(Picture credit Barb Cooksley)
Commonsense shouldn’t take an act of Congress, but when it does, you can expect Senator Fischer to take the lead.
I should know: In 2023, my family lost ninety percent of our summer range, as well as tons of silage, corn, and distillers’ grain in the Cooksley Complex Fire.
As if the exhaustion of fighting fires was not enough on its own, we also experienced then what so many other U.S. producers go through each year: Loads of paperwork and months of red tape that come with applying for government disaster relief—a headache that inevitably slows recovery rather than aiding it.
It’s a painful reminder that most politicians in Washington D.C. don’t craft bills or take votes while thinking about the realities ranchers face while recovering from wildfires. Because the reality is that our cattle cannot wait to eat until a federal agency has sorted our paperwork.
That’s one of the reasons we’re grateful to have a U.S. Senator like Deb Fischer, who understands the cattle business from the inside and can fight for commonsense reforms to recovery programs aimed at helping producers keep feeding, fueling, and clothing the world.
After all: The last thing producers need when rebuilding—especially after watching the land they’ve stewarded for a lifetime burn in front of their very eyes—is to hold their breath and hope the government pulls through.
Our neighbors and friends experienced that firsthand earlier this year. The Morrill, Cottonwood, Ashby, and Minor fires together burned more than 800,000 acres. The Morrill Fire alone scorched over 640,000 acres, making it the largest wildfire in Nebraska history.
What followed, though, wouldn’t surprise anyone who has lived for long here in Nebraska. Our community showed up without being asked. They shared equipment, hauled feed, and offered both a helping hand and an encouraging word when they were needed most.
But a catastrophe of that size and scale demanded more than any one town or village could provide alone.
And Senator Deb Fischer stepped up to that challenge without hesitation.
Before the ash had fully settled, Sen. Fischer was on the ground with us. She flew over the damage alongside leaders from the Trump Administration, met with first responders, and listened directly to producers about what we needed to rebuild.
Most importantly, she took what she learned here in Nebraska back to the Capitol and turned it into real action.
The best example is the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) Improvement Act, which she had introduced to address long-standing problems for producers devastated by natural disasters.
Historically, the ECP provided funds on a reimbursement basis, forcing farmers and ranchers to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for things like fence reconstruction and land cleanup before seeing a single dime of federal relief.
In the wake of a disaster of this size and scale, waiting months for reimbursement would have caused recovery to stretch on for years.
Sen. Fischer’s law changed that by cutting bureaucratic red tape and allowing producers to receive cost-sharing payments in advance—empowering producers across Nebraska to get back up and running quicker than any of us had imagined at the start of this crisis.
Combined with federal disaster designations that unlocked emergency loans and support for public infrastructure, this legislation is already delivering practical help to real people trying to rebuild.
It will not erase the losses, but it will shorten the journey back to operational, productive farms and ranches.
Despite terrifying losses and serious threats to our rural economy, Sen. Fischer—alongside her partners in the Nebraska delegation, federal agencies, and our state government—delivered for Nebraska.
So, on behalf of all those hurt by the wildfires and helped by Sen. Fischer’s leadership: Thank you.
Nebraska needs public servants who fight for the good of the communities they serve and advocate for good, old-fashioned commonsense.
And Senator Deb Fischer has done exactly that when it’s mattered most.
— Barb Cooksley is a past president of the Nebraska Cattlemen.