SEDALIA, Mo.- The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) decision to relocate two major facilities to the greater Kansas City area is being praised by Missouri’s senior senator.

U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R) flips steaks at the Missouri Beef House at the State Fair in Sedalia on August 15, 2019 (photo courtesy of Missouri Cattlemen’s Association Twitter page)

U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R) spoke to Missourinet at the governor’s ham breakfast Thursday in west-central Missouri’s Sedalia.

“I think that’s one of the great things about the USDA deciding to move those ag research jobs from Washington D.C. to the Kansas City area with access to all our great land grant institutions in the middle of the country,” Blunt says.

USDA plans to relocate its Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agricultural Policy. U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City, says the decision will draw more than 550 jobs to the Kansas City region, with average wages between $80,000 and $100,000.

Meantime, Senator Blunt is hopeful that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will manage the Missouri River differently.

“Since the 2004 (Corps) management plan, we’ve had moderate to high flooding every year but two, with the same rainfall we had in many years before that that didn’t produce that flooding,” says Blunt.

Blunt, Governor Parson and members of the state’s congressional delegation held a press conference on the flooding issue at Thursday’s fair. They were joined by Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst.

Parson says more than 80 Missouri levees have overtopped or breached in 2019.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full four-minute interview with U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R), which was recorded at the State Fair in Sedalia on August 15, 2019:

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