Kenny Hulshof: “I rise in support of H.R. 1495. I grew up in the shadow of levees along the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri. And…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 1495. I grew up in the shadow of levees along the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri. And while the river, at times destructive, the river has been a provider for me and my family, delivering the grain from our farm to international markets. And I will tell you, as the gentleman from Minnesota has stated, the nickels and dimes that we saved by shipping via barge were often the difference between our farm ending up in the red or ending up in the black. Those few cents have helped keep food on our table; clothes on our back; and, over the years, kept our farm even within our own family. Title VIII of the legislation, lock modernization, will insure that farmers in northeast Missouri and farmers in Iowa and Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and elsewhere will continue to have the same benefit that my family had, the ability to ship crops to international markets via the most cost-effective method. I will tell you that a recent study by the Food and Ag Policy Research Institute, FAPRI, found that if the Mississippi River and Illinois waterways were forced to close, possibly because of a massive lock failure, that farmers, our own U.S. farmers, would lose between $645 million and $806 million a year, a year in increased transportation costs.”