Roy Blunt: “as the St. Louisans were celebrating the Stanley Cup, people on the other side of our State in Kansas City received some…”

“as the St. Louisans were celebrating the Stanley Cup, people on the other side of our State in Kansas City received some great news--this time great news from the Federal Government, when the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, announced on Thursday that two Federal ag research agencies would be moving their headquarters to the Kansas City region from Washington, DC. The Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture together will bring more than 500 jobs to the Kansas City area. It is fantastic news for our State, for our region, I think also for the workers at those two agencies and their families. The point of the move is to get these important government offices closer to the customers they serve and to save the taxpayers money. Kansas City will be a great place to do both of those things. Missouri is already home to more than 5,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture employees and contractors working for a dozen different Department offices in the Department of Agriculture, but bringing these two agency headquarters to the State will put them right in the middle of some of the most exciting and cutting-edge innovation happening in the ag industry. Talk about being closer to your customers, the farmers of America, and closer to examples of innovation, I think this move and Secretary Purdue's decision is clearly going to show that is the case. Kansas City is close to at least a dozen land-grant universities in our State.…”