[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 18, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H5895-H5897]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DESERT LOCUST CONTROL ACT
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(H.R. 7276) to establish an interagency working group to develop a
comprehensive, strategic plan to eradicate locust outbreaks in the East
Africa region and address future outbreaks in order to avert mass scale
food insecurity and potential political destabilization, and for other
purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 7276
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 ``Desert Locust Control Act''.
SEC. 2. STATEMENT OF POLICY.
It is the policy of the United States to prioritize efforts
to control the ongoing desert locust outbreak in East Africa
and other affected regions, mitigate the impacts on food
security, economic productivity, and political stability,
improve interagency coordination to prevent future outbreaks,
and promote resilience in affected countries.
SEC. 3. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) The United States Agency for International Development
reports that countries in East Africa are currently suffering
the worst desert locust outbreak in decades, which will
devour crops and pasture and destroy local livelihoods across
the region.
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(2) As of June 2020, there were more than 26 million people
experiencing acute food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya,
Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, and Djibouti,
and these numbers are projected to increase if the desert
locust outbreak is not controlled.
(3) As the desert locust outbreak continues, there may be
insufficient resources to continue to conduct aerial spraying
and without such resources the current outbreak could develop
into a plague by the end of 2020.
(4) The desert locust outbreak in East Africa, particularly
in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, is negatively impacting food
security, local livelihoods and economic productivity, and
may threaten political stability in the region.
(5) Proactive investments now to control the desert locust
outbreak could reduce the need for a much larger United
States humanitarian response effort later, as well as support
economic and political stability and build resilience in
affected countries.
(6) In order to optimize the United States response to the
desert locust outbreak, an interagency working group should
be established to develop and implement a comprehensive,
strategic plan to control the desert locust outbreak in East
Africa and other affected regions, mitigate impacts on food
security, economic productivity, and political stability and
prevent future outbreaks.
SEC. 4. INTERAGENCY WORKING GROUP.
(a) Establishment.--The President shall establish an
interagency working group to coordinate the United States
response to the ongoing desert locust outbreak in East Africa
and other affected regions, including the development of a
comprehensive, strategic plan to control the outbreak,
mitigate the impacts on food security, economic productivity,
and political stability, and prevent future outbreaks.
(b) Membership.--
(1) In general.--The interagency working group shall be
composed of the following:
(A) Two representatives from the United States Agency for
International Development.
(B) One representative from each of the following:
(i) The United States Mission to the United Nations
Agencies for Food and Agriculture.
(ii) The National Security Council.
(iii) The Department of State.
(iv) The Department of Defense.
(v) The Department of Agriculture.
(vi) Any other relevant Federal department or agency.
(2) Chair.--The President shall designate one of the
representatives from the United States Agency for
International Development described in paragraph (1)(A) to
serve as chair of the interagency working group.
(c) Duties.--The interagency working group shall--
(1) assess the scope of the desert locust outbreak in East
Africa and other affected regions, including its impact on
food security, economic productivity, and political stability
in affected countries;
(2) assess the impacts of restrictions relating to the
coronavirus disease 2019 (commonly referred to as ``COVID-
19'') pandemic;
(3) monitor the effectiveness of ongoing assistance efforts
to control the desert locust outbreak and mitigate its
impacts and identify gaps and opportunities for additional
support to such programs;
(4) review the effectiveness of regional and multilateral
efforts to control the desert locust outbreak and the
coordination among relevant United States Government
agencies, regional governments, and international
organizations, including the World Food Programme and the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization; and
(5) not later than 90 days after the establishment of the
interagency working group under subsection (a), develop and
submit to the President and the appropriate congressional
committees a comprehensive, strategic plan to control the
desert locust outbreak, including a description of efforts
to--
(A) improve coordination among relevant United States
Government agencies, regional governments, and international
organizations, including the World Food Programme and the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization;
(B) ensure delivery of necessary assets control the desert
locust outbreak and humanitarian and development assistance
to address and mitigate impacts to food security, economic
productivity, and political stability; and
(C) to the extent practicable, prevent and mitigate future
desert locust and other, similar destructive insect outbreaks
(such as Fall Armyworm) in Africa and other parts of the
world, which require a humanitarian response.
(d) Interagency Working Group Support.--The interagency
working group shall continue to meet not less than semi-
annually to facilitate implementation of the comprehensive,
strategic plan required by subsection (c)(5).
(e) Sunset.--This section shall terminate on the date that
is 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, or at
such time as there is no longer an upsurge in the desert
locust outbreak in East Africa, whichever occurs earlier.
(f) Appropriate Congressional Committees Defined.--In this
section, the term ``appropriate congressional committees''
means--
(1) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on
Appropriations of the House of Representatives; and
(2) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on
Appropriations of the Senate.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Engel) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York.
General Leave
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have
5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on H.R. 7276.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from New York?
There was no objection.
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Desert Locust Control Act, and
I thank Mr. Smith for bringing forward this very important legislation.
In late 2019, swarms of locusts entered the Horn of Africa from the
Gulf of Aden, multiplying and spreading throughout the region.
Locusts are highly mobile and can consume vast amounts of vegetation
in a short period of time. Even a small swarm can consume crops that
would feed up to 35,000 people in day. They have devastated large
swaths of farmland through east Africa, including Kenya, Somalia, and
Ethiopia and across the Red Sea in Yemen.
