[BREAKING] Urgent
Key Senate Panel OKs Emergency Farm
Relief
That Would Aid Vermont Farmers
WASHINGTON (Thursday, June 22) -- The Senate
Appropriations Committee Thursday afternoon approved an emergency
farm relief package that would aid Vermont farmers hit by the triple
whammy of flooded crops, soaring fuel costs and record low milk
prices.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a senior member
of the panel, worked with other Appropriations Committee members to
win the panel’s approval of the emergency farm package, as an
amendment to the annual budget bill for the Department of
Agriculture. The bill goes next to the Senate Floor.
“If anything, the farm crisis is worse now than
it was when we put the last package together that the President
torpedoed,” said Leahy. “Farmers are hurting right now, and once
again all that is standing in the way of getting this help to them
is a White House that doesn’t understand what’s happening to farms
and farm families. Congress has just approved the President’s
request for tens of billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq, but he has
blocked any emergency help for family farmers facing desperate
situations. We will try and try again until he gets the message,
and until farmers get the help they need to get through this.”
The action comes days after President Bush,
threatening a veto, forced removal of nearly identical farm relief
funding provisions from the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations
Bill for Iraq and Katrina. Leahy and the other members of the
Vermont Congressional Delegation – Sen. Jim Jeffords and Rep. Bernie
Sanders – had appealed to President Bush to reverse his opposition
to the farm aid and had also urged others to, but the President
remains opposed to emergency farm relief. Leahy and the Delegation
members then said they would look for other must-pass legislative
vehicles to try again.
The farm emergency relief amendment totals
about $4 billion in help for beleaguered farmers, including direct
payments for farmers in Vermont and other states who lost crops due
to heavy rains and flooding; funds to help defray high fuel costs;
and grants to specialty crop producers, including dairy farmers.
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