[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 15, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H4239-H4274]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2012
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 300 and rule
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House
on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill,
H.R. 2112.
{time} 2006
In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of
the bill (H.R. 2112) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies
programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, and for other
purposes, with Mr. Reed (Acting Chair) in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The Acting CHAIR. When the Committee of the Whole rose earlier today,
the bill had been read through page 80, line 2.
[[Page H4240]]
Amendment Offered by Mr. Kingston
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. Each amount made available by titles I through VI
(other than an amount required to be made available by a
provision of law) is hereby reduced by 0.78 percent.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment reduces certain accounts
in the bill specified in the amendment by 0.78 percent, and it fulfills
a commitment which the minority and the majority had discussed earlier
regarding WIC funding.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. We accept the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Young of Alaska
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act to
the Food and Drug Administration may be used to approve any
application submitted under section 512 of the Federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 360b) for approval of
genetically engineered salmon.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Chairman, my interest in here is because I
am from Alaska, and we have the finest wild salmon in the world. And we
have people that are trying to--and especially under NOAA and FDA--
trying to approve the fact that they have genetically engineered a
salmon. That's not natural.
{time} 2010
And our goal is, we have a supply of natural wild salmon for the
State of Alaska and for this Nation, because I think that's crucially
important, especially in this day when we have all those that accuse us
of having artificial things, you know, pesticides, et cetera.
This is a good amendment. It's an amendment supported by both sides
of the aisle. It's not just Alaska. This is also for California,
Oregon, and the rest of it. But mostly, I am the Congressman from
Alaska. I think it's crucially important we understand that this should
not be allowed, for the FDA to say, okay, a genetically raised salmon--
I call it a Frankenstein fish--should never be allowed in our markets.
I have a group of individual Alaskans who not only make their living,
but they are proud of their product. To have this occur and be promoted
by the Federal Government is wrong.
So I'm trying to save money. But I'm also saying genetically we
should never allow it to happen in the fishing industry.
I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).
Mr. FARR. It's my pleasure to join you in this amendment. I actually
have the best salmon caught in the lower 48 in Monterey Bay. A history
of fishing in Monterey, used to be the sardine capital of the world.
We're very sensitive to the fact that people are trying to mess around
with the natural process and the Food and Drug Administration is set to
approve genetically engineered salmon through a process the FDA uses to
approve new drugs for animals. There's something wrong with the fact
that in the approval process our food is now treated the same as animal
drugs.
If approved, genetically engineered salmon would be the first
genetically modified animal allowed onto the American dinner plate.
Approval of genetically engineered salmon poses serious threats to
human health, our fishing communities, and our wildlife stock fish.
They have no long-term studies on the safety of genetically
engineered fish. There could be grave, unintended consequences on human
health. Preliminary studies show that the compounds in genetically
engineered salmon may be linked to cancer and severe drug allergies.
We've seen that the dominant method of raising salmon in other parts
of the world is an open net, these pens in the ocean, and farmed fish
escape these facilities every year. The impact of genetically
engineered salmon escaping could be detrimental to wild stocks. The
list goes on and on and on.
Our fishing communities are already facing challenges, and
genetically engineered salmon would have an additional effect of
lowering wild salmon prices, as already seen with normal farmed salmon.
Lower prices, combined with declines in wild salmon stocks, would be
economically detrimental to our fishermen, our fishing culture, and our
coastal communities. It is unnecessary to genetically engineer salmon.
For these reasons, I support Mr. Young's amendment that prohibits
funds to the FDA to approve genetically engineered salmon.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. I do not have the expertise that my friend from Alaska
has on it, but I wanted to say this. Earlier, or actually during the
markup, Mr. Rehberg offered an amendment about the FDA using sound
science. And I do believe, in this case, the FDA is using sound science
in a process that was approved in January 2009, and they are going
through a process right now to make sure that this product does not
have a problem as respects human consumption. I think that, of course,
should be the number one issue.
There are also some other considerations in terms of food supply,
feeding more people, which is something that we all have debated on
this bill. And also there is an issue with me about some jobs. So I'm
concerned on this because it does seem like a pretty major change in my
philosophy of sound science.
I yield to my friend from Alaska, who I think is out of time.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I thank the chairman.
I believe whoever has given him that information is wrong. We have a
product made in the United States naturally. Why would we want someone
to create a Frankenstein fish to compete against a naturally created
God-given gift, and have it promoted by supposedly science?
There's no science in this. In fact, they were trying to do and say
we have to feed the world with artificial means. And I'm saying, okay.
Do it someplace. But don't you do it with my and our salmon.
Mr. Farr, listen to me very carefully. This is a very, very important
thing because this is the greatest thing we have going, Alaskan natural
wild salmon being sold in the market and the benefit, what they can do
to have it replaced by a genetic Frankenstein fish. I'm saying this is
wrong. All due respect to the chairman.
What science are they talking about? They have a bunch of people
created by the government that's going to take and put in, I call it
traps or nets, and create a fish that's fed quickly. They say it can
grow quicker, we're home.
Well, what people are you talking about? Mr. Dicks, you better be
listening because you catch most of my salmon. Don't you forget it. You
had better stand on the floor and defend this because you're in deep
trouble if you don't. I'll tell you that right now.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman will please direct his comments to
the Chair.
Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, I don't know all the ins and outs
of this, but I do know that we're constantly getting on the FDA to use
more sound science, less politics, and to have more transparency, and
it appears that that's what they're doing here. And they may come out
against genetically modified salmon, but they are just looking at it
right now to determine.
And with respect to the food supply, if you could safely produce
genetically modified fish, you could feed a great portion of the world
with it. So I have some concerns on it, but I did want to oppose the
amendment.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of my colleague from
Alaska, Mr. Young's amendment to prohibit funding for the
[[Page H4241]]
Food and Drug Administration to approve genetically engineered salmon.
The FDA is considering an application to sell patented genetically
engineered salmon for human consumption. This fish would be given a
gene from an eel-like Pout fish and a growth hormone from the Pacific
Chinook salmon, which would allow it to grow twice as fast as
traditional Atlantic salmon.
If the FDA approves the request, it would be the first genetically
engineered animal approved for human consumption, and it would open the
door for many more.
Unfortunately, the FDA evaluation process has lacked transparency,
failing to provide the public adequate information or sufficient time
to provide comment or express concern. And a recent poll found that 91
percent of Americans oppose FDA approval of genetically engineered
animals for human consumption.
Mr. Chair, I'm also concerned about the potential commercial impact
of G.E. salmon. Salmon fishermen in my district and many others along
the Pacific coast have been devastated in recent years by fishery
closures. Last year's salmon season was limited to just 8 days because
of the continued steep decline in the salmon population.
Because G.E. salmon are more sexually aggressive and resistant to
environmental toxins, their escape would pose a catastrophic threat to
wild salmon populations.
If just 60 of these G.E. fish find their way into a population of
sixty thousand wild salmon, the wild species would fade into extinction
in a matter of decades.
While its producer claims that genetically engineered salmon would be
sterile, FDA's own documents show that five percent of this G.E. salmon
would, in fact, be able to reproduce.
Each year, millions of farmed salmon escape from open-water nets,
threatening wild fish populations. Even if a small number of fertile
G.E. salmon spilled into nature, our wild salmon and fisherman would be
suffering the consequences for years to come--possibly for evermore.
I want to thank my good friend Don Young for his hard work on this
important issue and his leadership as co-chair of the Congressional
Caucus on Wild Salmon . . . even though he considers my salmon ``bait''
for his fishers.
I look forward to continuing to work with him and other concerned
colleagues to protect our natural fisheries and stop this
``frankenfish.''
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. For consumer safety,
for the purity of our waters, and for the continued viability of our
fishing industry . . . we must block funding for the FDA to approve
genetically engineered salmon.
Mr. KINGSTON. I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment Offered by Ms. Pingree of Maine
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following new section:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used (1) to provide electronic notifications to the
Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives on
travel relating to any ``know your farmer, know your food''
initiatives or (2) in contravention of the Agriculture and
Food Research Initiative priority research area specified in
subsection (b)(2)(F) of the Competitive, Special, and
Facilities Research Grant Act (7 U.S.C. 450i).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chair, this amendment would combat the
misguided report language written to attack local and regional food
systems. By passing this amendment, we will send an important message
to farmers, consumers, and community leaders around the country: Local
and regional food systems are critically important. They provide
economic opportunities for rural communities and healthy food for
consumers.
Local food systems are the backbone of economies across the country.
In order to ensure local food systems work to their maximum potential,
Congress must support research, thriving programs, and devote more, not
less, funding to enhance this work.
You know, no matter what group I'm talking to, whether it's members
of the credit unions or realtors or teachers, when I start talking
about improving the quality of food we serve our kids, improving local
food systems, and knowing where your food comes from, I look around the
room and everybody is nodding. Across the board, these issues are
important to people, and this is where there is real energy for growth
in the economy.
The language included in the report was designed to criticize and
hamstring efforts that are underway at the USDA to create jobs, to
increase farm income, and to bolster the economy through the
development of local and regional food systems. The language targets
local and regional food system development in two ways:
First, it demands overly burdensome reporting requirements of the
USDA's Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative. USDA developed this
initiative to streamline the implementation of existing programs
authorized by Congress in the last farm bill.
{time} 2020
``Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food'' is not a standalone program and
does not have its own budget. Creating additional burdensome reporting
requirements would delay program implementation and distract the USDA
from addressing the economic challenges of rural communities.
Second, the report language expresses concern with USDA research,
education, and extension activities associated with local and regional
food systems through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative,
AFRI.
While Congress sets broad research policies for USDA, Congress does
not usually dictate what research USDA cannot do; nor does Congress
usually substitute its opinion of what's good science for the
professional judgments of competitive grant peer review panels. By
singling out a small piece of the agricultural research agenda and by
substituting the committee's judgment for that of researchers and
educators, the Agriculture appropriations bill report sets up a
roadblock to innovation and diversity in American agriculture and
growth in the rural economy.
In response to this misguided report language, this amendment will
prohibit the USDA from using funds to fulfill the additional and
burdensome reporting requirements proposed for Know Your Farmer--Know
Your Food. The amendment would also prohibit USDA from using funds to
carry out activities contrary to the current research priorities that
Congress established in the last farm bill.
I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to say
it's time to cut budgets and reduce deficits. I also believe in fiscal
responsibility. This is not about fiscal discipline; this is about
priorities.
Last year, we spent a staggering $548 billion to fund the Department
of Defense and an equally unbelievable $158 billion on continued
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. By comparison, the entire
Agriculture Department is funded with 20 percent of what we spend on
defense, and the research priorities we are talking about in this
amendment are funded with one-half of 1 percent of the total
agriculture budget.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting farmers, in supporting
local food production, and consumers who want to know where their food
comes from. It's good for our local communities, our local economies,
and it's good for our country.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I don't
quite understand what the problem is with the bill language at all.
Here's what it does: the report language, which this amendment tries
to strike, it simply tells the Secretary of USDA to notify the
committee of any trips related to the Know Your Farmer initiative and
include the agenda and the cost to the American taxpayers. It doesn't
prevent them from doing this. It simply says let us know. It also says
put this information on the Web page. So if Know Your Farmer is that
important, why would USDA have any opposition to this at all? In fact,
I don't know that USDA does.
I also want to say that, as somebody who represents rural southeast
Georgia, there is this nostalgic idea that somehow the further food
travels the more evil it becomes. But if you look at a plate of fresh
vegetables that you
[[Page H4242]]
may have eaten sometime today, that food traveled a long way. In fact,
asparagus travels a long way. Lettuce--my friend, Mr. Farr, gave me an
article earlier today. I think 59 percent of the lettuce in America
comes from his one district.
Now, if we start confining that to Monterey County, it might be great
for the folks in Monterey County, but I don't mind eating California
lettuce because if the California farmers can do it for less money and
I can get lettuce year round for less money, that's not a bad thing. So
I think some of the assumption that food traveling is a bad idea, I
think it's flawed in itself.
But I want to get back to this bill report language. It simply says
to the USDA, let us know how much you're going to spend. And why is
that so important? I want my friend from California to know that if you
look through the USDA budget request for FY12, there's not one mention
of Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food. It's an initiative. There has not
been a budget request for it. If there was a budget request for it for
$3 million or $30 million, then we could have something we could be
debating about.
But what it is, is an initiative; and all we're asking is, if you go
forward with this--and we don't stop them from going forward with it--
we're just saying we want to know how much it's going to cost. So I do
not believe that it's bad report language at all, and I strongly oppose
the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. I strongly support this amendment because the language in
the bill--I'm going to read it to you. It's one paragraph, but it's the
most draconian language because we've never done this before ever in an
ag bill. It says: ``The committee directs the Department to provide an
electronic notification to the committee at least 72 hours prior to any
travel in support of the Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food initiative,
and such notification shall include the agenda of the entire trip along
with the cost to U.S. taxpayers. Additionally, the committee directs
the Department to post media advisories for all such trips on its Web
site, and that such advisories include the same information.''
My God, we don't do this to know your soldier, to know your veteran,
to know your school teacher, to know anybody else that's in the public
service, to know your law enforcement officer; and yet they're doing
this for Know Your Farmer?
This program, as Mr. Kingston pointed out, we just had the ag report
come out and I'm very proud that one county in my district does $4
billion worth of agriculture, as pointed out in that report, that grows
59 percent of all the lettuce consumed in the United States in one
county in California that I represent. Part of that is this program now
that they're doing, which is Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food.
Consumers can go with their cell phones into a grocery store; and
because of the barcode there, they can ZIP it and it immediately comes
up the farmer who grew that food saying this is who I am and this is
where I grew it and this is how many days it takes to get to you, and
all the things you might want to--if we're going to educate people
about nutrition, I can't think of a more exciting way to do it.
And to require that the Department has to essentially do this
gestapo, looking at every time you move you have to report to a higher
authority on your initiative and on your entire trip and the agenda and
cost, we don't do that for anybody else in the Federal Government, and
I don't think we should do it for our farmers or for our members of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture who are supporting our farmers.
So I support this amendment very strongly.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Maine will
be postponed.
Amendment No. 1 Offered by Ms. Foxx
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to support any Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food
initiative of the Department of Agriculture.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from North Carolina is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, it's very interesting that I came into the
Chamber at this time because my amendment also has to do with Know Your
Farmer--Know Your Food.
I am very concerned about this program because it is not an
authorized program by the Congress. I am very concerned that we have
our executive branch off doing all kinds of things that it has no
business doing, from fighting wars to running programs that they
weren't authorized to run.
This program, in my opinion, conducts duplicative marketing methods
by taking funds from programs that already exist within USDA through
grants and program management activities.
{time} 2030
All of these entities within the USDA already have marketing tools to
reach out to applicants in the local community and work with them.
Programs that issue grants from USDA would not be affected or lose a
single cent of funding from my amendment. Let me repeat: Grants and
program management activities from USDA do not lose a cent of funding
under my amendment. Rather, it would strike the redundant Know Your
Farmer--Know Your Food effort by the USDA to advertise their programs
and ensure that the money in the grants and in the program management
activities would be spent on the activities that are authorized. My
staff has been told by people at the USDA that grant issuing and farmer
and consumer programs will continue to operate as normal without this
duplicative effort.
Mr. Chairman, there has been a lot of erroneous information put out
there in relation to my amendment, and I would like to take some time
to clear it up.
It doesn't affect any USDA grant or program management funds already
existing because Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food does not issue
grants. Nor does it manage any programs. But it is a circumvention of
the authority and defeats the intent of Congress when we are the ones
who should be authorizing programs and budgets. So I think that this is
a program that we do not need, and I believe that it should be
abolished, because when the USDA wants a program, it should be coming
to the Congress to get authorization for that program.
There is a specific violation against establishing a program in the
authorization that would have set up slush funds in the Secretary's
office, and I think this is similar to that. It allows the department
to take money from existing programs, put it into this program, and
spend them the way that they wish to, and I don't think that is an
appropriate expenditure of funding that we have authorized.
Therefore, I urge passage of my amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition because I cannot, for
the life of me, understand why you are so afraid of Know Your Farmer--
Know Your Food. They say, well, we need to have this program
authorized. My God, we went to war without authorizing it. We spent all
that money, and half the people don't even question it. And you want to
question Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food?
I think this is a direct attack on the White House initiative, which
is about
[[Page H4243]]
nutrition, which is about trying to get people--I mean, we talked about
this yesterday, about how you have places in this country that are food
deserts. You have places where there are no grocery stores. There are
7-Elevens. They don't have fresh fruits and vegetables. People can't go
down to a local store and find fresh fruits and vegetables.
So what do we do? This committee puts money into the USDA to help
farmers markets get established in these tough areas, to encourage
farmers to come in, and at the same time teach people who have never
shopped for fresh fruits and vegetables, never been to a farmers
market.
We have actually tied in, in my district, the issuing of food stamps
and WIC vouchers so that they will spend them right there, and 65
percent of the income that comes to the farmers at the farmers markets
comes from them.
So this is all part of the initiatives to get people to know about
agriculture. Milk doesn't come from a carton. Food doesn't come from a
grocery store. It gets grown somewhere by a farmer, he and his wife.
And we are trying to get kids to know something about agriculture. We
are putting in school gardens. All of this is part of Know Your
Farmer--Know Your Food, and you want to strike it.
What is this? Is this some kind of conspiracy that you are afraid of?
People might learn a little bit about where food comes from in America,
and there is organic food and that you have choices and you just don't
have to eat everything that is packaged and processed and full of salts
and sugars and additives and preservatives?
What are we afraid of? What are we afraid of? My God, to strike it,
or tell the department that they can't do this, I think it is not in
our best intentions, and it is not smart nutrition.
We are trying to get people, I know, because I am trying to lose
weight and it is a very hard thing to change your character, to change
your eating habits. Unless we do that, we are going to grow a lot of
Americans who aren't going to be very healthy because they don't know
their farmer and they don't know their food. And if you strike this
ability for the department to go out and do that kind of outreach, we
are going to have a less healthy America.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARENTHOLD. You know, we in this Congress or Congresses of the
past have ceded a lot of our authority to executive agencies. We have
given them lots of power to regulate. They are taking over and doing an
awful lot. Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food is another example of an
agency going beyond what needs to be done and is something I feel they
should come back to Congress for.
With that, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from North
Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
Ms. FOXX. I want to thank my colleague from Texas for yielding to me,
and I want to respond to our colleague from California.
I am not afraid of a program. I am afraid, as my colleague from Texas
has indicated, of the executive branch continuing to overstep its
bounds and develop programs that have no authorization and do the
things that it has no business doing without authorization from
Congress.
I find it interesting that my colleague would bring up the fact that
we went to war without authorization. I believe that was his President
who did that, and I voted resoundingly not to do that.
I also want to sympathize with my colleague from California. I am
certainly doing my best to lose weight, too. I think it is a struggle
that most of us, particularly in this body, have. But I can tell you
that I am not looking to the Department of Agriculture to give me my
nutrition information. I know how to find that nutrition information,
and I think most Americans know how to do that, and we don't need a
special program in the Department of Agriculture to do that.
We have got to commit to bringing government spending under control,
and we are going to do everything that we can. While no money will be
cut from the appropriations by this amendment, it removes a program
that is not authorized that gives part of the Department of Agriculture
an argument for why they need money.
I think that in many cases what happens in these executive branch
departments is that when their own entity begins to lose its need for
being, they begin to look out there for, What is the latest trend? What
can we do in this Department to justify our existence? I think that
that is what happens in many, many cases, and you get the continuation.
As Ronald Reagan said, the nearest thing to immortality is a Federal
Government program, and I think that is what happens in many
departments, not just the Department of Agriculture.
I have great respect for much of what the Department of Agriculture
does, and I think it is providing vital services in many areas. But,
again, this is not an area that we need the Federal Government to be
involved in. We don't need this program.
Frankly, my colleague asked me what I am afraid of the program for.
What I don't understand is why our colleague from Maine doesn't want
reporting from this program. He didn't ask her that question. Why is
she concerned that we ask for reporting mechanisms? Because we have
asked the Department, How much money are you spending on this program?
They cannot answer. What effect are you having? They cannot answer.
There are no results. There is no cost-benefit analysis.
It is time that any program that says, We can't tell you how much we
are spending; we can't tell you what we are doing; we can't tell you if
we are having any effect, to be done away with. And any program that
answers a Member of Congress that way should be immediately eliminated.
Mr. FARENTHOLD. Reclaiming my time for just a second, I too am trying
to lose weight and would much prefer to work with my doctor and trainer
than the USDA.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to engage a little
bit more in this conversation that we had, both about the previous
amendment and about my good friend from North Carolina's concern about
this particular program called Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food.
{time} 2040
I have the great privilege of serving on the Agriculture Committee.
I've heard the Secretary speak to us about his interest in increasing
the number of farms in our country, in getting to know our farmers
better, and in making sure people have more knowledge about where their
food comes from.
I have to just stand back and say for a minute that it's after 8:30
on a busy night. We're still in the middle of debating this bill at a
time when our economy is in peril, when we have huge challenges before
us, when we are at war in two countries. I just personally have to say
I am baffled about why we are even having this debate. I was baffled
about why this report language would be there that slows down research
on local farming, that tries to stop a program that's not even funded,
and that coordinates a lot of good efforts going on in the Department
of Agriculture.
