Kent Conrad: “Mr. President, 21 Senators, on a fully bipartisan basis, have cosponsored this legislation to provide disaster relief…”

“Mr. President, 21 Senators, on a fully bipartisan basis, have cosponsored this legislation to provide disaster relief for our Nation's farmers. In North Dakota, last year, we faced what was then extraordinary flooding. As shown here, these were pictures all across eastern North Dakota. We had a million acres that were prevented from even being planted, hundreds of thousands of additional acres that were planted and then drowned out. There was no disaster assistance for those people. This year--the irony of ironies--we have now had extraordinary drought. This is a picture from my home county, Burleigh County, in the center of North Dakota. This is a corn crop with absolutely nothing growing. This drought is now the third worst drought in our Nation's history. This chart shows the U.S. drought monitor. It shows the severity of the drought across the entire midsection of the country. This shows, in the darkest colors, exceptional drought. You can see the exceptional areas of drought are these. North Dakota and South Dakota are the epicenter of this drought.”