[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 71 (Thursday, May 1, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H2995-H2999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2419, FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY ACT 
                                OF 2007

  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to instruct at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Kind moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2419 (an Act to 
     provide for the continuation of agricultural programs through 
     fiscal year 2012) be instructed to--
       (1) insist on the amendment contained in section 2401(d) of 
     the House bill (relating to funding for the environmental 
     quality incentive program);
       (2) insist on the amendments contained in section 2104 of 
     the House bill (relating to the grassland reserve program) 
     and reject the amendment contained in section 2401(2) of the 
     Senate amendment (relating to funding for the grassland 
     reserve program);
       (3) insist on the amendments contained in section 2102 of 
     the House bill (relating to the wetland reserve program); and
       (4) insist on the amendments contained in section 2608 of 
     the Senate bill (relating to crop insurance ineligibility 
     relating to crop production on native sod).

  Mr. KIND (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
that the motion be considered as read.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Wisconsin?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) and a Member opposed will be recognized for 30 
minutes each.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KIND. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a very simple motion. I understand we are in the 
waning, perhaps minutes of conclusion of the farm bill. But, 
nevertheless, I think it's important that we get the policies right. We 
do need a farm bill. We need it as soon as possible. It's planting 
season back home. Our farmers need some predictability. They need to 
know what rules they are being to be operating under, one way or 
another. But we need a good farm bill, not a bad farm bill; one that 
tries to get the policy right, not the wrong way.
  I still believe there's more room for reform under the commodity 
programs in light of record high commodity prices. It's tough to 
justify to the average taxpayer that what is still being considered 
under the current farm bill is close to $25 billion of direct payments 
to go out over the next 5 years, bearing no relationship to price or 
production. It's not a safety net. These are entitlement funding, 
automatic payments that go to large producers, primarily merely due to 
their existence and not because of market.
  But there's another important feature of this farm bill and that is 
the conservation title. This farm bill offers this Nation the greatest 
public investment in private land ownership in regards to anything else 
we do around here. For a very long time, we have had important land and 
water conservation programs set up on a voluntary and incentive basis 
to help our producers be good stewards of the land; good manure 
management practices so they are not running off and polluting our 
rivers and streams and lakes and tributaries, making sure we have got 
buffer strips in place, making sure we have got the ability to absorb 
more CO2 from the atmosphere so we don't lose ground on the 
global warming battle that we are confronting.
  This is something that also benefits the American farmer, family 
farmers in every region. But it also benefits the community at large 
through enhanced water quality programs, through habitat protection, 
and wildlife, which is also vital to our own local and regional 
economies. Yet what is being considered right now in the conference is 
a dramatic reduction in the level of funding that came out of the 
House.
  The House had an historic passage of conservation funding last year, 
calling for another over $5 billion in these conservation programs. 
This, I think, in part, is to address the backlog of demand because 
today, under current funding, close to two out of every three farmers 
applying for conversation funding assistance are turned because of the 
inadequacy of funds. So the demand is there.
  But what makes these programs especially attractive is their so-
called ``green box payments.'' They are nonmarket, nontrade-distorting, 
still a way to help our family farmers manage their own land, but in a 
way that doesn't distort the marketplace. What's being considered now 
is a dramatic reduction in the level of funding that came out of the 
House originally.
  Our motion to instruct today would merely ask the conferees to try to 
get back to that House level of funding rather than going even below 
where the Senate took it. The Senate was proposing a $4.2 billion 
increase. We were over $5 billion. It's my understanding, and I haven't 
been privy to the ongoing negotiations, but they are talking about just 
a $4 billion increase under conservation, substantially below where the 
House went.
  More specifically, this motion would instruct conferees to maintain 
the House funding for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program. That 
is the main program that helps with manure management projects 
throughout the Nation, especially beneficial to large animal feedlots 
that have to control that and prevent the spillage into the 
environment.
  It would also maintain the allotment for the Grassland Reserve 
Program. There is more pressure being put on these highly sensitive and 
highly erodible lands because of the increase in commodity prices. It 
would also maintain House funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program. 
That, of course, is a great filter that exists throughout our 
communities to enhance quality water supplies but also crucial to water 
fowl populations in North America.
  It would also accept the Senate Sod Saver Provision so that the 
Federal Government doesn't incentivize the conversion of sensitive 
virgin prairie land back into crop production. Again, given the 
pressure that exists with these historically high commodity prices, 
it's a real concern that more of this virgin prairie land that has been 
vital for conservation efforts, especially in the Great Plains, are 
going to be brought back into production with the consequent adverse 
environmental and conservation effects that would result.
  So that is merely what this motion to instruct would do; get back to 
what the House passed last year under conservation, give the farmers 
throughout the country the tools they need to be good stewards of the 
land, and do it in a nonmarket, nontrade-distorting fashion, especially 
in the tremendous increase in commodity prices today and the pressure 
that producers are under to bring the land that has been conserved for 
many years back into production and resulting with a lot more sediment 
and nutrient runoffs that will be a consequence of that action.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to now yield half of that time 
to my colleague, Chairman Holden.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden) will be recognized for 15 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HOLDEN. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend from Wisconsin and my friend from 
Oregon that we appreciate their support for the funding for 
conservation at the House level. I have got to say honestly, though, we 
wish we would have had your support last July. I also say to my 
friends, and I mean my friends, that we

