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U.S.
Senator Ken Salazar
Member: Agriculture, Energy, Veterans' Affairs, Ethics and Aging Committees
2300 15th
Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO
80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C.
20510
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Sen.
Salazar Announces $2.5 Million in Agriculture Appropriations Earmarks
and Applauds Committee Policy Additions to FY07 Ag Approps Bill
WASHINGTON,
D.C. – United States Senator Ken Salazar today announced the inclusion
of nearly $2.5 million in federal funds for four agriculture projects
in Colorado as part of the FY07 Agriculture Appropriations bill approved
by the Senate Appropriations Committee today.
Notably, Senator Salazar
successfully secured $500,000 in federal funding for the Central
Colorado Water Conservancy District to install flow meters
in the South Platte River basin on existing irrigation wells for usage
data and analysis.
“With these funds,
our drought-stricken water users in the South Platte Basin will now
have an accurate way to track their water usage and better comply with
the state water engineers limits,” said Senator Salazar. “Accurate and
measurable data will allow our farmers, ranchers and other water users
to receive their fair water allocations and the state to meet its downstream
water obligations.”
In addition, farmers, ranchers
and rural communities in Colorado today saw important progress towards
much-needed emergency economic relief. Added to the FY07 Agriculture
Appropriations bill were versions of two bills previously introduced
in Congress and strongly backed by Senator Salazar:
Earlier this year, Senator
Salazar helped introduce an amendment to the Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations bill to
provide $3.9 billion in emergency agriculture disaster relief funding
to farmers and ranchers who have suffered smaller harvests as
a result of drought and other natural disasters, lower prices, and
higher input costs. The funding was added with strong bipartisan support
in the Senate, but was later removed by the House-Senate conference
committee after a veto threat by President Bush. Senator Salazar was
not a member of the conference committee.
On Wednesday, Senator
Salazar joined
a bipartisan group of Senators led by Senators Kent Conrad (D-ND)
and Pat Roberts (R-KS) in introducing legislation to require the
Treasury Secretary to impose tariffs on Japanese exports if Japan
does not re-open its domestic market to U.S.-produced beef by August
31, 2006.
“I am extremely
pleased the Appropriations Committee approved these two important proposals,”
said Senator Salazar. “Not only does it send the message that at least
some in Congress will not leave our rural communities behind, but it
provides hope for real relief for these hard-working families.”
The three additional projects
receiving funds at Senator Salazar’s request are research projects based
out of Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins:
- $809,000 for
CSU’s Program for Economically Important Infectious Animal Diseases
(PEIIAD) – PEIIAD provides timely, multidisciplinary research
focused entirely on animal diseases that threaten the US food supply
and/or cause (or potentially cause) economic losses for animal agriculture
on a local, national and international scale. Specifically, funds
will be used to research animal diseases, such as avian influenza,
BSE, CWD, Vesicular stomatitis, brucellosis, scrapie, Food and Mouth
Disease, and West Nile Virus. The Center has been conducting research
since 1998 and is the backbone of the first-of-its-kind Animal Population
Health Institute at CSU
- $303,000 for
research at CSU on Russian Wheat Aphids to help improve the
sustainability and development of wheat resistant to the Russian Wheat
Aphid through genetic research. Colorado’s wheat crop is estimated
at more than a quarter of a billion dollars per year, and this aphid
has caused direct losses of over $11 million annually to the Colorado
and central Great Plains economies.
- $871,000 for
the National Beef Cattle Genetic Evaluation Consortium, an
internationally recognized consortium of scientists from Colorado
State, Cornell and the University of Georgia that collects, interprets
and distributes genetic data to beef cattle breeders across Colorado
and the nation so they can producer high quality, affordable beef
for U.S. consumers and international markets.
The FY07 Agriculture Appropriations
bill now goes on for consideration by the full Senate.
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