BAUCUS CALLS ON CONGRESS TO PASS DISASTER ASSISTANCE FOR PRODUCERS

Senators Says High Fuel, Fertilizer Costs Taking A Toll On Family Farms

May 3, 2006

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – At a press conference today near Capitol Hill, Montana Senator Max Baucus, a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, called on Congress to pass disaster assistance legislation to help Montana producers dealing with high fuel and fertilizer costs.

Baucus joined other senators who are concerned about rising gas prices at the event, and said that Montana producers are calling day in and day out about how high fuel and fertilizer costs are hurting their family businesses. Many are saying that if the prices don’t go down, they may have to shut down, he said.

“Agriculture is vital to our state and to our country – it’s vital to our economy and producers are key to putting safe, affordable food on our tables,” Baucus said. “Our producers are getting burned by these high fuel costs. I’m committed to working together with my colleagues to ensure our family farms don’t go up in smoke.”

Baucus worked together with Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on a measure to provide producers with a direct payment of $1.5 billion across the country to help pay for high fuel and input costs.

In addition to increasing rising fuel and fertilizer costs that are pinching producers’ bottom line, many farmers and ranchers in Montana and across the country are hurting from natural disasters such as drought, flooding and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Baucus and other farm-state senators have also included a provision in the Supplemental Appropriations bill to provide producers that have suffered crop losses in 2005 with $2.4 billion in disaster assistance. Baucus said that the total disaster assistance package for producers nationally would total $3.9 billion.

Earlier this year, the Senate Appropriations Committee included the disaster assistance package in a supplemental spending bill for defense operations.

Earlier this week, Baucus, the only member of the Montana Congressional delegation to have a seat on the Agriculture Committee, wrote U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Johanns and urged him to support the disaster assistance package before Congress.

“Agriculture is the only industry that cannot pass on high costs on down the line and are frequently left holding the bag,” Baucus said. “That’s not right. And I’m not going to stand by and let that happen.”

Twenty-two national farm organizations, including the National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau Federation, have written Congress to endorse disaster legislation.

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