Doug Bereuter: “this Member support's the conference report for H.R. 4461, the FY2001 Agriculture Appropriations bill. In particular…”

“this Member support's the conference report for H.R. 4461, the FY2001 Agriculture Appropriations bill. In particular, this Member commends the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), Chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee and the distinguished gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee for their hard work on this critically important bill. This conference report contains $3.5 billion in critical emergency disaster relief for agriculture producers. This, of course, is in addition to the $7.1 billion in economic assistance for agriculture producers including $5.5 billion in higher Agricultural Market Transition Act (AMTA) payments as part of the crop insurance reform legislation signed into law earlier this year on June 22, 2000. The emergency funds in the conference report we are considering today are particularly important to Nebraska farmers, because drought conditions in the Great Plains have substantially lowered production at a time when we have low commodity prices.”