[[Page H2996]]

wish that we could work the will of the House and pass legislation here 
and send it over to the other body and have them rubber stamp it and 
send it down to the President and have him sign it, as we have done our 
work here. But in reality, that is not the way we can operate.
  I say to my friend from Wisconsin, who served on the Agriculture 
Committee, and you know this, to my friend, we do not have partisan 
disagreements on this committee. My friend from Oklahoma will agree 
with that. We have regional differences. We have to balance those 
regional differences and try to figure out a way that those of us on 
the committee who care strongly about the commodity title are satisfied 
with the safety net but also realize that there has to be a reform. And 
those of us who care strongly about the conservation title realize that 
we need to have increased investment in conservation. You can pair that 
with energy and nutrition, everything else, but we are here to talk 
about conservation this afternoon.
  I'd say to my friend, sure, we would like to have more money. My 
father used to always say to me that everybody wants to go to heaven 
but nobody wants to die. We have to put this together and we have to 
realize what is possible.
  When we debated and discussed this bill in the House of 
Representatives, we had $13.6 billion in addition to baseline. When we 
are negotiating in the conference committee, we have $10 billion. So 
you can see the difference. So everyone had to give and take.
  Again, I think when the conferees have done their work, we are going 
to see significant reform in the commodity title and you're going to 
see reform in the conservation title. The chairman asked me to make one 
thing perfectly clear in this motion to instruct. We have consistently 
said reform would apply to all titles, and we would spread scarce 
dollars out to more producers.
  The conference agreement will do that, and we will fully fund 
conservation. We believe we have an obligation to do that. But we have 
limited resources. So we are going to do the best we can, hopefully 
tonight and tomorrow, to have a fully invested, robust title for 
conversation.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1515

