[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
MANAGEMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS AT THE USDA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 14, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-137
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.oversight.house.gov
----------
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York TOM DAVIS, Virginia
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DAN BURTON, Indiana
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah
DIANE E. WATSON, California JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York DARRELL E. ISSA, California
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
Columbia VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BILL SALI, Idaho
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JIM JORDAN, Ohio
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
------ ------
Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
Lawrence Halloran, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania,
PETER WELCH, Vermont JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Michael McCarthy, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on May 14, 2008..................................... 1
Statement of:
Boyd, John, president, National Black Farmers Association;
Lupe Garcia, president, Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers of
America, Inc.; Phil Givens, president, Phil Givens Co.,
representative of Native American Farmers; Lawrence Lucas,
president, USDA Coalition of Minority Employees; and Lesa
Donnelly, advisor for Women's Issues, USDA Coalition of
Minority Employees......................................... 11
Boyd, John............................................... 11
Donnelly, Lesa........................................... 61
Garcia, Lupe............................................. 19
Givens, Phil............................................. 35
Lucas, Lawrence.......................................... 54
McKay, Margo, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S.
Department of Agriculture; Phyllis Fong, Inspector General,
U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Lisa Shames, Director,
Agriculture and Food Safety, U.S. Government Accountability
Office..................................................... 79
Fong, Phyllis............................................ 92
McKay, Margo............................................. 79
Shames, Lisa............................................. 104
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Bishop, Hon. Sanford D., Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Georgia, prepared statement of........... 7
Boyd, John, president, National Black Farmers Association,
prepared statement of...................................... 14
Butterfield, Hon. G.K., a Representative in Congress from the
State of North Carolina, prepared statement of............. 74
Donnelly, Lesa, advisor for Women's Issues, USDA Coalition of
Minority Employees, prepared statement of.................. 63
Fong, Phyllis, Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, prepared statement of......................... 94
Garcia, Lupe, president, Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers of
America, Inc., prepared statement of....................... 21
Givens, Phil, president, Phil Givens Co., representative of
Native American Farmers, prepared statement of............. 37
Lucas, Lawrence, president, USDA Coalition of Minority
Employees:
Memorandum dated November 15, 2006....................... 44
Prepared statement of.................................... 56
McKay, Margo, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, prepared statement of........... 83
Shames, Lisa, Director, Agriculture and Food Safety, U.S.
Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of.... 106
Towns, Hon. Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New York, prepared statement of................... 3
MANAGEMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS AT THE USDA
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2008
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management,
Organization, and Procurement,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:09 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edolphus Towns
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Towns and Bilbray.
Also present: Representatives Bishop and Butterfield.
Staff present: Michael McCarthy, staff director; William
Jusino, professional staff member; Velvet Johnson, counsel;
Kwane Drabo, clerk; Jim Moore, minority counsel; and Benjamin
Chance and Chris Espinoza, minority professional staff members.
Mr. Towns. Let me begin by first apologizing for the
lateness, because we had a little conflict in that the other
hearing ran a little longer than they had expected, and so it
delayed our hearing, as well.
Also, I understand that we have some votes coming up, so we
wanted to get started at least and get as far as possible
before the votes, and then return back after the votes.
We have other Members that will be joining us shortly.
Let me begin by first thanking the witnesses for coming
today.
The hearing will come to order.
We are here to consider an issue that is a cause for great
alarm: the all-too-familiar issues of discrimination within the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Discrimination in the delivery
of services to minorities and women farmers and treatment of
minority employees at USDA has been a longstanding problem,
confirmed by official investigations and class action
settlements. What was once envisioned by President Lincoln as
the people's department, many now call the last plantation, and
statistics seem to support this, and that is very troubling.
For too long we have heard from minority farmers and
workers at USDA that they have been shut out of Government
loans and job promotions for decades because of the color of
their skin. In fact, these problems have persisted for so long
that Congress took action to reorganize USDA to emphasize the
importance of Civil Rights.
The 2002 farm bill established a position of Assistant
Secretary of Civil Rights to provide overall leadership and
coordination of all Civil Rights programs across the Department
of Agriculture. Today, 5 years later, we examine whether that
reform has been effective at eliminating discrimination at
USDA. Unfortunately, the answer to that question appears to be
no.
Although Congress gave the Office of Civil Rights the
resources, the autonomy, and authority to adequately help
under-served farmers and minority employees, it remains unclear
whether there has been any improvement in management of USDA
Civil Rights programs. Serious questions have been raised in
the past year regarding how USDA tracks, processes, and
remedies complaints brought by farmers and its own employees.
Today we will hear from members of the farming community as
they tell us the difficulties that they personally experience
at USDA. We will also hear from representatives of USDA
employees. These personal stories are supported by Government
audit findings. Last year the USDA Inspector General reported
that employment complaints were not timely processed, there
were no internal controls to ensure the accuracy and
reliability of complaint data, and that complaint data in the
Department's computer files did not match up with the physical
cases. GAO also reports that lengthy backlogs persist and that
the USDA's statistics are not reliable.
Furthermore, there have been a series of incidents in the
past few months that cause me to question the Department's
commitment to safeguarding Civil Rights.
In September 2007, an e-mail circulated among employees of
the Farm Service Agency criticizing congressional action to
reopen a landmark Civil Rights case against USDA for
discrimination and providing farm loans to Black farmers. More
recently GAO ran into several roadblocks in gaining access to
documents, and at one point, were even kicked out of the
building as they tried to interview employees.
I want to send a very, very clear message that stonewalling
a congressional investigation is unacceptable and will not be
tolerated. Let me repeat: stonewalling a congressional
investigation is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Very little has changed in the last 5 years, despite a
growing bureaucracy whose top priority is to address these
issues. It is quite disturbing that we still regularly hear
about discriminatory treatment or delay in resolving
complaints. It seems to be that the missing link here seems to
be one of accountability, from the highest level of management
to the county supervisor in the field who fails to adequately
service an African American farmer's loan.
We have been talking about these issues for long, long
enough. It is time to do something about them. It is my hope
that we can work together to come up with a better strategy to
ensuring that every client and every employee at USDA is
treated fairly. This is why we have come together today, to put
an end to this ugly, unfair practice.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Edolphus Towns follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. I now stop and I recognize the ranking member of
the committee, Mr. Bilbray from the great State of California.
Mr. Bilbray.
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
for having this hearing. I want to thank the panel for coming
forward.
Mr. Chairman, I think your opening statement speaks for
both of us, and I will leave it at that. Thank you very much.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much.
We are delighted this afternoon that we have with us a
gentleman who has a District that has a tremendous amount of
agriculture in it, and, of course, we would like to ask
unanimous consent that he be allowed to sit with the committee
today and to be able to give testimony and to be able to ask
questions, Mr. Bishop from the State of Georgia.
Mr. Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First I would like to take this opportunity to salute
Chairman Towns for his leadership on the issue of Civil Rights
within USDA and to commend his continued efforts to seek equity
and justice, not just for African American farmers, but for
minority farmers everywhere.
Chairman Towns' continued diligence and leadership on this
issue dates back to 1983, when he arrived first in Washington
as a young Congressman from Brooklyn. And, it serves as a
tribute to his character and to his unfailing commitment to
life and to protect those in our society who, by no fault of
their own, continue to be subjected to the twin evils of
bigotry and racism.
This hearing comes at a crucial point on the legislative
calendar, given the recent completion and the imminent approval
of a new farm bill by the House of Representatives and the
reopening of the Pigford case and the other initiatives that
are aimed at preserving and expanding the number of small farms
owned by minorities.
Many of us in attendance here today are disappointed that,
in 2008 we again find ourselves in another congressional
oversight hearing on the shortcomings of the Department of
Agriculture. Our USDA has yet to fully execute the Federal
statutes and regulations governing the administration of our
Nation's agriculture programs in a fair, equitable, and
nondiscriminatory manner. Most disturbing appears to be the
institutionalization of discriminatory practices, which at this
point seem firmly rooted throughout the Department in both its
external and internal operations and program management.
Ironically, Abraham Lincoln, who is probably best
remembered as the President who saved the Union and freed
slaves, was also, the very same individual who had the vision,
the insight, and the wisdom to found the Department of
Agriculture. In 1862, when President Lincoln founded the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, he referred to his new creation as
the People's Department. In Lincoln's day, 90 percent of
Americans were farmers, and all needed good seed and good
information to grow their crops. These farmers included the
newly freed slaves.
African American farmers reached their peak in terms of
land ownership in 1910 when 218,000 African American farmers
owned around 15 million of the 873 million acres that were
being farmed nationwide. Since 1910, while the total number of
individual farms nationwide has decreased, the number of acres
being farmed in the United States actually has grown slightly
by about 6 percent. Despite this growth in farmed acreage
nationwide, African American owned or controlled landholdings
have decreased significantly over time. By 1978, African
American owned or controlled landholdings fell to 2.4 million
acres, and in 1999 2.3 million acres of land. Today that number
stands at less than 2 million acres of the almost 931 million
acres currently being farmed in the United States.
