Thomas Daschle: “today is a day that has taken too long to come. But it is a day of victory for hard-pressed farmers and ranchers who…”

“today is a day that has taken too long to come. But it is a day of victory for hard-pressed farmers and ranchers who have been devastated by various natural disasters around the Nation. Today, we have approved $2.9 billion in emergency relief for family farmers and ranchers across America. From Florida to Washington State, all along the eastern seaboard and into the Midwest and upper Midwest, farmers and ranchers have faced circumstances beyond their control. In my State of South Dakota, we have seen 5 years of drought. Farmers have gone out of business and ranchers have sold entire herds. This is not just an issue for farmers and ranch families alone, it is an issue for the rural communities in which they live as well. In a State like mine, whose primary industry is agriculture, weather- related disasters are truly economic disasters for the entire State's population. That is why many of us have been fighting for adequate disaster assistance for so long. When we passed the farm bill in 2002, a bill that I am very proud to have been a part of, we added a new program, the Counter-Cyclical Program. It only provides assistance to producers when prices are low. In fact, this program has now saved $15 billion just in the last 2 years. We said at the time we would not need any economic disaster assistance, and we have not. But we will need weather-related disaster assistance. That is something that the administration has failed to acknowledge.…”