Calling for Vote on Disaster Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Dunn for yielding. I appreciate his taking the initiative to bring folks together to discuss, unfortunately, the need to address the disasters across America.

Madam Speaker, representing one of the most rural districts in America, we have a lot of natural resources, among them, a lot of rivers, a lot of miles of river in Nebraska.

Not so long ago, conditions were such that the rivers flooded in the central and eastern part of Nebraska. In the west, a blizzard hit with the bomb cyclone, and it created massive damage. The chunks of ice flowing down rivers took out a dam, probably the first dam to break due to ice floes and the chunks of ice.

It has been tragic. There has been loss of human life, certainly the loss of livestock.

The initial estimates are about $400 million in infrastructure damage and another roughly $1 billion in damage to crops and livestock.

I appreciate the fact that President Trump moved quickly on Governor Ricketts' request for the disaster declaration.

We are working together among the Nebraska delegation, both Senators and all three House Members, to make sure that we articulate the needs of not only Nebraskans, but when you remove agriculture products, as is the case, ultimately, consumers will likely be impacted.

This is something we should always keep in mind because everyone needs to eat. When we lose the channels of supply for agriculture products, that is bound to increase the cost of food.

When you look at the storm, the bomb cyclone that hit, it probably couldn't have happened at a worse time of year, right in the middle of calving season.

It is a devastating condition here.

I do appreciate the fact that so many producers--I talked to one today. Instead of a 30-minute commute for a drive to work, they have to go 95 miles one way to work, because the bridge is out. When one bridge is out in rural Nebraska, that takes a few miles to make up for that.

I think we are resilient. Ag operators are resilient, so they are looking up. But we are concerned that, here in the next few weeks, in fact, there is another storm forecasted for later this week where folks are bracing for perhaps even more damage. Hopefully, we can get through this.

Again, I appreciate this opportunity to share what the needs are in Nebraska. I will be introducing legislation to extend a number of tax provisions often provided to disaster areas to cover this year's disasters. I hope we can offer that support to disasters from last year as well, since we are discussing this evening multiple disasters from last year and this year.

Madam Speaker, again, I appreciate this opportunity.

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