Sen. Moran Delivers Remarks During Disaster Relief Appropriations Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) delivered remarks during the Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing to review disaster funding needs.

"Drought is a damning circumstance in many places across the country and especially at home in Kansas," said Sen. Moran. "79% of the acres in Kansas have been under some form of drought, most of it severe, for the year. We have reduced 45% of our wheat crop and we have not had a wheat crop this small since 1961 because we can't grow a crop. You add that to all the other features of high input costs, low commodity prices and high interest rates, and the damage is real."

"No disaster is anything easy to experience, and we have our share of other kinds of disasters in Kansas, most notably tornadoes," continued Sen. Moran. "But drought is something that is so discouraging, so depressing. This is as dire a circumstance that I can see in my time in trying to address the saving of rural America. This is not something that we ought to consider unimportant. It is hugely important."

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Remarks as delivered:

"Drought is a damning circumstance in many places across the country, and especially at home in Kansas.

"79% of the acres in Kansas have been under some form of drought, most of it severe, for the year.

"We have reduced 45% of our wheat crop and we have not had a wheat crop this small since 1961 because we can't grow a crop. You add that to all the other features of high input costs, low commodity prices and high interest rates, and the damage is real.

"No disaster is anything easy to experience, and we have our share of other kinds of disasters in Kansas, most notably tornadoes.

"But drought is something that is so discouraging, so depressing. We have a tremendous increase in the number of mental health and indications in regard to our farming population.

"I know how it must feel to be a farmer whose great grandfather succeeded in keeping the farm together. Their grandfather, their father, their grandmother and mother, keeping this farm together.

"But today's farm family, they have this sense that, 'If they did it, why can't I? I'm a failure.'

"Drought is this depressing thing that weighs on a farmer every day. Even I, from here, look at the weather, the radar, every day to see if there is any hope. And I want to stress to my colleagues on this committee the importance of the agriculture disaster.

"I don't want to say how many years I've been in Congress, but I would say that I've been on the Ag Committee, or the Ag Appropriations Subcommittee, all of my time here, and this is as dire a circumstance that I can see in my time in trying to address the saving of rural America.

"This is not something that we ought to consider unimportant. It is hugely important.

"I would tell you, Secretary Small, that I do think that this committee, that Congress, ought to be prescribing in giving the Department of Agriculture specific directions about how Ag disaster funds should be spent without some, but also with some, level of flexibility to take care of the things that we may have missed.

"But I have mentioned to you Secretary Small, you said something that I'd highlight for you is important.

"This seems will seem off point, I suppose, but we are battling OSHA with new rules in regard to safety for firefighters.

"Almost 90% plus of our firefighters in Kansas are volunteers, and the OSHA rules and regulations they are proposing will eliminate the capability of small-town Kansas and small-town America.

"We have a noon whistle in my hometown that sounds at noon, but it sounds when there's a fire. And as you said, when you saw the volunteers that run to the rescue, people that others have testified to people who have lost their own homes but come to the rescue of their neighbors.

"Those are volunteer firefighters across Kansas, and I would encourage the Department of Agriculture to express the importance of the role of firefighters as OSHA makes its final determination about these rules.

"Then, Administrator Guzman, we have SBA loans that come from the days of the pandemic - IDEL and paycheck protection.

"Our Wichita regional office is working closely with us, but what has what happened in too many instances was people who claimed to be somebody else and got those loans, and now the people who are paying the price for that fraud are the people who the SBA and the Treasury Department are pursuing for repayment of loans they never made, never applied for, and never received.

"And I just would encourage you to again reach out and find a way to put the misery that these individuals are going through no fault of their own, that those are the circumstances they find themselves in."

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