WASHINGTON, D.C. – The new session of the U.S. Congress, which convened on Jan. 7, is expected to be confronted by farm groups seeking $5.9 billion US in aid to offset crop and livestock losses in 2001 and 2002 despite losing leverage over lawmakers.
Last year, the then-Democratic led Senate approved the aid as an amendment to a spending bill that bogged down. But House of Representatives Republican leaders did not allow a vote in their chamber, where there was no consensus on a package.
Both the Senate and the House are now controlled by Republicans trying to hold the line on domestic spending amid a military buildup involving Iraq.
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Half of the United States was hit by drought last year, ranging from mild to severe. In parts of the Plains, conditions were likened to the 1930s, when prolonged drought drove farmers and ranchers from the land.
“We see this issue as not going away,” Tom Buis of the activist National Farmers Union, said Jan. 6, dismissing suggestions that drought aid was a failed campaign ploy.
“In the past, disasters of this magnitude have been addressed by Congress and the administration, and this one hasn’t yet.”
Members of the National Farmers Union and other farm groups planned to lobby lawmakers Jan. 8-9 for disaster aid.
