[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H2577-H2578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H2577]]
             DISTORTION OF BILL EMERSON HUMANITARIAN TRUST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak tonight on an 
issue that deals with American agriculture. Today, as a member of the 
Committee on Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Agriculture, the 
House full committee passed a supplemental appropriations bill to 
assist our soldiers and military folks with respect to the prosecution 
of the war in Iraq, and provide other humanitarian aid and other 
financial assistance to the region of the Middle East and assist in the 
war effort there, and recognize the importance of supporting our 
fighting men and women in that theater.
  Also, as part of the appropriations measure that passed the House 
Committee on Appropriations today, there was a provision that relates 
to food assistance for the people of Iraq, and a preparation for the 
understanding that our country has committed itself to try to help the 
people of the Middle East region, and certainly the people in Iraq, who 
are the innocent victims of a tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein.
  I want to address a portion of the appropriations bill that deals 
with the agriculture commitment that the country has made in the 
supplemental appropriations bill.
  It is a good measure. It is a supplemental that is supported by the 
President, by the majority party, by I think a unanimous vote in the 
Committee on Appropriations today, to provide assistance to the troops 
and make sure that our military receives all that it needs.
  The section that I want to refer to in the appropriations bill that 
we will have a chance to debate and vote on later this week, and 
certainly in conference with the Senate, the other body, next week and 
hopefully to get this measure signed into law by the President before 
April 11, is a measure that has to do with the integrity of the Bill 
Emerson Humanitarian Trust.
  Bill Emerson was a former Member, a wonderful man from Missouri, a 
dear friend and a colleague of many Members of Congress, who passed 
away; and the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust Fund was created in his 
memory, and properly so. That Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust was 
created to provide food aid on an emergency basis to countries around 
the world who are struggling for food in times of emergency and dire 
straits and national consequence.
  Our country has been very forthright in providing this assistance and 
making sure that the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust is not only 
stocked with adequate commodities, but also cash to purchase 
commodities when the need arises; and it has done millions and millions 
of people a world of good in making sure that they are able to eat. And 
it is out of the goodness of the American taxpayer and the American 
system that we provide that assistance.
  What we have seen in the use of the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, 
administered by the Department of Agriculture in our country, is what I 
perceive to be a distortion of the operation of the trust. About a year 
ago, last summer in fact, there was a determination made by USDA to 
sell onto the open market soft white wheat, which is manufactured, 
grown, produced in my part of the country, the State of Washington. In 
doing so, the actions by the U.S. Department of Agriculture depressed 
the price on the open market of soft white wheat. Over the course of 
the last few months, since November, additional efforts have been 
undertaken by USDA to sell wheat stocks, soft white wheat stocks, in 
anticipation of humanitarian needs around the world.
  In the most recent activity in the trust, there has been a move by 
USDA to monetize soft white wheat in order to obtain cash, which would 
then be used to buy other commodities, rice and others, which may be 
useful in Iraq.
  Now, I have no quarrel with the idea that we need to provide food aid 
to Iraq. This is a war-torn country with people starving at the hands 
of Saddam Hussein. America, as it has in the past, is ready at the 
present to provide assistance to the people of Iraq. So it is not an 
issue with me over how or whether we should provide food aid to the 
people of Iraq.
  There is an issue as to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 
operation, administration of the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust.
  What we have seen is the monetization of soft white wheat at the 
expense of the farmers who grow soft white wheat and at the expense of 
the market which is driven by the amount of wheat that is on the market 
at any one time. The price of wheat, we have seen in my farm country, 
has gone from $4.80 cents a bushel in November to a range of about 
$3.15 cents to $3.25 cents per bushel currently. The market collapsed 
to a no-bid market on March 21, just a week or so ago, on the rumor 
that the Department of Agriculture was going to dump more wheat on the 
market and raise cash for other commodities.
  What my admonition to the USDA has been is, do not monetize soft 
white wheat so you can buy other commodities. Let us make sure, as we 
face the needs of the people of Iraq and the humanitarian commitment 
that our country is willing and able to make, let us make sure this is 
a wartime cost which is necessary to assist people in other parts of 
the world who may be facing disasters, natural or otherwise.
  So what we are trying to do is make sure that the USDA, number one, 
follows the intent of the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, and that the 
process is in place to do so in a fair manner, commodity to commodity, 
around the country, and not place a monetization practice in place 
which then puts soft white wheat farmers, for example, at odds with 
rice growers in different parts of the country.
  So the monetization prohibition, which I think is sensible for our 
government to operate and administer the food aid programs of our 
country, is part of the appropriations bill that passed in the 
Committee on Appropriations today and will be before the House of 
Representatives, most likely later this week. So that is one 
restriction that needs to be in place. And the Department of 
Agriculture must listen to this development which has been undertaken 
by the House, by the legislative branch of our government, and not do 
more monetization, not undertake more monetization of one commodity 
which places farmers which grow that commodity against farmers of 
another commodity that may be suitable for distribution in Iraq.
  In addition, the House has put $69 million additional food aid money, 
unrestricted, able to have any commodity on the market be purchased, to 
meet the needs of the people of Iraq; and that is an acceptable and 
appropriate activity development on the part of the Committee on 
Appropriations and this House and the legislative branch.

