Washington, DC – Speaking from the U.S. Capitol, Senator Mark Dayton today joined Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-AK), and Kent Conrad (D-ND) in urging the President to back down from his threat to veto an emergency spending bill, if it includes aid for farmers hit by natural disasters. The Senators also urged members of the closed-door House-Senate Conference Committee to preserve the aid package, when it reviews the bill later this month. The bipartisan measure to provide $4 billion in agriculture assistance, introduced by Conrad and cosponsored by Dayton, is included in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (H.R.4939), which passed the Senate earlier this month (78-20).

“For a farmer whose farm has been wiped out by flooding, that’s as catastrophic and as complete a disaster as a home-owner in New Orleans or a small business owner in the Gulf area of Mississippi,” said Dayton. “We’re talking about differences in degree, but not the extent to which these disasters devastate individual farmers and, in particular, areas of my state of Minnesota.”

Due to severe flooding and other natural disasters, 73 of Minnesota’s 87 counties were declared disaster counties in 2005, with estimated losses totaling over $200 million. The Conrad amendment would bring an estimated $175 million in relief to Minnesota farmers and producers, who also continue to be slammed by record-high energy costs.

President Bush announced in April that he would veto the emergency spending bill, which also includes $72 billion for defense, $27 billion for hurricane recovery, and $2.3 billion for avian flu preparation, if the final version contained an agriculture disaster package. Earlier this month, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert called the package “dead on arrival.”

Dayton today encouraged Minnesotans to sign a petition, available on his website at www.dayton.senate.gov, to send a message to the White House that farmers urgently need the Senate-passed disaster assistance.

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