Marcy Kaptur: “Mr. Chairman, I point out again how our country is currently dealing with a number of very serious new or resurgent…”

“Mr. Chairman, I point out again how our country is currently dealing with a number of very serious new or resurgent agricultural pest and disease problems that threaten crops and trees and animals in many different parts of our country. We seem to be able to find funds to do many things in this legislation, as well as in the supplement, to fund counternarcotics programs in Colombia. Well, I would very much like to be able to fund needs in our country, especially those that threaten so very much damage. Just to summarize, in Florida, Citrus Canker is threatening Florida citrus groves. In Chicago and New York and in those States of New York and Illinois the Asian longhorned beetle, with no known predator. Bovine tuberculosis, which was thought to be eradicated in our country but is now spreading in Michigan, imposing heavy costs on that State's dairy and cattle industries. Plum pox, a disease of peaches and plums and cherries and other stone fruits normally found only in Europe and Asia first detected in Pennsylvania last year and now threatening fruit growers in that State and likely to spread. Mediterranean fruit flies which appear only sporadically in our country but when they do they cause great damage; and should that infestation reach the southern United States, we would experience disastrous losses to fruit and vegetable industries.”