Political Quotes

“while our hearts are touched by the terrible flooding in Iowa, 24 lives lost already, 40,000 people who had to be evacuated, now is the time to think about how we help them in the future and prevent others from this fate. This is the second 500-year flood in the last 15 years. There is a thought-provoking article on the front page of today's Washington Post that I would commend to all of my colleagues. It recalls something that I saw when I last visited Iowa, that the whole State has been dramatically replumbed. Ninety percent of the wetlands have been filled and farmed. Last year alone, 106,000 acres in the Conservation Reserve Program were taken out and farmed, acres that would have served as a great big sponge to capture the water instead of making flooding worse. Because the effects of global warming and planting one-third of the State in corn and soybeans, we should reflect on the human role in the unfolding disaster. Now is the time to review our disastrous farm and water resource policies so that we can protect people in the future from this fate.”