Calling for Vote on Disaster Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROUZER. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Florida, Representative Neal Dunn, who is not only a great colleague but a great friend.

Madam Speaker, it is not just Hurricane Matthew--pardon me, Hurricane Michael. In my district we had Hurricane Matthew in 2016--but it is also Hurricane Florence that devastated southeastern North Carolina and many other areas this past fall as well.

A lot of the previous speakers, colleagues who have come before me here today have talked about the need for disaster assistance, and they are exactly right. I want to complement what they have said, supplement what they have said, and paint a little bit of a broader picture here.

You have got to understand that agriculture, in particular, has faced 5 years of really, really low prices; so farmers, whether they are in North Carolina and have suffered from the flood of Hurricane Florence, or whether they are in Georgia or Florida or anywhere else and have suffered from Hurricane Michael, or the floods in Nebraska, for example, they have no equity left.

They have suffered 5 years of really, really low prices. We had a farm bill in place that, quite honestly, was not adequate in terms of the safety net that was in place and, as a result, they have no equity.

And think about this: Think about all those out there--and for those who are not involved in agriculture, think about it this way--assume that you have invested millions and millions and millions of dollars that are plowed, literally plowed into the ground, but have no opportunity to produce a crop.

You have no equity left. You just took a loan out from the bank. You are highly leveraged because of 5 years of low commodity prices. You have taken that loan out. This is the one year that you had available to you to make up the difference, to begin to turn it around financially.

And lo and behold, you get hit by Hurricane Florence, totally flooded early September, no opportunity to harvest your crop, and there you are.

That is the scenario. That is the picture. That is what so many farm families all across Eastern North Carolina, all across the Southeast are facing today.

Meanwhile, you have got Members of the House and the Senate who care very deeply about their constituency, who have been working very, very hard to get an ag disaster package, and find it incredibly frustrating that here, in April, months after these storms have hit, we have made no progress. And there are a variety of reasons for that.

But the fact of the matter is, this Chamber and the Senate Chamber need to come together with the White House to get this ag disaster package done just as quickly as possible.

In North Carolina, agriculture is an $87 billion industry, the largest industry, by far.

And let me make one final point. When these farm families are gone, when these farms are gone, they are not coming back; they are growing houses instead. They are not coming back.

This agriculture disaster package is so critically important. We have got to get it done. I thank the leadership and the spirit of my good friend from Florida, Neal Dunn, and I really, really commend him and my other colleagues for putting forward the effort tonight to raise awareness of this issue. It is so critically important, not only for my home State of North Carolina, but for America.

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