A 1982 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
charged that systematic racism carried out by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture was one of the major causes of land
loss among African American farmers. The Commission found that
USDA employees routinely denied African American farmers credit
and information about USDA programs that were readily
accessible to White farmers. The Commission found the situation
so dire they projected that if nothing were done, African
American owned farms would cease to exist by the year 2000.
In 1990 a report issued by the Congress' House Committee on
Government Operations, Mr. Chairman, this very committee in a
previous life, concluded that little had changed for the
African American farmer since the 1982 report had been
published. By systematically denying or delaying loans
essential to financing their crops and withholding other
Federal farm support on a widespread basis, USDA employees
forced African American farmers to lose their land, their
livelihoods, and their communities.
Central to this issue is the manner in which the Farm
Service Agency executes and administers its programmatic
responsibilities in conjunction with the local county advisory
committees. This is where the rubber meets the road, and all
too often it serves as the link to many of the front line
issues that are facing African American farmers today.
Even as we sit here today, my staff is working with
constituents facing potential discriminatory actions within a
couple of FSA offices in my District. Critically important to
resolving this issue means expanding and strengthening the
administrative and management tools in place at the Department
to provide the broadest and most effective level of management
accountability possible.
So, here we are again today raising the same concerns, all
in the name of asking, if not admonishing, the Department of
Agriculture to do what is fair and what is right.
Mr. Chairman, I commend you and your subcommittee for again
taking up this important issue today. It is my fervent hope
that we may 1 day see a Department of Agriculture, which
operates and administers its programs and activities as its
founder, President Lincoln, would have hoped and expected as
the People's Department, not just for some of the people, but
for all of the people in these United States.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to participate. I
look forward to the testimony of the witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr.,
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much.
Let me say to the witnesses we swear in all of our
witnesses here. It is a longstanding policy. So if you would,
stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Towns. Let the record reflect that all of them answered
in the affirmative.
Let me introduce the panel.
Mr. John Boyd is president of the National Black Farmers
Association. Mr. Boyd is a staunch advocate for African
American farmers throughout the country and has worked
tirelessly to help eradicate discrimination within the USDA
system.
Welcome.
Mr. Garcia is a third generation farmer and the lead
plaintiff in a class action brought on behalf of Hispanic
farmers and ranchers against USDA. He is also president of the
Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers of America.
Welcome, Mr. Lupe Garcia.
Also I would like to introduce Mr. Phil Givens. Mr. Givens
is a Native American and African American farmer from Oklahoma.
Mr. Givens has farmed for over 26 years and represents farmers
from 8 different Indian tribes located throughout the midwest.
Welcome, Mr. Givens.
Mr. Lucas, Lawrence Lucas, is president of the USDA
Coalition of Minority Employees, with over 35 chapters
throughout the country. The Coalition works to remedy
representation in the USDA work force by advocating equal
employment and promotion opportunities for all employees.
Welcome, Mr. Lucas.
Also we have Lesa Donnelly, who is the advisor for Women's
Issues for the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees. She
represents employees in administrative proceedings with the
Department.
Welcome, Ms. Donnelly.
Let me begin with you, Mr. Boyd, and we will come right
down the line.
Let me just say this: we have a light, which means that you
are allowed 5 minutes to make a statement. Then, the yellow
light will come on and that will be like caution you to let you
know that you should sum up, and then immediately after the
yellow light means a red light that means you should shut up.
[Laughter.]
Let's move right down the line.
STATEMENTS OF JOHN BOYD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BLACK FARMERS
ASSOCIATION; LUPE GARCIA, PRESIDENT, HISPANIC FARMERS AND
RANCHERS OF AMERICA, INC.; PHIL GIVENS, PRESIDENT, PHIL GIVENS
CO., REPRESENTATIVE OF NATIVE AMERICAN FARMERS; LAWRENCE LUCAS,
PRESIDENT, USDA COALITION OF MINORITY EMPLOYEES; AND LESA
DONNELLY, ADVISOR FOR WOMEN'S ISSUES, USDA COALITION OF
MINORITY EMPLOYEES
STATEMENT OF JOHN BOYD
Mr. Boyd. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate
the opportunity today to testify before this distinguished
committee. To the ranking member and Congressman Bishop, we are
old friends here.
This has been such a long, long plight, and we also would
like to recognize some of the other congressional Members that
have been supporting the Black farmers and minority farmers
around the country: Congressman Scott; Senator Obama, who
sponsored legislation in the Senate for us, and other
distinguished Members that have been working on this issue for
such a long, long time.
Mr. Chairman, you stole my testimony. So many of the things
that I wanted to say, I won't read from my testimony. I would
like to speak from the heart for just a few minutes about the
plight of the Black farmers.
We have been losing land at an enormous rate, three times
greater rate than any other race of people in this country. In
my own personal opinion, I feel that Black farmers have been
shut out of our USDA lending programs, i.e., the U.S. farm
subsidy program, where the top 10 percent of recipients in the
U.S. farm subsidy program receive over $1 million, and Black
farmers on average in this country receive less than $200. This
is something that we fought diligently to correct in the past
three farm bills.
You asked a question earlier during your testimony: is the
Office of Civil Rights working? Well, I came today to testify,
to tell you, that it is absolutely not working. The Office of
Civil Rights is, in my own opinion, in total disarray and
totally dysfunctional to serve not just Black farmers, but
small farmers around the country.
We hear that there are complaint inquiries that may be
shredded or may not be processed, so on and so forth. Mr.
Chairman, these are farmers' lives. I think that is where we
lose the connection with the U.S. Department of Agriculture
when we make inquiries about these complaints. These are just
not complaints; these are individuals' lives that they are
refusing to process, that have been sitting there with dust on
them. There have been complaints after complaints, report after
report, the Blue Ribbon Task Force Report, the Civil Rights
Action Team Report under Secretary Glickman, the Office of
Civil Rights, where myself and Lucas and some of these other
advocates lobbied for to get the Assistant Secretary of
Administration.
We were so excited about that, and we thought we were
heading in the right direction, but it appears, Mr. Chairman,
that we do not have the right person with the right amount of
gumption to take on the old system there at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. What I mean by that is, after they get called
in to meetings, they may come to the Department with the right
intentions, but they leave there with a zero, because nothing
seems to happen with the complaints and the settlement.
You spoke earlier about the incident with the 30-year FSA
employee. How can you have a 30-year veteran? Mr. Chairman, I
spent 8 years, 8 long years, lobbying to get that one piece of
legislation into the farm bill. When I heard about this
particular e-mail that was sent to me by an anonymous person
within Farm Service Agency saying that there were others out
there, not political appointees, but career bureaucrats
spending the taxpayers' money to lobby against bringing relief
to Black farmers around the country, many who can't read and
write and express themselves the way I am able to express
myself to this committee--how dare those kinds of employees,
Mr. Chairman, that are supposed to be giving a hand up to Black
farmers, that are the very employees working to make sure that
we become extinct. That is a disgrace to this Congress; it is a
disgrace to this country.
We appreciate your letter of inquiry to the Secretary
questioning that issue.
Then we had the GAO, who was not even allowed to question
those who found fault in the system. Here, again, we have the
USDA, with such arrogance, with the guidance of Office of
General Counsel. Myself and Lucas and Ms. Gray and others have
fought for such a long time to get the Office of General
Counsel to stop dictating policy to the Secretary. The
Secretary should be held accountable for these instances at the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As I close in my testimony, Black farmers need justice. We
are getting these calls every day. We appreciate you, Mr.
Chairman, and Congressman Bishop for helping make sure that the
Black farmers will stay a part of the farm bill, but we need
you to go one step further and hold those individuals
accountable so that Black farmers will be able to walk into a
USDA office in their local counties and be treated with dignity
and respect and be treated like a man. Because, I am going to
tell you first-hand, the Department of Agriculture almost made
me less than a man.
My great-great grandfather was a slave breeder. My
grandfather was a farmer. My daddy was a farmer. They were able
to hold on to the same farm that they passed on to me four
generations later, and the Government was ready to foreclose on
me. I felt less than a man that the person from the brink of
slavery was able to farm and feed 12 children, and I only had 1
child, and the Government was ready to foreclose on me.
Thank God that we had good Members like yourself and
Congressman Bishop and Secretary Glickman who put a moratorium
on farm foreclosures, and that moratorium came 2 days before
the sale date of my farm. I was able to hold on.
I was one that beat the statistics, but what happened to
all of the other Black farmers out in Alabama and Mississippi
and Georgia? They face retaliation today, because the same
person that discriminated against them in the first place is
the same person that we have to go back to to ask to
participate in the U.S. farm subsidy program, to participate in
the farm lending programs.
So, we are here today to ask this committee to take this
testimony that you are going to hear from myself and other
advocates today and go one step further. Hold those accountable
who think they are not--or they think they are above this
committee and above law.
Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity and I
look forward to your questions, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Boyd follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Boyd, for your
testimony.
Mr. Garcia.