  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. I do appreciate the hard work 
that our friends from Pennsylvania and Oklahoma have done and the 
strong support they have shown throughout the years under these 
important conservation programs under the conservation title, and now 
that we are getting into closure of this farm bill, I hope that voice 
of advocacy will rise again in defense of these programs, especially in 
light of the pressure that exists to bring this land back into 
production.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my friend and colleague from Oregon 
(Mr. Blumenauer).
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. I appreciate 
his continued leadership and advocacy in this bill.
  I would remind my good friend from Pennsylvania that earlier in this 
debate, Mr. Kind and I, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Flake, we advanced proposals 
that would have provided more than enough money to fully fund the 
conservation, would have provided more than enough money to deal for 
the areas of agriculture that are dramatically underserved.
  This does a terrific job for the large corporate enterprises, for the 
richest of farmers. Lowering the limits to $900,000 may in the minds of 
some be a draconian reform. But when we know that the average farmer 
makes twice what the average homeowner makes, the average citizen 
makes, and I was actually campaigning in Pennsylvania for a campaign in 
the presidential effort here a couple weeks back, and I was in some 
very rural parts of Pennsylvania engaged in the discussion there, and I 
found that Pennsylvania is much like Oregon. We are short-changed 
dramatically in the farm bill.
  Earlier we had my good friend from North Dakota, a State that 
produces less agricultural value than the State of Oregon and gets one-
sixth the subsidy. Pennsylvania is a massive farming effort. Twenty-
seven percent of the land area is devoted to farms. But Pennsylvania 
farmers get one-half of their share of the subsidy nationally, 62 
percent of the applications for conservation are not paid for, and the 
average farmer in Pennsylvania, 83 percent make less than $100,000 a 
year. So these are small farmers. They are hard pressed. They want 
conservation, and they don't have the money for the application. It is 
just like in my State.
  I would suggest that we look hard, because I agree with my friend 
from Pennsylvania and my friend from Oklahoma. This is not necessarily 
partisan. There are areas that agriculture policy divides, not 
necessarily partisan, but sometimes it is urban and rural. Sometimes it 
is east, west, south, midwest. It is more likely the type of 
agriculture that is practiced, because the vast majority of farmers in 
this country would have been well served by the reforms that we 
advocated from here, limiting the payments to $250,000, for instance, 
like have been advocated by the Bush administration and by many people 
here.
  But we don't even have to get to that point. My friend Mr. Kind's 
motion to recommit should bring us together, because farmers all across 
the country, in States large and small, east and west, are for 
environmental protection. This is the most important environmental bill 
that the 110th Congress will address. We should not miss this golden 
opportunity.
  It is frustrating to me that the conferees are talking about cutting 
what we approved at $5.7 to as low as $4 billion. And who knows what it 
might end up? There are lots of missing pieces. We need to go on record 
here strongly supporting maintaining at least a $5 billion level.
  I will tell you, farmers in my State regularly identify conservation 
programs as their top need. They have to comply with all sorts of 
difficult environmental regulations, and we need to ensure that they 
get the payments they deserve for environmental protection that they 
provide.
  It is the farm community, the ranchers, that are the source of the 
cheapest, most cost-effective water quality and water quantity 
improvement. This money supports programs that protect our most 
sensitive and ecologically important lands. It keeps pollution out of 
the lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands. It represents the largest 
Federal investment in private land, and it should be an investment that 
our farmers and ranchers can count upon year after year.
  It is not just the clean water. It is maintaining abundant wildlife 
populations. It is storing carbon. Agriculture is one of the largest 
sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the largest internationally. With 
the increased pressure on lands from biofuel mandates and high food 
prices, these programs matter more now than ever before.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. KIND. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you.
  Too often I have watched in the farm legislation that I have seen 
work through here that conservation ends up being the piggy bank for 
the farm bill. This is an area that is shortchanged to deal with more 
powerful political interests.
  Well, if the American public knew what was at stake, there would be 
no more powerful interest than protecting the environment. Two-thirds 
of the farmers who apply are turned down. This is not right. Increased 
conservation programs help balance out some of the inequities in the 
farm program and provide benefits to everybody.
  I urge you to support family farmers, the environment and sportsmen, 
and support a good farm bill by supporting Mr. Kind's motion to 
instruct.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I do rise in opposition to this motion. I think my good 
and dear friends are well intended. I think they believe that they are 
sincerely trying to do something positive.
  But I would say to you, this process that we are working through is a 
complicated, challenging process. Ultimately, the final goal of any 
farm bill is to take the limited resources that we have and use them in 
a way to achieve the maximum benefit for our fellow Americans, whether 
that is enhancing the quality of the environment through

