Democrats Crush Their One Chance at Bipartisanship, Plan to Shoot Down Feenstra Amendment on Derecho Relief

WASHINGTON -- On Friday, the House Committee on Rules will meet to consider Speaker Pelosi’s $1.9 trillion Payoff to Progressives, which includes hundreds of billions in spending on liberal agenda items that have nothing to do with COVID testing, contact tracing, or vaccine programs.

Democrats, under the direction of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have proposed an amendment that will strike a provision Rep. Randy Feenstra (IA-04) recently passed in the House Agriculture Committee that would provide relief for victims of natural disasters, including high wind storms like the devastating derecho that tore through Iowa last year. Many producers and rural small businesses were already grappling with market disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters exacerbated the challenges folks in the agriculture industry were facing.

“My proposal was the one last hope for bipartisanship in this entire reconciliation process, but in a clear indication that Democrats were never interested in ‘unity,’ they are plotting to strip this commonsense, much-needed provision out of the bill.

“I reached out to the other side of the aisle and found common ground among my colleagues from across the country who also have constituents that suffered losses from natural disasters -- but at the end of the day, it seems Democrats are choosing to put politics over people. Instead of helping natural disaster victims, they’d rather use this bill to pay for abortions with taxpayer money and fund their pet projects, like a $100 million train to Silicon Valley.

“This bill was never about COVID relief and helping Americans. It has always been about Democrats jamming their liberal agenda through Congress while they have the chance. This whole reconciliation process, from start to finish, has been a sham and a gross abuse of our democratic processes. I’ll continue fighting for this necessary relief in the coming days -- I’ll never stop working to deliver results that will benefit Iowans in need.”

Background:

The amendment proposed to the Rules Committee by the Democrat Chair of the House Committee on the Budget would strike lines 7-17 on page 12 of the so-called “America Rescue Plan,” which is the Rep. Feenstra’s disaster relief provision. The Rules Committee will meet Friday morning to consider this amendment and establish procedure for consideration of the overall stimulus bill. Feenstra plans to testify before the committee on the importance of his proposal.

Rep. Feenstra’s amendment would provide relief for producers who were impacted by natural disasters in 2020. It would include damage from storms with high winds, like the derecho that impacted approximately 43 percent of cropland in Iowa last August.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationestimated damages from the derecho to be $7.5 billion, which is a larger cost than nine of last year’s 10 hurricanes and tropical storms that made landfall. It was the most costly severe thunderstorm in U.S. history. Maximum winds were estimated to be 140 mph, with the highest wind gust recorded in Atkins, Iowa at 126 mph. These wind gusts are the equivalent of what would be expected in an EF3 tornado or major hurricane. 

VIDEO: Feenstra responds to Democrats’ plan to take away derecho relief

###