STATEMENT OF LUPE GARCIA
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Chairman Towns and Ranking Member
Bilbray and members of the distinguished subcommittee. I am
Lupe Garcia, and everybody knows me by Lupe. I come from Dona
Ana County. I am a third generation farmer. I represent the
Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers of America. I am the lead
plaintiff in a class action brought about for the Hispanic
Farmers and Ranchers against the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
My family and myself own two farms, total of 626 acres. I
served the United States as a visiting professor with Oregon
State University and with U.S. Mission in Central and South
America. I came back to farm with my brother and father, and
this is where the discrimination occurred to my family in the
1980's. Our case seeks remedy of massive and admitted
discrimination against Hispanic farmers who are denied equal
access to USDA farm credit and non-credit farm benefit
programs. When they complain to USDA about such denials; USDA
refuses to process and investigate their complaints in
violation of the ECOA and Administrative Procedure Act.
Since 1983, USDA denied every loan application we
submitted. We encountered difficulties that normally affect
farming. USDA denied us further credit, denied us disaster
relief, denied us debt servicing. As a result, we slowly and
systemically drained our operating capital. We were operating
out of, as you say, out of cuff.
In 1984 a flood destroyed 60 acres of our chiles and our
entire cotton crop. The USDA denied our application for
disaster relief, because we were bad farmers, according to some
of the committee men.
In 1986, USDA loan specialists recommended to both USDA
county loan officer and USDA Chief of Agriculture Loans of the
State of New Mexico that our land be divided among me and my
father and brother to increase the amount that we would be able
to borrow. Not only did USDA reject our loan application, but
it never informed us of this option to divide our farm land.
In 1988 USDA denied our application for disaster relief
after another flood destroyed 550 acres of crops. When we
appealed to the county office, USDA literally laughed in our
faces, denied our appeal for relief.
In 1988 we applied for primary loan servicing. USDA sat on
the application for 2 years before denying it.
And, in the 1990's our farming operation continued to be
slowly starved of the operating capital. In 1994, USDA, again,
refused to work with us on loan restructuring. Later that year,
we appealed to the USDA's Adverse Decision NAD, and on an
appeal the hearing officer ruled in our favor.
In spite of our victory, USDA refused to follow the NAD
decision. We never received any loan servicing. Later, we
attended a mediation session where the senior USDA official
concluded that he would not approve anything that involved the
Garcias.
In 1998, we sought after farm buyers who were willing to
purchase some of our land, which would enable us to service
some of the delinquent debts and refinance the remaining debt.
Again, USDA denied this opportunity.
In the end we lost our farms. I will sum it up, cut it
short. I will talk from the heart.
This kind of thing is still going on. I do outreach for
USDA through the Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers. We need
servicing for Hispanic farmers, minority farmers in New Mexico
and El Paso County, TX. We are not getting it. We have been
promised low-doc loans and all types of loans, and the
percentage of Hispanic farmers that get the loans are less than
2 percent, even though we are helping the people with
documentation of the loan applications. So there is a definite
discrimination.
We have heard of documents being destroyed in our Las
Cruces office. This occurred this past year and just finished
about 2 months ago. This was going on. They were destroying
documents in that office. This needs to be investigated by the
GAO.
Mr. Towns. Right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Garcia. We need help, and I hope that Congress hears
our plight and does something about it.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garcia follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. Thank you, Mr. Garcia.
Mr. Givens.
STATEMENT OF PHIL GIVENS
Mr. Givens. First of all I feel honored being here. I am
from Oklahoma. I am a bilingual Native American/African
American farmer. I have had the misfortune in my lifetime
having to deal with two Federal agencies based on where I live
and my race and ethnicity. From 1899 to 1906, the Department of
Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs told my grandfather and
grandmother they could have this land in Oklahoma. To this day
yet, FSA officials do not know how to perfect liens on
restricted tribal trusts, simple fee allotted lands.
In 1988 USDA and the Department of Interior entered an
interagency agreement. For 10 years, I have showed OGC
attorneys--some of them are here today present in this room--
and I asked them to tell me what the five types of Indian land
we had in Oklahoma, and in that initial meeting they couldn't.
Since then, they have learned the five types, but what has
killed us in Oklahoma among Native American farmers is that we
have USDA employees that can't read. Why, I don't know. I told
an employee that and he said I was a racist, hostile farmer. I
said, what part of 7 CFR 1901.651 do you not understand? It
says Indian outreach. It didn't say Black, Hispanic, it says
Indian outreach.
I seem shocked. In 1996, I was right here in front of you
all telling you all the same thing, and here we are today. I
can't go down and mortgage my land to the bank, because I have
to get approval from the BIA. In 2000, USDA--Senator Glickman,
Oklahoma is on an action plan right now. We can't even vote in
the county committee elections, because our land hasn't been
reconstituted, tracked, and put in the system, so we can get a
ballot to vote. Hell, if I could vote I would have a pow-wow, a
hog-calling contest. I would be sitting on the county
committee.
We have no Native American representation on the county
committee. The one that we had on the county committee this
Federal Government sent to Baghdad, and because he missed two
county committee meetings over in Baghdad and got shot--they
threw him off the county committee because he missed two
meetings.
I mean, I am not getting emotional, but I am upset.
Retaliation and reprisal--I had a State director bar me from
USDA offices. OGC attorneys went to Oklahoma. One of them is
sitting here behind me right now, Marlin Barts, the regional
conservationist. The only reason why they said they barred me
from the office is that I had access to all the top USDA
employees in Washington, DC, and I knew more than they did. I
am probably the only farmer that USDA has sent to school to do
ethics training, Civil Rights training, 1951(s) training.
Primary loan servicing that Mr. Garcia didn't get, they taught
me how to do it. Yet, we still can't get a substantial number
of Native Americans loans.
One of the things that really upsets me, we have killed our
kids. We have had to fly up here and ask about scholarships,
internships. How do we meet the White House diversity? Make
USDA look like this country. We have all the tribes in
Oklahoma. Forty-seven Indian tribes are located in Oklahoma,
yet we don't have a 1994 Indian college, so we are missing some
of those congressional dollars.
There was retaliation and reprisal that came close to me. I
mean, it is rampant. If you go in the office and ask questions,
you are labeled a troublemaker.
One of the things I would like to see is OGC attorneys
removed from any part of the Civil Rights. Our past Civil
Rights Directors had to butt heads with them. Vernon Parker was
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. We have had OGC lawyers
tell them what to do, and there needs to be a process, a
mechanism, that would streamline these complaint processes.
Complaints are trashed and thrown away. We have had GAO
people ask me how you came up with all these complaints. We
were smart enough to keep copies of them. When we file a
complaint, we fly up here and go to the Reporters Building. I
get a letter the next week saying they have thrown out the
complaint, because they never received it, yet they signed for
it. There were 176 Civil Rights complaints that were thrown out
this year that I personally flew up here and hand-carried,
based on the 2000 compliance review, the 1996 compliance
review, and the 2003 action plan Oklahoma was put on.
I just don't see how it can end unless Congress jumps in
here, interviews farmers, brings the good USDA employees to the
table, and keeps their bosses from firing them when they step
up to the plate to try to help minority farmers like me.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Givens follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much.
Let me just say to the Members that we have three votes,
and I would like to adjourn until 4:15. I hate to do this, but
we have to vote around here. If we don't, they make a big issue
out of it back in your District. So I want to pause until 4:15.
So, we will adjourn until 4:15 and come back and start. We will
start with you, Mr. Lucas.
The committee stands adjourned until 4:15.
[Recess.]
Mr. Towns. The committee will come to order.
Mr. Lucas. Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter a small
package into the record.
Mr. Towns. Without objection.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you very much.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE LUCAS
Mr. Lucas. First I would like to thank you and the
committee for taking on this very daunting task of getting to
the truth about really what goes on at USDA.
I would like to thank you for allowing me, president of the
USDA Coalition of Minority Employees, to come and speak about
the abuses, the intimidation, the racism and sexism that has
been going on at USDA much longer than we expected.
I wasn't invited to the fairness hearing, and I said before
Judge Freeman, this Pigford settlement is absent of
accountability. There is nothing in this settlement that will
promise farmers that they will not be discriminated in the
future. I was right then, and I am right now.
Other Senators have taken on this task, such as Senator
Grassley, Senator Luger, and Senator Harkin.
This long struggle with USDA is a culture of racism,
sexism, intimidation, and other abuses of an out-of-control
agency in which their Civil Rights office is dysfunctional in
processing and administration of individual complaints of
employees as well as farmers.
I come to you today after experiencing and being part of a
tribunal with Congresswoman Jackson Lee. During the 2-days, we
heard riveting testimony from farmers, from employees about the
abuse that they have suffered at the hands of USDA.
I am sorry to say that John Boyd and many of us sitting at
this table were elated that we found out that we finally got an
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. I must say today to you
that Civil Rights at USDA is worse now than it was when we
first thought in 2003 that we had an Assistant Secretary that
was going to do something about this problem.