I will say, I kind of think back to the way I look at our country. We
were based on agriculture and farming. I had the good fortune to be
born in Minnesota even though I represent Maine. Both sets of my
grandparents were Scandinavian immigrants. They came because there was
rich farmland, beautiful opportunities. My grandfather was a dairy
farmer. My uncle was a dairy farmer. My cousin still runs a farm and
works with livestock. I went to college to study agriculture, and I own
my own farm today.
So I think about, isn't this what America is all about--knowing your
farmer? knowing where your food came from? understanding what the basic
principles are of growing and of using our land? What in the world are
we talking about? It's as if black is white and white is black and as
if everything is turned upside down.
I grew up in Minnesota and Maine. Both States have a rich farming
heritage. We couldn't be more proud of the families and of the people
who work hard on the land. We couldn't be more proud of having vigorous
farmers' markets, of having people who are able to
[[Page H4244]]
go to a farm stand and say to the farmer, ``How did you grow this?
What's behind this? Tell me about what's growing in your field.'' I
mean, this is America. This is how our country was built.
If there is one tragedy that's going on today, it's the reduction in
the number of farms and in the families who can no longer hold onto
their farms, whose mortgages are being foreclosed on, who don't have
enough markets. If there is anything the Secretary is telling us it is
that we want more people to know about their farms, that we want to
have local access to farming, that we want to have people come to
farmers' markets.
I spend a lot of time visiting school cafeterias, and many of the
schools in my district are very engaged with buying food locally. They
realize that, if they're going to deal with childhood obesity, one of
the things they have to do is get kids to eat more vegetables. One
thing that really works is to have those young people know the farmers,
and many schools have little gardens out back.
I visited Longfellow Elementary School in Portland, Maine, just
recently. Those kids have a little plot of carrots. It's not that every
lunch has one of those carrots on the menu, but it's for those kids to
say, ``I grew a carrot, and now I want to eat more of them.'' I was at
the Bonny Eagle Middle School. They have a little greenhouse. I sat
down to eat with those kids, and they were eating kale, kale and
garlic; and they were proudly showing it off to me about how they grow
kale, about how they know where it comes from. Many of them have
visited with farmers. They've seen the farmers come down the road.
I can't possibly imagine why anyone would want to put language in
that says you have to strike a program like this that's not even
funded, that's just a way of the Secretary saying this is a good
American tradition. It's a tradition in North Carolina, I am sure,
where people are proud of their farmers and, in Maine, where we are
exceptionally proud of the fact that the average age of our farmer is
going down. We have more young people who want to go into farming. We
have more and more acreage going into farming, which is a reversal of
the trend that has been going on in our country for a long time. This
is good for our health, and it's good for our environment.
Fundamentally, this is a jobs bill, and that's what we're supposed to
be here talking about. Every young person who has an opportunity to go
into farming today and every family that gets to hang onto a family
farm increases the number of jobs that are going on in our country.
What do we want this to turn into, big corporate agriculture where
everything has to be trucked around the world?--where our carrots come
from Brazil and our strawberries come from somewhere else in South
America and where we buy our food from China? I mean this is America.
This is a tradition of our country. How could we possibly think that
anything is wrong with promoting or researching local foods and having
a program that just coordinates it all?
Ms. FOXX. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely not. As much as I appreciate my
colleague from North Carolina, I'm not giving up one second to talk
about the fact that in my State, we are proud of our farmers. We are
proud of our big farms that grow potatoes and blueberries and that grow
apples. We are proud of our fishermen, and we are proud of the fact
that more young people want to get into farming.
There are more markets for farming than there ever were before today.
Part of it is because people like to buy their food locally because
they are so excited about the opportunity of going to a farm stand
where you actually see the farmer, where you see how it's grown, where
you feel comfortable about what goes into your food, where you know how
it was slaughtered, where you know so much more about it, where we're
raising our kids to say, ``You know what? Vegetables are good for
you,'' and here they are right in front of you.
I can't possibly imagine why this report language was there in the
first place, why my colleague would want to strike everything about
Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KINGSTON. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I want to make sure I answer this
question, because I'm hearing from our colleague that she can't
possibly imagine why we are against the program. We are against it
because it's not authorized.
The President of the United States is now bombing in Libya. By the
way, I voted with the Kucinich amendment because I feel very
uncomfortable with an unauthorized bombing as the use of force in
Libya. The Federal Government frequently obligates the taxpayers to new
programs. Yet the United States Congress hasn't had an opportunity to
vet these programs or to vote on them, so I, myself, don't understand
why that is a problem that we can have this transparency.
Now, as I've listened to this, I've kind of felt, well, Know Your
Farmer--Know Your Food is one of these harmless little Washington sort
of ``feel good about things'' initiatives, but I'm beginning to think
it's just one big databank. I don't know why the USDA needs to know all
of this information about the farmers. I'm wondering about that. If we
want to help farmers--and I've had the opportunity of representing lots
of farmers for a long time--I'm going to give you seven things that I
thought about in just sitting here during the course of the last
speech.
Number one: This administration has declared war on the community
banks, which are the fiber and the heart of small communities. That's
where farmers get their loans. Farmers need credit. We need stability
and banking laws to help farmers.
Number two: We need consistent regulations and regulations that don't
send the EPA out on the farm to play ``I gotcha.'' You may know right
now, Mr. Chairman, that for organic chickens--and I know my friend from
California probably knows this--you have the FDA requiring that they be
raised on a slab of concrete and the USDA saying, no, they can't be. So
we have two Federal agencies with two different regulations for one
product. Farmers need regulatory consistency.
Number three: We need an H-2A program. Absolutely, we've got to get
labor out there and a good guest worker program that works.
Number four: We need free trade agreements. We have had sitting on
the desk of the White House free trade agreements with South Korea,
Colombia and Panama, and this administration won't move them. That will
create lots of markets for farmers.
Number five: We need estate tax relief. If you want to keep the
family farm in the family, then get rid of the death tax so that it can
be passed on to the next generation.
Number six: You need to have a good crop insurance program. More than
any other farm program, farmers want a good crop insurance program.
Number seven: We need to cut the red tape out so that you can get to
your local market. If you're a local farmer, it is impossible to sell
right now to your local high school because of many Federal
regulations. The small farmers can't compete with the big folks on
this.
I want to say this about apples because the gentlewoman had mentioned
apples. The average apples travel right now 2,500 miles to get to the
consumer. Now, I don't find that horrible. We are a country of origin
labeling laws, which our committee has debated for over a decade, and I
don't know that it has made the world a better place. I think that
consumers are actually driven by food safety, food taste and food
price, and whether it comes from New York or whether it comes from the
farmer down the street, those still are going to be the driving factors
in making the decision. Carrots come 2,000 miles.
I would challenge my friends to look at Google food mileage and look
at how much common, everyday food travels to get to your plate. What
has it done? It has made America healthier. It has given us an abundant
food supply, and it has given us a less expensive food supply.
But if we are serious about growing mom and pop farms--and I want to
say
[[Page H4245]]
this to my friend from Maine--I am very interested in working with her
on that. The seven things that I have listed, I can promise you, in any
poll, farmers will choose before they choose to say what we really need
to get farmers going in America is this program that is not authorized
by the Congress, called Know Your Farmer.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.
I just want to point out that this amendment doesn't save one penny.
{time} 2050
The Acting CHAIR. Does the gentleman ask unanimous consent to strike
the last word?
Mr. KINGSTON. Reserving my right to object, I just want to remind my
friend about taking two bites of the 2,500-mile apple. I certainly do
not object but----
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Washington is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. DICKS. I yield to the ranking member, the gentleman from
California.
Mr. FARR. This amendment doesn't save one penny. Ironically, we just
returned from the White House summer congressional picnic, and people
ate food there. At every table, it listed where the food came from.
Indeed, I remember because I went to the ice cream place and there was
a stack of honey that came from the White House, that has a White House
label on it, and it's a gift that the First Lady gives to visiting
dignitaries from around the world as a sample of American honey grown
at the White House. We just experienced Know Your Farmer--Know Your
Food not more than an hour ago.
This amendment does nothing but be mean.
Mr. DICKS. Reclaiming my time, I just want to point out, also at the
White House picnic, if you walked far enough down, you could see the
garden with fresh vegetables and everything that was being grown. It
had a label about what was what.
Again, I just don't see what the harm is here if they're taking it
out of existing funds. I always thought that the farmers of America
were supported on a bipartisan basis in this Congress and that we like
to know who our farmers are. So I agree with the gentleman, and I hope
we can defeat this ill-considered amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from North
Carolina will be postponed.
Amendment No. 20 Offered by Ms. Woolsey
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following new section:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to carry out the directive in the committee report
instructing the Food and Nutrition Service to issue a new
proposed rule on implementing new national nutrition
standards for the school breakfast and school lunch programs
in the report of the Committee on Appropriations of the House
of Representatives to accompany H.R. 2112 of the 112th
Congress (House Report 112-101).
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the
gentlewoman's amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. A point of order is reserved.
The gentlewoman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, for some families--too many, as a matter
of fact--the meals served at school may be the only decent meal that
their children get that day. Especially during this current economic
downturn, with many Americans barely getting by, more people are
relying on school meals to keep their children fed and ready to learn.
Why, then, is the Republican majority trying to turn back the clock
on school nutrition? Why are they trying to undermine the quality of
school meals by gumming up a regulatory process that is designed to
ensure that our kids are eating healthy?
Mr. Chairman, I'm offering this amendment because it will stop the
majority's attempt to block the implementation of scientific standards
for school meals.
Here's the backstory. Since the Truman administration, Congress and
the United States Department of Agriculture have set standards for
school lunches and breakfasts. But for most of that history, those
standards have not reflected the expertise of nutritionists and other
health professionals.
Then, last year, Congress passed and the President signed a bill
directing the USDA to make school meal requirements, for the first
time, consistent with sound science and dietary guidelines issued by
the Institute of Medicine. The bottom line: That would mean healthier
food for our kids. It would mean the cafeteria line would have more
fruits and vegetables, more whole grains and low-fat milk, and less
sodium and saturated fat. As instructed by the law that we passed, USDA
wrote a regulation and received over 130,000 comments.
Now, just when the process is wrapping up, my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle want to use report language in this appropriations
bill to scrap the rule and compel USDA to write a completely new one.
This is a stall tactic, plain and simple. Better school meals must not,
can't be, from this act, a priority for the other side of the aisle.
They apparently don't believe we need to do anything about the epidemic
of childhood obesity that is rapidly becoming a major public health
crisis, so they're looking for any way to put on the breaks.
The process has worked. We've had congressional direction and we've
had mandates. We've had open comment period and rulemaking based on
sound science. But the end result is not to the majority's liking, so
they want a do-over. This is not only unnecessary, Mr. Chairman, but
expensive, as there would be costs associated with starting the
rulemaking over--going back to square one. In one fell swoop, the
Republicans are showing themselves to be anti-science, anti-child,
anti-public health, and anti-fiscal responsibility.
My amendment would stop their shortsighted and irresponsible scheme.
It would prevent funds made available by this appropriations act from
being used to require USDA to reissue a new rule.
Important advocates agree with me. My amendment has been endorsed by
the National Education Association, the American Dietetic Association,
Bread for the World, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and
many other groups, which I will include in the Record.
Mr. Chairman, our children need balanced, healthy, nutritious meals,
not costly bureaucratic delays. They need this to help them succeed in
school and in life.
H.R. 2112, Amendment No. 20, List of Supporters
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic
Association, American Public Health Association, Association
of State & Territorial Public Health Nutrition Directors,
Bread for the World, California Association of Nutrition &
Activity Programs, California Food Policy Advocates, Campaign
to End Obesity Action Fund, Center for Science in the Public
Interest, Community Food Security Coalition, Food Research &
Action Center (FRAC), Jewish Council for Public Affairs,
National Education Association, National Farm to School
Network, The National WIC Association, Public Health
Institute, Trust for America's Health, The United Fresh
Produce Association.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from California?
There was no objection.
Amendment No. 24 Offered by Mr. Royce
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. 7xx. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to provide assistance under title II of the Food for
Peace Act
[[Page H4246]]
(7 U.S.C. 1721 et seq.) to the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea (North Korea).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
A couple of quick points here. One, the administration is actively
considering resuming food aid to North Korea. And I understand the
humanitarian impulse here, but the unusual circumstances of North Korea
make this a mistake--and make it a very bad mistake, frankly--which
this amendment would correct.
I remember the words of one North Korean defector, Kim Duk-hong. I
had a chance to talk with him. He said actually in testimony here
before the committee, we must not give food aid to North Korea because
it is, in his words, the same as providing funding for North Korea's
nuclear program. Why is that so? Because what invariably happens is
they redirect these resources into support for the regime.
This week we had reports that North Korea is making miniaturized
versions of its nuclear weapons--ones that could fit atop ICBMs. That
makes his statement all that more dire about the redirection of these
resources into the regime's hands.
The situation in North Korea is heartbreaking. I've been up there.
I've seen the depravation. But this is a disaster made by the
dictatorship itself. And let me say unequivocally, the food we send
does not reach the hungry.
So, who benefits from our good will? Well, the inner circle does and
their military industrial complex does. We've had hearings in which the
French NGO Doctors Without Borders--we're all aware of their good work
around the world. They testified before the International Relations
Committee that the vast majority of refugees they interview say they
had never received any food aid. None of the children they had ever met
had ever seen food aid during the years they worked up on the border.
And this testimony is backed up by a survey of 500 North Korean
defectors in which 78.2 percent of them never saw foreign food aid. And
the reason for this is because it goes, again, into the black market.
It is sold for the hard currency that the regime needs for its nuclear
program and other programs.
{time} 2100
Some could argue that what we need is more oversight and maybe better
monitoring on this food.
Let me tell you about the testimony we've heard on that, because the
North Koreans, I don't think they've got a word for ``transparency.''
No matter how airtight any monitoring protocol may be, they cheat. We
had a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing where a North Korean
dissident told us how the regime would mark all the houses that had
received bags of food and would return to collect them after the
monitors had left. So North Korea is always going to cheat.
Some assert that the North is holding food, holding food for the
future, hoarding a million tons of rice. That's the charge we hear from
South Korea, from members of their Parliament. But the fact is that
it's an asset that is converted by the North.
So I urge my colleagues to support my amendment for the sake of the
North Korean people. Providing this aid not only allows Kim Jong-Il's
oppressive regime to divert scarce resources towards its military
program, one that has grown increasingly threatening, but it also
delays the day when real structural reform will come to North Korea.
There is a Korean saying that ``pouring water into a cracked pot is
worthless.'' Sending resources to Kim Jong-Il is even worse. It's
enabling a regime with one of the world's worst human rights records
but also with an atomic bomb.
North Korea has played us like a fiddle for years. Conditions for
North Koreans have only worsened. It's time for a new North Korea
policy. Let's start now.
I ask my colleagues to support the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. We have had a very difficult time with the Food for
Peace program already, and if this helps secure another supporter of
the bill, we certainly would work with you on this amendment and
support it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment No. 25 Offered by Mr. Kind
Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before any short title), insert the
following new section:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to provide payments (or to pay the salaries and
expenses of personnel to provide payments) to the Brazil
Cotton Institute.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is very straightforward, and in
a second I'm going to explain it in more detail.
For many, many years now, I and a group of bipartisan Members of this
Congress have formed a coalition in an attempt to move farm bill reform
forward, to try to end these large taxpayer subsidies that are going to
a few, but very large, agribusinesses, subsidies that are not in fact
helping family farmers, leading to greater consolidation in production
of agriculture, driving up land values, making it more difficult for
new beginning farmers to enter agriculture, and subsidies that are not
fiscally responsible.
In light of the budget deficits that we're wrestling with, what
better time to continue to move in the area of reform under the farm
bill with this Agriculture appropriation bill, rather than waiting for
the promise or hope that in a year or two in the reauthorization of
another farm bill that this institution might finally come around and
start making the long overdue changes.
Just to show you how perverted these farm programs have gotten,
recently Brazil challenged our own domestic cotton subsidy program and
prevailed in the WTO court. Now you would expect our rational response
would be to reform our cotton subsidy program, to come into compliance
with that WTO decision, to end these subsidies that you really can't
justify here to our cotton producers, and we would solve this problem.
But that's not the approach that was taken. In fact, the
administration recently set up a new subsidy program that is now going
to subsidize Brazil cotton producers.
Let me repeat that. We are spending $147 million a year in order to
bribe the Brazilian Government so that they don't enforce the sanctions
that they're entitled to now because of our unwillingness to reform our
own cotton subsidy program. That is wrong, and that is what my
amendment would address. It would prohibit the use of funds through
this Agriculture appropriation bill going to this new subsidy program
to subsidize the Brazil cotton industry.
It just shows you what a pretzel our farm programs have turned this
Congress into because of yet again the unwillingness for us to reform
our own domestic title I subsidy programs. The answer to this is not to
funnel out another $147 million a year until maybe we address this in
the next farm bill, which could end up costing the American taxpayer
over a half a billion dollars, when we can make that correction now,
reform the domestic program, get out from under the WTO decision, start
saving money by not sending $147 million a year to Brazil, and also
start saving some money by reforming our own cotton domestic subsidy
program.
That's the solution to this. That's something that we can fix
tonight, rather than continuing this facade of maintaining these
programs that many of us warned in the last farm bill would be
challenged, and sure enough they did, and they're prevailing, and now
they can apply economic sanctions against us.
So the time to act is now, not waiting for a year or two or whenever
we're going to get around to reauthorizing
[[Page H4247]]
another farm bill; and the time to start saving some real money is this
night, by passing the amendment that we're offering. We can save $147
million, we can reform the cotton subsidy program and save more
taxpayer dollars, and we have that ability to be fiscally responsible
and start making changes tonight.
I know what the argument on the other side will be: wait for the next
farm bill; we'll take care of it then. Well, there is a lot that we are
moving forward on this year on deficit reduction, and I for one think
that the farm bill should also be open for scrutiny for potential
savings to reduce our deficit.
But that's not what's being offered tonight in reforming the title I
subsidy programs. Instead, most of the deep cuts are coming under the
conservation title, the nutrition programs, certain key investments
that we have to make to empower our farmers to be good stewards of the
land, to reduce sediment and nutrient flows and the impact it has on
the quality water supply that we need in this country, the protection
of wildlife habitat. In fact, three out of every four farmers applying
for conservation funding assistance today are turned away because of
inadequacy of funds. That number will only explode because of the deep
cuts coming in these other titles of the farm bill.
We have an opportunity to start making some changes under title I,
the subsidy program, first by stopping the additional layer of subsidy
that's been created where we're starting to subsidize other countries'
farmers. Let's start making that change tonight.
I would encourage my colleagues to look closely at this amendment.
This is the reasonable response that we should be taking. Let's not
defer this decision any further. We can do that. And instead of
encouraging any type of trade war or sanctions with Brazil, we should
move forward in reforming the cotton subsidy program starting tonight.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time and ask my colleagues
to support this amendment.
Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My colleague is very passionate, but he is also very wrong. This
money does not go to Brazilian farmers. That's illegal for us to do
that. What it does do, it does go to an institute that promotes
Brazilian agricultural production. It may be a fine line to distinguish
there, but it's inflammatory to say it's going to Brazilian farmers,
that we're doing that, and he knows it and it is wrong, but it is a
payment. It's a payment negotiated by the Obama administration in
reaction to a loss at the WTO in order to buy time so that a trade war
with our 10th largest trading partner in the world doesn't erupt that
has actually nothing to do with ag protection.
The trade war that is being prevented, over $800 million worth of
exports to Brazil, protects a broad variety of nonagricultural
industries in this agreement. This buys us time until the 2012 farm
bill could get done. We cannot tonight nor should we tonight delve into
a very complicated farm safety net program that has worked well for the
American people.
It is unquestioned that the American people enjoy the safest, most
abundant and cheapest food and fiber source in the world, in the
developed countries; and we do that because of the hard work, sweat
equity, and risk-taking of the American ag producer. They rely in turn
on a safety net that is relatively complicated and interwoven across a
bunch of things that make it help.
The budget that we did pass says that the farm bill will be written
in 2012. I understand my colleague's disdain for the process of the
Agriculture Committee. He doesn't like the Agriculture Committee, he
doesn't like the work product that we come out with, but that's the
group that knows the most about the process of the safety net.
{time} 2110
Doing this, what the gentleman would like to do tonight, would
disrupt that trade agreement and undercut the U.S. Trade Representative
and his ability to negotiate around the world because he's negotiated
with a group who won't stick by their word.
The 2008 farm bill put in place a 5-year contract, 5-year agreement
with the American ag producers, it goes to the 2012 farm bill--2012
crop year, and we ought to stand behind it and defeat this amendment.
So the money does not go to farmers. It does protect $800 million a
year in exports of nonagricultural exports that are imported to this
country, including intellectual property rights that would be abrogated
if we back out of this deal that we've made with Brazil. So with that I
respectfully request my colleagues to oppose the Kind amendment as
being wrong-headed tonight.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I listened to my good friend from Texas talk about
deferring yet again to the Ag Committee, that somehow this payment goes
to the Brazilian cotton industry and not to the cotton farmers, a
distinction without a difference I would suggest.
I rise in support of my colleague from Wisconsin in this proposal.
I've been in this Congress having watched three farm bill
reauthorizations, and each time we find that there is expression on the
floor of this Chamber for actual reform. We've asked for limitations.
