Roy Blunt: “I appreciate the Presiding Officer's recognition. Mr. President, this is a debate that has become the debate as part of…”

“I appreciate the Presiding Officer's recognition. Mr. President, this is a debate that has become the debate as part of the Burma Sanctions Act, which if we were debating the Burma Sanctions Act I would also be for Burma sanctions. But in the debate on disasters, Missouri has played an unfortunate leading role this year of all kinds. We have had floods along the Mississippi River. We have had floods along the Missouri River. Joplin, MO--one of the bigger cities in our State--was hit by a tornado. We have evacuated a place in southeast Missouri, a floodway called Birds Point, where, for the first time since 1937, the Corps of Engineers decided that 130,000 or so acres had to be used as a floodway. All the crops that were already planted and up were, obviously, destroyed as part of that. I was in that floodway for a couple of different days in August, and I will say, the resilience of Missouri farmers to get about 80 percent of that floodway back in soybeans means the economic loss, the crop loss, will not be what it was. But the recovery loss is substantial, as is the cost of rebuilding that levee back to the level it was before the Corps exercised the long plan that had not been used to take it down. Tornadoes struck St. Louis at the airport and around Lambert Field, in communities around Lambert Field. Tornadoes in Joplin were significant. I mentioned on the floor of the Senate before that I live close to Joplin. It was in my congressional district for 14 years.…”