The CRAT and CRIT reports, one of the most scathing reports
about an agency--and, by the way, they investigated themselves
under the Glickman administration. The Democrats did a fair job
of getting to that, but if you take a look around, the first
thing that this administration did with the new Assistant
Secretary, their leadership--and I am talking about leadership
that is still there in the Department of Agriculture to this
day--they made sure that the CRAT and CRIT reports were taken
down from their Web site. You cannot find one CRAT or CRIT
report in the office, because we tried to get it and we tried
to also get them to adhere to the recommendations of that
report.
I am sorry to say, Mr. Chairman, this Department is out of
control. They express their zeal and their gall and their
arrogance when they decided to boot out the Office of General
Counsel, who came to investigate and audit some of the problems
that we have been saying, John Boyd and many of us at this
table and other advocates and lawyers for farmers and employees
for so many years how dysfunctional that office is.
I think what happened was, they found out through their own
channel--the way I find out information--that they realize that
the employees were equally as fed up as the advocates. We, as
well, have been telling the Congress and many others. So, they
decided that they were going to shut down, and the Office of
General Counsel at USDA, who will tell you years ago under J.
Michael Kelly--who is still there today--he will tell you for
years after we settled the Pigford case, there has been no
discrimination against the Black farmers. And, we have settled
these cases at a tune of almost $1 billion, but this is the
kind of leadership and interference by the Office of General
Counsel that has an iron hold when it comes to processing.
I have been sitting trying to resolve an individual
complaint in the ADR stage. They take their OGC attorneys to
fight little people, so I know what they are doing when they
are trying to fight farmers.
The Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights today and
yesterday have done a poor job and has been very disappointing.
I think there are some things that you need to know.
The Office of Civil Rights said that they were tracking the
complaint systems, the complaints of employees and farmers. I
have been telling USDA and the Office of Civil Rights, but they
stopped talking to us, because we weren't telling them what
they wanted to know. But, we have been telling the Office of
the Secretary that in the complaint system that they tell you
is working all right, the numbers don't jive.
Mr. Towns. Mr. Lucas, could you sum up?
Mr. Lucas. OK. In summary, what I would like to see from
this committee is to hopefully put together an advisory
committee and put the USDA Office of Civil Rights in
receivership and appointment a board of five people, one from
the Agriculture Committee, one from the House Agriculture
Committee, one from the Agriculture, one representing farmers,
and one representing employees, because USDA cannot police
itself.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.
Lesa Donnelly.
STATEMENT OF LESA DONNELLY
Ms. Donnelly. Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to
speak here today.
I would like to place on the record six declarations from
Forest Service employees from across the Nation.
Mr. Towns. Without objection.
Ms. Donnelly. Thank you.
I worked for the USDA Forest Service for almost 25 years,
from 1978 to 2002. In 1995, I filed a class action lawsuit on
behalf of 6,000 Forest Service women in California, known as
the Donnelly v. Glickman. It resulted in a Consent Decree to
deal with issues of sexual harassment, hostile work
environment, and reprisal. Prior to that lawsuit, there was a
lawsuit called Bernardi that went from approximately 1971
through 1994. Region Five California had been, through 2006, in
Federal court monitored oversight on gender discrimination
issues for 30 years through 2006. Still, women are sexually
assaulted, threatened, and harassed to this day.
As a lay advocate, I currently represent employees of
California across the Nation. They are victims of sexual
assault, physical assault, sexual harassment, gender, racial,
and disability discrimination, and a lot of reprisal.
For years and years, I have tried to work cooperatively
with the Forest Service and USDA leadership, from the
Secretary's office to the Chief's office to the regional
offices, and it has been to no avail. They refuse to work with
us. We could be a long way ahead in preventing and eliminating
these abuses of employees if they would just come to the table
and try to work with us, but they won't.
They not only refuse to communicate; they ignore acts
against employees that are so egregious that you would think
they would have no conscience at all or humanity.
As an example, I would like to bring forward the situation
in 2005 in which I had a meeting with Under Secretary Mark Ray
and tried to discuss the rape of a young female fire fighter in
southern California, and Mr. Ray advised me that he and the
USDA were not concerned about the incident, that it was merely
a police matter. The woman had been complaining of sexual
harassment for months prior to that and it ended in a rape.
In 2005 another female fire fighter was sexually assaulted
in Sacramento. When we spoke to Assistant Secretary for Civil
Rights, Vernon Parker, he callously replied that it was not
rape, because there was no penis penetration. The woman had
been penetrated by the man's hand. He said it in a very callous
manner. When the Monitor tried to speak with him more about it,
he just dismissed it. He would not discuss it at all.
The callous and insensitive ways that USDA and Forest
Service management have dealt with these issues show a lack of
concern, a total inhumanity toward these victimized employees.
They highlight the agency's failure to address violations of
law, policy, and procedure.
Today, we have here with us Christine Levitop, who flew out
from California. She was sexually assaulted in 2004 and, as of
this day in 2008, she is still being retaliated against for
reporting that. The regional offices and Washington offices
will not take any action to stop this ongoing harassment and
reprisal. There are numerous cases that I could speak about,
but we don't have time for that here, numerous cases.
Workplace violence is a very serious issue in USDA Forest
Service and very problematic in Region Five California. They
don't follow regulations and policies.
I would like to bring to your attention a recent situation
where a White male supervisor threatened an African American
female subordinate with a gun. Management did not follow
procedures properly. The two women still fear for their lives,
and there still could be dire consequences from the agency not
dealing with it.
I would like to state that something has to be done. I
think we need congressional oversight. I would like to
emphasize that we need a panel, an independent advisory panel
to deal with this, to deal with the reprisal which is rampant.
And, I agree with Mr. Lucas, I would like to emphasize that
USDA needs to be placed into receivership until something can
be done for them to start dealing with issues of harassment,
discrimination, workplace violence, and sexual assault have no
place in the Government. Someone is going to be killed, sir,
unless something is done about this.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Donnelly follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. Let me thank all of you for your testimony, of
course.
At this time, I would just like to raise a few questions.
You mentioned this retaliation. I am concerned about that,
because it means that workers can't come forward to share,
because they are afraid that they might be retaliated against.
That, to me, is very, very disturbing. I think that it doesn't
strengthen the agency when you behave and operate in that
fashion. If a person comes forward with information, or even a
strong suggestion, it appears that something negative might
happen to them.
Is this a recent thing, or has this been going on all
along, Mr. Lucas?
Mr. Lucas. What I have to offer is that the USDA Office of
Civil Rights is not a leader in this regard. It has been going
on throughout the Department for a long time. They have gotten
to a point where if an employee speaks up and wants to improve
the system or tell about the problems of the system, they are
the people who are fired; they are the people who are put on
discharge. We have had almost the loss of the life of an
employee because of the oppression, and the Office of Civil
Rights, itself, has over 30 or 40 complaints filed against its
former Director of Civil Rights. So, this is a problem that is
endemic, this reprisal and intimidation to control the kind of
information that can come to this committee and to the American
public. They are just as much a part of the problem, and they
are not part of the solution in this regard.
Mr. Towns. Thank you, Mr. Lucas.
Let me ask you, Mr. Boyd, has the Department made any
efforts to increase minority membership in county office
committees? Have they made any attempt? It seems to me you need
to have diversity there, as well.
Mr. Boyd. I would say no. I think Mr. Givens touched on it
earlier in his testimony about the lack of minorities that
participate on the county committee. That is such an important
factor with farm ownership loans, farm operating loans, farm
equipment loans, because if you don't have representation in
your area, the good old boys continue to receive these farm
ownership loans and operating loans every year. What happens
is, the county supervisor or county director there in those
particular counties say, ``Mr. Boyd, we have already used our
allotted moneys for this year, so you guys are welcome to come
back next year.'' If you don't have a person on that county
committee fighting for minority farmers in that area, you are
not going to see an increase in farm loans throughout the Farm
Service Agency.
Mr. Towns. Right.
Now, Mr. Givens, you mentioned the Bureau of Indian
Affairs. I wasn't clear of the role the Bureau of Indian
Affairs played in this.
Mr. Givens. Mr. Chairman, there is a uniqueness. We are the
only race of people that your blood quantum dictates services.
The blood quantum dictates services. Because I am more than
one-quarter blood Cherokee Choctaw Indian, I still have to get
permission from the BIA to do business with USDA. We still have
USDA employees who don't understand CFRs as it relates to
Native Americans.
A good example, I have children and relatives that would
like to participate in the county committee election process,
but until USDA employees do what we call reconstitution, put
these tracts of Indian land in the FSA computer, we don't get
to vote in all-White county committee elections. We filed
complaints since 1994 to the present, yet the Office of Civil
Rights has thrown out these complaints, even after compliance
reviews were done. That is a serious problem.
I would love for some of our tribal members to sit on the
county committee, but that is an issue that FSA doesn't want to
address. They say, ``Well, we can't identify Indian land.''
Well, sir, I brought a document here that says my grandfather
was a full-blood Choctaw Indian in Oklahoma in 1904. Until this
day, I still can't get all this Indian land in the FSA
computer.
