Eva M. Clayton: “Mr. Speaker, this bill does have things that many of our farmers are advocating. I, too, have received the notice from…”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill does have things that many of our farmers are advocating. I, too, have received the notice from my peanut farmers, said they would like to have this bill passed. But I also have received notice from people who need disaster relief saying: Is that all the disaster relief they have? I have my farm bureau, which I am very strongly supported by, call and say, yes, this is insufficient, but vote for it. Here we have a bill. Not only did we have an opportunity to respond to the disaster, but we refused to. I heard the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) say $1.2 billion was the up side of what USDA suggests, but that was before we had Hurricane Floyd. Now we have had such disaster in large proportions. We have lost in North Carolina alone the agriculture has estimated to be over $3 billion. Over 120,000 hogs have died, 2.5 million chickens have died; that is just agriculture, and all of the crop has gone. One third of agriculture production is said to be lost in North Carolina, and we have $1.2 billion both for the drought and for Hurricane Floyd from the Northeast and to the Midwest.”