Friend,
Last week wildfires burned more than 25,000 acres across Kansas. Soldiers from the Kansas National Guard, in cooperation with local firefighters and emergency personnel, worked hard to combat them and preserving life, property, and animals.
I am grateful for all the men and women for their heroic efforts. In difficult times, I am proud to see members of our state work together to overcome disasters.
When discussing the recent fires, we cannot ignore the damage that the drought has caused for many of our farmers across Kansas. It goes without saying, if there is no moisture our producers will continue to lose their crops. I am thankful that the United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue understands the damage this drought has caused. Last week he designated 24 Kansas counties as primary natural disasters due to the intensity of the drought. This designation grants assistance those eligible farmers.
Rural Broadband Access
We’ve been spending a lot of time discussing rural broadband access on the hill. There’s no denying the need for our schools, businesses, and families to be able to communicate quickly and efficiently. Last week the House Small Business Committee examined the financial challenges that small carriers face with rural broadband deployment. Our rural carriers struggle with the high cost building out infrastructure in rural areas. Small carriers play a huge role in connecting the Big First and closing the digital divide, and it’s great to see the Committee highlighting such an important issue to my district. There is no doubt that rural broadband expansion is helpful in our agriculture sector as well. Our products are sought after worldwide and we must have the connectivity to run global businesses.
#NAFTA
I joined the House Ways and Means Committee in Mexico City, Mexico for the seventh round of NAFTA negotiations. On this trip, I met with Ambassadors from Canada and Mexico, as well as US negotiators and economic leaders. The negotiating teams we met with are first class folks and I saw serious engagement from all countries. It was clear from these meetings that all three countries have a sense of loyalty to each other because we have all seen how well this agreement can work for us. While there may be specific issues where we disagree, all three countries share the same goal of a modernized NAFTA in a way where no one is slighted.
And as you probably have seen in the media, it was a tough week for trade. I want to assure you that while I agree with the president on almost all of his policy, I split with him on his approach to trade. In regards to his steel tariffs, I support targeting abusers of our free trade system, but I have grave concerns about overly broad efforts that leave us open to retaliation. As we’ve seen in my district with sorghum, agriculture often bears the brunt of retaliatory actions. Although the president provided a limited exception to Mexico and Canada I still believe there are other countries included in this tariff that should not be and I encourage the president to re-evaluate this target.
I signed a letter to the president with 107 of my Republican colleagues. This note urges the president to tailor his steel and aluminum tariffs to those who abuse the system.
Kansas WIC Team
WIC helps more than 60,000 of our eligible families in Kansas, and I am so grateful for the services they provide. This week I gave a speech at the National WIC leadership conference, and I was thankful that our own Kansas leaders stopped by for a meeting.
I also got the opportunity to meet Kelsi Depew, a Kansas mom who received support from WIC. Kelsi shared her story and how helpful the services that WIC provided were while her and her family were going through a tough time, such an inspiring story, and powerful family.
New International Trade FriendshipsÂ
This week I had a great meeting with the UK Secretary of State for the Department of Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Grove. Having relationships with Ag leaders across the globe is so important. As we work to expand into new markets, these types of relationships will be important for our farmers and ranchers in both of our countries. I am thankful that I was able to spend some time discussing our nations trade priorities.