I have met with the Secretary, I have met with the Under
Secretary Floyd Gaber February 7th, but yet, the Office of
Civil Rights has dismissed all our complaints over county
committee election processes.
Ms. Gray, who was the Civil Rights Director, traveled to
Joplin, Missouri, Oklahoma. We have Cheree Henry who at the
time was the Outreach Director. She tried to address these
county committee issues. She was treated rudely,
disrespectfully, and had some racial problems with the same
office that I have to deal with every day.
So, for you all to hear that Native Americans don't have
full participation in USDA, we have the documentation to show
that. None of my kids have ever been able to participate in the
county committee election. Everybody in the county office is
hired by the all-White county committee--uncles, nieces, and
nephews. The credit manager's brother is chairman of the county
committee. That is not only unethical, that is criminal when
they both sign off on each other's signature. We filed a
complaint, but the Office of Civil Rights hasn't done anything.
We had a school superintendent that had to come up here
last year and meet with Thomas Hoffler, file the program
complaint, the Civil Rights complaint over county committee
elections, and this is the first time we have ever had county
committee polling places in Indian country. That is when gas
was $2. Now it is $4. So we don't have access to the county
committee election process. That is the local vocal point of
input that we should have.
Mr. Towns. Right.
Mr. Givens. I wish you all would do something about that.
Mr. Boyd. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to add, as well,
that the minority advisors really don't have any voting rights
to these committees. In some areas of the country, they have
what is called minority advisor to their committee, but they
really don't have any voting rights. What they usually do is
offer a loan to that person, and that person usually does not
go back out into the community to try to help other Black
farmers and other minority farmers. So, we need to look at some
of the policies so that we can get more representation for
those voting members and get more participation from Blacks and
Hispanics.
The minority advisor is usually appointed, so it is not
going to be a person like John Boyd or Phil Givens or someone
very vocal in the community that is going to bring back and
spread the word to other minority farmers in the community. So,
we need to look at our policy and make some recommendations on
how we can get more minorities involved in the county
committee.
Mr. Towns. Let me yield to a person that probably has more
farm land in his District than anybody else in the U.S.
Congress, from the State of North Carolina, Congressman
Butterfield, 5 minutes.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you for allowing me to participate in this proceeding
today. I am not on this subcommittee. That is my misfortune,
but I do not serve on this committee. I am on the Energy and
Commerce Committee, and therefore we do not have direct
jurisdiction over these matters. But when the chairman told me
that we would be delving into this subject today, I wanted to
be a part of it, and he graciously allowed me this opportunity.
So, thank you very much, Mr. Towns.
It is true that I represent the First Congressional
District of North Carolina. My District is in the northeastern
part of the State of North Carolina. It used to be called years
ago the Black Belt, and so, as you can imagine, we had many,
many farms in my District that were owned by African American
citizens many years ago. But, over the years we have suffered a
tremendous loss in Black farmland in my Congressional District.
My District has been particularly hard-hit in terms of the loss
of Black farmland and Black farmers, and so I have an interest
in this subject.
Twenty-five years ago, when I was president of the Black
Lawyers Association in my State, we started the land loss
prevention project. Rosslyn Gray and others will remember when
we started that program. That program has been very
instrumental in trying to address this issue.
But, the Black farmers represent an important community,
That is the message that we have to convey every chance we get,
Mr. Chairman. It is an important community. It is part of the
economy.
At the turn of the 20th century there were nearly 1 million
Black-owned farms in the United States. Today, that number is
down to about 18,000. That is a tragedy. That is an indictment,
and not only on the Congress but on our country as a whole, and
we must do better. Black-owned farms once represented 14
percent of all farms. They now make up just 1 percent of all
farms.
As the backbone of rural America, farmers play a critical
role as champions of micro-enterprise, land ownership, family
values, and rural culture. The plight of the small farmer,
particularly the Black farmer, has gone largely unaddressed.
The Congress shares in that responsibility. The USDA certainly
shares in that responsibility. We are going to hear from them
in just a few minutes.
Years of discrimination against Black farmers, as well as
other socially disadvantaged farmers, by the USDA are directly
responsible for the loss of land and the loss of a way of life
for many Black farmers in America. Recognition of deficiencies
in the equitable treatment of farmers have been slow coming, to
say the least, at the USDA. The creation of the Office of Civil
Rights in 1971 has done little to improve or correct the deeply
rooted elements of discrimination in the Department.
Its frequent reorganizations and reincarnations have failed
to address the central issues of Black farmers and other
socially disadvantaged farmers. This much was documented in the
2003 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which found
that the changes in the Department had produced very little
progress in their Civil Rights enforcement program. The
appointment of the Civil Rights Action Team in 1996 shed some
light on the problem, but lacked the authority to make any
substantive changes. The creation of the Assistant Secretary of
Civil Rights by Congress in 2002 was the most significant step
to this date to rectify outstanding Civil Rights issues within
the Department.
I am most interested in the testimony of Secretary ,McKay
as to the latest action within the Department to deal with that
issue. But of highest concern to me this day are two recent
actions by individuals within the Department, which clearly
illustrate clearly the kind of lingering discrimination that
plagues the Department from Washington, DC, all the way down to
the local offices throughout the country.
The first was the unauthorized use of Government e-mail
last summer, among Farm Service Agency personnel to lobby
against new Pigford legislation in this year's farm bill. I
might say, Mr. Chairman, as you well know, we passed just
moments ago the farm bill. That is why I came to the floor
late--we just passed the farm bill. It has in it $100 million
for Pigford claimants.
[Applause.]
Mr. Butterfield. It has been a long time coming, and I am
not the only one who worked on that legislation, and credit
goes to many. Congressman Benny Thompson, Congressman David
Scott, Congressman Artur Davis, Congressman Bobby Scott--all of
us had a hand in trying to make this happen. But it is in the
legislation. We passed it a few moments ago. It has the
concurrence of the Senate and should be headed to the
President's desk, and hopefully he will sign it. If he does
not, I think we have the votes to override. We do now have the
votes to override that, so that is good news.
[Applause.]
Mr. Butterfield. I am personally proud of these historic
steps that we have taken in this year's farm bill to help
deserving Black farmers, many of whom live in my District,
including Mr. Pigford, who calls me often. Many of whom you
know, Pigford has led the way, he is a constituent of mine,
along with Gary Grant and other Black farmers in the District
who have suffered so much. So I am proud of the historic steps
that we have taken in this year's farm bill to give these
farmers a true opportunity for redress.
Let me get back to these e-mails, and then I will conclude,
Mr. Chairman.
These e-mails, which were circulated on federally owned
computers, illustrate a gross misunderstanding of the purpose
of the Pigford decision, which was to award damages for the
lost land and income of thousands of Black farmers whose
livelihood was ripped from them, by the USDA's discriminatory
practices. The pervasiveness of this incident draws startling
conclusions, as the depths that long-term racial discrimination
still exists within the Department, and we must recognize that
and we must do something about it.
I am further concerned by a February incident, between the
GAO auditors and the Office of Civil Rights within the
Department, as well.
So I join Senator Obama and John Conyers and Benny Thompson
and Bobby Scott in Artur Davis in a letter condemning the
incident and the denial of the GAO auditors from carrying out
their investigation of the Office of Civil Rights. The USDA did
contact my office in response to our letter, and I certainly
appreciate their prompt response; however, Mr. Chairman, I
would appreciate more than that if they allow oversight wing of
the Congress to have full access in their investigation of the
Office of Civil Rights. Denying us our right to oversee the
progress of this historically ineffective office only serves to
deepen our doubt about the USDA's ability to improve its track
record.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I think I have run out of time. I
don't see your clock. My committee room has a very prominent
clock.
Mr. Towns. It is there. It is on red.
Mr. Butterfield. I have been looking for it. I need to look
down instead of looking up. But thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman. I will include the remainder of my comments in the
record.
I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. G.K. Butterfield follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your
participation and also the work that you have done on this. You
called some names that I have been dealing with for the last
20-some years. Of course, when you mentioned Pigford and, of
course, Boyd and people like that who we have had the
opportunity to work with for many, many years on these issues,
it is sad to say that we still have problems after all these
years. Of course, I want to assure you that this committee is
going to continue to look at these matters, we are going to
continue to work on them, and I do believe that some changes
need to be made.
I notice you made some suggestions in terms of the advisory
committee. You talked about even receivership. I hear you. I
think that there is nepotism that was talked about, and some
things there. So the point is that these are areas that we are
concerned about, and we feel that in order to create a level
playing field, that some of these things just have to be
corrected.
Of course, we listen to you, Mr. Givens, in reference to
not only the fact that USDA, but also the Bureau of Indian
Affairs--you have a double whammy there, so we hear you and, of
course, we will continue to look at these matters and to see
what we might be able to do to give you some assistance.
We are not going to go away. We are going to continue,
because we have heard the statistics in terms of land loss. I
mean, at the rate we are going, within the next 15 to 20 years
nobody Black will own anything, at the rate you are going. So I
think that is wrong.