[[Page H2997]]

the conservation programs, or making sure that the world's safest and 
yet most affordable food supply continues to be available to everyone.
  Let's think for a moment about what farm bills represent. The first 
comprehensive Federal farm bill was not passed until 1933 in the depths 
of the great economic depression, and, in my region of the country, the 
great droughts of the 1930s. It was an effort to prevent rural America 
from disintegrating. It was an effort to make sure that food and fiber 
remained available to all American consumers at a price that they could 
afford. We have worked through many policy concepts. We have had many 
different ways of addressing those needs since 1933.
  With time, the focus of the farm bill has shifted. In the 1960s it 
went from being a farmer's farm bill, as the coffee shop folks back 
home might think of, to being a major player in meeting the nutritional 
needs of this program. President Kennedy's pilot program on ultimately 
what became food stamps adopted by President Johnson and this Congress 
in the 1960s became a major element. But it was an element of the farm 
bill. In the 1980s, the focus added conservation to that, CRP, EQIP, 
all of the things that enable farmers, ranchers and property owners to 
maximize the positive environmental impacts on their property.
  The farm bill evolved. Where are we right now? We have a bill that is 
the result of one of the most challenging set of circumstances in 
decades. We were given the baseline last year to write a farm bill, and 
for those of you who might not remember what the baseline is, that is 
simply saying you have the money you had 5 years ago, and not a penny 
more. And, oh, by the way, inflation has chewed a good bit of that up. 
Go try and write a bill. Then we were told, shift $4 billion of that 
from wherever in the bill you want, wherever you can, to the food stamp 
program, the social nutrition program, the feeding programs.
  Okay. We worked for months. But as things have gone along, the 
process has changed. Now, instead of $4 billion, then it was $6 
billion, then it was $8 billion. Now I understand we are at $10.6 
billion in new social nutrition spending.
  I don't disagree with that. But when you are not given any new money 
to start with, when you are placed under a $10 billion mandate, it 
makes it hard to do all of the things that need to be done with the few 
precious resources you have.
  Now we have worked in the most creative way to come up with 
additional revenue, to reallocate resources to meet that $10 billion 
mandate from senior leadership in the majority. And along the way we 
have come up with $4 billion extra for conservation, half of that money 
going to EQIP, the basic cost share program that everyone has an 
opportunity to apply for to try and justify the benefits that will be 
generated from it to have the resources to meet those needs.
  My friends, I know my colleagues are well-intended. I sincerely 
believe that. But a farm bill, first and foremost, should be about 
making sure that every American has access to the safest, highest 
quality, yes, most affordable food and fiber in the world. Then we can 
target all of these other programs. Then we can meet all these other 
needs.
  Let's don't lose sight of why we have farm bills. Let's not lose 
sight of who they help, and that is every American that eats, and a 
good part of the world that depends on us for their food suppliers 
also.
  The budget times are tough. The circumstances are difficult. It has 
been a long and arduous conference. We have yet to produce a final 
report, which we will all then be able to debate and discuss. But don't 
direct us in a way that makes the process more complicated when it 
comes to meeting all of those needs. Don't tie our hands in a fashion 
that will lead, I am afraid, to a net reduction in the ultimate benefit 
of those taxpayer dollars, so hard for the taxpayers to come by, that 
need to be spent so carefully to maximize their return.
  Let us pursue the agenda of meeting our needs.
  Witht that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve what time I might have left.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the comments of my good friend 
from Oklahoma and the hard work that he has done. But these are two 
individuals who serve on the Agriculture Committee. In fact, my friend 
from Pennsylvania is the Chair of the subcommittee in charge of this 
conservation title. My friend from Oklahoma is the ranking member of 
the subcommittee in charge of the conservation title.
  All we are asking them and the conferees from the House to do is to 
protect their programs and to protect their funding level, that which 
was contained in the House-passed version of the farm bill last year. 
That is a simple request, and it received good support in the House 
when it left last year.
  But there is an additional wrinkle that was just introduced, to my 
knowledge, within the last 24 hours, and that is the consideration to 
start capping payments under the conservation title. I think that would 
result in bad policy. I think it is going to result in a lot of 
unintended consequences, because these conservation practices aren't 
marketable, unlike the subsidies going to commodity crop producers, 
where they grow something and they can sell it in the marketplace.
  To get a farmer to have a good manure management system in place or 
to have buffer strips and that, they can't take that outside then and 
sell it to the private marketplace. So these incentives are important 
to partner with the individual landowner to get them to do the right 
thing on their own land. And they want to do the right thing on their 
own land.
  That is why two out of every three of them are being denied funding 
right now, because of the inadequacy of funds. The demand is exceeding 
the supply. We are saying let's try to catch up to that demand right 
now, which brings huge societal benefits at the same time, to enhance 
quality water supply throughout our country. And I still believe that 
is going to be one of the major challenges we face, not only in this 
country, but throughout the world in this century. How are we going to 
maintain a quality water supply? And if we can't partner to the level 
they expect in farm country, it is going to make that challenge all the 
more difficult.
  So I would hope the conferees in their discussion and last minute 
deliberations of where they are going to find a nickel or dime in order 
to pay for things don't go down that road of trying to cap these 
conservation payments, like many of us have been proposing under the 
commodity title.

