[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13022]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                TIME TO REVIEW DISASTROUS FARM POLICIES

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, while our hearts are touched by the 
terrible flooding in Iowa, 24 lives lost already, 40,000 people who had 
to be evacuated, now is the time to think about how we help them in the 
future and prevent others from this fate.
  This is the second 500-year flood in the last 15 years. There is a 
thought-provoking article on the front page of today's Washington Post 
that I would commend to all of my colleagues. It recalls something that 
I saw when I last visited Iowa, that the whole State has been 
dramatically replumbed. Ninety percent of the wetlands have been filled 
and farmed. Last year alone, 106,000 acres in the Conservation Reserve 
Program were taken out and farmed, acres that would have served as a 
great big sponge to capture the water instead of making flooding worse.
  Because the effects of global warming and planting one-third of the 
State in corn and soybeans, we should reflect on the human role in the 
unfolding disaster. Now is the time to review our disastrous farm and 
water resource policies so that we can protect people in the future 
from this fate.

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