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Sen. King Wants Government To Use Only US-Grown Flowers

FILE - In this April 15, 2020, file photo, a farmworker wears a mask as he works at a flower farm in Santa Paula, Calif. Volunteers in California are working to ensure that the thousands of farmworkers who toil in the fields every day are receiving coronavirus vaccinations. Farmworkers are particularly vulnerable because they live in crowded housing and travel to farms in packed vehicles.
Marcio Jose Sanchez
/
AP
FILE - In this April 15, 2020, file photo, a farmworker wears a mask as he works at a flower farm in Santa Paula, Calif. Volunteers in California are working to ensure that the thousands of farmworkers who toil in the fields every day are receiving coronavirus vaccinations. Farmworkers are particularly vulnerable because they live in crowded housing and travel to farms in packed vehicles.

BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) — Maine's independent senator is joining a push to call on the federal government to only procure flowers grown in the United States.

Sen. Angus King said the ``"American Grown Act" would require the office of the president as well as the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of State to only procure cut flowers and cut greens grown in America.

King said the "vast majority" of flowers currently purchased by the government are foreign grown. King said the bill would be helpful in part because the U.S. flower industry was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.