Thomas Mott Osborne: “during the past 30 days of working recess, the number one topic in my part of the country has been the drought, and I…”

“during the past 30 days of working recess, the number one topic in my part of the country has been the drought, and I would like to display a map of the drought as was portrayed at the end of August. Note here that roughly 45 percent of the country is in an extreme drought. The area that is brown is so excessive that there is practically nothing growing. Pastures are burned up, no dry-land crops, and even irrigated crops have a hard time surviving. The red area is a little better. Again, very little can grow there because the rainfall has been probably less than 50 percent of normal, and we have even seen some of this on the east coast. So very, very few times in the history of our Nation have we had a drought that is this widespread, 45 percent, because in a normal year we normally have a drought covering somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of our Nation. The other thing that has been remarkable is not just the extent of it, but the severity of it. As I mentioned, we have a huge proportion of the country that is in extreme drought condition. Most years you might have a very small percentage that would have that type of drought. The other thing to mention is that this has been a very persistent drought. Many of these areas are currently in their 3rd or 4th year of drought conditions, and so when a farmer or rancher has had to go through multiple years, obviously he becomes even more distressed than if it was just a 1-year occasion. So the situation is dire.”