                              {time}  1530

  I think we can pay for what we are requesting in this motion through 
some more commonsense reasonable reforms under the title I commodity 
program, starting at another look at these so-called direct payments. 
They are slated to go for another $25 billion over the next 5 years 
alone. In fact, unfortunately Mr. Flake's motion to instruct failed a 
little bit earlier, but all he was asking is, let's just keeping those 
direct payments at the current funding level, a maximum of $40,000 
instead of increasing it at a time of high commodity prices. Not an 
unreasonable request.
  But what is being considered now going from $40,000 up to $50,000 for 
these direct payments and having dual entities on the same farm to 
qualify for it.
  I also believe it is reasonable to take another look, as the 
President and the administration is asking, for us to have a stricter 
means test under the commodity programs. Let's face it, a $950,000 
adjusted gross income cutoff is in the stratosphere for most 
individuals in this country. We are talking adjusted gross now, not 
just gross income. This is after you back out your expenses and all the 
costs of operating that farm. That is close to $1 million of profit we 
are talking about that an individual would receive, and still receive 
these commodity subsidy payments under what is being proposed in the 
conference.
  So I think there is plenty of savings that can still be had without 
cutting the legs off of our producers while maintaining an important 
safety net in case things do turn bad in farm country. And Lord knows 
we have seen that cycle come and go in the past. But let's

[[Page H2998]]

