WASHINGTON, April 8 -- Sen. Jeff Merkley issued the following press release:
Oregon's U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley-the former Ranking Member on the Appropriations subcommittee that writes our nation's agriculture funding bill-partnered with U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Deb Fischer (R-NE) to reintroduce the Healthy Watersheds, Healthy Communities Act. This bipartisan bill would increase the resiliency of American agriculture and communities in Oregon and across the nation to drought by improving the Natural Resources Conservation Service's (NRCS) Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations program (also known as "PL-566").
"Climate chaos-fueled droughts are depleting water resources for people, farms, fish, and wildlife, demanding ur...