We are told well we just don't--the floor doesn't understand; it's too
complicated. Well, it is complicated and twisted because this is an
effort to try, through the complexity, to layer efforts here that cheat
the American consumer, that hurt the environment, and pose serious
problems for international trade.
And my friend from Wisconsin is correct. We were talking about this
in the last farm bill, and we got our comeuppance, but instead of
responding responsibly in reducing or eliminating the illegal cotton
subsidies, we're shoving upwards of a half-billion dollars to the
Brazilian cotton industry, and I'll be prepared to argue, it benefits
cotton farmers. So we're subsidizing two countries because we fail to
reach our responsibilities now.
I sincerely think this is wrong. I think $147 million could go a long
way towards helping the part of American agriculture that grows food
that we categorize as specialty crops who are dramatically
shortchanged.
I would like to yield the remainder of my time, if I could, to my
good friend from Wisconsin, the sponsor of this amendment.
Mr. KIND. Well, I thank my good friend from Oregon for his support of
the amendment and for his support throughout the years in trying to
lead the effort for meaningful farm bill reform.
Mr. Chairman, there is another solution to this that's going to be
offered by our good friend and colleague from Arizona in just a little
bit, Mr. Flake. He goes to the heart of the WTO decision to find out
what changes we should be making in the cotton subsidy program to get
out from under the thumb of Brazil, and I would support that amendment,
and I hope my colleagues support his amendment as well because that is
the ultimate solution to this: Instead of just cutting off the funding
to Brazil right now, coming up with the cotton subsidy reform.
Now, let's remember the context in which we find ourselves this
evening. Cotton payments are almost at a world record high price right
now, yet these subsidies are still going out. There's just very little
relationship right now with the subsidies under title I to the grain
producers and cotton producers of our country and the price they
receive in the marketplace. And in a time of tough budgets, when
everyone else is being asked to take a haircut, whether you're a
supporter of conservation programs or vital nutrition programs for our
children and seniors, for us to not even look and consider the title I
programs in the context of this agriculture appropriation, it's beyond
the pale. There's just no justification to it.
These programs are outdated. They are impossible to justify with the
American taxpayer, especially with the deficit reduction that all of us
are interested in participating in this year. This is a small, but I
think significant, step down the road of reform with the farm bill
finding savings that can be applied to either other programs or for
deficit reduction.
[[Page H4248]]
That's why I commend my colleague from Arizona for the amendment he's
about to offer, but my friend from Oregon, too, will have some
important amendments for us to consider, a payment limitation limiting
the overall amount of subsidies that go to our producers. And folks,
this is going to agribusiness, many of whom have mailing addresses in
Manhattan, in Chicago, in San Francisco. These aren't even family
farmers working the land, and they're some of the primary recipients of
these agriculture subsidies.
Mr. Blumenauer's amendments address that, along with Mr. Flake's AGI
cutoff at $250,000 a year. That's 250 thousand dollars of profit, and
if you're an entity making a profit of over a quarter-million dollars a
year, should you really still be receiving taxpayer subsidies for the
business that you're running? I think not, and we'll have another
opportunity to consider that later tonight.
So I appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time and further
explaining what this amendment is all about. And if we are serious
about deficit reduction, if we are serious about reining in some of
these programs that are tough to justify, then we should be serious
about supporting this amendment tonight.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. And Mr. Chair, on that note I, too, commend what my
friend from Wisconsin is doing. I look forward to the comments from my
friend from Arizona. If we're serious about reform and saving money,
it's time to move in this area.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Kind amendment. I
commend the gentleman from Wisconsin for offering this.
You know, we've heard here that we need this program to make us trade
compliant. Many of us warned when we did the last farm bill that if we
did this level of subsidies that it would run afoul of our trade
agreements. Yet we plowed ahead and did it anyway. And then April of
last year is when our farm programs, which on their best day are out of
step with reality, moved into the realm of the absurd when we hatched a
program to actually fund an institute in Brazil to fund the cotton
industry there to start subsidizing the Brazilians so that we could
continue to subsidize our own farmers. Is that not absurd? Why are we
continuing to do this?
It was raised before that we've got to do this to make us trade
compliant now where tariffs might be imposed. That is true, but I
offered an amendment in the committee earlier on that would have taken
money from the direct payments that we currently pay to cotton farmers
and paid off the Brazilians with that money rather than raid the
Treasury and raid the taxpayers once again. And guess what? That passed
in committee but was stricken when it came to the floor.
So when you hear all this rhetoric about, hey, we want to be trade
compliant, we could have done that. We could have simply allowed that
amendment to stick in the bill, and then this would have been trade
compliant. But the Brazilians would have been paid off not with new
taxpayer money but with the money that is making us non-trade compliant
in the first place.
So don't believe what you're hearing about, we just want to be trade
compliant; that's what this is about. We offered an alternative to
that, and it was rejected. And so here we are asking the taxpayers to
once again this year, $147 million to the Brazilians to make us trade
compliant. We've got to stop this.
Nobody really believes that we're going to do a farm bill this year.
Nobody really believes we're going to do one next year. And so we're
going to be doing this year after year after year, so that means that
we're going to continue to do this unless we stop it. I can tell you if
we pass the Kind amendment tonight, we will be back and we'll reform
our cotton subsidies in a way that will make us trade compliant. We'll
go back and accept the Flake amendment that passed in the
Appropriations Committee that perhaps took the money from the cotton
program.
We don't need to continue to ask the taxpayers to pay off the
Brazilians so that we can continue out-of-step subsidies to our own
farmers. That's what this amendment is about. I commend the gentleman
for offering it.
And I would yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. KIND. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I appreciate his
support of this amendment and the leadership that he's shown not only
in committee but throughout the years when it comes to sensible farm
bill reform.
The easiest way for us to come into trade compliance isn't by bribing
the Brazilian government to get them to not enforce the sanctions that
it can under WTO; it's fixing this domestic program, and doing it now
rather than waiting years from now, as my colleague just pointed out,
for the next farm bill. I know this isn't easy, and I know the
committees wrestles with a lot of different constituent problems. I
used to serve on the committee.
I'm not asking anyone here tonight to do anything differently than
what I'm asking my producers to do in my district of Wisconsin and in
my State, and that's taking a haircut. The reforms that I've been
proposing through the years would require my district to take a haircut
on these agriculture subsidies. It's not always easy standing up to
groups that are getting something from the government and saying we
can't afford it, nor can we justify it, with the market and with the
deficit. But that is what it's going to take for this body to come
together if we are going to be serious about deficit reduction and
getting the spending under control.
{time} 2120
I know that the Agriculture Committee has their hands full, and I
know they would rather just defer this next decision until the next
farm bill and put it off. But we don't know when that's going to be.
But the thing we do know for certain is there is $147 million going out
the door every year right now that we can stop doing tonight with the
passage of this amendment.
Mr. FLAKE. I just want to make a point that everybody needs to take a
haircut here if we are going to get this debt and deficit under
control. We shouldn't ask the taxpayers once again to pay off the
Brazilians so we can continue out-of-step subsidies to our own farmers.
We have a cotton industry in Arizona. They may take a hit because of
this, but everybody has to take a haircut. Everybody has to contribute
here to getting this deficit and this debt under control. And if we
can't start with a program like this, I don't know where we'll start.
After this amendment, I plan to offer an amendment that will go after
the programs that actually make us nontrade compliant. I will be glad
to give up on that amendment, not offer it at all, if this amendment is
allowed to pass. But if it is called for the ``noes,'' then I plan to
offer the amendment after this.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Minnesota is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, you know, this is kind of a surreal
debate because I don't think we're talking about the real issue here.
You know, the cotton program isn't perfect. A lot of the programs that
we have in the Agriculture Committee aren't perfect. Freedom to Farm,
it was passed in '96. It got us into some of these problems. I opposed.
It saved a little bit of money, and then we ended up spending 10 times
as much money bailing people out when it collapsed. So you have got to
be careful what you are doing.
But the problem here is, we're arguing about something that no longer
exists. This program that they sued us under no longer exists. We have
fixed it two or three times. We tried to address this. It was never
good enough for the Brazilians. But we made some changes, and we made
some more changes, and then we made some more changes in the 2008 farm
bill. It's still not good enough for them.
Cotton went through some very difficult times. I don't have any
cotton in my district. This is not a parochial
[[Page H4249]]
issue for me. But if they wouldn't have had that safety net, we would
have been out of the cotton business. But what was going on at the same
time? We had Brazil using government money to increase cotton
production in Brazil. And this is something that isn't considered in
the WTO because we are such geniuses that we agreed to this agreement
that tied our hands and gave our competitors the ability to eat our
lunch. And that's what's going on.
You know, JBS, which just took over a big part of the livestock
industry in this country, is financed by the Brazilian Government. They
own 30 percent of JBS. Nobody complains about that. The Brazilian
Government created most of this competition that collapsed the cotton
prices worldwide.
And then we agreed to let China into the WTO, and they promised that
they weren't going to go into cotton production. We shipped our textile
market to China and collapsed all of our textile industry. And what
happened? They increased production like crazy. India increased
production like crazy. Our cotton prices went down below the cost of
production because of these trade agreements that we got involved in.
But the way they're structured, there's nothing we can do about it. But
they're going to sue us over a little step two program that we now got
rid of, trying to keep our people in business.
Now, if you want to ship the whole cotton industry to Brazil and
China and India, you are on a good start to doing that. And if you keep
on this road, you're going to ship the rest of agriculture to these so-
called developing nations that are not developing nations. If you've
been to Brazil, in agriculture, they are anything but a developing
nation; but they're protected under the rules that we agreed to in this
WTO deal.
So is this a perfect solution? No. But we couldn't get the Brazilians
to honestly sit down and work this out because they don't want to.
They're trying to use this for other reasons, for other advantages in
these trade negotiations and so forth. And I don't think we can ever do
anything to satisfy them.
So there's more to this than people are talking about here. This is
not about saving money. This is about making sure that we can have a
safety net in this country so we can maintain production of agriculture
in the United States and not ship it all to other countries and not get
dependent on foreign countries for our food, like we've become
dependent on foreign countries for our energy. That would be the worst
thing that could happen to us.
So I just hope people understand all of the different ramifications.
This isn't a perfect deal; but for the time being, it's probably the
best solution that we can come up with.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.
I want to return for a moment, I think, to the focus of the
discussion. I want to be absolutely clear. If this amendment passes, it
will--it could incite a trade war. Brazil could immediately impose $800
million in retaliatory tariffs on a variety of U.S. goods.
I promise you, they won't retaliate against U.S. agricultural
products. They'll go after ag chemicals and biotechnology products. And
they'll go after veterinarian medicines and software and books and
music and films. They'll go at everybody outside of production
agriculture with their $800 billion in retaliatory tariffs.
Now, we can debate how we got here; and my colleague, the ranking
member, gave a very good history of what led us to this point. But this
amendment right here, right now would expose the U.S. to job-killing
sanctions on goods valued at $800 million.
In 2010, the Obama administration finalized a framework agreement
with Brazil that was a critical step in resolving this dispute about
the U.S. Upland Cotton Program and export credits. And, yes, under the
agreement, Brazil agreed to delay trade sanctions, trade retaliation
until the 2012 farm bill was developed and put together. This amendment
would circumvent the legislative process in what could only be
described as a haphazard way that should be a relic of the past.
This amendment is an attempt to circumvent regular order, the
democratic policy process, by changing policy on an appropriation bill.
Now, I can assure you, I plan and we will have a full and open process
when we start the farm bill debate. We'll debate the relevant issues
dealt with in this amendment.
And on that note, I would serve a notice for record that next week,
we plan to start the process of conducting an audit of all farm
programs. This audit is just the beginning of the comprehensive and
transparent process we'll use to draft the 2012 farm bill. Policy
changes will be considered carefully with the input from industry
stakeholders and constituents and within the larger context of
improving the competitiveness and long productivity of American
agriculture.
Let's not incite a trade war. Let's return to regular order. And if
nothing else, my friends, remember, this bill is 13 percent lower than
the previous spending bill. This Ag approps bill takes us almost back
to 2006. We are giving our share in this appropriations process. And
everyone in this room knows that whether it's the regular farm bill
next summer or if we have some grandiose understanding on the national
debt ceiling and spending, the deficit, we could well have a farm bill
dramatically quicker than next summer, and we'll have a farm bill that
reflects a dramatic reduction in resources compared to past farm bills.
Let the Ag Committee in regular order craft the policy, and then when
we bring it to the floor--all of our friends, expert ag economists, we
all may be together--you will have your shot, as you've had before. But
please don't incite a trade war. Please don't ignore the regular order
of appropriation authorization. Please be rational in what you do.
We've got tough decisions ahead of us. Collin and I and the rest of the
committee, we know that. We're going to do what we have to do. But let
us do it in regular order, not in this fashion.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Let me just say this: Georgia is the second-
largest cotton-producing State. It accounts for approximately 10
percent of the U.S. cotton production. In 2011, Georgia farmers intend
to plant almost 1.5 million acres of cotton.
{time} 2130
The average farm-gate value is more than $600 million. There are
approximately 2,800 businesses directly involved in the production,
processing, and distribution of cotton. Accounting for the broader
economic effects, the Georgia cotton industry supports more than 46,000
jobs, and it generates economic activity of approximately $11 billion.
Now, the proponents of these amendments target provisions in the
cotton programs that are at the center of a WTO trade case which Brazil
has against the United States. The U.S. and the Brazilian Governments
have scheduled a series of consultations designed to identify the
modifications in policy that will resolve the case. The intention is to
reach agreement on carefully thought-out provisions that can be
included in the 2012 farm bill.
These hastily drafted amendments are not guaranteed to resolve the
dispute, 1, since the U.S.-Brazil consultations have not resulted in
any specific agreement and, 2, since these approaches will certainly
undermine the future discussions as the two countries attempt to reach
a final resolution that's fair and that is reasonable.
The amendments target cotton farmers in an effort to reduce
government spending. The 2008 farm bill, including the cotton
provisions, was fully paid for, offset, and did not add one single dime
to the deficit. They cite the years in which the government's support
for cotton was historically high, but they ignore the years when the
support actually is at historic lows. We need to maintain the safety
net so that it's there when it's needed but not utilized, as it hasn't
been recently, when it's not needed.
Farmers understand the current budget pressures. They understand that
very well. But they expect to be a part
[[Page H4250]]
of a debate involving all of the agricultural stakeholders, and not be
singled out for ad hoc budget reductions with hasty policy decisions.
These proposed amendments would nullify the basic component of cotton
policy. If these amendments are enacted, they would take effect October
1, and, as a result, USDA would have to change the cotton program rules
in the middle of the marketing year and change them back effective
October 1, 2012. This would undermine the confidence in commodity
programs, especially among agricultural lenders.
This would compromise our agriculture policy, a policy that has been
vetted very carefully by our authorizing committees and relied upon by
our growers and our lenders in making their business decisions going
into 2012. The reauthorization of the farm bill in 2012 is the proper
forum to debate the cotton agriculture policy, not here on this
appropriations bill.
We have got to do what is right in regular order. This is not the
time. It's not the place. And what we're doing tonight, if they go
forward with this, is pulling the rug out from under our cotton farmers
and our agriculture when they have made financial plans through 2012.
It is unfair; it's not right, and we should not do it.
I urge my colleagues to reject these amendments. They are ill-
advised.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARENTHOLD. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARENTHOLD. I would like to speak in opposition to this.
The ranking member gives a great history lesson on how this comes
out. The previous farm bill--passed by primarily Congress controlled by
your side of the aisle--created a situation with our cotton subsidies
that has caused a problem with Brazil, and we are trying to work it
out.
My colleagues on this side of the aisle and many of the colleagues on
the other side of the aisle are also concerned that this government as
a whole, through the regulatory process, picked the regulatory
agencies, making it very difficult and unpredictable for businesses by
changing the regulatory environment.
Our businesses are holding back, not investing, not creating jobs.
But we're about to do the same thing ourselves right here with this
amendment by yanking the rug out from under our cotton farmers, who
have built their businesses, made their plans based on the promise of
the last farm bill.
You know, I love to save money for this government. I'm none too
happy to see this money going to Brazil. But we basically lost a
lawsuit and we're having to pay the damages. And we're going to fix it
in the regular order without yanking the rug out from under the
farmers, who are the backbone of this country, by changing the rules in
the middle of the game. Give us until next year to get that farm bill
out, and we will address it.
Even though it didn't rise to the point of order, this really does
rise, in my opinion, to the level of legislating within an
appropriations bill.
I don't like spending the money. I don't like sending it offshore.
But we cannot change the rules in the middle of the game. We cannot
move the goalposts for our farmers, many of whom are small, private
farmers who have built their future, taken out loans, decided to buy
more land, decided to buy more equipment, based all their business
decisions on the promise that this government made to them in the last
farm bill. And changing the rules at this point is absolutely wrong,
and I encourage my friends and my colleagues to vote against this
amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. DeFAZIO. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. DeFAZIO. The gentleman that preceded me said we lost a lawsuit.
We didn't lose a lawsuit. If he knows anything about the WTO dispute
resolution process, no conflict of interest, no open litigation, no
legal proceeding as we in the United States of America understand it. A
closed group with no conflict-of-interest rules that makes rulings. And
they have decided that we, under this failed trade policy, should pay
tribute, tribute, more than we paid to the Barbary pirates--
$147,300,000 a year to the Government of Brazil so we can subsidize our
cotton farmers.
Now, you go home and explain that to your constituents. We'll borrow
$147,300,000 from China and we'll send it to Brazil so we can subsidize
our cotton farmers.
What is this all about? It is about a totally failed trade policy.
And at some point, this Congress has to take a stand.
Ron Paul and I, a number of years ago, 3 years ago--we get to do it
once every 5 years--offered an amendment to withdraw the United States
of America from the WTO. That will come up soon. I hope you'll all
support it. It is something that binds us and is destroying our
industries, our farmers, and everything else that's great about this
country. I voted against the WTO.
This isn't about so much as a failed farm policy or farm bill, as the
gentleman outlaid. It's about totally failed trade policies.
Other countries want to protect their agricultural interests. They
want to feed their own people. They don't want to import polluted food
from China.
We've opened up our country to polluted foods and goods from China
and Brazil and everyplace else in the world with the WTO and these
trade agreements. They don't observe them. We go and we lose this
dispute and say, oh, we've got no choice but to pay. We have a choice.
Let's not pay. We're not going to pay the tribute. We're not going to
borrow the money from China. We're not going to send it to Brazil.
Let's see what they do next. And maybe we can blow up this thing called
the WTO and get back to something that protects our national interests.
I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. KIND. I thank the gentleman for his comments in support of this
amendment. And just one final point to my colleagues who have been
supportive of trade agreements in the past.
Let's be honest with ourselves. If we're going to be a part of this
WTO organization to establish rules of trade across borders, then let's
not turn our back on an adverse decision that affects us. Let's,
instead, comply and bring the cotton subsidy program into compliance.
That is the answer to this. And let's end this nonsense of stacking
subsidy program on top of subsidy program to just buy off and blackmail
other governments who have a WTO decision in their hands.
And I cannot believe that this evening, when we're asking for huge,
unprecedented cuts in conservation programs that will affect thousands
of farmers throughout the country and unprecedented cuts with nutrition
programs that will affect thousands of low-income families with their
children, and seniors, saying, ``Tough luck. We're operating under
tough budget times. You're just going to have to do without,'' when it
comes to a simple amendment like this to save $147 million a year to
bribe Brazil cotton producers and an unwillingness to go into the title
I subsidy programs for cost savings, then what the heck are we doing
around here?
{time} 2140
It is just beyond the pale that we're willing to take the deep cuts--
and the chairman of the Agriculture Committee claimed a 12 percent cut
in the farm bill, but he didn't say where those cuts were coming from.
I'll tell you where it's not coming from. It's not coming from these
subsidy programs. It's not coming from the cotton subsidy program that
has gotten us into this problem. A handful of powerful cotton families
are holding this institution hostage in order to maintain these subsidy
programs that have benefited them for too long. Talk about benefiting
the few at the expense of the many; this is the classic example of this
Agriculture appropriation bill before us this evening. We can do a heck
of a lot better.
Mr. DeFAZIO. I will reclaim my time to say we may have some
differences over the underlying trade agreement and the mandates and
the process which got us to this point, but I agree, subsidies--or
bribes--on top of subsidies is insane in these tough budget times.
And I would just note that we're going to be confronted very soon
with another limitation amendment on another bill where we're going to
have a
[[Page H4251]]
choice: We're going to abandon the American trucking industry to
Mexico--which is, again, exacting tribute from the U.S., $4 billion a
year worth of tariffs, to try and drive our companies south of the
border to use Mexican drivers.
So time and time again these trade agreements are failing us. I think
it's bigger than the problem of the subsidies in the farm bill, and
this Congress needs to pay attention. One way or another, we're either
going to get real about our deficits and what's really essential to the
American people--feeding our people, clothing our people, and putting
American people to work--or we're going to abandon ourselves to this
failed notion of the WTO and other trade agreements.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Chairman, the world has changed. It's not
enough to simply buy American anymore, we have to sell American. We
have to sell our American agriculture products, our technology products
and services all throughout the world. But oftentimes, when we compete,
we find much of the world is tilted against us. Other countries cut
agreements to make it tough for us to sell. That's why we are involved
in the World Trade Organization, to insist that other countries play by
the rules, but that means America has to play by the rules as well.
