[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11993]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               FARM BILL

  (Mrs. NOEM asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. NOEM. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to bring up a subject today that's 
on the minds of people all across this country, and this is the drought 
that is hitting so many people and our economy.
  I was recently in the northwest corner of South Dakota and had the 
chance to drive all the way across the State and visit with producers 
and communities that have been hit so hard. I'll tell you the facts are 
clear. We have feed shortages, stock dams are going dry, and there are 
escalating feed costs that are hitting our producers every single day.
  Our livestock producers undeniably take a great risk. They don't have 
the crop insurance programs that many of our commodity producers do 
have and that protects them and gives them a safety net. That's why our 
livestock disaster programs are so important.
  I was proud of the fact that I introduced legislation that 
reauthorized this bill's programs earlier this year and that they were 
included in the committee version of the farm bill that came through 
the House Ag Committee earlier. That's why it's so important that we 
get our farm bill work done and that we bring it to the House floor and 
have a vote so that our livestock producers truly can have a safety net 
that our commodity producers already enjoy.

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