I listened to you, Ms. Donnelly, in terms of the treatment
in terms of women. That to me is very, very disturbing. I think
in this day and age for anybody to react to something in that
negative kind of fashion, to me just does not make sense. I
want you to know I appreciate your comments. We appreciate your
sharing with us.
On this point what we would like to do is to thank you for
your testimony. We are going to discharge you and we will take
another 20-minute break, and then we are going to come back for
the second panel. But let me thank all of you for your
testimony. Thank you very much.
[Recess.]
Mr. Towns. It is a longstanding tradition that we always
swear our witnesses in, so please stand and raise your right
hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Towns. Let it be known that all of them answered in the
affirmative.
We have with us today the Honorable Margo McKay, who serves
as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Ms. McKay sets policy and ensures
compliance with all Civil Rights laws by USDA's agencies. She
is also responsible for diversity, outreach, and alternative
dispute resolution programs of USDA.
Phyllis Fong has served as the Inspector General for the
Department of Agriculture since December 2002. Under her
leadership, the USDA's Office of Inspector General has issued
numerous reports detailing weaknesses in Civil Rights
management at USDA.
Welcome.
We also have with us Lisa Shames, the Director of Natural
Resources and the Environment at the U.S. Government
Accountability Office, where she had conducted several audits
that have focused on USDA's Civil Rights efforts.
Let me just indicate that your entire statement will be
placed in the record. If you just could summarize within 5
minutes, I would certainly appreciate it.
Why don't we start with you, Ms. McKay. Will you proceed?
STATEMENTS OF MARGO MCKAY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR CIVIL
RIGHTS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; PHYLLIS FONG, INSPECTOR
GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; AND LISA SHAMES,
DIRECTOR, AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SAFETY, U.S. GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
STATEMENT OF MARGO MCKAY
Ms. McKay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the
opportunity to appear before this subcommittee today. I am
happy to share whatever information that I can with you,
because I believe we have a good story to tell. USDA has made
significant progress in the area of Civil Rights since the
creation of this position in the 2002 farm bill.
The mission of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for
Civil Rights is to provide leadership and guidance, to ensure
compliance with Civil Rights laws and policies, and to promote
diversity, equal opportunity, equal access, and fair treatment
for all USDA customers and employees.
It is my intent that the Office of the Assistant Secretary
for Civil Rights will be proactive, supportive, accountable,
efficient, and timely in order to help USDA become a model
employer and provide equal access and opportunity to those who
wish to participate in USDA programs and services.
I would like to point out a few of our accomplishments in
recent years.
First, diversity in USDA: in the area of diversity, I began
a concerted effort to incorporate workplace diversity and
inclusion as a core value at USDA in order to positively impact
the organizational culture. We established a new Office of
Diversity and charged them with building a world-class
diversity and inclusion program that includes initiatives such
as cultural assessments, employee perspective surveys,
mandatory diversity awareness training, a diversity and
inclusion forum that will foster dialog between USDA employees
and senior management, and work force planning.
In the area of outreach, the Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Civil Rights continues to collaborate with USDA
agencies and external organizations to expand and strengthen
the Department's outreach efforts to focus on the under-served.
Through the Office of Outreach we have initiated policies and
are implementing programs to increase the Department's capacity
to provide access and technical assistance to socially
disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.
Just as one example, we have trained and worked with
community-based organizations this past year to work with the
socially disadvantaged farmers, to help us increase their count
in the 2007 Census of Agriculture.
With regard to diversity in county committees, first I want
to point out that county committees play no role in the farm
loan credit system and have not been involved in that process
since 1999. Nonetheless, they do still have an important role
in farm programs. Since the passage of the 2002 farm bill, USDA
health as promulgated guidelines in January 2005, to ensure
that the FSA county committees include fair representation of
socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.
USDA uses agriculture census to target certain counties,
and they have come up with 400 counties so far with over 10
percent minority population for special outreach efforts. And
counties that don't have a voting socially disadvantaged
members must appoint a non-voting socially disadvantaged
member. There are about 1,500 such advisors who attend county
committee meetings to lend their voice, and they are
influential.
Candidates can self-nominate, and through effective
outreach efforts nominations of SDA--socially disadvantaged--
farmers, nominations have increased 60 percent over the last 3
years. However, our analysis shows that elections over the past
3 years have not yielded significantly more socially
disadvantaged voting members. Currently my office is working
with FSA to develop criteria for the Secretary to consider
appointing voting socially disadvantaged members to some county
committees in order to achieve fair representation.
I might add that county committee members are held to the
same Civil Rights policies and standards as Federal employees.
Even though they are not Federal employees, they are bound to
our Civil Rights policies and they can be removed for violating
these policies.
Our ultimate goal is to have an environment where
discrimination does not occur, where every decision is based on
merit, but we do need to have a process in place to handle
situations when discrimination does occur. So my role is to
make sure that we have that process in place. So with regard to
complaints, the problems of backlog case inventory and case
processing times at USDA Civil Rights have been many years in
the making. I have inherited this situation, and I want to tell
you what I am doing to address it.
The automated complaint system, a Civil Rights enterprise
system which was fully implemented in mid-2007, has enabled us
to start tackling these problems with better monitoring and
reporting capability. We are still not able to conduct an
accurate trends analysis, because the historical data that we
migrated into the system has come from unreliable sources. The
systems that we had in the past which were inaccurate.
But this system that we have now is a vast improvement,
over anything that we have ever had in the past, and going
forward with the input of current case data, we will be able to
do trends analysis.
The system is beautiful. It works beautifully if the
employees put the data in. We do have some challenges in that
area. We have a lot of hands that have to touch the system,
including at the agency level and the department level. We have
had training for everyone involved. We have monthly user
meetings so that any bugs in the system or any glitches can be
worked out. And we are continuing, of course, to work out those
bugs and to work toward further enhancements of the system. But
the system is new. We need to have an opportunity to give it a
chance to work.
In addition, we are implementing several strategies to
address internal and external factors affecting the management
of Civil Rights complaints. These strategies include special
efforts, to eliminate the backlog. I have hired contractors and
engaged in contracting services to help us eliminate the
backlog. We will be finished with the employment backlog by the
end of this fiscal year in terms of issuing final decisions,
and we have already eliminated the program backlog at the final
agency decision stage.
I also have started something new, where I require weekly
and monthly inventory and productivity reports that come to the
leadership. So we need to know how things are going and how
things are being accomplished, so that we can intervene if
things are going awry.
We have also revised performance and productivity standards
for employees. We have modified complaint processing
procedures. As I mentioned, we are utilizing contractual
services and inter-agency agreements to assist with case
processing, and we are encouraging increased use of alternative
dispute resolution in the informal and formal stages.
We are addressing timeliness and jurisdictional issues in a
more timely way, and we are providing additional training for
staff, filling critical vacancies and implementing quality of
work life and professional development strategies for the
Office of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights employees.
I want to mention, while I am talking about complaints,
that we do not condone retaliation. We have a policy against
it. Anyone who feels as though they have been retaliated has
the right to file another complaint, a new complaint, and have
that heard. And we have mandatory annual training, annual Civil
Rights training every year at USDA for all USDA employees, and
the 2007 Civil Rights training was in the area of retaliation.
I want to speak a little bit. My last point is about
accountability. Every USDA employee has a Civil Rights and
diversity performance standard against which they are evaluated
annually. Agency heads are evaluated annually based on their
Civil Rights performance. And in the past, they have been able
to get a good score by earning extra credit. So, for example,
by conducting training above and beyond the mandatory Civil
Rights training that all USDA employees must take, or putting
on a conference. However, during my tenure I have changed the
practice so that----
Mr. Towns. Could you sum up?
Ms. McKay. Yes. Going forward, certain factors will be
absolute and cannot be made up, such as completing complaint
investigations on time, so that will help us in our timeliness.
Also, USDA has a policy that requires that we refer a case
to the appropriate H.R. office, for possible disciplinary
action whenever there is a finding of discrimination. This is a
policy that went into effect in 2006.
In summary, I respectfully disagree with those who say we
are doing nothing to improve Civil Rights at USDA. Perhaps we
haven't done enough to get the word out, but we have been very
busy with all these initiatives, and I am very proud of our
record and what we are attempting to do.
Thank you very much for your time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McKay follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you.
The Honorable Phyllis Fong.
STATEMENT OF PHYLLIS FONG
Ms. Fong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting us to
testify today. I appreciate the chance to talk about the work
that our office has done in overseeing USDA's Civil Rights
program.
The issue of Civil Rights and the processing of Civil
Rights complaints has been a significant issue to us for a long
time. We have issued 11 audits, on a variety of issues in the
program over a 10-year period, and that work is summarized in
my statement.
Today, I want to focus on some of the recurring themes that
we have seen in our reports, and then discuss our most recent
report.
