FEMA Announces Assistance for Texas Counties

More than a dozen Texas counties that were impacted by the recent flooding have been declared disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  Residents of these counties are now eligible to apply for aid through the Individual Assistance program.  This comes as good news to thousands of Texans who lost homes and personal property because of flood damage.  In addition, two 19th District counties – Eastland and Archer – have been declared eligible for assistance programs that will allow those counties to use federal money to repair roads and other critical infrastructure. 

FEMA has set up several Disaster Recovery Centers (DRC) where eligible residents can go to learn more about what assistance is available to them.  The Eastland DRC is located at 100 Little Maverick Trail.  A second DRC has been set up at 1000 Lamar in Wichita Falls and a third in Marble Falls.  Before visiting a DRC, individuals should register for assistance by calling 1-800-621-FEMA (3362), or TTY 1-800-462-7585 for those who are hearing or speech-impaired. The FEMA application line is open 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. local time seven days a week, until further notice. You can also register online at www.fema.gov.  

Farm Bill Moves to Full House Ag Committee This Week

After months of field hearings and work at the subcommittee level, the full House Agriculture Committee will meet this week to put together the 2007 Farm Bill.  Going into these negotiations, I have several priorities.  The first is to keep in place many of the successful commodity polices from the 2002 Farm Bill that have been good for producers and taxpayers alike.  These programs have provided support when commodity prices are low, but have tapered off when prices rise.  As a result, producers get support when they need it, and the price tag for commodity programs has come in more than $20 billion less than what was projected in 2002.  A second priority is to maintain my crop insurance proposal that establishes a level of reliability when disasters strike and removes assistance from an unpredictable political process.  Finally, the Ag Committee needs to correct the major flaws of mandatory country-of-origin labeling for livestock, and I am working with colleagues to do so.  A full review of this week’s negotiations will be included in next week’s Roundup.

Additional Good News for the Economy

On the heels of the news in recent job growth that came in two weeks ago, we got news last week that the deficit has been trimmed another $39 billion.  Tax relief policies helped kick-start the economy four years ago.  The economic growth that has occurred since then has helped produce an increase in tax revenues which, in turn, is driving down the deficit.  The important task in front of Congress moving forward is to keep these sound economic policies in place so that we can eliminate the deficit altogether.

--Randy