[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 76 (Tuesday, June 11, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H3432-H3437]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AGRICULTURAL CROSSROADS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Keller). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, last month's enactment of the 
agriculture authorization bill signaled that we are at a crossroads 
here in America, not just as it relates to agriculture, but very 
interesting developments for the environment, community development, 
and even the huge increase in agricultural funding could not conceal 
the cracks that are emerging as these issues are coming forward.
  Hidden behind all of the fireworks that surrounded the agricultural 
bill, we have ended up with it being further removed from the needs of 
most farmers. It is not only removed from the public we are supposed to 
serve, not only removed from the agricultural interests, but it is even 
removed from the will of the Members of this body.
  I recall on this floor working hard on a motion to instruct the 
conferees of the House to vote in favor of provisions of the Senate 
that would have placed a $275,000 payment limit. Despite the fact that 
it was passed by 265 of our colleagues, it was ignored by the conferees 
in favor of a $360,000 payment limit that itself was riddled with 
exemptions which will make it largely meaningless.
  Mr. Speaker, I am afraid we are having two very different visions of 
the agricultural future of this country emerge as a part of those 
deliberations. One is for the status quo which is a mutation of over 70 
years of depression-era subsidization which no longer meets the needs 
of average farmers, consumers, and certainly not the environment.
  This vision is opposed to one that is economically sound, a 
sustainable future, that is in fact healthy for the farmers, the 
environment, consumers and the taxpayer. What matters? Why would a city 
representative like me become so interested in farm policy? Well, we 
cannot deal with the governments of this country without focusing on 
the role that agriculture plays. It is firmly grounded in American 
lore, our history and our tradition. Think back to Thomas Jefferson's 
agrarian ideals. Ignore for a moment that this was sort of an effete 
intellectual who never turned a profit on his many acres of land and 
several hundred slaves, never mind that he was hopelessly in debt, and 
eventually lost his estate at his death to his creditors. Nevertheless, 
that vision, that agrarian ideal of Thomas Jefferson persists; and 
agriculture still is essential today to America, even though only 2 
percent of our population is actively involved with farming, versus 25 
percent or more in the 1930s. There are still 2 million family farms 
and ranches that cover nearly 50 percent of the land area in the lower 
48 States.
  Americans spend 10 percent of their income on food, and that is one 
of the lowest ratios in the world. However, this 10 percent that we 
spend is disguised by a variety of subsidies and tax payments. Indeed, 
40 percent of net farm income comes from the Federal Government. So 
there are a great number of tax dollars that are claimed. There are 
huge environmental costs that are associated with our current system of 
production which I will talk about in a few minutes, and consumers are 
paying exorbitant prices for commodities like sugar, more than twice 
the world market, pay dearly for avocados, peanuts, and the list goes 
on.
  The environmental impacts of agribusiness is something that I think 
is important for us to focus on. It is, for instance, in many areas 
extraordinarily water-intensive. It is not just a problem 
occasionally when we have some parts of the country as they are today 
facing drought and water quality problems. Although even the 
administration seems to acknowledge that we are going to be facing 
serious problems associated with global climate change, they are not 
prepared to offer up any solutions for that, but that is going to have 
potentially very profound effects on how water is supplied in the 
future.

  Mr. Speaker, it takes a tremendous amount of water for us to be 
involved in some grotesquely inappropriate activities. We are providing 
heavily subsidized water for subsidized crops, like growing cotton and 
rice in the desert. In the Pacific Northwest, we have been having 
problems in the Klamath River basin where we have water-intensive 
agriculture in an arid plane.
  It takes an enormous amount of water to produce meat for human 
consumption. 1,000 tons of water for one ton of grain; and 
increasingly, our cattle are grain fed and it requires almost 5 pounds 
of grain to produce one pound of beef for human consumption. If we do 
the math, you see the huge amount of water that is involved in the 
production of cattle.
  Agriculture also poses many of the most important challenges to water 
quality. It contributes to poor water quality in 60 percent of the 
Nation's impaired river miles, which is more than the dams, sewage 
discharges, and urban storm drainage combined. Think of it. Agriculture 
produces 60 percent of the water quality problems in the Nation's 
impaired river miles, more than dams, sewage discharges, and urban 
storm drainage combined.
  We have a situation where the petrochemical fertilizers are also 
extensively required. It takes on average approximately 1.2 gallons for 
every bushel of corn. And then there is the oil production for energy. 
A typical cow will consume the equivalent of 284 gallons of oil in 
their lifetime, the energy necessary to sustain that animal. We have 
essentially transformed cattle from solar-powered animals to fossil 
fuel machines.
  It is also a diet that is unhealthy and unnatural for these animals. 
It has turned once bucolic agricultural enterprises into an extension 
of the modern

