Rep. Austin Scott warns of 'global food shortage' as railroads limit U.S. fertilizer shipments
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., says he's concerned about a "global food shortage" and starvation in developing nations due to not only the crisis in Ukraine but also the fact that U.S. railroad companies are distributing about 20% less fertilizer than normal.
Scott also accused Democrats of trying to get illegal aliens to vote during his interview Wednesday on the “Just the News – Not Noise” TV show.
Americans will face even higher costs in the grocery store due to food shortages, Scott explained. "I'm concerned about the lower-income countries not having anything to eat,” he added.
Some railroad companies such as Union Pacific have cut fertilizer distribution by about one-fifth, Scott said.
While Union Pacific said it is working to aggressively hire new workers, CF Industries, a major fertilizer company, warned that shipments may be unable to reach farmers before spring planting, The Associated Press reported.
"If that fertilizer doesn't get there, then you're talking about lower production inside the United States, which means we will actually have less export as well," the congressman warned.
Ukraine, which exports about 50 million metric tons of corn and wheat each year, will be unable to maintain production due to Russia's invasion. Scott said this will also contribute to food shortages.
He called for Congress to have a hearing to question railroad companies over the supply chain issues.
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) sounded the alarm earlier this month about a possible food shortage due to Russia's invasion.
Scott on Wednesday also questioned the integrity of absentee voting. He pointed to how "Barack Obama... got 85,000 absentee ballots, Hillary Clinton got about 100,000, Stacey Abrams got 135,000. And Joe Biden gets 850,000 absentee ballots.
"I think that anybody who would look at those numbers would reasonably agree that we need to know who's voting in these elections, and you don't know when it when it's by absentee in mail," he told editor-in-chief John Solomon and cohost Amanda Head.
Scott accused Democrats' immigration policy of being part of a larger agenda.
"They're taking illegal immigrants and they're shipping shipping them around the country. And they're actually registering them to vote, and they're allowing them to vote in municipal elections," he said.
He thinks Democrats and Republicans are both opposed to this.
"How can you let people that are not even United States citizens, that don't constitutionally have the right to vote, vote inside the United States of America?" he asked.
"How far left can the can the left go?" Scott said, adding, "I'm baffled."
Other GOP members of Congress are also concerned about immigration.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Tuesday sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, calling illegal immigration "an attack on our sovereignty, and nothing less than a conscious decision to rewrite the rules of civilization, dissolve our borders, undermine our nation state, and displace our people."