do it in a more fiscally responsible manner and maximize the scarce 
resources that we have for the benefit of the community at large, and 
that includes funding under the conservation title.
  A few groups have already weighed in on this motion to instruct and 
have expressed their support, from the Environmental Defense Fund, 
National Wildlife Federation, the World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of 
Wildlife, Environmental Working Group, American Rivers, those who have 
been actively engaged in participating and trying to shape this next 
farm bill. We still have an opportunity because the conference has not 
closed, no report has been filed yet. There is going to be some last-
minute negotiations. But ultimately, at the end of the day, if my 
colleagues are serious about having a farm bill concluded and 
implemented into law, the President has to be comfortable in doing it, 
and clearly he is not there yet, the administration is not there. And 
they are pressing the conference to do more in reforming these 
commodity programs.
  We can choose to ignore that, but at the end of the day the President 
has got to sign something into law, or we have to try to override a 
veto, which I think is going to be very, very difficult. So I think 
there is still a way of working with the administration, trying to 
produce a product that they feel comfortable with, that the President 
feels comfortable with. And one of the ways to do it is more reform 
under commodity, and have a strong conservation title at the end of the 
day. The President has consistently expressed his support for a strong 
conservation title. I don't think they would object to the requests 
that we are making here in this motion to instruct.
  And let's remind ourselves, this is another way of providing help and 
assistance to those who are working the land in our country. This isn't 
separate from the help in other areas that we try to provide to family 
farmers; it is in addition to it, it is a supplement. And it is 
something that benefits every farmer in every region, and including all 
people throughout the country, instead of the concentrated payments 
that we see under the current title I commodity program.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  For my colleagues' information, I have no further speakers. I believe 
I have the right to close. I am prepared to do that if they are ready 
to close, too.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  My friend from Oregon has left the Chamber, but I appreciate him 
looking out after the farmers in Pennsylvania. But I would just like to 
remind him that Pennsylvania leads the country in farmland 
preservation, and we have doubled the investment for farmland 
preservation in this conference report as we are working it through.
  I also would like to remind my friend that not only have we preserved 
the dairy safety net, and dairy being the number one agriculture 
industry in Pennsylvania, that is very important; we have a new program 
that we are working on in the conference to have a feed cost adjustment 
as the cost of feed goes up, and that will be a great benefit to the 
farmers in Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin for that as the cost of feed 
goes up.
  Also, we have for specialty crops, the first time, a $1.3 billion 
investment that will help farmers all across the country, but they will 
help them in Pennsylvania as well. So I appreciate my friend trying to 
help me out.
  And I would just say to my friend from Wisconsin again, and repeating 
ourselves, that we are restrained. We were working with $13.6 billion; 
we now are working with $10 billion. The commodity title has been cut 
by tens of billions of dollars from the last farm bill. There is 
significant reform that we are going to accomplish. And the gentleman 
knows, because he served on the committee, that we have regional 
differences, and it is difficult to get consensus because of the 
geographical makeup of the committee.
  So we are going to get there and we are going to fund conservation, 
but I would like to make one last point to the gentleman's comments 
about capping on conservation programs. We have noticed and discovered 
recently that there have been significant abuses in the conservation 
title, where wealthy people have purchased farms with no intention of 
farming and have become eligible to the tune of millions of dollars for 
conservation programs. That was not the intent, I don't believe, in any 
farm bill I ever voted for or the gentleman from Wisconsin voted for or 
the gentleman from Oklahoma. We never intended that. So the way to get 
around that is to have caps on that. And not only will you stop the 
abuses if you put caps on it from millionaires taking advantage of it, 
you will have more dollars to spread around to more people who are on 
those waiting lists right now.
  My friend, we all wish we could do more. The gentleman from Oklahoma 
chaired the subcommittee when we began having hearings on it. With the 
last election, I became the chairman and he is now the ranking member. 
We are working very closely together. But we have limited resources. We 
are going to do the best we can, but we need a bill that we can get out 
of committee, get passed on this floor, passed in the Senate, and sent 
down to the President. And we are working very hard on that. I believe 
we are going to get a product that will get the majority of support 
significantly in this body.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, might I inquire how much time, if any, I have 
left.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma has 9\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.
  I would simply note, one of the challenges of any farm bill, 
certainly every farm bill since the 1960s, has been the payment 
limitation issue. Every farm bill we tighten the definition, every farm 
bill we attempt to reflect the will of this body. We will do that again 
this time.
  The question about payment limitations on the conservation programs, 
that is an inevitable outcome, simply the fact that there will never, 
ever be enough money to do everything we all want to do. And in a year 
and a bill when we put 10 billion additional dollars in the nutritional 
program, no doubt justified, but that was a decision made on high, that 
makes funding for all these other programs even more challenging. $4 
billion in additional conservation spending is an impressive 
accomplishment in the circumstances we work, but those payment 
limitations are a necessary thing, just as in conservation as in every 
other part of the bill to make sure that everyone has a fair and 
equitable chance at those resources.
  When you apply for an EQIP program, you have to demonstrate the 
benefits of that program. And the more beneficial your efforts are, the 
greater your chances are, the farther up the list you are to be funded. 
It is a competitive kind of a process. And that is good. But those 
payment limitations will make sure that more people have an opportunity 
to step into the process to utilize those funds. We are dealing with 
the money that has been given to us. We are working under the 
circumstances that have been laid out, and we are doing the best we 
can.
  I urge my colleagues to reject the motion to instruct.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.
  Just to wrap up my remarks, let me just reiterate. I truly do 
appreciate the hard work my colleagues here today on the Agriculture 
Committee have been doing to try to craft a farm bill that can get 
accomplished yet this year. It is one of the most difficult things that 
Members are asked to do in any Congress, is to piece together the 
parochial and the different interests that span this great country to 
find an acceptable farm bill that can get signed into law. But we still 
have a little ways to go.
  And I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, as far as the feed factor 
with dairy production, there is no question that fixed costs are going 
up right now in agricultural production driven by a variety of factors, 
not the least of which is the energy debacle that we find ourselves in 
right now.