[[Page H3433]]

factory. And it has not just made these animals' lives miserable, based 
entirely on eating, adding weight until they can be slaughtered, but 
there is persuasive evidence that it is actually changing their 
metabolisms and their digestive systems, producing meat that is 
demonstrably less healthy to consume in the short-term, and maybe 
having long-term consequences that are extraordinarily negative for 
overall human health. There have been studies which have contrasted 
some of the natural, grass-fed beef in Italy where there is 
approximately 15 percent of the fat, as opposed to grain-fed beef and 
38 percent of the calories of standard cattle.
  It goes beyond just the fat content. There are concerns about 
developing resistance to medicines due to the indiscriminate use of 
antibiotics. It is estimated that 80 percent of the total quantity of 
antibiotics used in the United States are administered to food animals, 
putting that in the food chain. It may well be that the kind of meat 
that we are eating today as a society is much less healthy because of 
the increased presence of these antibiotics which in turn build up 
resistance from the germs and create a cycle which makes us more 
susceptible to stronger germs, and having less ability to use 
antibiotics to protect us.
  And of course, dealing with the fat, our House physician has been 
working with Members in this chamber to encourage more awareness of our 
life-style, the problems of saturated fat. Now that the cows are eating 
more corn instead of grass, the meat contains more saturated fat. There 
is another health and environmental problem dealing with prodigious 
quantities of animal waste.
  We are finding that county after county in States like Nebraska are 
now moving into areas of land-use planning because they are being 
overwhelmed by the consequences of these concentrated feed lot 
operations.
  In Iowa, it is an issue of hog waste. A hog can produce up to 10 
times the waste of a human. U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion 
tons of animal waste in 1996 according to the EPA. Imagine a farm of 
100,000 hogs. It could produce the waste of a city of almost a million 
people, yet we will look at a State like North Carolina, where there 
are no requirements for the sewage treatment plant of these vast hog 
operations. Think of that. Living next to a city of 100,000, 500,000, 
up to a million people, and not having adequate sewage treatment. We 
would not stand for it. Sadly, in this country, in many rural areas, 
the States do not have adequate protection to ensure that these vast 
quantities of waste are going to be adequately processed to protect 
against damage to water quality.
  Again, in some States they have bent over backwards in fact to 
protect these interests at the expense of people. In Iowa, their State 
legislature in its wisdom has prevented local governments from 
providing land use protections against the damage that is brought about 
by these vast hog factory farms. In fact, it was interesting recently 
in Iowa there was a special election for a State Senate position where 
the incumbent, a Republican in a very safe Republican district, had 
been appointed by the President to some administrative position. There 
was a special election. The outrage in this Republican district was 
such that with a 62 percent vote, they elected a Democrat to take that 
position.

  There is slowly at the grassroots level a realization that States and 
the Federal Government that are not dealing with the protection of the 
citizens, are doing them a disservice. People in Iowa again cannot sue 
for damages as long as some minimum spacing requirement is maintained. 
There have been people who have basically lost the entire value of 
their property with no recourse as a result of it.
  In North Carolina, I am sad to say, the Members of this House in the 
aftermath of Hurricane Floyd a couple of years ago, and Members may 
recall in the aftermath of that terrible hurricane, the damage that was 
done. Our hearts went out to the people of North Carolina. We stepped 
up, provided money and disaster assistance, but who can forget the 
disgusting photos of the bloated bodies of hogs, or hogs perched on 
floating debris.