We lost this case in the WTO. So the question today isn't about
cotton subsidies or even saving money; it's about the smart way to
address this issue that protects American jobs.
Now I am very sympathetic to this amendment. Paying Brazil nearly $12
million a month is not the right way to resolve this issue, and I agree
with that. In fact, America should simply live up to its WTO obligation
and insist that others do the same as well.
The settlement that's in place today is necessary to prevent Brazil
from imposing almost $1 billion of new tariffs, new taxes on American
products when we try to sell them into Brazil. And it's not just
agriculture products. As you heard Chairman Frank Lucas talk, he made
the point that not only can Brazil penalize our ag products, they can
tax and tariff a broad range of products, especially America's
innovation economy. So in your State, if you have companies that
produce pharmaceuticals, medical devices, business software,
technology, anything in the innovation sector of America, your
companies and your workers face the loss of jobs and the loss of
product sales because of this issue.
So the smart way to handle this is to deal with this not only in the
farm bill, but at the WTO today, insisting that as we end these cotton
subsidies, other countries end their agricultural subsidies as well.
That is the smart way to resolve this issue that doesn't hurt America
and jobs, in fact protects our American intellectual property rights in
Brazil and other countries.
This is an issue of doing it the smart way. I oppose this amendment.
I urge our colleagues to continue to work together to resolve this
issue in a smart way for our economy and a smart way for our jobs.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin
will be postponed.
Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Ohio is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mr. Chairman, a few moments ago my friend from
California had an amendment that she did withdraw that really wanted to
codify into law the USDA's rules regarding the school lunch program.
And while I won't go into the lengthy reasons why it's the wrong way to
go for nutrition--not just the cost that it bears to the schools, but
also the fact that USDA was recommending reducing the consumption of
potatoes, corn, peas and lima beans to just one serving a week--which
believe me I was shocked. But it wasn't just myself that had this
reaction; it was also the California Fruit Growers Association, it was
the National School Boards Association, it was the Council of the Great
City Schools that wrote a letter. And that's why I and 40 other
colleagues wrote to Mr. Vilsack of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
in reaction to the promulgation of these rules.
I will enter into the Record the testimony I was going to give until
she withdrew the amendment, as well as these four letters.
Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. Breakfasts and
lunches served in schools are important components of the diets of
school age children. Improving the nutritional profile of meals served
to school children is very important.
When the USDA proposed a rule that eliminated potatoes from the
School Breakfast program and limited the School Lunch program to one
cup a week of potatoes, I was very concerned.
On the Agriculture Committee, I have made it frequently known how
important healthy living and nutritious eating habits are to me as a
person, a mother, a grandmother and as a legislator. It is especially
near and dear to my heart when we discuss policies that affect
children's nutritional needs.
When I heard that the USDA recommended reducing the consumption of
potatoes, corn, peas, and lima beans--I was shocked.
When my daughter was growing up, I took great care to ensure that she
ate healthy, balanced meals. Of course, potatoes were a part of that
equation. You all know that they are full of potassium, vitamins C and
B6, potassium, fiber, and antioxidants. I cannot understand why the
USDA would want to reduce school children's consumption of potatoes.
I think that it is short sighted for the USDA to ignore the health
benefits that the potato provides. When looking at how to incentivize
healthier eating habits, we in Congress need to find a way to encourage
and educate program recipients to eat balanced meals.
I think it is very important to make sure that children receive
balanced meals, and that certainly includes potatoes.
I, along with forty-one of my colleagues sent a letter to the USDA
asking a number of questions about this proposed rule. Mr. Speaker,
without objections, I would like to submit a copy of this letter to the
Record.
Mr. Chair, potatoes, lima beans, peas, and corn are all healthy
vegetables that should certainly be in the School Breakfast and Lunch
Programs.
Potatoes are an excellent source of potassium and good source of
fiber. According to the USDA's own magazine, Amber Waves, potatoes
deliver these nutrients at a very low cost.
FNS has estimated that the proposed rule would increase the cost of
school meals by $6.8 billion over the next five years. Per meal, the
cost will increase by 14 cents per lunch and fifty cents per breakfast.
Mr. Chair, school districts and states across the country are already
cash-strapped and cannot afford this increased cost.
This additional burden will be passed onto students paying full price
for their meals.
While I agree with the intent of the USDA to encourage the
consumption of more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean
proteins--restricting the consumption of nutritious vegetables like
potatoes, lima beans, peas, and corn is short-sighted and not the most
effective approach to achieve that goal.
I encourage my colleagues to vote no on this amendment and instruct
the USDA to issue a new proposed rule on implementing the new national
nutrition standards for the School Breakfast and School Lunch Programs.
California League of
Food Processors,
Sacramento, CA, June 15, 2011.
Hon. Lynn Woolsey,
Rayburn House Office Building, House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Woolsey: The California League of Food
Processors (CLFP) respectfully opposes your amendment to the
FY 2012 Agriculture Appropriations bill, H.R. 2112, prevent
the Agriculture Department from reissuing more reasonable and
cost effective proposed regulations on the school breakfast
and lunch program.
CLFP has concerns about USDA recommending school breakfast
programs eliminate ``starchy vegetables'' and proposing
restrictions on the use of tomato paste and cheese. As I'm
sure you remember CLFP members account for 95% of the fruits
and vegetables canned, frozen and dehydrated/dried in
California and this repersents more than 35% of U.S.
production. For a number of preserved food products,
California produces 100% of U.S. output, for example tomato
paste. These new USDA restrictions could potentially mean the
loss of millions of dollars in sales of vegetables, fruit and
cheese to the national school program. Its negative effects
would ripple throughout the industry,
[[Page H4252]]
from farmers, dairymen, package manufacturers, etc. The cost
impact of this rule on our schools and food producers should
be considered by USDA. Affirmative changes to the meal plan
relative to starchy vegetables limits and tomato serving
calculations would go a long way to fixing the cost issues
that are concerning to schools.
CLFP supports your efforts to help ensure school kids have
access to healthy and nutritious meals. However, we urge you
to allow USDA to ensure the new rule on school meals is cost
neutral and resist efforts by USDA to proclaim vegetables and
other healthy foods ``good'' or ``bad''.
Very Truly Yours,
Ed Yates,
President and CEO,
____
National School
Boards Association,
Alexandria, VA, June 14, 2011.
Re: H.R. 2112--FY 2012 Agriculture Appropriations Bill.
Member,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Representative: The National School Boards Association
(NSBA), representing over 90,000 local school board members
across the Nation, is deeply committed to fostering a healthy
and positive learning environment for children to achieve
their full potential. However, NSBA is gravely concerned
about the financial impact of the recent child nutrition
reauthorization (P.L. 111-296) on school districts at a time
when many are in dire economic straits. Therefore, NSBA
supports report language accompanying the FY 2012 Agriculture
Appropriations bill that directs the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) to propose new rules that do not create
unfunded mandates for school districts.
For example, the USDA estimates a cost increase of 14 cents
per school lunch under new proposed standards for school meal
programs, even though the available reimbursement increase is
just 6 cents. A district serving free and reduced price
lunches to 5,000 students faces a potential shortfall of
$72,000 annually under this scenario. The Department
recommends a number of cost-shifting measures to address the
shortfall (such as increased student payments, increased
state and local funding, and operational changes), that are
unrealistic and unconscionable given the current economic
realities for many states and communities.
School districts have already closed buildings, terminated
programs and laid off teachers due to eroding local, state,
and federal resources. Every dollar in unfunded mandates in
the child nutrition reauthorization must come from somewhere
else in the educational system and result in more layoffs,
larger class sizes, narrowing of the curriculum, elimination
of after-school programs, and cuts to other program areas,
including school food services.
The new meal standards are just one of many provisions of
P.L. 111-296 being implemented over the next two-to-three
years and will impose additional costs on school districts.
The reauthorization is a hollow promise to our children when
it comes at the expense of the education that will help them
to succeed.
Therefore, NSBA supports report language accompanying the
FY 2012 Agriculture Appropriations bill that directs USDA to
propose new rules that do not create unfunded mandates for
school districts. Questions regarding our concerns may be
directed to Lucy Gettman, director of federal programs at
703-838-6763; or by e-mail at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Michael A. Resnick,
Associate Director.
____
Council of the
Great City Schools,
Washington, DC, June 14, 2011.
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Representative: The Council of the Great City Schools,
the coalition of the nation's largest central city school
districts, writes to call your attention to the proposed
federal School Meals regulations that will cost an additional
$6.8 billion, and the possible amendment to the FY 2012
Agriculture Appropriations bill, H.R. 2112, by Representative
Woolsey that would prevent the Agriculture Department from
reissuing more reasonable and cost effective proposed
regulations pursuant to the Committee report. The Great City
Schools strongly opposes the Woolsey amendment.
Many of the nation's largest urban school districts have
been among the leaders in improving the nutritional content
of school meals and snacks provided to our students. Yet, our
school districts are extremely concerned that USDA is
proposing new federal school meals requirements costing an
additional $6.8 billion, with over $5 billion in unreimbursed
costs shifting on to school district budgets. The newly
proposed school breakfast program requirements alone would
cost $4 billion, with the federal government providing not
one-cent of additional federal reimbursement for these
additional meal costs. The Council is skeptical that our
formal regulatory comments recommending over $4.5 billion in
cost-saving changes to the rule will be accepted by USDA.
Before the Education and Workforce Committee, the San Diego
Unified School District explained that they were already
meeting all of the proposed new school meal nutritional
standards, with the exception of the future sodium
requirement, but that the school district would have to scrap
its Nutrient-based School Meals program (as would 30% of the
nation's school districts) and institute the new meal system
required under the proposed USDA regulations, at the
additional cost of over $4 million annually to the district.
School nutritionists and food service directors point out in
regulatory comments that many of the newly proposed school
meals requirements are unnecessary, excessive, costly, or
counterproductive in the case of the regulatory prohibition
on well-tested nutrient-based school meal systems.
Congress unfortunately shortcut the legislative process in
passing the Senate's version of the Child Nutrition
reauthorization bill in the lame duck session of the 111th
Congress. The House child nutrition bill was not considered
by the full House, and in fact there was no floor debate on
the Senate child nutrition bill, which was adopted by
unanimous consent prior to the August 2010 congressional
recess. Without a full legislative process, the extent of the
unreimbursed costs reflected in the USDA regulations, already
under development for multiple years, was not fully examined.
The drumbeat of celebrities and food advocacy groups
promoting healthier lifestyles, and anti-obesity programs
drowned out the practical considerations of cost-
effectiveness and local budgetary realities faced by each of
your school districts in this economic downturn.
A NO vote on the Woolsey amendment provides an opportunity
to underscore the Appropriations Committee report that the
Agriculture Department should withdraw its overreaching new
federal school meals rules, and reissue a more realistic and
workable proposed regulation.
Sincerely,
Michael Casserly,
Executive Director.
____
Congress of the United States,
Washington, DC, May 5, 2011.
Hon. Tom Vilsack,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Whitten Building,
Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC.
Dear Secretary Vilsack: Breakfasts and lunches served in
the school setting are important components of the diets of
school age children. Improving the nutritional profile of
meals served in schools and maintaining participation rates
are important priorities. We share your commitment to
continually improving the contribution of the school meal to
the nutritional needs of school children and to encourage
healthy lifestyles for children that are built on a
foundation of sound nutrition and physical activity.
USDA recently published a proposed rule on school meal
plans to reflect the Dietary Guidelines. That proposal was
based in great part on a study by the Institute of Medicine
(IOM) commissioned by USDA. The recently released 2010
Dietary Guidelines identified potassium, fiber, vitamin D and
calcium as nutrients of concern for all Americans, including
school age children. Changes to the school meal plans should
take steps toward increasing the consumption of these key
nutrients by increasing student access to fruits and
vegetables that are either ``excellent'' or ``good'' sources.
Changes to the school meal plans must consider the
constraints faced by school lunch providers. School lunch
providers need to offer nutritious affordable options that
children will eat and that will encourage continued high
rates of participation in both breakfast and lunch programs.
For many children, the school meals are their prime source of
nutrition for the day. Changes that discourage participation
will reduce the overall health and wellness of American
children.
As we continue to follow the development of the next
generation of school meal plans, we would appreciate your
thoughts on the following questions:
In the proposed rule, USDA indicates that implementation of
the proposal will result in $6.8 billion in increased costs
over five years and that small entities will incur 80 per
cent of that increase. Do you have estimates on the impact of
these cost increases on participation among reimbursed,
partially reimbursed and paying participants?
Potatoes are rates as an ``excellent'' source of potassium
and a ``good'' source of fiber. According to a recent article
in the March 2011, USDA magazine, Amber Waves, potatoes
deliver these nutrients at a very low cost. What is the
rationale for eliminating potatoes from the breakfast meal
and limiting them to one cup a week when they provide cost
effective access to two key nutrients of concern identified
by the IOM?
By limiting access to potatoes and other starchy
vegetables, the proposed meal plans seem to advance the
notion that this will increase the consumption of the orange,
green and other types of vegetables otherwise offered. Is
there science to support the theory that consumption of
orange, green and other types of vegetables will increase is
offered more often? What science exists that measures this
type of vegetable menu change on nutrient delivery?
The starchy vegetable category includes vegetables with a
variety of nutritional characteristics. What are the key
characteristics that USDA identified which link the
vegetables placed in this category, and how are they distinct
from other vegetables excluded from the starchy vegetable
category?
According the nutrition experts, bananas and potatoes are
very similar in their nutritional makeup. This goes beyond
both being
[[Page H4253]]
rich in potassium. It includes similarities in carbohydrates,
dietary fiber and other nutrients. Should both bananas and
potatoes have serving limits in the proposed meal plans?
The meal plan acknowledges a preference for orange and dark
green vegetables? Is there sufficient science to support such
a preference for orange and dark green vegetables? Would
Irish potatoes with yellow, purple or other flesh color be
considered starchy vegetables?
According to the proposed rule, lima beans in the fresh,
canned or frozen form are considered starchy vegetables. In
dried form they are legumes. Are there nutritional changes
between the forms that support such a distinction?
The proposed meal plans are based on consumption data
available from 2002 that was reviewed by the IOM for their
report. Did USDA evaluate the applicability of that
consumption data on potatoes and other starchy vegetables,
given changes in preparation methods for products currently
offered in school?
Are the serving limits on starchy vegetables, and potatoes
in particular, based primarily on the nutritional profile of
the product or on the preparation methods for the product?
Thank you in advance for your feedback to our questions. We
look forward to working with you toward our common goal of
improving the well-being of our nation's school children.
Sincerely,
Jean Schmidt, Joe Baca, Rick Berg, Ken Calvert, K.
Michael Conaway, Eric A. ``Rick'' Crawford, Renee L.
Ellmers, Wally Herger, Bill Huizenga, Raul R. Labrador,
Dan Burton, Dennis A. Cardoza, Jim Costa, Sean P.
Duffy, Stephen Lee Fincher, Jaime Herrera Beutler,
Steve King, Doug Lamborn, Tom Latham, Tom McClintock,
Michael H. Michaud.
Devin Nunes, Collin C. Peterson, Chellie Pingree,
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Michael K. Simpson,
Robert E. Latta, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Candice S.
Miller, William L. Owens, Thomas E. Petri, Reid J.
Ribble, Kurt Schrader, Adrian Smith, Marlin A.
Stutzman, Scott R. Tipton, Greg Walden, Steve Womack,
Lee Terry, Fred Upton, Timothy J. Walz, Todd C. Young.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
amendment offered by mr. dingell
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following new section:
Sec. __. The amounts otherwise provided by this Act for
``Departmental Administration'', ``Agriculture Buildings and
Facilities and Rental Payments'', administrative expenses
under the third paragraph under ``Agricultural Credit
Insurance Fund Program Account'', administrative expenses
under the fourth paragraph under ``Rural Housing Insurance
Fund Program Account'', and ``Foreign Agricultural Service--
salaries and expenses'' are hereby reduced by, and the amount
otherwise provided by this Act for ``Food and Drug
Administration--salaries and expenses'' is hereby increased
by, $5,000,000, $20,000,000, $10,000,000, $4,000,000,
$10,000,000, and $49,000,000, respectively.
Mr. DINGELL (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous
consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The Acting CHAIR. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman
from Michigan?
There was no objection.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Michigan is recognized for 5
minutes.
(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, this is a good amendment.
At a time when 30 people have been grossly sickened and died in
Germany and 3,000 have been sickened, we are cutting Food and Drug's
enforcement budget. The legislation would cut the food safety budget of
FDA by $87 million below fiscal year 11, and $205 million below the
President's fiscal year 12 request.
We are witnessing now one of the deadliest E. coli outbreaks ever
overseas in Europe, and that infection is spreading across the society
of the world. My amendment has the support of the Consumers Union, Pew
Charitable Trusts, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, U.S.
PIRG, and the National Women's Health Network.
It is time for us to understand that every year in the United States,
3,000 Americans are killed with bad food, 128,000 are hospitalized, 48
million are made sick. We have imported food that is causing all manner
of difficulty: Bad peanuts with salmonella, bad mushrooms, E. coli in
peppers, melamine in dairy products, salmonella in eggs, bad shellfish
and fish from China.
The amendment sees to it that Food and Drug has the resources it
needs to do the job to protect the American people from bad food being
imported into the United States. We are able to inspect less than 1
percent of the food coming into the United States. This is a positive
risk to the American consuming public.
The situation here is indefensible. The House last year passed major
improvements in our food safety laws. And we saw to it--we had a
funding mechanism which was removed by the Senate. But without the
adequate funding that this amendment would afford to our people, we
will find that they are at risk of serious health dangers from bad food
and from sickness that comes with those things. We are here, by this
amendment, giving Food and Drug the resources that it needs, some $49
million, to see to it that these imported foods and other foods are
safe.
{time} 2150
This is extremely important. And while you might say, well, I don't
know whether it is going to affect me, somebody in this country is
going to get sick because bad food came in and because it kills people
when that happens.
I urge my colleagues to support the amendment until we can get
ourselves in a situation where we have proper and adequate funding for
Food and Drug to see to it that our people are safe from imports which
are causing sickness, illness and death to the American people.
The legislation, unfortunately, does cut the food safety budget, and
it cuts it in ways which are threatening a piece of legislation which
has strengthened Food and Drug with the support of not just farmers and
consumers, but also of the food processing industry, which rallied
around and supported the legislation along with consumer groups and all
of the other sources in industry, recognizing we desperately need
something to be done to ensure that our people do not get sick and die
from bad imported foods.
I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. I urge them to do so
with vigor until such time as we can get a fee system in place which
will adequately support Food and Drug and see to it that our people can
sleep easily after they have a full meal knowing that the food they
have consumed is safe.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I rise with great temerity in opposition
to the amendment by the great gentleman from Michigan.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Wyoming is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I would note that over the last 2 days we
have heard how ag credit and rural housing have had deep cuts in this
bill, and yet now we have an amendment that would cut more from them
and would impart those funds on a program that between fiscal year 2004
and the current fiscal year has experienced a net budget authority
increase of $2 billion, a 121 percent increase, and over the same time
period, direct appropriations increases of over $1 billion, or 75
percent. Implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010
would require an additional $1.4 billion in new budget authority. If
the President's budget request were adopted, the result would be a 156
percent increase for FDA since 2004.
This level of spending is unsustainable. While the recommended
funding level for FDA in this bill is an 11.5 percent decrease below
the amount provided in the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution, the
subcommittee's overall allocation was reduced by 13.4 percent. Hence,
this program suffered a smaller reduction than other programs within
the budget.
Once again, with these massive increases in budget authority and in
actual spending through direct appropriations over the time period 2004
and the current fiscal year, Mr. Chairman, and given the fact that ag
credit and rural housing have already taken the types of deep cuts that
are referenced in the rest of the bill, I urge my colleagues to defeat
the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for 5
minutes.
[[Page H4254]]
Mr. PALLONE. I rise in support of the Dingell amendment to partially
restore the Food and Drug Administration funding to the fiscal year
2012 agriculture appropriations bill.
I listened to what my colleagues said on the other side of the aisle.
The fact of the matter is that today's bill slashes the FDA by $572
million, or 21 percent, below the President's request, and by $285
million, or 12 percent, below this year.
I beg to differ with the gentlewoman. This is not the time to be
cutting the FDA's budget. We have had many scares. We have had many
outbreaks. We have had people die. We have had people become seriously
ill. That is why in the last Congress we passed the landmark Food
Safety Act, because we wanted to have increased inspection of food
manufacturing plants, increased scrutiny of imported foods, and
development of the capability to more quickly respond to food-borne
illnesses and minimize their impact.
I don't know about you, but when I go home, I hear a great deal of
concern about the quality and the safety of our food supply and our
groceries. When people buy food in the supermarket, when they go and
buy it at a roadside stand, they are very concerned about the quality
of the food and whether they are going to get sick. That is why we
passed the landmark Food Safety Act. It is clear that we have just
recently had the E. Coli breakout. The Nation's food supply is so
extremely vulnerable, and the FDA must be equipped to keep it safe.