[[Page H2999]]

  But I think once we start going down to that feed route, we are going 
to get a lot of other groups now chiming in saying: What about us? What 
about us? How come dairy is being taken care of? What about poultry? 
What about beef? What about the others that are experiencing the same 
type of cost increases? And then you are really talking about blowing 
the lid off of some of these other programs.
  But all that I and others who are in support of this motion to 
instruct are asking is for the members of the committee to defend their 
work, defend the programs that passed the House last year, defend the 
funding level that came out of the House last year because of the vital 
importance that these programs have, not only to the individual land 
producers, but to the resources that are so precious to all of us in 
this country.
  Now we see disturbing trends; because of the high commodity prices, 
great pressure to bring more highly erodible sensitive land back into 
production. And there will be adverse consequences from that, unless we 
can maintain a viable incentive based system with these conservation 
programs to deal with that additional pressure that producers are 
facing throughout the Nation.
  I think there is a better way of dealing with the abuses that my 
friend from Pennsylvania highlighted under the conservation program. 
Certainly we can do more oversight and get more information with 
regards to whether individuals are milking the system. No one is in 
support of that. We want to clamp down on it. But let's work with USDA 
and NRCS and those agencies in charge of implementing it, rather than 
calling for a blanket payment limitation cap with crucial conservation 
funding. Because, again, I am afraid that without these incentives in 
place, I don't care how wealthy you are, there won't be much incentive 
for you to engage in these type of programs, which just doesn't benefit 
the landowner but the community and the watershed area and the wildlife 
at large. So we need to be careful what road we are going to go down.
  And, hopefully, this isn't just a response to some of us who have 
been asking for meaningful payment limitations and means testing under 
the commodity program just to get back at those who have been very 
supportive of conservation funding.
  I think there are reasonable means tests we can apply to the 
commodity title. The fact that LDP and countercyclical payments aren't 
going up today I think is a good thing. That means farm income is up 
and commodity prices are up.
  Back home in Wisconsin, in the agriculture district that I represent, 
farmers for years have come up to me and said: You know, I'm not a big 
fan of these subsidy programs, but I just wish the market would give us 
a decent price so we wouldn't have to rely on them. Well, that day has 
come. Now today I have got producers in corn and soybean coming up to 
me and saying: Ron, why are we still receiving these direct subsidy 
payments when we are getting such a good price in the marketplace? And 
they are right. Farmers know how these programs are working.
  I think we can be a little bolder and more courageous in the reforms 
that some of us have been advocating, find those savings, so we can 
deal with conservation, nutrition, world development, speciality crops, 
and having a good energy title to this farm bill, too. This can happen, 
and it can happen in a way that the President feels comfortable in 
signing. And that will truly be a good bipartisan day then in the 
United States Congress. I encourage my friends to support this motion 
to instruct the conferees.
  Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Kind motion 
to instruct conferees and the need for increased conservation funding 
in the farm bill.
  Our farmers are eager to share in the cost of protecting our 
environment, but currently two out of three farmers are turned away by 
the USDA due to insufficient funding when they apply to participate in 
conservation programs. As a result, we continue to lose thousands of 
acres of valuable farmland, grasslands, wetlands, and private forest 
lands. We also fall further behind schedule in our efforts to clean up 
rivers, lakes and streams.
  We cannot and should not ask farmers to choose between their bottom 
line and smart, sensible preservation of the land they protect. The 
House-passed version of the farm bill contained a landmark increase of 
$5.7 billion in authorized conservation funding. This money supports 
programs that protect our most sensitive and ecologically important 
lands, keeps soil and nutrient pollution out of our rivers, lakes and 
streams, and safeguards wetlands.
  Since the conference committee is weighing various priorities as they 
try to bring the farm bill process to a close, it is important they 
know that Members of this House feel that conservation should be at the 
top of the priority list and that we maintain what the House has 
already passed.
  I strongly encourage my colleagues to support this motion and to 
support the inclusion of the necessary conservation funding in this 
farm bill.
  Mr. KIND. I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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