                              {time}  2045

  As a result of those floods, there were massive problems associated 
with hog lagoons in flood plains that resulted in a leaching of these 
animal wastes, these toxins, out into the environment for months after 
the hurricane. Unfortunately, Federal money was spent to rebuild those 
hog lagoons in the flood plains, back in harm's way, where again in the 
future, as sure as anything, we are going to be faced with that tragedy 
again, the damage to the environment.
  We are finding that in State after State there are problems with 
large farm operations that change the hydrology of farm country. There 
is creation of vast amounts of soil erosion that takes the toxins and 
the fertilizers and washes it into waterways, actually waterways that 
did not used to be there. Throughout the upper Midwest, we have these 
vast fields today that are a result of miles and miles, hundreds of 
thousands of miles, of drainage tiles that have been installed. Yet we 
have not taken the steps that are necessary in the main to protect the 
further erosion of the soil, the toxins, into those waterways.
  And it is not just a case of erosion, pesticides, toxins. We are 
losing vast acreages of farmland still to sprawl. More than 90 million 
acres of farmland across this Nation are threatened by sprawl today, 
and we lose more than 2 million acres every year to urban development. 
That is more than all the topsoil that is eroded. We cover it with 
blacktop. The number of acres of farmland lost to sprawl has doubled 
over the last 6 years, most of which was amongst our most productive 
farmland.
  Think back in history. What was the most productive farm county in 
the United States in 1950? Los Angeles County. From what we have seen, 
this pattern continues. Because the settlement patterns were in areas 
that were rich agricultural arenas, people moved there. That is where 
the settlements started. There were trade activities. People radiated 
out from them in areas that were the most productive farmland. Thus it 
is today that most of our major metropolitan areas are in and around 
extraordinarily productive farmland. But we are watching this farmland 
being lost at a dramatic rate.
  It took us approximately 350 years to create America's footprint of 
urban development and settlement. Three hundred fifty years. But 15 
percent of that footprint occurred in the years 1992 to 1997. We 
developed an area approximately 17 million acres. This is approximately 
the size of West Virginia. It is important, Mr. Speaker, for us to 
focus on the need of this country to be able to protect that delicate 
area where the urban and the farm areas intersect, and we must do a 
better job.
  There are some that suggest that this is an area or that it is 
something that the Federal Government does not belong in, that if we 
are talking about land use and agricultural policy, that is something 
that is local and State. I would beg to differ. American agriculture 
has developed as a direct result of Federal Government policy. It 
started when the Federal Government enforced taking land away from 
Native Americans and giving it to European settlers to farm during the 
beginning of the Republic. We had major pieces of legislation that 
exploded, the Homestead Act of 1862, legislation that created the land 
grant colleges where we had the agricultural colleges and universities. 
There were the vast reclamation projects that changed the hydrology of 
whole ecosystems.
  I mentioned earlier in the Pacific Northwest, the Klamath Basin. This 
has been an area of great agitation and concern because we had these 
interests clash this last year when we had extreme drought conditions, 
and it sort of put a spotlight on the fallacy of the Federal programs 
over the last 100 years. We committed as a Federal Government far more 
in terms of water than we could deliver to those farmers that we lured 
to that area. We lured them a century ago, we did it again after World 
War II when we encouraged returning veterans to settle in the Klamath 
Basin, but a terrible price has been paid.
  We have overallocated water rights to farmers and ignored critical 
habitat requirements. This vast Klamath River Basin is an area where 
the flightway for 90 percent of the north-south migratory waterfowl 
stop. It is an area

[[Page H3434]]

