John Thune: “I do not think that oftentimes we give enough attention on the floor to the effect this drought has had on the…”

“I do not think that oftentimes we give enough attention on the floor to the effect this drought has had on the agricultural economy or the conditions our farmers and ranchers are facing in many of the Midwestern States. And we need to have a good, robust debate about the future of agriculture and how we anticipate, in the future dealing, with this type of disaster. But, as I said before, it is important for us to respond in the same way we did when the gulf area was hit by the hurricanes, to make sure people of this country understand that when disaster strikes, the people in the Congress are hearing their voices and are willing to take the necessary steps to provide assistance. I also note, because it has been stated earlier today, the Agriculture Department does have a lot of unobligated funds on hand. One of the reasons they do is the payments that are normally made under the farm bill have not been made. So there are a lot of unobligated balances there because countercyclical payments and loan deficiency payments have not been made. I had suggested, in the previous iteration of this a few years back, that we use those savings, those offsets, to apply them to disaster relief.”