The FDA has important responsibilities to protect and promote the
health of the American people. To succeed in that mission, FDA must
ensure the safety of not just food, but drugs and medical devices that
Americans rely on every day. They don't just need to oversee the safety
of the products. They also need to be involved in facilitating
scientific innovation that makes these products safe, effective, and
more affordable.
Now, these efforts are especially critical today because I believe
that American competitiveness depends on our ability to innovate. To do
that, we must properly fund key agencies like the FDA that are
essential to assisting in the development of new drugs and devices. FDA
places a high importance on promoting innovation. In fact, they are
currently developing a new Innovation Pathway, an initiative to help
promising technologies get to market. But let me share something with
my colleagues. One of the FDA's senior leadership staff testified
before the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee recently and assured
us that these cuts would prevent such efforts from moving forward.
What I am trying to emphasize is that whether you look at it from the
point of view of the food supply, whether you look at it from the point
of view of innovation, to make cuts in the FDA budget simply makes no
sense.
It is crucial to job creation. It is crucial to people feeling safe
about what they eat, and the government has to be responsible for
facilitating an environment where Americans can continue to innovate.
It is a key to creating new thriving industries that will produce
millions of good jobs here at home and a better future for the next
generation. If government abandons its role, we run the real risk of
squandering too many opportunities that lead to innovative discoveries
and great economic benefits.
Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is the funding level put forth in
today's appropriations bill is inadequate. FDA is already an
underfunded agency. If we don't continue to give the FDA the resources
it needs to complete its mission, they cannot support initiatives that
save lives and create jobs; and these are priorities that Congress
should embrace.
I listened to what my colleagues say on the other side of the aisle.
I understand we have to be concerned about funding and budgets and that
we have a deficit. We also have to figure out what is important as a
priority. The American people have told us that food safety is a
priority. That is why we passed this landmark bill last year.
There has to be a significant increase in funds, even in this
environment, if we are going to keep the food supply safe. If we don't
do that, a lot of economic activity is also going to suffer, including
innovation, including what we can do for the future to keep this
country competitive. So I understand what she is saying, but I also
think that it is very important to restore these funds.
I want to commend my colleague, Mr. Dingell, for putting forth this
amendment, and I would ask my colleagues to support the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. I stand in opposition to the amendment, but with great
admiration for the author of the amendment--but still disagreement.
Now, the previous speaker actually said that FDA funding has been
slashed. FDA is funded both with direct appropriations and with fees.
Last year, their funding level was $3.6 billion. This year, it is $3.64
billion. It is a little bit more. I would say it is level funding. But
FDA funding has not been slashed, and it is very important for us to
realize that.
Number two, let me show you something about the FDA funding history,
Mr. Chairman. If you can see this, this chart actually goes back to
2000 and goes up to 2011. It has been nothing but a 10-year climb
uphill for the FDA. And while a lot of people are saying the FDA
funding is slashed, there is not even a slight dip in any of this 10-
year funding chart. It is very important for us to realize that.
{time} 2200
Now, the second point is, in the FDA hearing, I was concerned about
FDA's ability to do food safety and to take on this big mission. Here
is why:
You hear the figure of about 48 million foodborne illnesses--a very
high number which we are enormously concerned about--but 20 percent of
those illnesses are from known, or specified, pathogens. Nearly 60
percent of the illnesses from known pathogens comes from the Norovirus.
So how do we address this?
The CDC tells us on their March 4 memo that appropriate hand hygiene
is likely the most important method to prevent the Norovirus infection
and to control transmission. Reducing any Norovirus present on hands is
best accomplished by thorough handwashing. Now, in the FDA's 630-page
budget request, there is not one mention of Norovirus. I believe that
that's relevant.
The second point: The second highest cause of illness is salmonella;
but under its authority, the existing authority, before the Food Safety
Modernization Act was passed by the House, the FDA updated its own food
safety as respect to salmonella. They are saying--and this was
according to their own press release in July of last year--that as many
as 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths due to the consumption of eggs
contaminated with salmonella may be avoided. That was last year. That
was before a new bureaucracy. This bureaucracy, by the way, over a 10-
year period of time, will cost $1.4 billion and will hire 17,000 new
Federal employees.
The third highest cause of foodborne illnesses is clostridium. Again,
in the FDA's 630-page budget request, it was only mentioned once.
I want to say something else that is very important. Do we believe
that McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken and Safeway and Kraft
Foods--and any brand name that you can think of--aren't concerned about
food safety? The food supply in America is very safe as the private
sector self-polices because they have the highest motivation. They
don't want to be sued. They don't want to go broke. They want their
customers to be healthy and happy and to come back and give them repeat
business.
Now, in response to the 2006 E. coli outbreak that happened in
California with spinach, where three people died and 200 consumers were
sickened, the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing
Agreement was made. This is a private sector agreement which has done
already 2,000 farm audits on a voluntary basis. Nearly 200 billion
servings of lettuce and spinach and other leafy greens produced under
this program have been surveyed. It is a successful private sector
initiative, and those types of things happen all
[[Page H4255]]
the time in the private sector, but we're blind to it.
Here are some numbers from the CDC. It's very important because I
think America loves to beat itself up over things all the time. The CDC
numbers, Mr. Chairman: There are 48 million foodborne illnesses
reported a year, 128,000 hospitalizations, 3,000 deaths. Those numbers
are very high. I'm very concerned about it. That's why we spend a lot
of money already on food safety.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CONAWAY. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to my colleague from Georgia (Mr.
Kingston).
Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I just want to continue with this, Mr. Chairman.
You have 311 million Americans eating three meals a day. That's 933
million meals eaten each day. That's nearly 1 billion food consumption
events in our country, which is over 360 billion meals consumed. If you
do the math in going back to the 48 million foodborne illnesses,
according to the USDA, our food safety rate is 99.99 percent.
I want to address the 48 million, but what I also suggest to you is
that we can spend $45 million more for FDA funding; we can spend $100
million more or we can spend $1 billion more, but I don't think you can
increase this number of a 99.99 percent food safety rate according to
the CDC. So, in these times of very tight budgets, it is very important
to keep these facts in mind.
I am going to close with this statement by the Democrat Secretary of
Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and this was as of yesterday. He said he is
``reasonably confident'' that U.S. consumers won't be faced with the
same sort of E. coli outbreak now plaguing Germany. He goes on and
explains why--because of the current food safety laws in place and the
current food safety funding.
Mr. CONAWAY. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR (Mr. Dold). The gentleman from California is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. FARR. I yield to the chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Dingell).
Mr. DINGELL. I thank my good friend for yielding to me.
I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the Appropriations
Committee and their extraordinary staffs for their courtesy to me as we
have gone on through this legislation and through the discussion of
this amendment.
I've listened to my Republican colleagues tell us how great we're
doing. My good friend, for whom I have enormous fondness, presents us
with a bunch of pictures of food. It looks great. Maybe it's safe and
maybe it's not. He has got a bunch of numbers that say that it's 99.99
percent safe. That sounds wonderful.
But what are the real facts? All right.
The real facts are that, at the time that this cut is going into
place on Food and Drug's budget, 3,300 people have been sickened in
Germany with a particularly dangerous form of E. coli, and 30 people
are dead. It is spreading across the German borders into other
countries.
Now, how are we doing over here?
First of all, Food and Drug has been starved of resources for years
and has not been able to provide the necessary protection to the
American people from imported food, which is coming in and is, frankly,
sickening people.
What is the situation? Salmonella and peanuts, bad mushrooms from
China, E. coli in peppers coming in from Mexico, melamine in dairy
products. It kills kids. It kills babies. It causes all manner of
health risks and dangers.
There are bad pharmaceuticals coming in. We haven't been able to get
ahold of that problem yet, but I'm going to try and get a bill that
will address that; and I'm going to try and see to it that we get a fee
system that will enable us to not have to quarrel about these moneys on
the House floor.
But in this country, let's look. If this is going so well and if the
Secretary of Agriculture is so right and if my dear friend from Georgia
is correct, then there is really nothing to worry about; and I would
like somebody around here to tell me what I'm then going to tell the
3,000 people who are killed in this country by bad food every single
year. 128,000 of them are sick enough that they have to go to
hospitals. On top of that, 48 million people get sick.
There is no way on God's green Earth, with the budget that Food and
Drug has, that they can properly and adequately protect American food
and protect the American people from the dangers of bad imported food.
China is the Wild West. The stuff that they're exporting to the United
States, quite frankly, I'm not sure I'd feed my hogs.
Having said these things, it is time for us to stand up to the
problem and to say, Okay. We're going to spend the money that's
necessary to keep people safe. We are talking about $49 million here. A
lot of money. But how much do you think it takes to bury 3,000
Americans? How much does it cost to take care of 128,000 people who are
hospitalized every year because of this? or to take care of the 48
million people who get sick? and the mothers who lose babies because of
bad milk and things of that kind that come in from China, where they
put melamine in them to up the fictitious levels of nitrogen and
protein?
So I beg you, let us do what is necessary to see to it that Food and
Drug has the funds that they need to do the job to protect the American
people.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk. This
legislation before us would cut the food safety budget of the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) by $87 million below FY 2011 and $205
million below the president's FY 2012 budget request. At a time when we
are witnessing one of the deadliest E. coli outbreaks ever overseas in
Europe, the House stands ready to cut funding for our food safety
systems. This is indefensible and why I am offering an amendment that
will which takes $49 million from several administrative accounts at
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and transfers them to FDA for
the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), of
which I am the author. Specifically, this amendment cuts $5 million
from the Departmental Administration account, $20 million from the
Agriculture Buildings and Facilities and Rental Payments account, $10
million from administrative expenses under the Agricultural Credit
Insurance Fund, $4 million from administrative expenses under the Rural
Housing Insurance Fund, and $10 million from the Foreign Agricultural
Service.
I want to make clear that the offsets I am offering are difficult,
and not accounts which I would cut in normal circumstances. However,
these are not normal circumstances, and the draconian cuts already made
by this legislation to the food safety budget leave me with no other
choice. The cuts to the USDA General Administration Account and to the
Buildings and Administration Account are certainly damaging. I believe
in the good work USDA is doing to promote agriculture in this nation,
but these specific accounts did not receive as large a cut as others.
The safety of our nation's food supply must take priority over these
administrative accounts.
Furthermore, the cut to the Agricultural Credit Insurance Fund, which
provides loans to farmers when they can not obtain them in the private
sector, will be taken from an administrative account which will not
affect the loan levels to farmers in need. The cut to the Rural Housing
Insurance Fund, which guarantees some rural housing loans, will also be
taken from an administrative account which will not impact the loan
level. Finally, while I am supportive of the Foreign Agricultural
Service and their work to promote agricultural exports overseas and
their international development efforts, I believe the American people
would agree that at a time when we recently had a recent scare with
Salmonella in eggs and authorities have agreed that the E. coli
outbreak which is impacting Europe could happen here, our priority must
be on the safety of our own food supply.
I want to make it very clear that the money given to FDA by my
amendment is intended for their food safety activities. Last Congress
when this institution overwhelmingly passed the Food Safety Enhancement
Act, it had bipartisan support, the support of consumer groups, food
safety groups and industry, and a guaranteed source of funding for food
safety activities. The food safety reform law gives FDA the tools it
needs to prevent and detect food-borne illnesses--like the E. coli
outbreak in Germany--from occurring.
Under this new law, the FDA has the authority to recall food
products, to require food facilities to have safety plans to identify
and mitigate risks, and to increase the frequency of FDA inspections of
facilities here and
[[Page H4256]]
abroad. Unfortunately, a dedicated fee to fund the changes to our food
system was dropped by my friends in the Senate and now we are
witnessing a perfect storm--because of the political whims of my
colleagues we are limiting the funding available for food safety
activities at the same time the FDA has the responsibility to begin
implementation of the historic food safety law.
Year after year we witness devastating outbreaks that sicken or kill
innocent people. We have seen E. coli in peppers, Salmonella in
peanuts, melamine in milk--the list goes on. A fee system is not a
radical concept. The drug industry pays a user fee dedicated to
assisting the FDA with the review of new drug applications and the
medical device industry pays a user fee dedicated to the review of
marketing applications. Such a fee guarantees that the FDA has a source
of funding dedicated to their review process free from political
posturing.
We can all agree that we must reduce our budget deficit and that all
options to cut spending must be on the table. However, at a time when
we are witnessing the latest E. coli outbreak in Europe sicken nearly
3,200 people and kill 33, it is unconscionable that we would cut
funding from the agency whose responsibility it is to prevent such
food-borne illnesses here in the United States.
I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my amendment restoring
funding to the FDA for their food safety activities.
Mr. FARR. I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Michigan
will be postponed.
{time} 2210
Amendment No. 13 Offered by Mr. Chaffetz
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to pay the salaries and expenses of personnel who
provide nonrecourse marketing assistance loans for mohair
under section 1201 of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act
of 2008. (7 U.S.C. 8731).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Utah is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Chairman, this is a simple amendment to limit the
subsidies for mohair.
Mohair is something that back in World War II we needed for our
military uniforms. The problem is we haven't used mohair in our
military uniforms since the Korean war, and yet the subsidies still
continue. So this is a commonsense amendment to simply limit this. This
is roughly $1 million a year. This is something that Congresses
previously had eliminated. It crept back in.
And this limitation amendment that I would offer, I would urge my
colleagues to vote for. My understanding is there's no opposition on
either side of the aisle.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment No. 14 Offered by Mr. Chaffetz
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to make (or to pay the salaries and expenses of
personnel in the Department of Agriculture to make) payments
for the storage of cotton under section 1204(g) of the Food,
Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 8734(g)) or
for the storage of peanuts under section 1307(a) of such Act
(7 U.S.C. 8757(a)).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Utah is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CHAFFETZ. I would hope this body would take this amendment with
the same pace we did the mohair subsidies, but perhaps not.
This amendment seeks to eliminate the cotton and peanut storage
payments that we have been making. I would point out to my colleagues
that President Obama recommended terminating this program in his fiscal
2012 budget. No other agriculture commodities receive this type of
assistance.
I would like to read a paragraph that's found on the WhiteHouse.gov
Web site:
The credits allow producers to store their cotton and peanuts at the
government's cost until prices rise. Therefore, storage credits have a
negative impact on the amount of commodities on the market. Because
storage is covered by the government, producers may store their
commodities for longer than necessary. There is no reason the
government should be paying for the storage of cotton or peanuts,
particularly since it does not provide this assistance for any other
commodities.
I happen to concur with the President on this. I hope my colleagues
would find this to be a commonsense amendment to say we should not be
specifying winners and losers. In this particular case, we're going to
offer a storage credit for just cotton and just peanuts. It's something
that I think should be eliminated. I would hope the body would concur.
I would hope we would understand we're going to have to make some
changes in the way we do things. This is one instance where I actually
agree with the President. I'm proud to stand in support of that and
would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BARROW. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. BARROW. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's
amendment to eliminate storage and handling payments for cotton and
peanuts.
I represent a lot of producers of these commodities, and I guess it
makes me a little bit more sensitive to why storage and handling is an
important part of our agricultural policy and why this amendment could
have potentially devastating impacts if allowed to become law.
I believe it's in the best interest of our country to support
domestic agriculture. If you think our reliance on foreign oil is a
nightmare, imagine what it would be like if we had to rely that much on
foreign sources of food and fiber. For that reason, it has been the
policy of the Congress for decades to provide a safety net to help
protect domestic farmers where prices are low and world markets are
unfavorable.
If you represent farm country or if you've ever worked on a farm
bill, you have some idea of what a delicate balance it can be to use
the different tools at our disposal to craft a law that meets the needs
of farmers and consumers. Different commodities have different
economies. Prices sometimes swing wildly. Sometimes, even biological
differences need to be accounted for.
For example, if peanuts are not stored correctly, they can develop
toxicity that renders them not only useless, but dangerous, to the
consumer. Storage and handling assistance has been developed as an
efficient policy for peanuts because it not only gives the farmer some
latitude about how long he can store his crops, but it also improves
food safety for the public.
Mr. Chairman, I was on the Ag Committee back in 2008 when we crafted
the last farm bill. It's been the law of the land since then and will
continue to be until next year. It's the basis on which every farmer
has planned during that time. This amendment creates uncertainty for
those farmers. It threatens their jobs, and it threatens the domestic
production the rest of us depend on.
I believe this amendment is bad policy, and I urge my colleagues to
reject it.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CONAWAY. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CONAWAY. I also oppose the amendment.
This amendment does not save one nickel in fiscal 2012. It's a bit
theater. And unlike mohair, peanuts and cotton
[[Page H4257]]
have a little different circumstances. The storage that is talked about
here is only paid if the prices for these two commodities drops below
their loan rate. CBO does not estimate this to happen for the next
decade in terms of these prices. The loan rates are substantially below
where the current prices are. That means the producers pay for these
storage costs as these products are moved to market.
So this amendment, while we debate it for some 15 to 20 minutes, will
cost more to debate than it will save for the taxpayers. It is an
integral part of the safety net that these producers rely upon.
You've heard this over and over tonight: The Ag Committee is best
suited to develop a proper safety net and an ag policy for this
country. This country has had an ag policy from its inception. We ought
to stand by that ag policy once it's put in place. We put it in place
in 2008. Many tradeoffs were made between conservation programs,
commodity programs. Cotton and peanuts were in the mix.
We will have those exact same conversations this time next year. The
farm bill will come to the floor, and those who disagree with the farm
policy that's developed in the Ag Committee will have ample opportunity
to come to this floor and make these arguments once again. But to do
this in an appropriations bill in basically a drive-by shooting manner,
in my view, is wrongheaded. We ought to trust that the Ag Committee
will get this work done and get it done properly.
The 2008 farm bill was put in place. Ag producers across this
country, bankers across this country, implement dealers across this
country have looked at that as a deal. Most folks in the business world
don't back up on a deal when they don't have to. And we don't have to
in this particular instance because, as I said at the start of this, it
does not cost the taxpayer any money as long as prices are high. CBO
and most folks estimate that in the near term the prices will not drop
below 18 cents a pound for peanuts or 52 cents a pound for cotton.
So I respectfully disagree with my colleague's attempt to alter the
farm bill in this way, in an appropriations bill, and I would ask my
colleagues to oppose the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. I think this amendment is very, very ill
advised.
Storage and handling fees are an integral part of the peanut program
and the cotton program. Removal of these fees will strike against the
growers, the farmers' bottom line. The current marketing loan rate is
$355 per ton. There has been no increase in the peanut loan rate, which
is the safety net, since the 2002 farm bill. With the new farm bill
expected to take place next year, it's unfair for the program to change
dramatically in this final year of the 2008 farm bill.
Peanut growers changed their program from a supply-management
program, in 2002, to a marketing loan program. We eliminated the old
quota system. This included a price reduction from $610 per ton to $355
per ton marketing loan. The growers will lose even more if the program
suffers another $50 per ton reduction due to the elimination of the
storage and handling fees.
Peanuts are a semiperishable commodity. This is different from corn,
from wheat and other commodities. It is economically unfeasible for
producers to store their peanuts on the farm like other commodities
such as corn and wheat. Peanuts need a secure and an atmospheric-
controlled environment. Peanuts require intense and constant management
in the warehouse storage, which a farmer does not have the skills to
do.
{time} 2220
Without proper management, a farmer's peanuts could go from what is
known as a Seg 1 loan price, which is the best, to a Seg 3 loan price,
which is contamination due to aflatoxin.
Elimination of the storage and handling program could certainly
impact food safety, the safety of the product.
Shellers basically control over 75 percent of the peanuts after the
peanuts leave the farmer's control. Since peanuts are semi-perishable
and due to the highly concentrated shelling industry, farmers are at
the mercy of the shellers in terms of pricing. Shellers could possibly
force the farmer to accept a lower price that would cover the storage
and handling cost. Farmers then have no alternative in selling their
peanuts. That eliminates the competitive edge.
This could effectively lower the loan rate to producers, as I said,
by $50 a ton. The storage and handling program has effectively been a
no-net-cost program to the government. Thus, the elimination of it will
not help to reduce the Federal deficit.
Again, we are here about to pull the rug out from under farmers who
have relied upon what this Congress and what this government has done
in setting farm policy starting from 2008 to 2012. Why would we come at
this point and pull the rug out from under them and upset all of their
plans? Many times they have made loans, they've had to purchase
equipment, and particularly throughout the Southeast, the equipment
that is required for southeastern peanut growers and southeastern
farmers is varied. We've got a broad portfolio, unlike the Midwest. We
grow multiple crops.
In the Southeast, from Virginia all the way to Texas, you will find
that farmers will grow corn; they will grow grain, of course; they'll
grow peanuts; they'll grow soybeans; and they'll grow cotton. Each of
those commodities at least will require three different kinds of
equipment, and the combines and the equipment for cotton costs anywhere
from $250,000 to $350,000. Other equipment for peanuts, for grain,
$150,000, $500,000.
This is going to undermine the bottom line, it's going to remove the
competitive edge that American peanut growers have, and it's going to
devastate our ability to maintain the highest quality, the safest, and
the most economical peanuts anywhere in the world.
I think this is very, very ill-advised. I think it will undermine
American agriculture. It will lessen our food security, and certainly
that is the last thing that we need to do because we are already energy
insecure.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).
The amendment was rejected.
