Tom Harkin: “I am grateful to the Chair and thank him again for his skillful work at crafting a bill that can be supported by the…”

“I am grateful to the Chair and thank him again for his skillful work at crafting a bill that can be supported by the full Senate. Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I thank Chairman Cochran for taking the time to have this very serious discussion with me about a life saving proposal that I believe needs to become part of this bill before it is passed into law. The proposal, originally suggested by President Bush, would allow a small percentage of U.S. food aid dollars to be used to purchase food locally in the country or region of a food aid crisis until U.S. food aid can arrive. For example, if there is a food crisis in Ethiopia, the U.S. Government would be able to purchase food in neighboring countries, or even in other areas of Ethiopia where food is available, and use it to save lives until food shipped from the United States could arrive. On average, U.S. food aid takes over 4 months to arrive in countries in need, and during that gap period, people die--children die. There is also another consideration that makes this proposal even more imperative. U.S. food aid is stored in Galveston, TX, and 60 percent of our food aid shipments exit through the Gulf of Mexico. Now, with Rita raging off the coast of Texas, several hundreds of millions of dollars of food aid are in the direct path of the storm.…”