We looked at our reports over this last period of time and
we have found a number of themes that we believe are relevant
to you today because we believe they identify fundamental
issues in the program that need to be addressed if USDA is to
move forward. These themes include the continuous internal
reorganization within the Civil Rights Office that has
occurred. There is, turnover at both management and staff
levels that has occurred. There is, in our view, a lack of
effective leadership and accountability to correct reported
problems that have been identified. And there is a lack of
adequate management controls to track progress in achieving
results.
Many of these themes came out in our most recent report,
which we issued about a year ago, on how USDA was addressing
EEO complaints and employee accountability. We had several key
findings that I want to highlight.
First, we found that Civil Rights had made improvements in
the amount of time that it takes to process complaints, but we
found that additional efforts are needed to close complaints in
an acceptable timeframe. For comparison's sake, in 1997 it took
the Department on average 3 years to process a complaint; by
2007 this had improved significantly to just under 1\1/2\
years, but this still falls short of the EEOC's timeframe. They
would like Federal agencies to process cases within 270 days,
so USDA has a ways to go on that.
In a second area, we found that Civil Rights had made
progress in implementing CRES, the automated system that
Assistant Secretary McKay referred to. This system is a good
system, and when it is fully implemented we believe it will be
helpful to the Department in tracking complaints and providing
data for reports. We found, however, that further work is
needed to ensure the accuracy of the data that is being entered
into the system. For example, in 17 percent of the files that
we looked at, the data recorded in CRES was not supported by
the documents in the complaint files. So there needs to be a
process to validate the accuracy of the information entered
into the system.
Third, we found that, while Civil Rights had made progress
in managing its physical case files, it still needed to
establish adequate controls over its file room operations. We
asked Civil Rights to review 64 complaint files as part of our
review. Of the 64, the office could not locate readily 15 of
the files. It took more than a month to locate 13 of them. The
14th one was never found and had to be recreated. And the 15th
one was provided to us 6 months after we had requested it.
As a result of our review, we made recommendations to
address all of these issues, and the Office of Civil Rights has
agreed to implement all of them.
Where we are, in conclusion, is that we believe that the
processing of Civil Rights complaints continues to be a
significant management challenge for USDA. It is very important
to employees and participants to get timely action on their
complaints, and we appreciate the interest that you have shown
in these matters. We look forward to working with you and with
the Assistant Secretary, and we also want to express our
appreciation to the Assistant Secretary for her cooperation in
our audit.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Fong follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you so much for your testimony, Ms. Fong.
Ms. Shames.
STATEMENT OF LISA SHAMES
Ms. Shames. Chairman Towns, I am pleased to be here today
to discuss the Department of Agriculture's progress in
addressing longstanding Civil Rights issues. As you know, for
years USDA has been the focus of reviews into allegations of
discrimination against minorities and women, both in its
programs and in its work force. Many, including the Congress,
the Civil Rights Commission, the EEOC, USDA's own Inspector
General, as well as GAO have provided constructive analyses and
made recommendations to improve its Civil Rights efforts.
Unfortunately, based on GAO's work to date, we find that USDA's
management of its Civil Rights efforts continues to be
deficient.
Specifically, we found persistent problems in resolving
discrimination complaints, unreliable reports on minority
participation in USDA programs, and limited planning to ensure
USDA's services and benefits are provided fairly and equitably.
First, regarding discrimination complaints, when the Office
of the Assistant Secretary was established in 2003, one of its
top priorities was to reduce the backlog and inventory of
discrimination complaints that it had inherited. Four years
later, the office's progress report, entitled, The First One
Thousand Days, stated that the backlog had been reduced and the
inventory was manageable; however, the disparities we found in
the numbers USDA reported to the Congress and the public
undermined the credibility of any claims. We found numerous
disparities, and some of these disparities were in the
hundreds.
For example, in this progress report released in July 2007
USDA reported the number of customer complaints was stated to
be 404 in its inventory at the end of fiscal year 2005.
However, 1 month earlier, USDA reported to this subcommittee
that the number of complaints in its inventory was 1,275. USDA
qualified this number and other numbers to this subcommittee as
the best available and acknowledged that they were incomplete
and unreliable.
USDA is aware of these issues; however, fundamentally there
appears to be a lack of management attention to resolving the
backlog of complaints. For example, we would have expected
routine management reports to track these cases, but we were
told none are generated, because they are not required by law.
We are pleased to hear that Ms. McKay is now going to be
requiring the sorts of reports that are intended to bring
consistent management attention.
Second, regarding minority participation in USDA programs,
Congress required USDA to report annually on minority farmers'
participation in USDA programs by race, ethnicity, and gender.
USDA issued three reports for fiscal years 2003, 2004, and
2005; however, USDA disclosed that its demographic data in
these reports are unreliable because they are largely based on
visual observation. The drawback to visual observation is that
some demographic traits may not be readily apparent to an
observer.
Collecting demographic data directly from program
participants requires approval from the Office of Management
and Budget [OMB]. USDA started to seek OMB's approval to
collect these data in 2004, but did not follow through because
we were told of insufficient resources. According to USDA
officials, they are planning future actions to obtain the
necessary authority.
In addition, we found the Web-based supplementary data for
these reports to be of limited usefulness. They are published
in over 1,300 separate tables and 146 maps. This format does
not facilitate analysis such as comparing minority
participation by program, location, and year.
Finally, regarding planning to ensure USDA's services and
benefits are provided fairly and equitably, results oriented
strategic planning provides a road map that clearly describes
what an organization is attempting to achieve, and over time it
can communicate to the Congress and the public about what has
been accomplished. While the Office of the Assistant Secretary
has defined its mission and strategic goal, looking forward
stakeholders' interests should be more explicitly reflected in
the planning.
For example, our interviews with stakeholders informed us
that their interests include assuring the diversity of the
USDA's county committee system and better addressing language
differences, among other things.
Data collection to demonstrate progress toward achieving
its mission and goal is an important next step for measuring
performance. A discussion on how data collected by other USDA
agencies, such as a National Agricultural Statistics Service or
the Economic Research Service is especially important in an era
of limited resources.
Last, using data to identify gaps can help USDA improve
performance on its Civil Rights efforts. For example, in 2002
GAO recommended that USDA establish time requirements for all
stages of the complaint process. With these standards, along
with routine management reports to track cases along the lines
of what we just heard, this office can begin to troubleshoot
its most problematic areas.
In conclusion, USDA has been addressing allegations of
discrimination for years. One lawsuit has cost taxpayers nearly
$1 billion to date, and several other groups are seeking
redress for similar alleged discrimination. Despite the
numerous past efforts to provide USDA with constructive
analyses and recommend actions for improvement, significant
management deficiencies remain. Such resistance to improve its
management calls into question USDA's commitment to more
efficiently and effectively address discrimination complaints
both within its agency and across its programs.
This concludes my prepared statement, and I would be
pleased to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shames follows:]
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Mr. Towns. Thank you very much. Let me thank all three of
you for your testimony.
Let me begin, I guess, by asking the IG, throughout GAO's
investigation there were reports that the Department withheld
access to certain records, instructed employees not to
cooperate with the GAO, and actually forced GAO's investigators
to leave USDA premises when GAO was seeking to interview USDA
employees as part of its review.
Because GAO is an independent nonpartisan agency that works
for Congress, your Department's denial of access of GAO to
records and employees also denies Congress' role in providing
effective and appropriate oversight.
Why was GAO told to leave USDA's offices in February 2008?
Who made that decision?
Ms. Fong. I will take a crack at that question, and I would
invite any information from Ms. Shames, as well.
We were called by GAO in February, after the situation had
come to a head, and what we were told by GAO was that they had
sought to interview USDA employees about some allegations that
documents may have been shredded improperly or that data may
have been erroneously changed. At that time, we did not know
the background on that, but we immediately saw that there was
an issue. Our sense was that the allegations, if true, would
potentially indicate criminal conduct, and so we felt very
clearly that we had jurisdiction within the IG's office to look
into this, so we reached out to GAO's investigative staff and
decided that we would work this jointly to deal with the
concerns that had been articulated by USDA's General Counsel.
I think the General Counsel had two concerns. One is
whether GAO's investigative staff had authority to conduct
criminal investigations; and, second, whether or not USDA
employees were given the appropriate advice on their rights and
responsibilities. We believed that by getting involved
ourselves with GAO that we could address those concerns on the
part of the General Counsel, and at the same time accommodate
GAO's need to get access to the information, as well as carry
out our responsibility to look into potential criminal issues.
I think we were able to successfully resolve that
situation. We were able to interview the employees that were
involved, and to complete the work.
Ms. Shames. If I might jump in, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Towns. Sure.
Ms. Shames. The bottom line is that in the end GAO was able
to interview, along with the OIG, all of the USDA employees
that we felt we needed to talk to to gather more information
concerning several allegations that we heard concerning
obstructing GAO's work, shredding some documents, as well as
manipulating some of the data.
In the end, we got full cooperation from USDA. We were able
to gather sufficient information to either refer some of these
allegations back to the Inspector General or to the Department
of Justice, and in the end GAO was able to get sufficient
information to be able to report out on the findings that I
gave to you today.
