Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. VALADAO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak in favor of my amendment No. 64 to division B.

This amendment highlights the need to replenish the agriculture disaster assistance account of USDA's Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus. This funding would cover agricultural producers' losses in 2020 and 2021 due to natural disasters.

Some of the other types of natural disasters this program funding helps includes droughts, derechos, floods, extreme freezes, high winds, hurricanes, snowstorms, tornados, typhoons, volcanic activity, and wildfires. One of the most pertinent disasters this program addresses is extreme drought.

It is no secret that the American West, including my district in the Central Valley in California, is currently suffering from a devastating, historic drought. One of the main purposes of the Central Valley Project system is to provide water to users during years of extreme drought.

We are in year one of an extreme drought, and wells are going extremely dry and farmland is being fallowed at an alarming rate. This is completely unacceptable. While we continue to work to prevent this from happening again in the future, we also need to figure out a way to help those who are unnecessarily suffering from the drought immediately.

My constituents and the constituents of many of my colleagues here today are in an emergency and need this funding to be included in the fiscal year 2022 package.

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