05/17/07 Disaster assistance gets strong support in House

Farm and Ranch May 17, 2007 President Bush vetoed that Iraq war funding bill which includes agricultural disaster assistance. However, the House of Representatives has since voted on a separate bill which included just the 3.5 billion dollars for ag disaster aid. The bill passed on a 302 to 120 vote. Thatcher: "We are very happy with that disaster vote in the House because it has been years since we have had a vote on just disaster assistance. Usually you have to attach it to something else to get it to pass." American Farm Bureau Farm Policy Specialist Mary Kay Thatcher says this ag disaster bill also faces a veto threat from the President who says funding for the assistance needs to be cut from some other program. Thatcher: "We think this is truly an emergency. It really doesn't any good for a farmer to have money offset elsewhere in farm programs for disaster assistance. In essence you are taking it out of his left pocket and putting it in his right pocket." Thatcher says the Senate will probably not separate out the Iraqi war supplemental from the ag disaster provisions so it will be important what the President thinks about the war funding provisions. Thatcher says the House bill is for assistance for 2005, 2006 and part of 2007 for weather related losses. Thatcher: "It's gotten increasingly difficult to pass disaster assistance. I think we have to look at permanently funding a disaster program that would kick in automatically when a county is declared a disaster because going back year after year and having to ask for that assistance is not a good thing." House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson is supportive of including a permanent disaster program in the new farm bill. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.