Ohio Republican Proposes Drought Tracker Overhaul in New Bill

Ohio Republican Dave Taylor is leveraging his freshman position on the House Agriculture Committee to push improvements for a key drought measuring tool used to determine billions of dollars in crop insurance and federal disaster relief payouts.

A bill Taylor plans to introduce on Thursday, obtained first by Bloomberg Government, would convene a working group to study how the multi-agency operated US Drought Monitor could produce more timely and accurate data.

“Farmers in Ohio and across our Nation trust the U.S. Drought Monitor to contain the most accurate and reliable data, which is exactly why continued improvements to it are ...