Amendment Offered by Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
Page 80, after line 2, insert the following:
Sec. ___. The amounts otherwise provided by this Act are
revised by reducing the amount made available for
``Agriculture Buildings and Facilities and Rental Payments''
by $13,000,000, and increasing the amount made available for
the ``Office of the Secretary,'' by $5,000,000.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I thank the Chairman, and I thank the
Agriculture appropriations subcommittee for their kindness and their
deliberateness in this very long evening and as well the ranking member
along with the chairman.
This is a simple amendment about food and about helping more
Americans get healthy food. There is not one of us that does not
understand how dry and difficult a desert is. This amendment is simply
about food deserts in rural and urban areas.
This amendment provides a $5 million increase to the Office of the
Secretary to allow assistance to provide relief to those who are
suffering from the lack of access to food quality.
This is a healthy child, we would hope. That healthy child needs to
have good food. These funds will increase the availability of
affordable healthy food in underserved urban and rural communities,
particularly through the development or equipping of grocery stores and
other healthy food retailers.
Fast-food restaurants and convenience stores line the blocks of low-
income neighborhoods, offering few if any healthy options. In rural
areas, there may be no access at all. This particularly impacts African
American and Hispanic communities and, as I indicated, rural
communities.
This climate in the difficult times that we have requires us to be
able to
[[Page H4258]]
allow families to have access to good food. We also have the issues of
obesity and as well nutrition. Food deserts impact many districts, and
I will say to you that Texas in particular has fewer grocery stores per
capita than any other State.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 32 percent of all children
in Texas face a nutrition issue. Targeting assistance to food desert
areas will provide healthy food to affected areas, open new markets for
farmers, create jobs, and bolster development in distressed
communities.
Farmers markets are a good idea, but farmers markets sometimes are
difficult to find in our communities. Again, let me emphasize, this is
about rural and urban areas. This initiative will provide for the
availability of healthy food alternatives to some 23 million people
living in food deserts.
Let me just suggest to you that these families that we care for,
families, young families of the military, many of you have heard
stories where the military families are on food stamps. Many of them
live in areas beyond their bases, and some of their families are back
home in rural and urban areas. This amendment, which will provide an $8
million gift back to the government, will give a mere $5 million to
provide the opportunity for those food desert loopholes, if you will--
rural places in our Nation where there are big gaps with access to
food, and as well urban areas--to have access to the opportunity for
good and healthy food.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time and ask my colleagues
to support the Jackson Lee amendment that addresses the question of
helping those who need healthy food.
I thank the Chairman for this opportunity to explain my amendment to
H.R. 2112, which will reach back into the bill to increase the funding
for the Office of the Secretary by $5 million dollars. This increase,
provided for by reducing the funding for operations and maintenance of
Buildings and Facilities in order to fund President Obama's Healthy
Food Funding Initiative, HFFI. Supporting this amendment will not only
fund an important pilot program, but save the government $8 million.
Funding HFFI will increase the availability of affordable, healthy
foods in underserved urban and rural communities, particularly through
the development or equipping of grocery stores and other healthy food
retailers.
These ``food deserts'', communities in which residents do not have
access to affordable and healthy food options, disproportionally affect
African American and Hispanic communities. Fast food restaurants and
convenience stores line the blocks of low income neighborhoods,
offering few, if any healthy options.
Many of my colleagues across the aisle have made arguments about the
economic climate, and the need for budgetary cuts, and I agree that we
must work to reduce the deficit. We cannot, however, continue to make
irresponsible cuts to programs for the underserved, lower income
families, and minorities.
Since the mid-1970s, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has
increased sharply for both adults and children, and obesity is a grave
health concern for all Americans. However, food deserts have taken a
toll on low income and minority communities and exacerbated growing
obesity rates and health problems.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, 80
percent of black women and 67 percent of black men are overweight or
obese. African American children from low income families have a much
higher risk for obesity than those in higher income families.
The CDC also estimates African American and Mexican American
adolescents ages 12-19 are more likely to be overweight, at 21 percent
and 23 percent respectively, than non-Hispanic white adolescents who
are 14 percent overweight. In children 6-11 years old, 22 percent of
Mexican American children are overweight, compared to 20 percent of
African American children and 14 percent of non-Hispanic white
children.
Food deserts have greatly impacted my constituents in the 18th
Congressional District, and citizens throughout the state of Texas.
Texas has fewer grocery stores per capita than any other state. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, identified 92 food desert census
tracts in Harris County alone. These areas are subdivisions of the
county with between 1,000 to 8,000 low income residents, with 33
percent of people living more than a mile from a grocery store.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 32 percent of all children
in Texas are overweight or obese. These statistics underscore the
staggering affect food deserts have on the health of low income and
minority communities. In Houston and other cities across the country,
local programs have proved that well targeted funding and assistance
can create viable business outcomes and increase access to healthy
food.
Targeting federal financial assistance to food desert areas through
the Healthy Food Funding Initiative will provide more healthy food to
affected neighborhoods, open new markets for farmers, create jobs, and
bolster development in distressed communities.
The Healthy Food Funding Initiative is not a handout, or a crutch.
Funding through this program is intended to provide financial and
technical assistance in support of market planning, promotion efforts,
infrastructure and operational improvements, and increase availability
of locally and regionally produced foods.
This initiative will increase the availability of healthy food
alternatives to the 23.5 million people living in food deserts
nationwide. Yes, we must work toward reducing the deficit, but cutting
programs that provide healthy food to those who simply do not have
access to nutritional options, is not the way.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. My dear friend from Texas has worked diligently to find
something to work out with this. As I had indicated to her last night,
we're trying to work on some alternatives and see if there's a way to
do it. Just in the last 30 minutes, I've gotten something from GAO that
says that you could actually cut out $45 million dollars from this
program and that it would not affect the potential of it.
Right now what I will do--and I know my friend from California is
rising. Let me yield to him because I know he probably has a different
view, but I want to kind of keep the debate going.
Mr. FARR. Go ahead. I'll just strike the last word.
Mr. KINGSTON. Well, you've got 4 minutes from me. You could still
strike the last word. That gives you 9 minutes.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I have concerns about where the money comes from as all these bills
are offsetting, but I think that the purpose here should be funded. We
have this whole initiative--and some of it has been attacked tonight--
about trying to get healthy foods grown by American farmers to people
in areas that are called food deserts, as the gentlelady from Texas
pointed out. There are places that people just can't go. There isn't a
grocery store. There aren't fresh fruits and vegetables.
{time} 2230
I mean, think of the 7-Eleven. That's the kind of convenience stores
that are around. Even the one we use up here a couple of blocks away is
very limited in the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables it has.
So what this initiative is all about, and it's the President's
initiative too, is trying to get food--it's an educational process. I
think the hardest cultural--this is what I learned from living in other
cultures in the Peace Corps. The hardest thing to do is to get people
to change their eating habits. We all know that struggle when we go on
a diet. So it takes a lot of education. It takes a lot of support, but
it also takes the need to have access to it.
You need to have access to the fresh fruits and vegetables, and they
can either come to you in a farmers market or you can go to them. But
if you have neither a farmers market and there's nothing to go to, you
have no option. And that's what this amendment is about, getting some
money into the program that will be able to outreach and getting good,
nutritious food to families who most need it who, without that, have a
good chance of not growing up healthy, high incidence of obesity, high
incidence of diabetes, high-risk issues that cost a lot of money for
the taxpayers when they have to go on dialysis or have to be under
treatment.
So we have spent many years here in the committee--and the chairman
knows it very well--of looking at how do we prevent this from happening
when the choices are there. These are preventable diseases and
preventable ill health situations, but we've got to reach out and do
it, and that's what this amendment does and I think it deserves
support.
Mr. KINGSTON. If I could reclaim my time, I want to read this quote
from GAO. It says: The committee may wish to consider reducing the
request for this initiative for FY 12 by $45 million until the
effectiveness of these
[[Page H4259]]
demonstration projects has been established.
And I want to say to my friend from Texas, we had some talks around
this but not directly addressing it, not direct hearing; but I do
remember and the gentleman from California might and I think Ms. Foley
might remember that the Safeway in Washington, D.C., I believe has some
sort of grant I believe to operate in an area that was considered a
food desert, and I believe that that is one of the most profitable
Safeways there is. Do either of you have a recollection of that? Thank
you for pulling the rug out from underneath me this early.
Mr. FARR. I have a recollection of that.
Mr. KINGSTON. Do you remember that, Mr. Farr, that discussion?
Mr. FARR. Yes.
Mr. KINGSTON. Was that not about food deserts?
Mr. FARR. Yes, it was. But remember Ms. Kaptur's amendment in our
committee of trying to subsidize farmers markets to go into high-risk
areas to get it started so that it does develop a market approach and
can be sustainable, but we reach out and do those kinds of things.
Mr. KINGSTON. Let me reclaim my time. GAO reported that a variety of
approaches, including improving access to targeted foods, have the
potential to increase the consumption of targeted food that could
contribute to a healthy diet, but little is known about the
effectiveness of these approaches.
And so I think what I would like to do, Mr. Chairman, is continue to
oppose this; but knowing my good friend from Texas and from California
will keep this as a priority, we'll talk about this. You know, the
hour's late. The gentlewoman's been working on this for a long time,
but I need a little more focus on it before I could accept it.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. First of all, let me thank Mr. Farr and Mr.
Kingston. I had hoped my friend from Georgia could see in his heart
that this is a very small microcosm for a very large issue, and that is
that food deserts do exist and the families that are impacted, number
of families that include those who are members of the United States
military from the very youngest child.
I have been fiscally responsible, if that is the case, to narrow this
very well, and I have no quarrel with individual chains engaging in
marketing outreach. But I'm talking about hard-to-serve areas that
include urban and rural areas where there are no food chains to engage
in any benevolent assistance.
I'm also suggesting to you that if you look at the landscape of
districts across the Nation, just take for example my district is
number 32 in regards to food insecurity, but there are 31 above me. The
people have limited access to food.
I enjoy the point that Mr. Farr made about Ms. Kaptur's farmers
markets. This will infuse energy into the farmers markets. This will
create jobs for a limited amount of pilot resources. This is the right
thing to do. This is to take a great land like America and say we want
everybody to minimally have access to good, healthy, nutritious food.
So I would ask for the humanitarian consideration of my friends on
the other side of the aisle. I thank the gentleman from California for
his instructiveness and the work of the members of this Appropriations
Committee, and I ask my colleagues to support this amendment, the
Jackson Lee amendment. It fills the gaping hole of the lack of food by
providing resources to cure the problem of food deserts.
Mr. FARR. I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Texas will
be postponed.
Amendment No. 23 Offered by Mr. Gibson
Mr. GIBSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Page 80, after line 2, insert the following:
Sec. ___. For the cost of broadband loans, as authorized
by section 601 of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, to
remain available until expended, there is hereby
appropriated, and the amount otherwise provided by this Act
for payments to the General Services Administration for rent
under the heading ``Agriculture Buildings and Facilities and
Rental Payments'' is hereby reduced by, $6,000,000.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. GIBSON. Mr. Chairman, over 50 congressional districts across our
country have at least 10 percent of their population without access to
high-speed broadband. My district is one of these over-50 districts.
Now, this is a significant impediment to job creation. We have farmers
without access to the high-speed broadband. We have many small
businesses in our districts, including bed and breakfasts which impact
our tourism without that access. This amendment helps address this
situation.
Now, the underlying bill zeroes out the loan program for rural
broadband. This is down from $22.3 million that we just closed out a
few months ago for FY 11, and with a healthy respect for the leadership
of the Agricultural appropriations subcommittee, I think this is a
mistake.
I know that there have been issues with this program in the past. I
have read the IG report. I will also say that my understanding is the
administration has made progress since the publishing of that report.
One of the things that has been said about this program is it has not
been able to address the significant volume of requests, and I think
it's important to note that in March 2011 they cleared the backlog of
all the applications for the program; and, in fact, there's now up to
$100 million in new loan applications, showing the interest in this
program.
Another criticism has been that this program is duplicative and that,
in fact, you can apply under telemedicine for rural areas. And I will
tell you that we have tried that in our district with no success, and
this program that I'm offering as an amendment today for $6 million, a
loan program, fully offset, is the only program exclusively dedicated
to rural broadband. And this program, this amendment, $6 million can
give us access to and support over $100 million in loan applications.
{time} 2240
Mr. Chairman, this amendment will help create jobs, and it will help
our farmers with profitability. Of course, I'm biased. But I believe
we've got the smartest, the hardest working farmers in the world. Their
issue is profitability, and this amendment will help.
The CBO assesses this amendment as neutral, and it says that it will
reduce outlays by $2 million in 2012. Let me say that again. CBO says
this amendment will reduce outlays by $2 million in 2012.
So how do we offset this? How do we provide access for farmers and
small businesses to loan programs? We cut the Federal bureaucracy--$6
million in office rental payments.
Now, the USDA is blessed with some of the most significant office
space among all the Federal bureaucracy. And in addition to what they
have here in the District, in Beltsville, Maryland, there is additional
office space of which they possess. So on top of all of that, there is
$151 million in this appropriations bill for the rental of office
space, including right here on M Street in Washington, D.C. This is a
good pay-for to give access to our farmers so that they can have access
to rural broadband.
So to all my colleagues, I say this is a good amendment. The only
amendment that provides exclusive rural broadband access. It's
supported by the American Farm Bureau. It's supported by the New York
State Farm Bureau and numerous chambers of commerce in my district. I
urge my colleagues to support the amendment.
I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague from Arizona
(Mr. Gosar).
[[Page H4260]]
Mr. GOSAR. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Announcement by the Acting Chair
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman will suspend.
The gentleman from New York must remain on his feet.
Mr. GOSAR. I rise in support of the amendment proposed by Mr. Gibson
and Mr. Owens because I think it is exactly what the American people
want us to do here in Washington. The people expect us to be
responsible with their tax money. The people have made it clear, more
than clear, that the Federal Government is too big. Our job is to look
for waste, inefficiencies, and bloat. The Gibson-Owens amendment has
found such bloat and seeks to remedy it.
There is no doubt that the USDA does good work and that the agency
should have suitable workspace to conduct its work. Indeed, as Mr.
Gibson has pointed out, the USDA has 3 million square feet of prime
office space on The National Mall in a beautiful building that
contributes to the architectural beauty of the Nation's Capital. To
learn that the USDA also has a campus in Maryland that occupies 45
acres of land is, itself, concerning.
With all that office space currently available to the USDA in the
Washington area and an additional $151 million to rent office space
elsewhere, why does the USDA want to rent more office space in D.C.?
The people of this country will not begrudge an architecturally
distinguished office for the Nation's Capital, but a luxurious high-
rent office in addition is too much.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. I want to say to the gentleman from Arizona, if I have
time left over, I will yield you some. But you can also get your own 5
minutes if you want.
Mr. Chairman, I oppose this.
I want to start out by saying that the committee has taken a really
close look at this over the years. And I wish you could see, from where
you are sitting, better the saturation level of broadband access in the
United States of America. That's in the blue. As you can see, the
entire country is mostly blue according to this.
But I would not want your eyes to just strain from there, so I will
give you some numbers here:
New Jersey, 100 percent penetration; Florida, 99.9 percent
penetration; New York, 99.8 percent; Georgia, 99.4 percent; Arizona,
98.2 percent.
This program is not necessary. And in a time when we're talking about
saving money, we do not need to increase this account. The process is
burdensome. We get lots of complaints from people who have had
applications pending for a long time and they can't get their questions
answered, or they get approved but they can't get their money. Their
eligibility is too broad. And in many areas, it competes with private
sector broadband service.
Now, the IG report had a number of things that they found. They found
that this rural broadband program granted loans of $103 million to 64
communities near large cities, including $45 million loans to 19
suburban subdivisions within a few miles of Houston, Texas. That's
hardly the intent of the program.
The IG report also found out that they were competing with
preexisting broadband access in many places and found that 159 of the
240 communities associated with the loans--that's 66 percent--already
had service. I will repeat that. Sixty-six percent of the communities
who got grants already had service.
Now, there was a little criticism, and the program was supposed to be
reformed. But the IG took another look at it and found that, in 2009,
only eight out of the 14 recommendations had had action taken on them.
Thirty-four of 37 applications for providers were in areas where there
were already private operators offering service, 34 out of 37.
So when our committee took a look at this, we felt like the program
needed changing. It did not need new money. So I must respectfully
disagree with my good friends who are offering this and stand in
opposition of the amendment.
With that, I yield to my friend from Arizona.
Mr. GOSAR. Well, I would like to disagree. And that is, as I serve a
vast part of Arizona, 60 percent of Arizona, in which I serve a large
number of Native American tribes which are fighting to try to get
economic development and trying to get broadband service, this is
exactly the kind of funding that we want to direct you to the
appropriate place.
The Native Americans are exactly the place that this could go. This
is the economic development that they need, and they're currently in
the process of trying to get that. They're trying to build that
infrastructure, and this is exactly where that fund can be.
Mr. KINGSTON. I now yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Gibson).
Mr. GIBSON. I thank the chairman for yielding.
I just want to reiterate that there is significant need for expanding
access to rural broadband in America. We've got over 50 districts that
have at least 10 percent of their population that are not in the 21st
century, that don't have access to the high-speed broadband.
I want to remind my colleagues, this loan program reduces outlays by
$2 million in 2012, according to the CBO. This program should not be
zeroed out. It should not go from $22 million to zero. We should accept
this amendment.
I urge my colleagues to accept this amendment so that we can continue
to make progress with rural broadband.
Mr. KINGSTON. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Wyoming is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Respectfully, my chairman and I disagree on this issue.
I raised this in our subcommittee of Appropriations, and his superior
abilities to convince the subcommittee prevailed. But I weigh in on the
side of Mr. Gibson and Mr. Gosar, and let me tell you why.
The information that the committee chairman has is correct insofar as
it gives you numbers on broadband access that will allow you a speed of
receiving service that is so slow that it is basically 20th century
rather than 21st century communications. For example, under the speed
at which the numbers that the gentleman from Georgia has derived cover,
this 99, 98 percent coverage, it would take you 9 hours to download a
movie. Now, who's going to do that?
But with this digital world we're in, the kinds of data that need to
be unloaded in order to be a lone eagle, to have a business, to have
the type of broadband access that my colleague from Arizona would like
the Native Americans in his State to have, would require a much faster
broadband service. And when you look at the speed of the broadband
service that is consistent with having a robust community that has real
broadband service, my State is at the rock bottom. Less than half of
the people in my State have the kind of robust service that is typical
of urban areas or suburban areas.
{time} 2250
The same could be said for my colleague from Arizona and the areas of
his State where Native Americans so desperately need the opportunity to
market products over the Internet. So I encourage my colleagues to
support the position of my colleagues, Mr. Gibson and Mr. Gosar. And I
rise in support of their amendment.
I yield to the gentlelady from Ohio.
Ms. KAPTUR. I just wanted to ask the gentlelady if she would find the
present time convenient to enter into the discussion regarding GIPSA,
though we are on this amendment at this point.
Mrs. LUMMIS. With the Chairman's leave, I would consent.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Would you consent to a departure as I use the remainder
of my 5 minutes to discuss the issue of the stockyards and the GIPSA
rule?
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized for the remaining
time.
Mrs. LUMMIS. I yield to my colleague from Ohio.
[[Page H4261]]
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentlewoman. And while I will not offer an
amendment to strip section 721, a legislative provision that prevents
the U.S. Department of Agriculture from doing its job as instructed in
the farm bill, relative to fair competition in meat products so
consumers get fairly priced meats, I otherwise rise in strong
opposition to the language that's in the bill.
And when the authorizing committee wrote the farm bill, USDA was
directed to use the existing packers and stockyards act to restore
fairness to livestock and poultry contract markets. But instead of
allowing the agency to do its job, Congress, in an uneven-handed way,
has allowed itself to become captured by the consolidated meat
industry.
And while ranchers, farmers and producers are increasingly being
squeezed out of the markets, and small, local slaughterhouses continue
to close, large consolidated players manipulate the rules to favor
their own business operations, and meat prices rise. Congress simply
can't stand by silent.
So on behalf of the millions of farmers, ranchers and producers that
struggle every day to survive as they face the gargantuan task of
competing against monopolistic entities, I oppose the base language in
721.
And I would like to place two statements in the Record, a letter from
the American Farm Bureau opposing section 721 and a letter from over
140 organizations supporting the pro-competition proposals made by the
Department of Agriculture.
American Farm
Bureau Federation,
Washington, DC, May 31, 2011.
Hon. Marcy Kaptur,
House of Representatives, House Office Building, Washington,
DC.
Dear Congresswoman Kaptur: On behalf of the six million
families represented by the American Farm Bureau Federation,
we write to support your amendment to allow the Agriculture
Department (USDA) the opportunity to complete reviewing the
60,000 comments received and the proposed rule entitled
``Implementation of Regulations Required Under Title XI of
the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008; Conduct in
Violation of the Act.'' It is also imperative that USDA
continue its economic analysis of the rule.
Farm Bureau is in the unique position of representing every
species impacted by this rule. We also have no affiliation
with major packers, integrators or processors, and therefore
our only interest is the impact of this rule on farmers and
ranchers. Because of this unique position, there are several
provisions in this rule that we strongly support, while
others give us pause.
