Herb Kohl: “although I will vote for this conference report, I feel obliged to alert my colleagues to a serious flaw. This bill does…”

“although I will vote for this conference report, I feel obliged to alert my colleagues to a serious flaw. This bill does not provide enough international food aid. And if emerging reports are correct, I fear we are about to enter a spring and summer of agony in some of the poorest parts of the world. This situation troubles me a great deal. Here we are, the strongest nation on Earth, and we are rightfully appropriating funds to maintain that strength. But with enormous strength comes a moral obligation to respond appropriately to pain and suffering. This bill fails to respond appropriately. When the supplemental was first considered in this body, Senator DeWine and I and others offered an amendment to provide a total of $470 million for PL-480 food aid. That may sound like a lot to some, but it totaled merely six-tenths of 1 percent of the total spending in the bill. Mr. President, $346 million of our amendment was intended to meet the U.S. share of world-wide food emergency needs as already identified by the U.S. Government. Another $12 million was slated to restore Food for Peace resources diverted to address the tsunami. Finally, $112 million was intended to restore food aid development projects that the United States has already pledged to other countries this year. It troubles me, and it should trouble everyone here, that we may not be able to deliver on those pledges. What a disturbing message that sends to the rest of the world.…”