Mr. Towns. Right. Thank you very much.
Let me go to you, Ms. McKay. You heard the testimony from
Mr. Boyd, of course, and Mr. Givens, and you stated that county
committees played no role in the disbursement of USDA program
benefits. But we have heard time and time again from farmers
that are discriminated against by these county boards when they
apply for loans. You heard, as indicated, Mr. Givens, Mr. Boyd,
and, of course, I have talked to others, and there are no
minorities on these county committees. What role does the
county committee play?
Ms. McKay. The county committee does not get involved in
applications for credit programs. There are other USDA programs
and benefits that they do get involved in, such as disaster
assistance. They do have a very important role in making sure
that local farmers have access to USDA programs and services.
However, there is a misconception that they still play a role
in approving applications for credit. They do not and have not
since 1999. Applications for farm loans, operating loans, go
directly to the FSA county office, not to the county
committees.
Mr. Towns. Now, you indicated that you made some progress.
Ms. McKay. Yes.
Mr. Towns. Could you be specifics, because the general
feeling out there is that nothing is really being done, and
they have actually lost confidence in you and your Civil Rights
Division. They have lost confidence in it. You heard some of
the comments here today.
Ms. McKay. Yes.
Mr. Towns. So could you respond to that?
Ms. McKay. Well, I think that a lot of the comments that
were made predate my tenure at USDA, and I understand how they
feel. I would feel the same way. But, respectfully, I think
they are not looking at what we are trying to do. It is a large
ship and it turns slowly, and the initiatives that I am working
on right now will eventually pay off. These problems were years
in the making; they are not going to go away overnight.
I think I can do a better job in communicating what we are
working on, which is why I really appreciate the opportunity to
be here today to talk about what we are doing. And I do
honestly believe that it will pay off.
Mr. Towns. Right. Do you have time tables, aims,
objectives, and goals?
Ms. McKay. We do. We have a diversity strategic plan. We
have an outreach strategic plan. We have strategic plans in
place or in clearance for our initiatives.
Mr. Towns. Let me just point out to you, USDA's recent
history has included several serious accusations of non-
compliance with Federal and Civil Rights statutes. As a result
of Pigford, USDA health as recompensed more than 13,000 Black
farmers nearly $1 billion--that is B as in Boy--in damages for
Civil Rights violations. Since then, three other class action
suits have been filed alleging racial or gender discrimination
in FSA programs: Garcia v. Glickman on behalf of Hispanic
farmers; Keepseigel v. Glickman on behalf of American Indians;
and Love v. Glickman on behalf of women.
How many USDA employees were terminated or in any way
disciplined for those more than 13,000 instances of
discrimination?
Ms. McKay. I can't tell you that. First of all, I was not
here then. Second, there was no reporting mechanism at the
time, at the time of Pigford in the 1990's. As I mentioned in
my statement, we do now have an accountable policy that
requires, whenever there is a finding of discrimination, and
even sometimes in a settlement, that persons who are found to
have committed wrongdoing are referred to the appropriate H.R.
office for disciplinary action.
Mr. Towns. So do you hear whether anybody was fired?
Ms. McKay. I have heard, but I don't think it would be
appropriate for me to say here because I don't have any basis
in fact for what I am hearing.
Mr. Towns. I just find it sort of difficult to think about
13,000 wrongdoings. If it was in private industry, some heads
would roll, no ifs, ands, and buts about it, and you know that.
Ms. McKay. I don't know that they didn't roll. I just don't
know one way or the other.
Mr. Towns. Well, according to the information that we have,
they did not roll. Many of the farmers in the first panel
pointed out discrimination in the administration of programs
benefit by FSA. Although the details vary from farmer to
farmer, the general outlines of the stories remain the same. A
minority farmer tries to apply for farm operating loan through
the FSA county office, well in advance of planting season. The
FSA county office might claim to have no applications--can you
imagine that? No applications available, and ask the farmer to
return later.
Now, planting is a timely thing that you have to do during
a certain timeframe, and you can't plant after a certain date
and time because of a lot of reasons. And upon returning, the
farmer might receive an application without any assistance in
completing it, and then asked repeatedly to correct mistakes or
complete oversight in the loan application.
Why wouldn't somebody give him technical assistance,
because some of these farmers don't have a lot of training in
terms of their educational training, but they know how to farm.
Ms. McKay. Right.
Mr. Towns. And they have been doing it all their lives.
That is all they know. I mean, why wouldn't technical
assistance be available to those farmers?
Ms. McKay. Well, we rely on the community-based
organizations to provide that kind of local hands-on technical
assistance. In addition, we have a Center for Minority Farmers
at USDA so that if someone calls we might be able to assist,
but we don't have the staff to be throughout the country
assisting farmers to fill out applications. We do work with our
partners, our community-based and faith-based organizations. We
train them. We rely upon them when we have our partners
meeting, which we do regularly. And actually they get grants
also to provide that kind of technical assistance.
Mr. Towns. Another thing they complain about is that when
they get the loan, if they get it, it is reduce, and then it is
not enough to be able to go and to pay the vendors and to move
forward. Of course, here they are with not enough, stuck with a
loan, not being able to plant. How do you expect them to pay
it? That is the reason why I think technical assistance just
would be automatic, because we know that farmers don't
generally have Ph.Ds.
Ms. McKay. Right. And also the local FSA office is supposed
to provide technical assistance, and if they don't then we need
to hear about it through the complaint process.
Mr. Towns. Let me ask this, then. If you have an office or
an agency that is not complying, what happens to them? If these
complaints come in and the fact that there is no applications
in the office, and they complain, what generally happens in a
case like this? Help me.
Ms. McKay. I don't understand what you mean what generally
happens.
Mr. Towns. There is no repercussion? For instance, if I
have an agency and I am providing applications and I have no
applications, and I had no applications last year, and I had no
applications when I came in, then something should happen to
that agency. I mean, the person that is providing the service,
shouldn't they be penalized? What happens to them?
Ms. McKay. If the case----
Mr. Towns. Because if I say to you that I went and they had
no application, and then I let you know there is no
application, isn't somebody supposed to do something about
that?
Ms. McKay. I would agree with you. I don't disagree with
you. And if the case can be proven, then there should be
consequences.
Mr. Towns. Well, let me put it this way: I have been in
this business a long time. In fact, I am in my 26th year here
in the U.S. Congress. I started in this 26 years ago, and I
heard the complaints 26 years ago coming from some names that I
hear right here on this paper right today. Of course, the
complaints were basically saying--I can't hold you responsible
for all 26 years, but I can hold you responsible for the years
that you have been here, because getting applications does not
require a big plan of action and all that; it just requires
having some papers where they are supposed to be. Somebody has
to be responsible. In terms of your role as the Secretary for
Civil Rights, I mean, and knowing these complaints exist,
wouldn't you find it necessary to make certain that everyone
has applications that they can give out to people?
Ms. McKay. Absolutely, but this is the first I am hearing
of it. I have not received a case with that allegation.
Mr. Towns. Well, let me just say this. There is a problem,
and I think you should at least be aware of the fact there is a
problem.
Ms. McKay. If someone brings those facts to me, I will make
sure they get into the system and are thoroughly vetted and
looked at.
Mr. Towns. And also I just wanted to let you know that
Pigford v. USDA--you know about that one--and then you have
these other three that are pending. To me, that is a message.
That says that something has to be straightened out here,
because also you have Love v. Glickman on behalf of women.
These are problems.
When you talk to people in general, they are not positive
at all. I just think you need to know that.
I want to help you. I want to help you. I want to see what
we can do. Now, I know we talked about the advisory committees,
and there is very little confidence in that. I understand that
the people that oversee, once they get their loan they don't
see anything. That is a problem. If I am supposed to work with
everybody and see that everybody is treated fairly, and then I
come in and put my application in and you give me my loan and
then I am blind from that point on, I don't see anything, that
is not the way to go. So we need to sort of find a way that
makes it possible for people to feel that they are being
treated fairly and that they are being treated fairly, and that
the farmer has an opportunity to plant in a timely fashion.
If you get the money in December and say that you didn't
get it before, what can you plant in December? That is the
problem.
So all these things are what people are saying to me, and I
have indicated the fact that I started with this 26 years ago.
Of course, I left it alone because we had people that were
working on the Agriculture Committee and they sort of took it
over, but a lot has not happened positively since that time.
So let me put it this way: we are not going to go away. We
are going to stay on this. I am willing to help you. Maybe you
need some resources. I don't know what it is, but I think you
need to be open and honest with us, because this has to be
fixed, because if not you are going to have more suits, more
suits, more people going to lose their farms, and that is not
anything you want to leave as your legacy, that you were around
when X percent lost their farms. I don't think you want that as
a legacy. I don't think so.
Anyway, thank you for your testimony. I thank all of you
for the work that you are doing. I want you to know that we are
going to be following up on this. This is not the last time you
are hearing from me.
Ms. McKay. Thank you, Chairman. We look forward to working
with you.
Mr. Towns. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much.
On that note, the committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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