Drought Conditions in the Southeast

Floor Speech

DROUGHT CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTHEAST -- (House of Representatives - October 23, 2007)

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Mr. Jordan has estimated that his gross loss will be somewhere between $115,000 and $200,000 on his fall harvest. He is a large operator. He might weather it. But it will take him years to recover, because the machinery he uses has got a year's use on it and it is getting worn out and he has no money to make it happen. He said, I hope we can salvage some of it. We will try to save what we can. And I just say thank God for people like him and other farmers who are willing to continue to get up early in the morning, work in the hot sun, and take the huge risk that it takes to provide food and fiber for all of us in America.

Let me share with you something about what is happening with what we call the ``green industry.'' The green industry, of course, is our nursery industry and a host of those things tied to it. These numbers are for North Carolina.

The green industry contributes more than $8.6 billion to the economy of North Carolina. The green industry alone employs roughly 151,000 people. Due to the drought thus far this year, the green industry has laid off 30 percent of their labor force and revenues are down 40 percent. Let me repeat that again: 40 percent.

Now, that will be felt not just this year. That is going to be felt for a number of years, because that means, number one, you can't expand. Number two, you can't buy new equipment, and all of those people that they buy trucks, tractors and equipment from, they are going to feel it.

As you can see from the map here, as I said earlier, the situation in North Carolina and the entire region is dire. Fifteen more counties were just moved into the worst category of drought, exceptional, this week. We talked about 85 already. Fifteen more have been moved into it. We hope to get some rain this weekend. Every time we get promised rain, it tends to split and get away. We hope we do. But more is needed to make it. When you have as much area having drought as we do, it just seems that it gets tougher and tougher.

Let me share with you one other thing. I think it was my good friend Mr. Butterfield was talking about how he saw streams that were cracking. I was up toward Siler City about a month ago in the Upper Piedmont, western part of my district. It was the first time in my lifetime I have seen trees along streams that were dead. Not the leaves falling off, trees were dead, because the streams had long since dried up. And anyone who knows anything about forestry, a tree near a stream tends to have its roots fairly shallow and in the water or close to it. These streams had been dry so long, the trees didn't have deep roots so whole trees were dying. You could see long strips of trees along streams that were dead. Farmers had been feeding hay since late July.

I keep repeating this because this is a critical situation. You know, you can be in Washington and you can come into this nice building and you can have plenty of food every day, but one of these days, if we don't take care of the people who provide food and fiber, we might face that challenge too.

So I hope my colleagues understand how serious this situation is, and I hope the people at the White House understand. I pray that the President will send a request to help not only our folks in the Southeast that are going to take a long time to recover, but also those on the west coast that we see on TV tonight, and it looks like it is going to be awhile, who have lost a great deal as well.

These things, if they do not deserve an emergency appropriation, I pray ask, what does? If we can't help the people in this country, who can we help? When can we help them, if we can't help them when they are hurting?

Mr. Speaker, almost 85 percent of the land area of my State is now designated as being either extreme or exceptional drought. To my knowledge, that has never happened in my lifetime. I have talked with people who are almost 100 years old, and they never remember it.

Fifty-four percent of the land area is in the exceptional category. That is up from 38 percent just last week. And, as I said, all of the State is in at least severe drought, with the last three counties in the moderate category now moving into severe.

On October 18, the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council Web site listed the number of North Carolina counties in each category as follows: D-4, that is exceptional, 71; D-3, extreme, 18; and D-2, severe, 11.

We talked earlier about the challenge we face with water. And water is important to sustain life. I mentioned earlier about Siler City. I want to talk about that again because that county has probably suffered as much or more as any county in the district, agriculturally as well as the city of Siler City. They are down to 60 days of water. Tonight I want to thank the Governor of our State, Mike Easley, and his staff and some of the folks from USDA who have worked together to try to make sure that the town has water. They have been hauling water with trucks to keep roughly 1,500 to 2,000 people working. As I said when I began to speak, they are now down to 3 or 4 days a week. It looks like they are going to break ground, because of the hard work of the Governor's staff, on a waterline that will hopefully get them over the hump. But we still need rain and we need help.

These two plants, Pilgrim's Pride and Townsend, provide a lot of jobs, but they also provide an opportunity for our farmers to have income who produce a lot of poultry in our State. They provide a lot of food for the table of a lot of Americans who don't want to think about it, who don't want to know about it, who really aren't interested in it. They just want to go to the meat counter and have good, safe, plentiful, affordable food supply.

Mr. Speaker, to do that it is incumbent upon every Member who took the oath of office in this Chamber and the other body across the hall and the President of the United States, if we can get together a bill, pass it, and we should, for him to sign it, to make sure that these folks continue to make it.

I saw on Monday the sad commentary of what a major drought can do. I was on our farm with our son Saturday. We spent an hour or two and were going to put a cover crop in. We actually put some in last Saturday. He said to me I probably made a mistake; it might not come up. He is probably right. This Saturday we decided not to plant anything because the ground was so dry it wouldn't germinate.

I happen to believe our food supply is part of our national defense. It is part of our homeland defense, and Members of Congress I think will rally. Farmers face some of the toughest perils that I can imagine when they invest their money in the spring and depend on weather to make it. Make no mistake about it, somewhere in America almost every year there is some catastrophic event tied to agriculture. Some of it is tied to our beaches with hurricanes. It is tied to tornadoes in the Midwest. It is tied to earthquakes. It is tied to a lot of things. We have always responded. We have always helped, and we should. Now is the time, Mr. Speaker, to help the people in the Southeast at a time when we have the toughest drought that we have ever faced.

And I am pleased that we are now joined by my colleague from Wake County who understands this. He represents some of the agricultural area, but we are very fortunate to have him chairing the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, and he certainly understands that our agricultural production is part of our national security as much as protecting our homeland. If we can't have cotton and corn and soybeans and those things we enjoy having on our table, then we are challenged. And I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price). He can see from the map as well how North Carolina is the worst of all of the southeastern States by the drought monitor.

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