Political Quotes

On the recordMay 18, 2020
at this moment, Americans everywhere are confronting unprecedented challenges and uncertainties as we continue to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic and the associated economic implosion. That is not all that is going on across the country. Although some of the challenges we face are quite severe, they are just getting drowned out by the daily news about the pandemic. But imagine being a family farmer in the midst of this crisis. You have already faced any number of challenges in recent years--low commodity prices, tariff wars--only to face the greatest health and economic disaster any of us have experienced in our lifetime. Then, when you thought nothing else could go wrong, something else does go wrong. You have to face a severe drought. Twelve hundred farms in the Klamath Basin in Oregon and California don't have to imagine this situation because they are living through it as we speak. The Klamath Basin is sometimes referred to as the ``Western Everglades,'' an area rich with agricultural resources and exceptional populations of wildlife. This basin attracts 80 percent of the Pacific Flyway's waterfowl and supports the largest overwintering population of bald eagles anywhere in the lower 48 States and is home to some of the country's most productive salmon river systems in the country. It is also home to 1,200 family-owned farms of different sizes, encompassing some 200,000 acres of farmland.…
Said by
Jeff Merkley
Democratic · Oregon
Source
govinfo.gov
May 18, 2020

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