[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1118 Introduced in House (IH)]






109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1118

    To amend the Federal Crop Insurance Act to establish permanent 
authority for the Secretary of Agriculture to quickly provide disaster 
 relief to agricultural producers who incur crop losses as a result of 
 damaging weather or related condition in federally declared disaster 
                     areas, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 3, 2005

 Mr. Peterson of Minnesota (for himself, Mr. Etheridge, Mr. McIntyre, 
and Mr. Ross) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                        Committee on Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To amend the Federal Crop Insurance Act to establish permanent 
authority for the Secretary of Agriculture to quickly provide disaster 
 relief to agricultural producers who incur crop losses as a result of 
 damaging weather or related condition in federally declared disaster 
                     areas, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Permanent Emergency Agricultural 
Assistance Act''.

SEC. 2. CROP DISASTER ASSISTANCE FOR FUTURE CROP YEARS.

    The Federal Crop Insurance Act is amended by inserting after 
section 518 (7 U.S.C. 1518) the following new section:

``SEC. 519. PERMANENT AUTHORITY TO PROVIDE EMERGENCY AGRICULTURAL 
              ASSISTANCE.

    ``(a) Authority to Provide Emergency Assistance.--The Secretary 
shall use the funds of the Commodity Credit Corporation to make 
emergency financial assistance available to producers on a farm who 
incur qualifying crop losses for an insurable crop due to damaging 
weather or related condition, as determined by the Secretary, which 
results in the designation of the county in which the farm is located 
as a federally declared disaster area.
    ``(b) Administration.--Except as provided in subsections (c) and 
(d), the Secretary shall make assistance available under this section 
in the same manner as provided under section 815 of the Agriculture, 
Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies 
Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Law 106-387; 114 Stat. 1549A-55), 
including using the same loss thresholds for the quantity and quality 
losses as were used in administering that section.
    ``(c) Payment Rate.--The Secretary shall make assistance available 
to producers on a farm for a crop under this section at a rate equal to 
65 percent of the established price for the crop for any deficiency in 
production of 35 percent or more for the crop.
    ``(d) Receipt Conditioned on Having Crop Insurance.--The producers 
on a farm shall not be eligible for assistance under subsection (a) 
with respect to losses to a crop unless the producers obtained, before 
the losses were incurred, a policy or plan of insurance for the crop 
under this title that provided a level of coverage equal to or greater 
than 60 percent.
    ``(e) Federally Declared Disaster Area Defined.--
            ``(1) Presidential or secretarial designation.--In this 
        section, the term `federally declared disaster area' means a 
        county covered by--
                    ``(A) a Presidential declaration of major disaster 
                issued under section 301 of the Robert T. Stafford 
                Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 
                5170); or
                    ``(B) a declaration by the Secretary of a disaster 
                area under subpart A of part 1945 of title 7, Code of 
                Federal Regulations.
            ``(2) Exclusion of contiguous counties.-- The term does not 
        include a county contiguous to a county covered by a 
        declaration described in paragraph (1) unless the contiguous 
        county is also covered by the same designation.
    ``(f) Effective Date.--This section applies to the 2005 and 
subsequent crop years.
    ``(g) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated such amounts as may be necessary to reimburse the 
Commodity Credit Corporation for funds expended by the Secretary under 
this section.''.
                                 <all>