Black Farmer “Pigford II” Settlement Funding Passes US Senate
After several times passing the US House but never quite coming up for a vote in the US Senate, the US Senate has passed the funding for the Pigford II settlement. According to an email from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, “Two years after the provision in the 2008 Farm Bill that provided the opportunity for late petitioners in the Black farmer lawsuit to file their claims against the United States Department of Agriculture, the Senate has finally passed an appropriations bill that will fund the lawsuit. It was a vote of unanimous consent. While the Senate version of the bill still needs to pass the House of Representatives, the passage in the U.S. Senate was a momentous occasion.”
The appropriation also included funding for Cobell Native American land trust lawsuit.