where there are significant commitments to other wildlife and, Mr. 
Speaker, one of the areas that we have made, I think, a serious misstep 
deals with our commitments to Native Americans. Native Americans in 
this region and elsewhere, particularly in the arid West, had claims 
for fishing and hunting. Their water rights are not being properly 
acknowledged and respected. So in total in the Klamath River Basin as 
we have seen elsewhere in the West in particular, there is more than 
the U.S. Government and Mother Nature can now deliver.
  But there was a front page story in the New York Times 10 days ago 
that talked about the problem that is being faced by the city of 
Atlanta, where there is a three-state struggle over scarce water in an 
area where people think of it as being rich and certainly water not 
being a problem. But it is. We have other areas here where we are 
dealing with the vast range of Federal programs that the Federal 
Government built, railroads at government expense that helped promote 
agriculture. I will, I guess, not go into that because the time is late 
and I want to deal with some of the other issues that relate to the way 
that the industry is structured today.
  Today's agricultural industry looks far different than it did even a 
generation ago. We have huge agribusiness processing plants that are 
dominating the commodities, processing, meat packing. Eighty percent of 
the beef cattle born in this country are slaughtered and marketed by 
four giant meat packing companies. There is a similar concentration in 
poultry, in hog farming.
  We are seeing increasingly with our agricultural programs, and the 
most recent farm bill sadly brings it to a new level, that we are 
concentrating those farm subsidies to large farms, large corporate 
interests, shutting out smaller operations and changing the nature of 
how people choose to farm based on government programs, not on what the 
marketplace requires.
  One example that struck me was a story earlier this year in the New 
York Times celebrating how cotton was now king again in certain areas 
of Mississippi and Texas, that farmers did not have to grow soybeans, 
that somehow cotton was more in keeping with their traditions, and they 
liked it. But as you read the text of the article, it was not because 
somehow there was an upsurge of demand for cotton or that there has 
been a lack of interest in soybeans. It is just that for the time 
being, the rate of subsidization for cotton exceeded the rate of 
subsidization for soybeans, so we were growing cotton now. Cotton was 
king, not because that is what the marketplace wanted or demanded; it 
is because that is what the Federal Government's subsidies made more 
lucrative.
  We have talked on the floor of this Chamber, and I have worked since 
I have been in Congress with my colleague, the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Dan Miller), joined with the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller), dealing with the outrageous situation we have in this country 
dealing with the sugar quota system. It is hard to imagine a cycle that 
is more frustrating for the taxpayers, more damaging for the 
environment and frankly makes us look more foolish.
  Over the last 40 years, we have dramatically increased the acreage of 
sugar cane production in Florida's Everglades. It was approximately 
60,000 acres. Today it is in the neighborhood of 450, 460,000 acres, an 
increase of more than seven times in 40 years. This has been fueled 
because the United States has a restrictive quota system that mandates 
that we in this country will pay two or three times the world price of 
sugar, and people that can grow it more cheaply or more efficiently are 
not able to bring it into this country. In fact, we are growing so much 
sugar that we are paying millions of dollars this year to store the 
surplus sugar.
  But it is not just that the American consumers are paying more for 
the sugar and that they are paying to store the surplus sugar. We are 
also driving confectioners out of this country because people who are 
making candy rely heavily on sugar as a principal ingredient and sugar 
is so much more inexpensive just across the border in Canada or in 
Mexico that it does not make sense to manufacture these products in the 
United States. So Lifesavers, that quintessential American icon, is now 
moving its production out of the United States, in part because we are 
shooting ourselves in the foot with the environment, with the economy.
  And of course, there is no small irony that this Congress in recent 
years has been patting itself on the back, the last two administrations 
have celebrated that we are investing $8.5 billion as a down payment to 
clean up the Everglades which are appropriately targeted for investment 
because they are a precious natural resource, a national treasure. But 
we are paying to clean up what we are subsidizing people to pollute at 
the same time we are paying the world market times two or three; and 
because of the sugar prices, we are driving candy manufacturers out of 
the United States. It is hard to imagine a textbook case that more 
vividly underscores how our environmental, trade and agricultural 
policies are bumping into each other, running amuck.
  Indeed, I think you do not have to look very far to find examples 
where the farm bill is a pretty good barometer about how far out of 
whack things are. It is hard to get a good handle on the actual costs, 
because the official estimates that we used for the arcane sort of 
budget scoring were based on some numbers from April 2001 that by the 
time March of 2002 came around, earlier this spring, it was quite clear 
that the assumptions were wrong. Because of the overproduction that 
would be stimulated, prices would be lower. Because there is more 
support, it would encourage more production. So there will be more 
participation at lower prices which means the gap is not going to be 
assumed by the marketplace, and is not going to be assumed by the 
farmers who will bear the price of producing too much that the world 
markets do not want.

                              {time}  2100

  The gap is going to be paid by the American taxpayer.
  We already know that our estimates from a year ago are probably at 
least $12 billion understated, and it is very likely as time goes on, 
as we find out all the little provisions that are in this bill, as the 
media is exploring new protections for lentils and chick-peas, as it is 
clear that we are going to have a new transitional payment on top of 
what we are doing for peanuts to try to pay them to move into the 
future, that there is going to be additional costs that are buried. 
This Congress had a chance to draw a line and establish some reasonable 
limits and caps.
  I mentioned earlier that there was an effort on the part of the 
Senate, and I tip my hat to Senator Harkin. I appreciate the strong 
voice that has been offered by Senator Lugar to try to focus on ways to 
reign this in. The gentlemen had different approaches, but they were 
moving in the right direction. The House had limits of $450,000. We 
stepped forward, my colleague, the gentleman from the State of Michigan 
(Mr. Smith) in particular, it was a great pleasure to work with him, 
carried this measure to the floor, and we were able to find support for 
the Senate cap of $275,000, but unfortunately the House in its wisdom 
was not able to persuade its own conferees to listen to it, and they 
fell back on a system that is going to raise the limits to $360,000 and 
have exemptions that are going to render that largely meaningless for 
very large producers, defeating the intent of the House.
  We have, to be sure, some areas of this bill that deal with 
conservation that look on the surface positive. This is something that 
was pushed on the floor of the House. There was a very strong vote that 
came very close to passing that would have, when it was here in its 
original form, have cut 15 percent of the commodity payments and 
shifted them into conservation. There was a successful measure that I 
was pleased to cosponsor with the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. 
Clayton) that took a couple percent of the commodities to deal with 
rural development, with conservation, with planning. The message got 
through a little bit that conservation was at least in some small way 
going to have to be addressed. There is what appears on paper to be a 
79 percent increase, although it is only $20 billion. But unlike the 
commodity payments, where you open the spigot and the payments go out 
and the only condition is how many people participate and how low

