Grassley plans to seek derecho aid through pandemic bill

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he plans to file an amendment to the latest pandemic relief bill to provide aid to farms damaged by August derecho storm. 

Grassley said assistance for farmers whose crops were damaged by the hurricane-force winds in the Midwest, including Iowa, at one point was added to the $1.9 trillion House bill with bipartisan support. That included Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra, who offered the amendment, and Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne. The language was removed before the bill passed. 

“Unfortunately, Iowa farmers didn’t make the cut,” Grassley told reporters on a phone call Wednesday. “That amendment was stripped by House Democratic leaders, presumably because it was prepared and proposed by a Republican.”

“Now that the bill is in the Senate, I’d like to try to accomplish the same thing that Congressman Feenstra did by submitting an amendment,” Grassley said. 

Grassley said five previous bipartisan pandemic relief bills featured a combined $4 trillion in aid to small businesses, hospitals and families. 

The package now in the Senate is different, Grassley said. “Unlike the previous bills, this bill is a more than $2 trillion wish list of Democratic political priorities, drafted just by Democrats in the House.”

Ten Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent, are pushing to add recurring payments and extended unemployment benefits to the package, but made no mention of the derecho angle, according to a CNBC report.

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