, it’s hard to figure out exactly what to do in Nebraska right now when we’re still trying to figure out what to do in Alabama and Georgia from over a year ago. So, we understand that it’s a process and we’re not going to know all the damage for months, yet.”
Marshall says he’s confident Congress will act, even though the Senate has yet to debate the measure. President Trump has been critical of the aid package approved in the House, especially the money allocated to Puerto Rico in its continued efforts to recover from 2017’s Hurricane Maria.