[[Page H3435]]

the prices go and how much of a gap the taxpayer pays, that is 
automatic. Conservation is authorized, but it requires each year an 
appropriation, and as we continue to hemorrhage red ink, as we have 
gone from, in a little over a year, thanks to the blueprint that the 
President advanced and some of our Republican colleagues here embraced 
with massive tax cuts, the slowdown in the economy, the massive 
increase in the farm bill, increase in defense, you name it, we are 
spending a great deal of money on seemingly everything except what we 
promised in the last election, like prescription drug coverage for 
senior citizens. We have gone in a little over a year from the greatest 
projected surplus in our history to now looking at borrowing about a 
trillion and a half dollars from Social Security, driving up over a 
trillion dollars of additional interest payment.
  In the face of these escalating costs, increased red ink, and what 
are going to be increased agricultural payments through the 
commodities, do we think we are going to get fully funded the 
environmental requirements? I think not. I think as a practical matter, 
these being backloaded, as they will, means that we are not going to 
see all of the money that is in fact authorized.

  There are other rather perverse twists in this story that end up 
looking bad for the environment. We have got the great Environmental 
Quality Incentives Program which helped livestock producers clean up 
their waste. This is an important program. For this program and others 
like this that would have helped people with small scale operations, 
there were some 200,000 unmet claims that averaged about $9,000. There 
was a current limit of $10,000 under these claims.
  Well, as we started going through this process in Congress this year, 
we did not speak to putting more money into that program, keeping the 
funding level even. The House argued in the bill that came through here 
that we would raise those limits to $50,000. The Senate argued, well, 
just $30,000. Either way, it was going to be a great increase in 
payments to larger operations.
  When it came time for the conference, the Washington Post had a great 
line, I wish I could quote it exactly, but we had the $50,000 that the 
House wanted, the Senate would cap it at $30,000, and instead of 
splitting the difference, they added it together and raised the limit 
to $75,000, and then allowed large operators to get 6 years payments in 
1 year, raising it effectively to $450,000, subsidizing the extreme 
largest operations, depleting scarce resources, making it less likely 
that the people that are out there now, the smaller operations, 
remember, I mentioned they average just $9,000 in payments, we had a 
couple hundred thousand of them that were not met because there was not 
adequate funding. But by raising the levels for the largest operations, 
we are going to make it even less likely that they get what they want, 
and there is going to be more that is going to be bled off to the 
largest operations.
  Well, sadly, that is very much the case with how these subsidies 
work. As a result of this farm bill, we are going to see half the 
benefits flow to only six States. The majority of them, the vast 
majority, are going to go to producers of 13 commodities. Two-thirds of 
the subsidies will go to 3 percent of the farmers, most with annual 
incomes over $250,000 a year. It is estimated that the top 10 percent 
of these 2 million family farms are going to get close to three-
quarters of the total benefit. It means in a State like mine, in 
Oregon, the pattern is exceedingly frustrating.
  I have heard from agricultural interests who would like some help. 
But in our State, like most of the agriculture in this country, it is 
not unique in my State, we deal a lot with nuts and berries, the 
specialty crops, the orchards. These people are off on their own. They 
do not get the support. Oregon gets a small fraction of the 
agricultural subsidy in terms of the national average, far less than 
the big producers of the commodities. Illustrating the perverse nature 
of it, one-quarter of the entire Federal subsidy for the last 6 years 
in Oregon went to one small county that just happened to grow wheat.
  We are, I am sad to say, Mr. Speaker, dealing with a situation today 
where our agricultural policy is going to continue to be concentrating 
benefits to a few. We are going to continue to lose family farms. Small 
family-scale operations are going to be forced out of business, on one 
side by increased urbanization. Their neighbors are encroaching on them 
as sprawl moves into their backyard. We do not have adequate 
protections.
  As the costs of compliance with the environment continue to go up, 
small operations are not going to get their fair share. We are going to 
be concentrating benefits to the largest producers, which means that 
they can produce even more, which is going to drive down the prices for 
everybody. They are going to get a larger subsidy, they are going to 
have the money to buy out the smaller producers, and we are going to 
continue this cycle, losing family farms, concentrating the benefits of 
the Federal taxpayer on fewer and fewer farmers who are more and more 
disconnected from the market.
  It is bad for the environment, it is bad for people who care about 
the humane treatment of animals, it is bad for people who want to 
protect against the incursion of suburban sprawl, it is bad for people 
who care about having the rich diversity of farm product in terms of 
vegetables, in terms of nuts, berries, specialty crops, that could make 
such a difference in so many parts of the country.
  I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is appropriate for us to start 
envisioning a new future for agriculture in this country. First and 
foremost, we have to stop the lunacy of subsidizing people to grow 
things that the market does not want, disconnecting them from a 
responsibility to the environment, rewarding larger and larger scale 
operations, while we say we are supporting small operations.
  We need to make sure that our payments go to farmers across the 
country, not to grow particular things that we do not need, but to 
behave in ways that we as a society value; pay them to protect water 
quality; pay them to be stewards of the land; pay them to respect this 
buffer between urban and rural areas; pay them to preserve, not develop 
their land, or protecting scenic easements. There are a wide range of 
areas that the public desires that would not interfere with our trade 
policies, that would actually save money for things like water quality 
and flooding, and that would make sense in terms of what we say our 
stated values are.
  Second, I think it is important that we work to reconnect people with 
their food supply. There is an explosion around the country of farmers' 
markets. We have a half a dozen in my community. I am going to go to a 
neighborhood in Portland where they are celebrating the opening of yet 
another farmers' market. They are in Milwaukee, in Gresham, in 
Beaverton. We are seeing farmers' markets in Washington, D.C. There are 
half a dozen of them here in our Nation's Capital, and all around the 
country.
  This is an opportunity for people to connect with local production. 
It tends to be a higher quality product. People are connecting with the 
folks that actually produce it. They cut out the middleman or woman so 
that they deal direct. It is more profitable to them. It just makes 
good sense. There are extraordinarily thoughtful people that are 
thinking about ways to apply these principles more broadly.