Food security is already hanging by a thread in these regions, and
efforts to control the locusts have been hindered by the COVID-19
pandemic, lack of reliable data, and the geographical reach of the
swarm across multiple countries.
The Desert Locust Control Act would step up coordination of efforts
to evaluate and respond to the locust outbreak across the United States
Government, bringing in the support of the U.S. mission to the Food and
Agricultural Organization, USAID, and others to effectively respond to
the outbreak.
We have already seen the ripple effects of the coronavirus pandemic
on poverty, food insecurity, health, and education. We must ensure that
we do not let this locust plague compound those challenges.
I, again, thank Mr. Smith for his leadership in authoring this
measure.
I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to support this bill, and,
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
I will begin by thanking our distinguished chairman, Eliot Engel, for
his extraordinary leadership as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee for all these years. He is a good friend. We have worked on
so many issues together. I thank him again for his leadership. It has
been extraordinary. Your bipartisanship has been an example to us all,
so I thank you for that, Eliot, and I really mean that deeply.
I also thank my good friend and colleague from Texas, the ranking
member, Michael McCaul, for his support of this legislation and other
important initiatives.
Also, Eliot, thank you again.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 7276, the Desert Locust
Control Act, which I introduced along with my good friend and
colleague, Karen Bass. She is chairwoman, as you know, of the Africa,
Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations
Subcommittee. I am the ranking member. In previous times I was the
chairman, and she was my ranking member, and we have worked very
closely together on all issues dealing with the health and well-being
of people around the world through the global health portion of our
portfolio, but also, with a very particular emphasis on Africa.
This bipartisan bill would create an interagency task force that
would address the crisis of increasingly biblical proportions caused by
swarms of desert locusts, which have been compounded by the COVID
crisis, which our country and so many other nations are dealing with.
Indeed, as serious as COVID has been, and it has been serious, as we
all know, the unfortunate fact is that there are many other threats to
the welfare and
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well-being of so many people in the developing world, including Sub-
Saharan Africa, where the likelihood of food insecurity looms larger
thanks to the pandemic.
Just how bad is it?
Swarms of hundreds of millions of locusts darken the sky, descend
upon an area, stripping it entirely of its vegetation. Crops are just
decimated in a matter of minutes and hours.
Unfortunately, due in part to this bad timing with a pandemic, we are
witnessing the real possibility of famine in many countries of east
Africa, where over 27 million people are now estimated to be suffering
from acute food insecurity, which is defined as the sudden lack of food
or the ability to produce or access minimum requirements of food.
I should note that in the case of one of the nations most impacted,
Ethiopia, the political situation has simultaneously deteriorated, so
that the country is now on the brink of civil war with the added crisis
of refugees fleeing conflicted areas added to the mix of cascading
calamities and compounding crises.
Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the FAO, estimates
that this infestation of locusts will persist until at least March 2021
in both Ethiopia and Somalia.
Our bill would create an interagency working group comprised of
representatives of the USAID, State, the NSC, the Department of
Defense, and the Department of Agriculture to formulate a strategic
plan to address this and future locust outbreaks, as well as other
similarly destructive pests, such as fall armyworm, which wreaks
tremendous havoc on crops annually.
The working group would also include a representative from our
mission to the United Nations food agencies based in Rome, where our
current ambassador, Kip Tom, is doing a stellar job interacting with
both the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture
Organization, as well as locust-impacted countries.
Ambassador Kip Tom has briefed me and others repeatedly. We have
talked about best practices on the phone in Skype phone calls, and
again, I want to single him out for the tremendous job that he has done
in trying to mitigate this crisis.
The World Food Programme has also been a tremendous help, as it has
been in so many other places around the world, under the extraordinary
leadership of David Beasley.
{time} 1345
Indeed, the international community has recognized the yeoman's work
by awarding the World Food Program the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ambassador Tom has been pushing the FAO in particular to proactively
address the problem and adopt the better use of technology. For
example, use of apps on smartphones in Kenya advocated by the
Ambassador has led to roughly 80 percent of the data collected on the
location of desert locusts, thereby allowing for the targeted
mobilization of aerial assets for locust eradication and control.
It is innovation such as this, and the adoption of best practices,
which our interagency group will focus on identifying and implementing.
Indeed, we also think that the working group will help ensure that our
taxpayer dollars are spent in the most effective way possible. The
United States Government has committed over $24 million to the USAID,
and that has made a difference as well.
While the focus of our bill is on East Africa, other countries like
Yemen, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are threatened by these
spreading swarms as well. Indeed, Yemen has become a breeding ground
for locusts crossing over into the Horn of Africa, compounding the
problem caused by indigenous swarms in the countries of the Horn.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I urge strong support for the bill. And again, I
thank our distinguished chairman for his leadership on this bill and so
many others.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, once again, I thank Mr. Smith for his work on this
legislation. Mr. Smith, through the years, has done great work on so
many issues. I think he is the only one on the Foreign Affairs
Committee that has actually been there longer than I have. We have
collaborated on a good many projects, bipartisan projects, through the
years. I thank Mr. Smith for being such a good member of the committee.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support this legislation. It is very
important. It is very important for our country. It is very important
for the world. I urge all my colleagues to support it, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 7276, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to
establish an interagency working group to develop a comprehensive,
strategic plan to control locust outbreaks in the East Africa region
and address future outbreaks in order to avert mass scale food
insecurity and potential political destabilization, and for other
purposes.''.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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