Generally speaking, Farm Bureau's philosophy supports a
market environment where our farmers and ranchers can sell
their product in a way that best fits with their individual
operation and risk aversion level. Our policy clearly states
that ``We support efforts to ensure open markets to all
producers.'' Over the years, our farmers and ranchers have
recognized the need for a referee in the marketplace, and
Farm Bureau policy supports the Grain Inspection, Packers and
Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) in that role. Some of our
policy supporting the authority of GIPSA includes:
``We . . . oppose any attempt to lessen the ability of
[GIPSA] to adequately enforce the act and its regulations.''
``We support more vigorous enforcement of U.S. antitrust
laws in keeping with original intent; to include . . . [the]
Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921.''
``The Packers and Stockyards Act should be amended to . . .
strengthen the ability of GIPSA to stop predatory practices
in the meat packing industry.''
We support ``establishing GIPSA as the overall authority
and provider of oversight to ensure livestock contracts are
clearly-written, confidentiality concerns are addressed,
investments are protected . . .'' as well as ``enhanced price
transparency, [and] price discovery,'' and ensuring that
``contractors honor the terms of contracts.''
These overarching policy principles guide Farm Bureau's
comments on this proposed rule.
It is also worth noting that Farm Bureau has consistently
requested thorough economic analysis from agencies when
promulgating new rules. Without such an analysis it is
difficult for America's farmers and ranchers to assess the
true impact of rules and to understand all of the
implications of proposed rules. This rule is no exception.
We oppose language to preclude USDA from reviewing the
comments and completing their economic analysis and are
strongly opposed to any action that would stop work on that
rule.
Sincerely,
Bob Stallman,
President.
____
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC, April 21, 2011.
ATTN: Agriculture & Appropriations Legislative Aides
Dear Representative: As a result of rapid consolidation and
vertical integration, the livestock and poultry markets of
this nation have reached a point where anti-competitive
practices dominate, to the detriment of producers and
consumers. Numerous economic studies in recent years have
demonstrated the economic harm of current market structures
and practices, and have called for greater enforcement of
existing federal laws in order to restore competition to
livestock and poultry markets.
Until recently, Congress and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture have largely ignored these trends. Fortunately,
Congress included language in the 2008 Farm Bill to require
the U.S. Department of Agriculture to write regulations,
using its existing Packers and Stockyards Act authorities, to
begin to restore fairness and competition in livestock and
poultry markets.
On June 22, 2010, the Grain Inspection Packers and
Stockyards Agency (GIPSA) issued proposed rules to implement
the 2008 Farm Bill mandates, and to address related
anticompetitive practices in the livestock and poultry
industries. These reforms are long overdue and begin to
respond to the criticisms by farm groups, consumer groups,
the Government Accountability Office and USDA's Inspector
General about USDA's past lack of enforcement of the Packers
and Stockyards Act. The proposed GIPSA rules define and
clarify terms in the Act in order to make enforcement more
effective, and to provide clarity to all players in livestock
and poultry markets.
The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 makes it unlawful
for packers, swine contractors, and live poultry dealers to
engage in any ``unfair, unjustly discriminatory, or deceptive
practice or device,'' or to ``make or give any undue or
unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person
or locality in any respect, or subject any particular person
or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or
disadvantage in any respect.'' The ambiguity of these terms
has resulted in uncertainty in the marketplace and hindered
enforcement of the Act.
Key provisions of the proposed GIPSA rules would:
Provide contract growers with commonsense protections when
making expensive investments in facilities on their farms to
meet the packer or poultry company requirements; provide
growers, farmers, and ranchers with access to the information
necessary to make wise business decisions regarding their
operations; require transparency and eliminate deception in
the way packers, swine contractor and poultry companies pay
farmers; eliminate collusion between packers in auction
markets; and provide clarity about the types of industry
practices the agency will consider to be unfair, unjustly
discriminatory, or when certain practices give unreasonable
preference or advantage. These are all terms used in the
existing statute, which have never been adequately defined.
Prohibit retaliation by packers, swine contractors or
poultry companies against farmers for speaking about the
problems within industry or joining with other farmers to
voice their concerns and seek improvements. Currently, many
farmers are often retaliated against economically for
exercising these legal rights.
Allow premiums to be paid to livestock producers who
produce a premium product, but requires the packer or swine
contractors to keep records to detail why they provide
certain pricing and contract terms to certain producers.
Reduce litigation in the industry by eliminating the
ambiguity in interpretation of the terms of the Packers and
Stockyards Act. Such ambiguity leads to litigation as farmers
and packers seek court action to clarify the intent of the
Act.
GIPSA has received approximately 60,000 comments on the
proposed rule during the five-month public comment period
that ended in November 22 of 2010. USDA is in the process of
analyzing those comments, and providing the in-depth cost-
benefit analysis necessary before issuing the final rule.
Because of the great importance of this rule to livestock
and poultry producers and consumers, and the large volume of
misinformation about the rule perpetuated by livestock and
poultry trade associations and packer-producer groups, the
undersigned organizations are writing to reiterate our strong
support for the GIPSA rule and for its swift publication in
final form.
We urge your support for the GIPSA rulemaking process, and
its efforts to restore fairness and competition in our
nation's livestock and poultry markets.
Sincerely,
Agriculture and Land Based Training Association (CA);
Alabama Contract Poultry Growers Association; Alliance
for a Sustainable Future (PA); Alternative Energy
Resources Organization (AERO)--MT; Ambler Environmental
Advisory Council; American Agriculture Movement;
American Corn Growers Association; American Federation
of Government Employees (AFL-CIO), Local 3354, USDA-St.
Louis (representing Rural Development and Farm Loan
employees in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas); American
Grassfed Association; American Raw Milk Producers
Pricing Association; Ashtabula-Lake-Geauga County
Farmers Union; BioRegional Strategies; Buckeye Quality
Beef Association
[[Page H4262]]
(Ohio); C.A.S.A. del Llano (TX) California Dairy
Campaign; California Farmers Union; California Food &
Justice Coalition; Campaign for Contract Agriculture
Reform; Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment;
Carolina Farm Stewardship Association; Cattle Producers
of Louisiana; Cattle Producers of Washington; Center
for Celebration of Creation; Center for Food Safety;
Center for Rural Affairs; Chemung County Church Women
United (NY); Chemung County Council of Churches (NY);
Chemung County Council of Women (NY); Church Women
United of Chemung County (NY); Church Women United of
New York State; Citizens for Sanity.Com, Inc.; Citizens
for Sludge-Free Land; Colorado Independent
CattleGrowers Association; Community Alliance for
Global Justice; Community Farm Alliance (Kentucky);
Community Food Security Coalition; Contract Poultry
Growers Association of the Virginias; Court St Joseph
#139, Coming/Elmira, Catholic Daughters of the
Americas, Corning, NY; Crawford Stewardship Project;
Cumberland Counties for Peace & Justice; Dakota
Resource Council; Dakota Rural Action; Davidson College
Office of Sustainability; Ecological Farming
Association; Endangered Habitats League; Family Farm
Defenders; Farm Aid; Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance;
Farmworker Association of Florida; Fay-Penn Economic
Development Council; Federation of Southern
Cooperatives; Food & Water Watch; Food Chain Workers
Alliance; Food Democracy Now!; Food for Maine's Future;
Gardenshare: Healthy Farms, Healthy Food, Everybody
Eats;
Georgia Poultry Justice Alliance; Grassroots
International; Heartland Center/Office of Peace and
Justice for the Diocese of Gary, Indiana and the
Integrity of Creation; Hispanic Organizations
Leadership Alliance; Idaho Rural Council; Illinois
Stewardship Alliance; Independent Beef Association of
North Dakota (I-BAND); Independent Cattlemen of
Nebraska; Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming; Institute
for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Iowa Citizens for
Community Improvement; Iowa Farmers Union; Island Grown
Initiative Izaak Walton League; Kansas Cattlemen's
Association.
Kansas Farmers Union; Kansas Rural Center; Ladies of
Charity of Chemung County (NY); Land Stewardship
Project; Main Street Opportunity Lab; Maryknoll Office
for Global Concerns; Michael Fields Agricultural
Institute; Michigan Farmers Union; Michigan Land
Trustees; Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance;
Midwest Environmental Advocates; Midwest Organic Dairy
Producers Association; Minnesota Farmers Union;
Missionary Society of St. Columban; Mississippi
Livestock Markets Association; Missouri Farmers Union;
Missouri Rural Crisis Center; National Catholic Rural
Life Conference; National Family Farm Coalition;
National Farmers Organization; National Farmers Union;
National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association;
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition; Nebraska
Farmers Union; Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture
Society; Nebraska Wildlife Federation; Network for
Environmental & Economic Responsibility; New England
Small Farm Institute; Nonviolent Economics; North
Carolina Contract Poultry Growers Association;
Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance; Northeast
Organic Farming Association--NY; Northeast Organic
Farming Association, Interstate Council; Northern
Plains Resource Council; Northwest Atlantic Marine
Alliance; Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association;
Ohio Environmental Stewardship Alliance; Ohio Farmers
Union; Oregon Livestock Producers Association; Oregon
Physicians for Social Responsibility; Oregon Rural
Action; Organic Consumers Association; Organic Farming
Research Foundation; Organic Seed Alliance;
Organization for Competitive Markets; Partnership for
Earth Spirituality; Past Regents Club, Catholic
Daughters of the Americas, Diocese of Rochester, NY;
PCC Natural Markets; Pennsylvania Farmers Union;
Pennypack Farm and Education Center (PA); Pesticide
Action Network North America; Pomona Grange #1, Chemung
County NY; Powder River Basin Resource Council (WY); R-
CALF United Stockgrowers of America; Rocky Mountain
Farmers Union; Rural Advancement Foundation
International--USA (RAFI-USA); Rural Coalition; Sisters
of St. Francis of Philadelphia; Slow Food USA; South
Dakota Livestock Auction Markets Association; South
Dakota Stockgrowers Association; St John the Baptist
Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order, Elmira, NY;
Sustain LA; Taos County Economic Development
Corporation; Texas Farmers Union; The Cornucopia
Institute; Tilth Producers of Washington; Trappe
Landing Farm & Native Sanctuary; Veteran Grange #1118,
Chemung County, NY; Virginia Association for Biological
Farming; Western Organization of Resource Councils
(WORC); WhyHunger; Women, Food and Agriculture Network.
The meatpackers have a stranglehold on this House, scaring Members
with millions of dollars in campaign contributions and real threats of
political retribution. Instead of engaging in well-meaning public
debate and attempting to win on the merits of the argument, the
National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which has a right to speak out,
but not a right to intimidate, sent out a national notice to its
members to harass the American Farm Bureau. This is not the nature of
well-meaning debate and, for many, has crossed the line of propriety.
I urge my colleagues to resist the misinformation and to stand strong
for independent producers and family farmers and ranchers.
Section 721 of the base bill goes further than many realize. It will
stop USDA from conducting its economic analysis of this industry.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number
of words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentlelady from Ohio.
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman so very much for that kind effort.
The current proposal will silence the nearly 60,000 comments on the
rule because it will prevent USDA from reading the record. And,
finally, it will undermine long overdue fairness in poultry and
livestock contracts for millions of farmers, ranchers and producers.
By allowing section 721 to remain in the bill, the House is standing
with the few big meatpackers and against the many thousands and
thousands of producers.
To understand how illogical this committee's action is, I refer the
House to the committee report where, on competition issues, the
committee directed USDA to submit legal documents by June 10, 5 days
ago, and before the House began consideration of this bill. On its
face, the committee has directed the agency to comply with something
before the House has even considered the bill. Is this proper?
Furthermore, I would note that, ironically, if section 721 were to be
implemented, the agency would not be able to comply with its own report
language. If there ever was a time that the Appropriations Committee
has overstepped its bounds, this is it.
After the 2002 farm bill, this committee prevented USDA from
implementing an important provision of law known as the Country of
Origin labeling. It was the same consolidated meat packing industry
crying from the rafters with claims of exaggerated economic costs which
was behind the meat labeling COOL delay. We seem to have returned to
the dark days, recycling the same talking points.
It took us almost 8 years and, finally, consumers now have the legal
right to see where their meat comes from, which is what the vast
majority of the American people wanted. So on behalf of the millions of
farmers, ranchers and independent producers, I pledge to continue this
fight and to prevent a similar 8 years of delay and confusion on USDA
competition rules in the meat industry.
Let USDA do its job.
I thank the gentleman and the gentlewoman so much for their
consideration.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlelady for her
attention to this matter, both gentleladies for their attention to this
matter and for standing up with and for the best interests of
agriculture.
Mr. Farr. Mr. Chair, I submit the following:
Statement of Administration Policy
H.R. 2112--Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012
(rep. rogers, r-ky)
The Administration has serious concerns about the content
of H.R. 2112, making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related
Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2012, and for other purposes. The Administration is committed
to ensuring the Nation lives within its means and reducing
the deficit so that the Nation can compete in the global
economy and win the future. That is why the President put
forth a comprehensive fiscal framework that reduces the
deficit by $4 trillion,
[[Page H4263]]
supports economic growth and long-term job creation, protects
critical investments, and meets the commitments made to
provide dignity and security to Americans no matter their
circumstances.
While overall funding limits and subsequent allocations
remain unclear pending the outcome of ongoing bipartisan,
bicameral discussions between the Administration and
congressional leadership on the Nation's long-term fiscal
picture, the bill provides insufficient funding for a number
of programs in a way that undermines core government
functions and investments key to economic growth and job
creation. Programs adversely affected by the bill include:
Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). The Administration
strongly objects to the level of funding provided for
nutrition programs that are critical to the health of
nutritionally at-risk women, infants, children, and elderly
adults. The proposed funding levels would lead to hundreds of
thousands of participants being cut from the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and
Children (WIC) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program,
and reduce Federal support for food banks. These cuts would
undermine efforts to prevent hunger and support sound
nutrition for some of the most vulnerable members of our
society.
Food Safety. The Administration is concerned with the
funding provided in the bill for the Department of
Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service
(FSIS) which will significantly hamper USDA's ability to
inspect food processing plants and prevent food borne
illnesses and disease such as E. coli and Salmonella from
contaminating America's food supply. The Committee's
recommendation may require the agency to furlough employees
including frontline inspectors which make up over 80 percent
of FSIS staff. By reducing FSIS inspections, food processing
plants may be forced to reduce line speeds, which could lead
to decreasing product output and profits, as well as plant
closures.
Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI). The
Administration is concerned that the bill does not support
HFFI, which is a key initiative to combat childhood obesity.
HFFI will expand USDA's activities to bring healthy foods to
low-income Americans and increase the availability of
affordable, healthy foods in underserved urban and rural
communities by bringing grocery stores and other fresh food
retailers to ``food desert'' communities where there is
little or no access to healthy food.
Research. The bill provides insufficient funds for USDA
research programs, which are needed to help solve food
production, safety, quality, energy and environmental
problems. By reducing funding for the Agricultural Research
Service to its lowest level since 2004 as well as
inadequately funding the Nation's competitive grant program,
the bill will hinder the Department's ability to develop
solutions to address current as well as impending critical
national and international challenges.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Administration is
concerned that the funding level in the bill and resulting
staff reductions will severely limit the FDA's ability to
protect the public's health, assure the American consumer
that food and medical products are safe, and improve
Americans' access to safe and less costly generic drugs and
biologics.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The
Administration strongly objects to the funding level for
CFTC, as it would cause a cut in staffing levels and
seriously undermine CFTC's ability to protect investors and
consumers by effectively policing the futures and swaps
marketplace through its current market oversight and
enforcement functions. Moreover, the funding level would
significantly curtail the timely, effective implementation of
the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection
Act, including new CFTC responsibilities to regulate the $300
trillion swaps derivatives market.
International Food Aid. The Administration opposes the
level of funding provided for the Food for Peace Title II
international food aid program as it would severely limit the
United States' ability to provide food assistance in response
to emergencies and disasters around the world. Given a
statutory floor on non-emergency development food aid, a
reduction would be borne entirely by the emergency component
of the program, and would prevent distribution of emergency
food aid to over 1.1 million beneficiaries.
In addition, the bill includes the following problematic
policy and language issues:
Restrictions on Finalizing USDA Regulations. The
Administration opposes the inclusion of section 721 of the
bill, which effectively prevents USDA's Grain Inspection,
Packers and Stockyards Administration from finalizing a rule
on conduct that would violate the Packers and Stockyards Act
of 1921. The final rule has not yet been published and any
concerns about the rule are better addressed through the
standard rulemaking process than through an appropriations
rider.
Restrictions on FDA Regulations and Guidance. The
Administration strongly opposes section 740 of the bill,
which would undermine or nullify FDA statutory standards that
have been in place for decades and that are essential to
protect the health of Americans. The provision would unduly
limit the factors that FDA considers in determining the best
ways to protect the public from unsafe foods; protect the
safety of the blood supply from HIV, West Nile Virus, and
other infections; ensure the safety of infant formula;
protect patients from drugs and medical devices that have not
been shown to be safe and effective; assure that food
labeling and health claims on foods are accurate; and reduce
youth use of tobacco products and otherwise reduce illness
and death caused by tobacco use.
WTO Trade Dispute. The Administration is concerned by a
provision in section 743 that would eliminate payments that
are being made as part of the mutually agreed settlement of a
World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute regarding U.S.
domestic cotton supports and the export credit guarantee
program. The framework serves as a basis to avoid trade-
related countermeasures by Brazil that are authorized by the
WTO until the enactment of successor legislation to the
current Farm Bill. Under the agreement, the United States is
committed to fund technical assistance and capacity-building
support for Brazil's cotton sector. The bill's provision
preempts the resolution process and would open the door to
retaliation negatively affecting U.S. exports and interests.
The Administration strongly opposes inclusion of
ideological and political provisions that are beyond the
scope of funding legislation.
The Administration looks forward to working with the
Congress as the fiscal year 2012 appropriations process moves
forward to ensure the Administration can support enactment of
the legislation.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Gibson).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York
will be postponed.
Amendment No. 3 Offered by Mr. Blumenauer
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following new section:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to pay the salaries and expenses of personnel of the
Department of Agriculture to provide benefits described in
section 1001D(b)(1)(C) of the Food Security Act of 1985 (7
U.S.C. 1308-3a(b)(1)(C)) to a person or legal entity in
excess of $125,000.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, these are challenging budgets and
difficult economic times. But unfortunately, there really are
alternatives to slashing environmental payments and nutritional support
in the farm bill. There is an alternative to reform and modernize.
The last farm bill pretended to start limitations in payments. But
exempted from the modest limitations in some areas were market loan
payments, loan deficiency payments, and commodity certificates not
capped. This means that entities can virtually receive unlimited title
I dollars under the current law.
Mr. Chairman, it's important for us, as we are dealing with trying to
reduce the strain on the Federal budget, to do so in a way that is
strategic. The amendment I propose would establish a $125,000 payment
limitation in total. Now, this will save two-thirds of a billion
dollars.
Bear in mind that we are now cutting existing environmental contracts
if this bill came forward. The majority of farmers and ranchers in this
country still receive nothing, 62 percent receive nothing. In my State
of Oregon, it's 87 percent of the farmers and ranchers. It's time to
start with modest restrictions on government subsidies.
There are a wide range of areas in this budget. As it's working its
way through the House, we're going to see very dramatic reductions,
almost a third in transportation. We sliced $1 billion from sewer and
water programs to State and local governments. At a time of record high
farm commodity prices, this would be a time to place this modest
limitation.
There's actually a question whether or not some of these payments
even go to farmers at all. In 2009, some of the entities that received
title I handouts--the Fidelity National Title Institute received over
$4.85 million. Almost $3 million went to the Mercer County
[[Page H4264]]
Abstract Company. The American Marketing Peanut Association received
largesse from the Federal Government worth over $3.98 million.
{time} 2300
These aren't the small family farmers that I think all of us would
like to support.
In this day and age, it's embarrassing to be giving away $4 million
of taxpayer money in 1 year to a private, for-profit company when I
think what we should be doing is concentrating on the support for
America's farmers and ranchers. We have the opportunity, with this
amendment, to take a step in this direction.
I would strongly urge that my colleagues join with me in adopting
this amendment establishing a $125,000 overall limit, and be able to
start saving two-thirds of $1 billion and send a signal that we're
serious about reforming spending.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Chairman, I rise to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. This
amendment would have far-reaching and devastating effects for America's
farmers. I'm not sure the gentleman is aware of the full extent of this
amendment.
This amendment throws the Noninsured Crop Disaster Program into an
arbitrary payment limit scheme. This program, in which farmers pay a
fee to obtain crop insurance coverage, protects them from catastrophic
events like flooding and tornados. If this amendment passes, farmers
who have been flooded out are quite literally up a creek without a
paddle. They won't get the coverage they've signed up for even though
they've paid in.
This amendment would also affect the permanent disaster program.
Producers were required to purchase crop insurance to be eligible for
that program. This amendment would be a bait and switch--they've
fulfilled their end of the bargain, but we're pulling the rug out from
under them now.
There's a time and a place to debate the appropriate level of support
for farmers. I welcome that debate as a part of the 2012 farm bill
process which will in effect begin next week. The Agriculture Committee
will be auditing farm programs for effectiveness and efficiency, and
then we will seek input from across the country on the best way to
support our farmers and ranchers while making good use of taxpayer
dollars.
Discussing farm programs in the context of a farm bill will represent
honest, transparent policymaking. This amendment prevents that
discussion from taking place by altering the terms of the contracts
with farmers once they've already been signed. Protecting farmers
during catastrophic weather events is the least we can do to maintain a
stable food supply in our country.