                              {time}  2115

  Alice Waters in Berkeley, California with the famous restaurant, Chez 
Panisse, has a vision of being able to have the children in that school 
district be able to be a part of knowing where the food comes from and, 
in some cases, actually growing it and preparing it. They can be part 
of the educational process, and make for healthier, as well as smarter, 
kids. There is burgeoning activities of community gardens in urban 
agriculture; the slow food movement, organic. There are people who are 
taking a hard look at meat production in this country. I have talked 
earlier about the health benefits of having, whether it is the free-
range chicken, or the grass-fed cattle, or the hogs that are not in 
confined factory farm operations. It is more humane, it is healthy, it 
has properties that those who are qualified to comment suggest that it 
is better in terms of flavor, texture; it is a better value for 
consumers, and it is produced in a more humane fashion.

[[Page H3436]]

  Mr. Speaker, I think that we have reached a point where I hope this 
agriculture bill was sort of the high water mark for low water 
politics; where we felt that if we throw enough money at enough little 
interest groups, a little bit for dairy here, a little bit for apples 
over there, lentils, peanuts, if we give a tiny increase in the food 
support for school lunch and for nutrition programs, for food stamps, 
which actually were a very small increase, but an increase nonetheless, 
that somehow we could sort of balance things out and get that 
legislation passed.
  Well, I hope this is the last gasp of a system that is bad for the 
environment, bad for the economy, bad for the health of the American 
public; that is clearly a bad signal for those who care about 
international trade. We are only 4.7 percent of the world's population. 
There is 95.3 percent out there that are potential markets, and we are 
sure sending a very negative signal to them. I am hopeful, Mr. Speaker, 
that we will no longer stand for shortchanging the environment, 
sidestepping animal welfare issues, and turning fundamental fairness on 
its head.
  It was interesting to watch. As this bill worked its way through 
Congress, we were able to see a chorus that was formed by newspapers. 
Virtually all of the editorial writers around the country, the Times, 
the Post, the Wall Street Journal, conservatives and liberals alike; we 
saw environmentalists join with fiscal conservatives. The vast majority 
of farmers in this country who were shortchanged, there is a consensus 
emerging, there is a coalition that is possible. And if, and if, this 
unfortunate bill serves to unite these forces for better agricultural 
and environmental policy, perhaps in some way, it will be worth it.
  Mr. Speaker, I will conclude my remarks this evening. But first, I 
wanted to just add a brief comment about what we have seen with the 
administration dealing with the declaration that air traffic control is 
no longer going to be an inherently governmental act. A number of my 
colleagues earlier in the evening took to the floor to express deep 
reservations about that, and I must join them. I find great irony at a 
time when finally Congress and the administration have given the 
American public what they wanted in terms of federalization and 
professionalization of baggage inspection, but the administration would 
somehow conclude that the sensitive, critical function of air traffic 
control is no longer essential, and we can just sort of farm that out 
to the lowest bidder and throw that into chaos.
  We saw what those dedicated men and women did on September 11, 
landing 5,000 planes in 100 minutes, maybe a little more, without 
incident, smoothly, under great stress. We have seen this in my 
community where people have undertaken problems with malfunctioning 
equipment, be able to rise to the occasion. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, with 
hundreds of thousands of situations across this country every day, I do 
not want us to be rolling the dice with some sort of evolutionary 
effort and the conclusion that this is not an inherent governmental 
function. I think we have only to look at the very rocky performance in 
Great Britain, in Canada, problems in Australia. This is not an area 
that we need to go at this point in time.
  Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful that we are not going to engage in another 
battle here that is I think going to doom us to hopefully just get back 
to ground zero; I guess that is an ill-advised term; I did not mean it 
in that context, but just get us back to where we are today at best. We 
cannot afford to waste that time, that energy, and the expertise of 
these dedicated men and women.
  I see my colleague from Texas is here. I serve with him on the 
