2 US Cabinet members to speak Monday re avian flu

Avian Influenza Preparation Teleconference 6/05 (Part 12) Official Transcript

MR. BOHN: Next question, please.

OPERATOR: Next question comes from Marlin Bohling from Southern Farm Network.

REPORTER: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Glad to visit with you today. Secretary Johanns, obviously if AI would be found in any given area it would be absolutely devastating, not only to that affected farm but also the local and regional economies. Now in such a case, at what point would USDA and other federal agencies declare a disaster in those affected areas? And how could the federal government provide assistance, whether it be financially or otherwise, to help support the economically blighted areas at that point?

SEC. JOHANNS: I can tell you for certain today that in high-path avian influenza cases where we work with a producer and with the state and local community to eradicate that flock, that we compensate that producer for that. I have the ability to literally access funds that are made available to me as Secretary, and I can do that, and it does not take congressional action. I can literally access those funds and deal with that situation.

Your observation is correct. You know, we have been dealing with a beef situation because of BSE, and there's just no doubt that it had an economic impact, really, across the country. Our role at the federal level is to do everything we can to get our borders reopened, to get the market restored, and that's exactly what we would do.

Now we have as you know many, many programs that work in the area of the Rural Development with communities and economic development with communities. And we would certainly do what we could to be helpful there, as we do every year with the program funds that are given to us by Congress.

So those are some of the things that we can do here, and not only be of some assistance, really significant assistance to the producer, but we have the ability, through some of our other programs, to be of assistance to areas that are impacted.

REPORTER: If I could follow up for a just a second, are you talking about modeling it much as in the way you would, maybe, perform hurricane disaster assistance? And if so, who would get priority in that funding?

SEC. JOHANNS: Now that's just not a -- it's just not the same approach. It really isn't. With a hurricane disaster, you have a very, very targeted situation. You can go to a cotton crop and see that it's been wiped out and flooded, and you can make an assessment, and you can literally reach out to an area that has that same problem. This is quite a different phenomena because you're likely to have a producer or a group of producers that suffer that kind of targeted loss.

The rest of the loss in the country -- and I do believe you'd be dealing with trade issues here, so you could have a country-wide impact -- is more dispersed, if you will. And so you really are relying on your more general programs to deal with that.

MR. BOHN: Next question, please.

OPERATOR: At this time I'm showing we have no further questions.

SEC. LEAVITT: Trey, thank you for organizing this. And it sounds as though we're prepared to terminate the call.

MR. BOHN: Thank you, sir.

SEC. JOHANNS: Thank you, everyone.

Thanks, aurora, for all of your effort with the transcriptions of the teleconference

Would you be willing to cut and past your 10 parts and post them to the "2 US Cabinet members...." thread that I had placed on the PandemicHelp.org site under Latest News, or would you prefer for me to cut and paste your transcription (obviously giving the credit to you)?  It would be good to have that information posted on the other site, and so just let me know which way you prefer....I am willing to help.