Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is praising a Senate Appropriations Committee vote this week to include aid for those affected by the 2020 derecho in an agriculture funding bill.
During his weekly conference call with farm reporters, Senator Grassley said the bill included Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus language ? or WHIP+ ? that will cover derecho winds as a qualifier for disaster relief.
?I proposed this amendment back in March to be included in the pandemic recovery package after Congressman Feenstra got it included in the House bill, only to leave it stripped out by the Democrat leaders before the bill got through the House of Representatives,? said Grassley. ?Congressman Feenstra offered the same amendment again in the House and it passed out of the House Agriculture Committee, but would you believe it again, the Democrat leaders stripped it out of the Appropriations bill providing the money for what Feenstra got authorized in the House Ag Committee. If we can get this done in the Senate and keep it in conference after the House and Senate conference is over, this is going to be a big win for Iowans who got hurt by the derecho. It?s going to be a great step to help those still dealing with the aftermath of that storm.?
Grassley said in all of his decades of farming, he?s never seen the scale of devastation that Iowa suffered by last year?s derecho. Millions of acres of farmland were destroyed and many barns, grain bins and other facilities were leveled.