                              {time}  1930

  It is likely to stay in the bill all the way through the process in 
dealing with the other body as well as the reconciliation with the 
House conferees to come up with a final supplemental appropriations 
package that will assist in the war effort, including humanitarian aid 
assistance.
  I am here, Mr. Speaker, to emphasize most definitively that 
monetization of commodity that places one grower against another is bad 
agriculture policy in this country. It is a disservice to the 
agriculture community, which is struggling for price support and market 
price in any event; and it puts farmer against farmer, which is an 
unacceptable condition. In addition, the misuse, I would argue, of the 
Bill Emerson humanitarian trust to assist in Iraq when additional 
moneys are being poured into the war effort as part of the defense 
bill, as part of the supplemental appropriations bill to assist those 
good people of Iraq who need the assistance from food aid, there is no 
need to further monetize or further distort the market for soft white 
wheat or rice or any other commodity that is subject to administration 
under the Bill Emerson humanitarian trust.
  The third point I want to raise is that in depressing the market by 
government action, which puts more commodities on the market and lowers 
the price of any commodity, what we are doing is then under the loan 
deficiency payment program of the farm bill, the agriculture policy in 
this country, what it is doing is subjecting the taxpayer to additional 
expense by virtue

[[Page H2578]]

of that market price going down below the loan deficiency payment level 
that then kicks in so that there is more taxpayer assistance to farmers 
because of that low price. My strong point and my strong message to 
USDA is the U.S. Department of Agriculture should not be taking actions 
which depress the price which then expose the taxpayer to other 
liability in aid to the farmer. Instead, let the market decide what the 
commodities market price should be. And so when you monetize and sell 
one commodity to buy another, you distort the market, and that is what 
USDA in my opinion has been doing and doing improperly.
  I come to the floor tonight to make this very strong message to USDA 
and any others of the eight government agencies who are involved in the 
decision to monetize soft white wheat. This is bad policy. We should 
not be doing it, especially in light of the prohibition on monetization 
that exists in the current House appropriations bill that passed the 
Appropriations Committee today and will likely come to this House floor 
sometime this week, hopefully, and then be reconciled with the other 
body's version of the supplemental appropriations bill and then be 
signed by the President most likely at the end of next week.
  I am urging caution on the part of the USDA. I have had conversations 
with the agency. I have had conversations with USAID to try to make the 
point that help is on the way in terms of money and prohibition on 
monetization; and my great hope is that the agencies of government who 
are committed to helping the agriculture industry in this country, the 
farmers who grow the products that you and I consume, that there will 
be some restraint on the part of the USDA, that there will be a 
cancellation of any other notices to monetize soft white wheat so that 
rice can be purchased, because there is additional money in the 
pipeline that is going to be coming to the rice growers of the country 
or the wheat growers of the country to provide the commodity needs that 
will meet the expectations and the requirements of the people who are 
suffering in Iraq.
  We have 69 million additional dollars. We have $250 million for PL-
480 assistance. There is additional money that will help the poor, 
starving people of this war-torn region. We will do that and we should 
do that but not at the expense of the commodity growers in the eastern 
district of Washington State or other States around the country who are 
affected by a misuse or mismanagement or a distorting impact that comes 
with monetizing the Bill Emerson humanitarian trust.
  I will be pursuing this issue in due course to make sure that the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies understand the consequences of 
monetization, the impact on the markets and the impact on the taxpayer. 
Ultimately, the taxpayers when prices go way down in the soft white 
wheat market are going to have to bear the burden. That is not what the 
farmer wants. The farmer wants a market price. We had a market price of 
$4.80 a bushel some several months ago but because of, in part, 
additional dumping on the market of U.S. Government agency stocks, the 
price has gone down, and we now have a further crisis in farm country.
  We cannot afford to lose the agriculture infrastructure in this 
Nation. If prices are so low that farmers are not going to grow 
commodities, we are going to find ourselves in days and months and 
years ahead, hopefully not, we are going to find ourselves facing the 
challenge of being independent agriculturally. We are going to be 
dependent on other countries of the world for our agriculture. That is 
unacceptable, and that is what we are trying to prevent by allowing 
market forces to have an important part in agriculture policy, not a 
distorting impact because of determinations made by USDA, our own 
Agriculture Department, which has the mission to help the farmers and 
the food needs of people in this country.
  I would just say, too, as we look at the dependence that we have on 
fossil fuels, on oil from the Middle East countries, we are now in a 
war that has as a factor in it the issue of oil reserves and who is 
producing oil reserves. We are dependent on foreign countries. We 
cannot allow that to happen in America as it relates to our dependence 
on agriculture commodities from overseas. That is why we need a robust 
agriculture economy here and proper administration of the Bill Emerson 
trust, the humanitarian trust, proper administration of the food aid 
programs, proper respect for agriculture interests and the value of 
markets and the value of the movement of markets, prices go up and 
down; but let the markets operate what the prices are rather than have 
the government be involved in distorting the market. If we have a 
hands-off policy or a helpful policy, as opposed to a hurtful policy by 
our U.S. Department of Agriculture, we will be a lot better off.
  I would say to the Speaker and my colleagues, be on the lookout for 
any market distortion that might be coming out of government agencies 
as it relates to agriculture, and I urge my colleagues to support this 
idea that monetization is not a good thing when you are trying to put 
farmer against farmer by our own Department of Agriculture, because the 
goal ultimately is to have a robust agriculture economy providing 
enough food so that we can continue to provide assistance to natural 
disaster consequences and the people who are subject to natural 
disasters or food shortages or drought or any other consequence that 
comes around this great world, that America can help solve by providing 
food aid.

                          ____________________