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U.S.
Senator Member: Agriculture, Energy, Veterans' Affairs, Ethics and Aging Committees |
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For Immediate
Release June 15, 2006 |
CONTACT: Cody Wertz – Comm. Director 303-455-7600 Andrew Nannis – Press Secretary 202-224-5852 |
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – As farmers, ranchers and rural communities in Colorado face worsening drought conditions, United States Senator Ken Salazar today expressed disappointment in the decision by the conference committee for the Supplemental Appropriations bill to remove $3.9 billion in emergency agriculture relief funding and $30 million in emergency funds to combat extreme Western fire danger created by bark beetle infestation. Both funding packages were added with strong bipartisan support in the Senate, and were removed by the House-Senate conference committee after a veto threat by President Bush. Senator Salazar was not a member of the conference committee. Senator Salazar voted for the Emergency Supplemental in support of America’s troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I am disappointed in the decision by the conference committee to eliminate the emergency disaster assistance for America’s farmers and ranchers. These hard-working men and women are struggling to put food on their tables, and ours. Soaring fuel and other input costs, coupled with a crippling drought, has pushed them to the brink. Instead Congress and the President have turned their backs on the farmers, ranchers and rural agricultural communities of Colorado and America,” said Senator Salazar. Over the past six years, Colorado has suffered from ongoing natural disasters including drought compounded by soaring gas prices already inflated by Hurricane Katrina. In early May 2006, the Senate passed the $109 billion emergency supplemental which included the Agricultural Disaster Assistance Act of 2006. The amendment, which Senator Salazar helped introduce, provided $3.9 billion in emergency agriculture disaster relief funding to farmers and ranchers who have suffered smaller harvests as a result of drought and other natural disasters, lower prices, and higher input costs. Senator Salazar continued: “I am equally disappointed the conference committee failed to retain $30 million the Senate added to help prevent wildfires. The extreme fire danger being faced right now in Colorado and across the West is a powderkeg waiting for a struck match. While we can only pray for rain to relieve the drought, Washington could have acted to remove another major fire risk: millions of acres of pine forests destroyed by bark-beetles across the Nation, including 1.5 million acres in Colorado. Colorado can only hope now that wildfires do not devastate our state and the West as they did in 2002. Hope is not a strategy – this funding was. I will continue to work with the Air Force and pursue other means to prepare Colorado for the potentially-devastating wildfire season ahead.” A minimum of 35,000 acres
in Colorado are expected to receive hazardous fuels treatments in 2006.
However, Colorado has an additional 279,000 acres in need of, and approved
for, treatments to reduce fire danger but with no funding to move forward
in 2006. In response, Senator
Salazar successfully added $30 million to the Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations bill to directly address fire hazards resulting from
insect infestation, including the bark beetle, across the country. In
addition, Senator Salazar joined with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah to
seek $10
million in funding for the Rural Fire Assistance (RFA) grant program
for rural volunteer fire departments, and has reached
out to the Air Force to ask about firefighting assistance because
11 of 12 helicopters used by the National Guard to fight fires have
been deployed to Iraq. # # #
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