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Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. Madam President, I rise to introduce the Smoke Exposure Crop Insurance Act of 2023. This legislation will make Federal crop insurance work better for wine grapes impacted by wildfire smoke exposure.

Increasingly frequent and catastrophic wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington are threatening the long-term sustainability of important winegrowing regions. Vineyards, winery operations, and the communities they support are routinely facing the threat of wildfires that can not only destroy vineyards, but can damage fruit through prolonged smoke exposure, which can be absorbed into the grape, creating an ashy taste known as smoke taint.

The impact has been particularly acute for California's 4,800 wineries and 5,900 winegrape growers, who have seen significant property loss, loss of tourism, and loss of production due to smoke- exposed grapes. In 2020 alone, industry sources estimate that between 165,000 and 325,000 tons of California wine grapes were lost due to actual or perceived smoke damage, and financial estimates place losses at over $600 million.

Federal crop insurance tools are not working for winegrape producers grappling with the impacts of climate change induced wildfires. That's why we need to pass the Smoke Exposure Crop Insurance Act.

The Smoke Exposure Crop Insurance Act of 2023 would direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Federal Crop Insurance Corporation to research, develop, and create a crop insurance policy to better insure against wine grape losses due to wildfire smoke exposure.

Wine grapes are vital to the economies of California, Oregon, and Washington--the largest producers of wine grapes in the United States and the most impacted by smoke-exposure. But crop insurance is not working for wine grapes--current products do not fully capture the risks associated with growing in these smoke and wildfire-prone States.

That is why we need to pass the Smoke Exposure Crop Insurance Act of 2023, to improve crop insurance for winegrape producers, wineries, and the consumers they support to help address the impossible choice facing producers after a wildfire: Does a grower harvest grapes knowing they may be unusable for wine or do they take an indemnity for what may be perfectly good grapes?

This bill gets us one step closer to answering that question.

I would like to thank my colleagues from California, Washington, and Oregon for joining me to introduce this bill and for our partners in the House, Representatives Mike Thompson and Dan Newhouse, for championing this bill in the House.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the Smoke Exposure Crop Insurance Act as quickly as possible for inclusion in the 2023 farm Bill. ______

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