Since the beginning of the year, one U.S. Congressional member from Iowa has been working to find a way to bring federal relief funds to Iowa farmers that suffered devastating losses from last year’s derecho storm.

Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District Representative Randy Feenstra (R) says he and several Republicans and Democrats have introduced a bill called the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+) for 2020 natural disasters. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio the bill would provide funding for those in Texas that suffered crop losses from a prolonged freeze and those in California that had crop loss due to wildfires and is hoping to include Iowa farmers who had negative impacts from the derecho.

“We also wrote a letter confirming this to the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) of saying, ‘Hey these are things that are happening and we’re hoping to hear back on how we can create more relief in this area.’ There’s $4 billion out there in this general fund and we just want to make sure that it gets allocated in the proper ways through the USDA. But it doesn’t get allocated for other things that don’t go for federal damages through natural disasters.”

Of the close to 30 signers of the bill, Congresswoman Cindy Axne (D) was one of the House members.