Committee on Transportation. I know he has deep concerns about the 
integrity of our air transport system, and I would yield to him if he 
would wish to comment.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon.
  Mr. Speaker, safety is the issue and it is the only issue, and as has 
been indicated by the gentleman from Oregon, identifying the low bid is 
not. The administration's executive order stating that air traffic 
control is not an inherently governmental function is totally misguided 
and it is another slap in the face at our hard-working, dedicated 
Federal employees, and it places in jeopardy the safety of the American 
traveling public. The President's senior staff has stated the 
administration has been considering privatizing the operation of the 
Nation's air traffic control system. That would be a huge, costly, and 
dangerous mistake. If ensuring the safety of our Nation's skies is not 
inherently governmental, then I would like to know what is.
  Currently, public employees make sure our streets are safe, they make 
sure our coastline is secure, our borders are protected, so why does 
the administration believe that public employees should not ensure the 
safety of our skies?
  As has been indicated by the gentleman from Oregon, the events of 
September 11 proved how important it was to have experienced staff in 
our control towers. They brought down 5,000 planes in less than 2 hours 
without any problem. Our Nation's controllers were able to do this 
because they are highly trained professionals whose only mission is 
safety.
  We do not need to turn this job over and the safety of our friends 
over to the lowest bidder. It seems that the administration is intent 
on contracting out critical government responsibilities to the lowest 
bidder. That is not a savings. In our current environment, we face 
countless unknown threats. We need people in our government whose first 
mission, whose only mission, is security and safety, not corporate 
profits. The administration states that private systems would be more 
cost-effective; they would be more efficient. Recent examples in Great 
Britain, Canada, and New Zealand have proven just the opposite. The 
administration offers no reason for this order and can provide no 
justification for privatizing air traffic control. Managing air traffic 
control services is not a for-profit business and should not be run 
like one. The bottom line is safety; the bottom line is not profits.
  As a member of the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on 
Transportation and Infrastructure, I listened to countless hours of 
testimony, along with the gentleman from Oregon, detailing the complete 
disregard for safety and security with which private airport screening 
firms operate. After much deliberation and over the House Republican 
leadership's objections, the vast majority of this Congress determined 
that the screeners, given their importance to aviation and national 
security, should be Federal employees.
  Now, the administration wants to strip air traffic control functions 
from public employees and contract it out to the lowest bidder. We 
should not promote someone whose only criteria is the lowest bid.
  Our professional controllers require years of complex and 
comprehensive training. Does the administration really expect private 
companies to make this substantial investment in human capital? Our air 
traffic control system is the envy of the entire world. It handles more 
traffic and manages the most congested airspace in the entire world. 
The men and women who operate this system are among the finest 
employees the government has. The country is facing a crisis in air 
traffic control. Thousands of controllers will be retiring soon, and 
Congress needs to adopt policies that will keep these talented, hard-
working people as controllers for as long as possible. We should not be 
adopting policies driving these dedicated people from service.
  On its very face, this action by the administration flies in the face 
of reason. The President's action has no justification, except to serve 
business at the expense of the traveling public. We need to focus on 
the safety of American travelers, not on profits to the lowest bidder.
  Ask yourselves this: Just how important are the lives of your family? 
Do you really want to trust them to the lowest bidder?
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's insightful 
comments. If I may just direct a question to the gentleman. The 
gentleman serves on the subcommittee which has been dealing with some 
of the most critical areas of air safety in our country. I know it has 
been accelerated here in the last 9 months. I am curious if the 
gentleman has had any evidence that has been presented to the 
subcommittee, or if the administration

