Berry & 40 Rural Lawmakers Ask Leadership to Protect Agriculture Disaster Assistance

Today, forty of my colleagues and I sent a letter to to House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi encouraging them to retain the $4 billion of agriculture assistance in the Fiscal Year 2007 emergency supplemental bill for Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Gulf Coast Recovery. Although the U.S. Senate voted to include the measure in its version of the bill, President Bush and Republican leadership in the House oppose the assistance, with Speaker Hastert and Republican Majority Leader John Boehner declaring it "dead on arrival."

Instead of passing good public policy, this Administration seems determined to strip our farmers of every hope for disaster assistance. We fought an uphill battle to get this disaster assistance included in the emergency spending bill, and now have to listen to the House Republican leaders dismiss it in such a cold way.

Click here to read the full press release on this issue.