[[Page H3437]]

heretofore had brought forth any indication that there were problems 
with our air traffic system that merited this drastic action and 
the conclusion that air traffic control was not an inherently 
governmental function.

  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, the administration, as the gentleman from 
Oregon who also serves on the committee knows, has brought forth 
absolutely no testimony, no evidence of any sort showing that there is 
a need to move this from a governmental function into a private 
function. In fact, if the gentleman wants to follow the reasoning 
presented to the committee, it is exactly the opposite. If we want to 
say that the private companies were not doing a good job of screening 
the baggage and we agreed to move that into a governmental function 
with government employees because of the danger presented to the 
traveling public, why then should we move the opposite way and say our 
extremely efficient, well-trained and hard-working government employees 
that keep our skies safe, that are the envy of the entire world? Why 
should we move that from a position of government trust where we are 
protecting the public into the lowest bidder, the person that comes in 
that says, I can do it the cheapest would be the person that would get 
the job. I think the American public deserves more than that, and I 
think the administration needs to bring testimony or evidence to show 
why the cheapest instead of the best should get the bid.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's analysis. I 
was struck; I was here earlier in the evening when the gentleman gave 
eloquent testimony to the need to support our rail investment. The 
gentleman talked about what a difference it made in east Texas, how 
people had moved forward, how Texas has had ridership increase on the 
order of 9 percent where the State had been investing, where the 
private sector had been there. The gentleman was talking about the 
legislation that we have worked on in our Subcommittee on Railroads of 
the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, under bipartisan 
leadership of the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement), the ranking 
minority member; the chairman, the gentleman from Buffalo, New York 
(Mr. Quinn), the Republican chair, that has been virtually unanimous on 
the part of our committee to move forward to keep on track. I was 
struck with what the gentleman was talking about in terms of supporting 
that and the need to move forward with our bipartisan consensus to 
protect Amtrak, with the absolute failure to work with the committee 
structure, to look at the evidence and come forward with a program that 
made sense for the American public. I thought that the contrast between 
the gentleman's two comments, one, the importance of preserving what 
the committee could do on behalf of rail, contrasted with what had not 
happened with air traffic control and safety, was stunning.
  Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, there is no 
one in the United States Congress who has done more for rail or to 
focus the attention of Congress and the administration on rail than my 
good friend from Oregon, and I know it fits in well with his livable 
communities agenda and trying to save energy and having a complete 
travel and infrastructure system of rail and air and water and 
otherwise.

                              {time}  2130

  I think it is important, as the gentleman mentioned, that as we are 
trying to protect one sort of transportation, as we are trying to say, 
let us invest in rail, let us do something to make it safer, let us use 
rail as a viable alternative, that at the same time we are backing away 
from aviation; and we are saying, we have a system that works, we have 
a system with professional folks, we have a system that brought down 
5,000 planes in 2 hours with no problems, we have the envy of the 
world; but we want to change that.
  We want to strip these professionals, these Federal employees that 
have only safety, that is their only criteria, we want to strip them of 
that responsibility, and we want to put it out on the market to a 
private company who says, How can I cut costs? How can I pay as little 
as possible to these employees? How can I make sure they do not have 
benefits? What can I do to get this so low and so stripped down and so 
poorly administered that I will get that contract? Because they look at 
it as profit, and our government employees that have worked so hard and 
trained so hard look at it as an obligation to safety for the traveling 
public, to safety as part of our national security. Certainly, since 
September 11, we need to look at rail and air and help them, not do 
something to back away from our obligation.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's leadership 
and eloquence in summarizing that. I do not say it any better.

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