My colleagues in the Midwest have seen firsthand the devastation that
comes with flooding. My colleagues in the Southwest know how droughts
can turn healthy farms into desolation. For that reason alone, I urge
my colleagues to oppose this amendment. But I also urge you to oppose
it because policy changes like this should be conducted within the
broader context of all farm bill policy.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Minnesota is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I want to
associate myself with the remarks of Chairman Lucas.
In the 2008 farm bill, we spent a lot of time working through this
payment limitation issue. There were a lot of different ideas and a lot
of different discussions, and it was not easy. We made significant
reforms in this payment limitation area, and as the chairman indicated,
we came to a resolution and people are relying on that. We've got a 5-
year farm bill. People make decisions not from year to year; they make
them in the long term, and it's just not fair to come in and change
things in the middle of the stream.
One of the other things we did is we applied the payment limitations
to all of the programs, and as I understand this amendment, it only
applies to the commodity title. So we're once again going to create a
different set of payment limitations for one part of the farm program
compared to another.
I don't know exactly what the purpose of this is because the farm
programs are not designed to be a welfare program or to pick winners
and losers and decide how big a farm is going to be and all that sort
of stuff. The purpose of these farm programs is to support production
agriculture so we can feed this country and, frankly, feed the world.
You read all these stories coming from all over the world that we're
worried that we're not going to have enough food to feed all of the
increase in population and all that stuff. If you go down this track,
you're going to go down a policy that's going to make it very difficult
for us to feed the world.
So this is ideology run amok. Some people have problems with the way
we've designed this safety net. And I think we could do a better job,
but this is just the wrong thing to do. This is too complicated an
issue to settle here on the floor in a few minutes of debate. And it's
just not fair to the people that have made long-term decisions, have
invested a lot of money based on expecting that this farm bill was
going to be in this form until September 30, 2012. So I encourage my
colleagues to oppose this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HIMES. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Connecticut is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered
by my colleague from Oregon.
And with all due respect to the ranking member, I think the effort to
limit these subsidies is both fiscally responsible, more in keeping
with the kind of market economics that so many of us in this Chamber
believe are the right way to go, and will help the health of the
American people, something that will have a dramatic impact on the
rising health care costs in this country.
Mr. Chairman, the amendment would limit the total title I payments to
farm entities to less than $125,000 a year. It doesn't eliminate them;
it simply limits them. Under current law, market loan payments, loan
deficiency payments, and commodity certificates are not capped, and
entities can receive unlimited title I dollars.
Mr. Chairman, 4 hours ago in this Chamber, we debated amendments that
would eliminate and gut the WIC program, WIC--women, infants and
children. This is a program that seeks to provide basic food to poor
children, to poor families.
There were amendments that would eliminate the Food for Peace program
whereby we send food--in those bags that we've all seen, ``A gift from
the people of the United States of America''--to people who are
starving around this planet, a gift from the people of the United
States of America at a moment when we can use friends. And we said
we're going to gut them, we're going to reduce them. Why would you do
that? You would only do that if you face the kind of budget constraints
that we face today. A brutal necessity to find savings.
Here we have an opportunity to save nearly $1 billion in subsidies to
large producers. These are not small farmers, as my colleague from
Oregon said. The top 10 percent of subsidy recipients receive almost
three-quarters of these funds. This is not the small farmer; these are
big conglomerates.
These subsidies are bailouts. We hear a lot about bailouts in this
Chamber. And nobody thinks bailouts are a good thing. These are slow-
motion, year-in-and-year-out bailouts of an industry.
Many of my colleagues support both the goals of fiscal responsibility
and the idea that markets are efficient. Here, not only are we taking
taxpayer dollars and sending them to a slow motion, perpetual bailout,
but we're doing it in such a way that it creates cheap corn sugars and
other things that go into the fast-food that exacerbate the obesity
problem in this country. This is a bad idea. And I urge my colleagues
to support this amendment for both fiscal health and sheer market
grounds.
[[Page H4265]]
I yield to my colleague from Oregon.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate his kind
words and thoughtful analysis.
{time} 2310
The approach that we are taking here is to put an overall limit of
$125,000 in addition to what we are talking about. This would have only
affected about 6,500 entities in 2009. It is an appropriate step
forward.
I hear some of my colleagues concerned about changing the rules for a
few thousand people who are getting huge amounts of subsidy. You know,
this bill will change the rules for tens of thousands of farmers and
ranchers who would otherwise get environmental protections, payments
for environmental programs. In fact, some of the existing contracts
would be abrogated.
Now, there are going to be lots of changes going on. I hope that we
start now beginning the process of agricultural reform and making clear
that we want to start by putting some overall limitation during a time
of record high farm prices. There is never a good time to do it. I
think the time to do it is now.
I look forward to a spirited debate on farm bill reform. I hope at
some point we are able to actually do some meaningful reform, as
acknowledged by even the proponents from the committee. We have got
lots of problems with the existing bill. We could do a better job. It
is complicated.
Well, this isn't complicated. This is straightforward and direct, and
I urge an ``aye'' vote in support of the amendment.
Mr. HIMES. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CONAWAY. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, once again we have come to a point where I
need to defend the work of the Ag Committee, the authorizing committee,
the committee that knows the most about this process.
The $125,000 limit is picked out of whole cloth. It is made up. It is
arbitrary. It is capricious. It has no clue what it might have as an
impact on the farmers and ranchers in the district and parts that I
represent. It is a drive-by shooting of farm policy that, frankly,
makes no sense whatsoever if you are really going to seriously protect
the production of agriculture in this country.
On the one hand, we hear our colleagues on the other side rant about
imported foods, and they want to then turn around and make sure that
the American farmer and producer does not have the safety net that we
promised them in 2008. Now, I understand my colleagues don't like that
safety net. They had ample opportunity when they were in the majority
in 2008 to effect a farm bill when it came to this floor. If they
didn't like the process, they needed to take that up with Speaker
Pelosi and them.
The process going forward that I anticipate happening next year is
that we will begin, as the chairman has said, to audit these farm bill
programs over the next several months. We will then craft, with limited
resources, a new farm bill that will be introduced in the committee,
debated through subcommittees and at the full committee, and then we
will bring it to the floor. It will be exposed to all of these
arguments in an appropriate manner that should take place, not in the
appropriations process.
I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle did not vote for
the budget we passed here in April. That budget clearly said the
appropriations process in 2012 would not be used to effect a farm bill,
that the farm bill would be written by the Agriculture Committee, the
authorizing committee in 2012.
My colleagues' arguments are unpersuasive, and I do believe this is
an ill-advised amendment to go at a safety net that, by every
description, is complicated, is difficult to understand, but it has
worked to protect production of agriculture from the risks that they
take year in and year out to provide the safest, most abundant and
cheapest food and fiber source of any developed country in the world.
I urge my colleagues to vote against the Blumenauer amendment. It is
the wrong policy at the wrong time and the wrong place.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Again, I think that this is an amendment that
is ill-conceived. I think it will do great harm, and I think it is not
timely. I agree with the gentleman that the authorizing committee has
great expertise. We have taken a lot of time to vet this program, and I
think for us to come tonight willy-nilly and do it is very, very ill
advised.
Nineteen years ago when I came to this body I was on the authorizing
committee, on the Agriculture Committee, and the chairman of the
committee at that time was a gentleman by the name of Kika de la Garza.
Mr. de la Garza was fond of telling us one of his life experiences, and
that was his submarine story.
He said that all of his life, from the time he was a little boy, even
though he grew up in the rural areas in Texas on the farm, that he
wanted to ride on a submarine. He always was just enamored with
submarines. Finally, after he came to Congress and after he became the
chairman of a committee, he had an opportunity to go out on one of our
nuclear submarines. Of course, as the guest, he was allowed to take the
wheel and to submerge the submarine, to get it up, to play with the
periscope, and he was just really, really amazed at how impressive that
nuclear submarine was. So he turned to the captain and he asked the
captain, he said, Captain, how long can this nuclear submarine stay
underwater without coming up? It is so fine, we have spent so much
money and it is an excellent machine. The captain looked at him and
said, Mr. Chairman, how long would you guess? And Mr. de la Garza said
he thought for a while, and he said, Well, maybe a year? And the
captain chuckled and said, Mr. Chairman, we can stay underwater for as
long as we have food for the crew.
We in this country will be able to defend ourselves and we will be
able to have a strong country as long as we have food, and right now we
are headed to getting imported food for the majority of our people. If
we continue with the route that we are going, if we impose these
limitations, if we limit the ability of our farmers to compete on a
level playing field with our global competitors, all of our food will
be coming from Mexico and South America and China.
We cannot afford for that to happen. America cannot stay strong. Our
people cannot be healthy. We cannot get safe food if we don't allow our
farmers to have the capacity to earn a living and to produce the
highest quality, the safest and most economical food and fiber anywhere
in the industrialized world.
We have to defeat these amendments. We have to studiously and
assiduously study the way to reform these programs and to get cost-
effectiveness. But tonight in this bill is not the place to do it. The
time to do it is when we take up the farm bill in 2012 with the
authorizing committee and all others having the opportunity to take our
time and to thoughtfully craft a new farm policy.
With that, I urge the defeat of this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, I do rise in support of my friend, my
colleague from Oregon's amendment this evening.
I am not sure if a $125,000 payment limitation is the right amount,
but this isn't a new concept. There has been a lot of discussion about
payment limitations under title I, and the gentleman is correct. The
time to start doing this is now.
We can pretend that there aren't major policy changes being made
under this agricultural appropriations bill, but there are. There are
deep cuts in the conservation title. We just had a large consortium, a
coalition of outdoor sporting groups, write a letter expressing their
concern about the deep cuts in the voluntary and incentive-based land
and water conservation programs and the impact that is going to
[[Page H4266]]
have on quality water and habitat protection or the ability of our
farmers to be good stewards of their land. There is a huge demand for
these programs which will be dramatically affected with the deep
spending reductions that are contained in this appropriation bill.
The same goes for the nutrition programs. The huge funding reductions
will have an impact on tens of thousands of families throughout the
Nation, low-income children that rely on these programs, the Women,
Infants, and Children program in particular, seniors on these nutrition
programs. They are going to feel the effects of the decisions that we
are making in this Agriculture appropriation bill.
Now, for so many of my colleagues to stand up this evening and claim
we can't mess with title I program funding, we should wait for the next
farm bill, I think, is disingenuous at best.
I ask my colleagues tonight, mohair subsidies? Is that the best we
are going to be able to do? And I would submit to my colleagues that
the reason why mohair was picked on is because they are not a
particularly well-organized, sophisticated, politically-connected
entity out there, so it was easy to go after them, as my colleague from
Utah showed with his amendment.
But we have known for a long time now that these subsidy programs
under title I do distort the marketplace. They do distort our trade
policy, as my Brazil cotton subsidy amendment highlighted a little
earlier this evening. And we are long past time to start making these
revisions in light of the huge budget deficits that we are facing.
{time} 2320
When 80 percent of the producers in our Nation get nothing under
title I subsidies--not a dime--that leaves a very small group of
entities that is receiving the bulk of these taxpayer subsidies, and we
all know who they are. They're the big five grain-producing entities of
this country--corn, soybeans, cotton, rice, and wheat. They're the ones
who are receiving the bulk of these title I subsidy programs.
Under the farm bill, there are multiple programs which they can be
eligible for: from the LDP Program, to Countercyclical, to the new ACRE
Program under the last farm bill, to the Direct Payment Program. Many
of us were arguing in the last farm bill whether it was necessary to go
forward with direct payments that bear no relationship to current
market prices--all based on past production history.
Today, we are facing world record commodity prices in these
categories. Not only did we continue them, but we increased the direct
payments, and we're allowing double entities on the same fund to
qualify for the direct payments. Yet none of that is being discussed in
the context of this Agriculture appropriations bill.
As to my original point, I'm not sure if 125 is the right level, but
the concept isn't new, and it's definitely a step in the right
direction. I think it's trying to bring more sanity to the title I
subsidy programs, which we shouldn't be delaying until the next farm
bill which may or may not happen next year. We know it's tough to get
major pieces of legislation through during an election year, let alone
a Presidential election year. It could be years from now before we have
the next farm bill ready to go with any potential change.
So I commend my colleague for offering this amendment and for
continuing the discussion, and I encourage my colleagues to seriously
consider supporting it. I'm sure the Senate will have some ideas, too,
on things that they recommend.
This, I think, is appropriate and it's not new; and to claim that we
shouldn't touch title I, yet we're eviscerating virtually the rest of
the farm bill in what we're doing with this appropriations bill, I
think is disingenuous.
I would be happy to yield to my friend from Oregon.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's words, and I appreciate
his courtesy.
I listened with amusement to my friend from Georgia talk about his
concern that we're going to be importing food from overseas if we have
some reasonable limitation on these title I payments.
The food, which are the fruits and vegetables that the people in my
State raise--and I met with a bunch of them this last week again--get
zip. They get nada. We're cutting back on the research funding for
them. We're cutting back on marketing. We're cutting back on helping
them comply with the environmental requirements that they want to meet
because they're good stewards of the land. We're making it harder for
them to do the work of producing food for America. Yet we're having
lavish subsidies for five commodities, which is where 90 percent of the
money goes.
If you really cared about protecting the food supply, we'd redirect
it. We'd save this $650 million, and we'd put it where it would do more
good.
Mr. KIND. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. LUMMIS. I move to strike the requisite number of words.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Wyoming is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mrs. LUMMIS. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. PETERSON. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
I just wanted to clarify that it was discussed that what we were
trying to do was to get the top 20 recipients off of the EWG Web site,
and I just got a copy of it.
Four of the top 10 recipients actually are title or law firms that
did work for WRP. The top one is Fidelity National Title at $4.8
million. That is all work that was done on WRP contracts. It looks to
me like six of the top 20 are actually abstract and title firms that
did work on conservation WRP contracts that are not affected by this
amendment, so that's a problem.
You're throwing all these statistics around and claiming that these
big guys are getting all this money. But these aren't even farmers.
These are law firms. Maybe we should have payment limitations on law
firms. That might be a good thing. Maybe we should only let these guys
do $125,000 worth of WRP work so that we can spread it around a little
bit and make it more fair. That's the other problem with this whole
concept.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. I wasn't going to rise on this amendment--and I probably
shouldn't--but this discussion just bugs me.
I represent more productive agriculture in my district than anyone in
this room--$4 billion in just one county--and I represent a bunch of
counties. What we grow are specialty crops. We grow 85 crops in
Monterey County. As we were talking about earlier, 58 percent of all
the lettuce in the United States is grown in that county. We grow 35
different varieties of wine grapes, and we are the leading counties in
strawberry production and in a bunch of berry productions. In fact, our
motto there is that we're the ``salad bowl capital of the world,''
which includes all of the ingredients in salad--celery, lettuce. All
those things, we grow.
Do you know what? They don't get a dime of support from the Federal
Government. If the market falls, they eat it. If a disaster comes in,
they eat it.
So the reason these amendments are brought up by Mr. Kind and Mr.
Blumenauer year after year is that, frankly--do you know what?--the
farm bill doesn't address this issue. It really doesn't. It's too
tough--it's too politically tough--and there are too many vested
interests in this town. You have a whole bunch of agriculture out
there, and some people would suggest that more than all of the money
created in commodity supports is in what they call ``specialty crops,''
and that's the stuff you eat all the time.
You can't have this bifurcated world out there where you have a bunch
of people who are essentially on welfare and a bunch of people who are
just assuming all the risk. What really surprises me is that, with the
conservative side of the aisle over here that really is driven toward
market approaches to solve problems, this is not a market approach.
This is a subsidy. It's a taxpayer subsidy, and it's going to very
wealthy people in some cases.
So I am rising to say this amendment, as in the past, gets defeated;
but
[[Page H4267]]
these gentlemen have an issue, and I just beg with the leaders. I've
got great respect for the ranking member of the Ag Committee here on
our side of the aisle. I know he can wrestle with these problems. He's
a CPA. He knows these things.
I think the handwriting is on the wall. If the conservatives on your
side of the aisle would take this on as an issue that Americans are
really going to address, we may get some progress on the farm bill. If
you don't, you're abandoning your marketing concepts, and you're
abandoning what is needed in modern America.
Just remember, that apple, that pear, that banana in there, that
celery, the strawberries--the list goes on and on with all the fruits
and vegetables--they don't get any of these payments. So let's not have
a bifurcated agricultural production out there where half of it depends
on taxpayer payments and the other half has to just live by market
forces. Let's have everybody a lot more influenced by market forces.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oregon will
be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. King of Iowa
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following new section:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to make payments (or to pay the salaries and expenses
of personnel of the Department of Agriculture to make
payments) under section 201 of the Claims Resolution Act of
2010 (Public Law 111-291; 124 Stat. 3070), relating to the
final settlement of claims from In re Black Farmers
Discrimination Litigation, or section 14012 of the Food,
Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-246; 122
Stat. 2209).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, this amendment emanates from claims
that were filed subsequent to a press conference held by then-Secretary
of Agriculture Dan Glickman in 1995, who said that the USDA was
discriminating against black farmers. I believe that happened. Their
estimate at the USDA at that time was that there were approximately
3,000 black farmers who would file claims under what resulted in a
consent decree in the late nineties.
{time} 2330
The 3,000 estimate became 22,551 claims of discrimination. But
according to the census, there are 18,000 black farmers. According to
the testimony of the president of the Black Farmers Association before
the Judiciary Committee, there are 18,000 black farmers. Well, the
18,000 black farmers estimating 3,000 claims of discrimination became
22,551 claims. That was Pigford I. And $1.05 billion was paid out then
to settle all of the claims that were there. There was an argument made
that others didn't get filed. But it always was a number greater than
the actual number of black farmers. And you can't have more black
farmers discriminated against than there actually are.
They tried to open up Pigford II. This Congress didn't act on it in
an affirmative way between the House and the Senate until late last
fall in a lame duck session. President Barack Obama introduced
legislation as a junior Senator from Illinois in 1989 and 2007, and was
instrumental in pushing this through in a lame duck session that
appropriated $1.15 billion to pay out claims.
Now we have not 3,000 claims. We still have 18,000 black farmers. Now
we have 94,000 claims and report after report of fraudulent claims and
marketing this as perpetuation of a fraud across this country. And my
amendment shuts off the funding that would be used to administer or to
fund the balance of these Pigford II claims, which this Congress must
investigate the fraud that's here.
By the way, Shirley Sherrod, who was fired by the Secretary of
Agriculture, was the largest recipient and the largest civil rights
claim in the history of America, with $13 million for her claim. Three
days later, Tom Vilsack hired her to work for the USDA. Later, he fired
her. Later, he hired her back. Then she sued Andrew Breitbart. All of
these things are information that we need to find out. This Congress
cannot be paying out another $1.15 billion in good money going after
bad claims. We have reports and videotape. One is a class counsel who
had his own videotape and says that he has 3,000 clients who have filed
discrimination claims, and least 10 percent of them are fraudulent
claims. A class counsel, who was included in this second agreement,
which by the way, the court has not finally approved.
So, Mr. Chairman, this amendment shuts off the funding that would be
used to pay these claims, the funding that would be used to administer
these claims, and it gives this Congress an opportunity to look into
what has been done to the taxpayer here in America. And so I urge
adoption of my amendment. I believe that I have explained what it
amounts to, although it has been very intensively in the news over the
last year or so.
I would urge its adoption.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. The opportunities for Members to have
amendments is a privilege that should not be denied. And I respect my
colleague from Iowa for his right to offer an amendment. But it is
tragic and disappointing that my friend from Iowa, who served with me
on the Judiciary Committee, would take this time to demean the tragic
lives that black farmers, Native Americans farmers, and others impacted
have experienced over several decades; to raise the name of Shirley
Sherrod, whose eloquent story and painful story of the loss of her
father in the segregated South, who was murdered, and the family had to
survive after his tragic murder because of his color--to my knowledge,
a farmer, man of the Earth.
I sat on the Judiciary Committee for a number of years, and this
legislation proceeded through the Judiciary Committee. I join the
gentleman in wanting to ensure the adequacy of the implementation of
this settlement. I want to stand alongside a transparent system. But
this was a lawsuit that many of the litigants died before they even got
to the settlement. This is the American way--a battle in the courts, a
settlement--had it not been for the good will of Members of this body
on both sides of the aisle, members of the Congressional Black Caucus
who joined with members of the Democratic Caucus, Republicans, past
Presidents, who were concerned and interested in the devastation
tragedy of the segregated South and a segregated Department who treated
black farmers in a disparate way from others. Individuals who went
bankrupt, who lost farms because they could not get the same access to
agricultural loans that others could. And in the wisdom of the court
system and the wisdom of this body and the wisdom of a settlement,
relief was brought not before many had died and their heirs, trembling,
limited, scattered, few, were able to come together and receive the
funding.
I'm sorry Mr. King was not at the signing of that final settlement
and to see those historic families, patriots, who expressed nothing but
love for this country. What a tragedy to come and interfere with an
existing settlement. I don't even know how he can put this amendment up
on the floor. It's late. We're losing our voices here. But I would ask
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to recognize that there's
nothing wrong with ensuring that the Agriculture Department and the
surrounding entities that are dealing with the distribution of these
funds be transparent and without fraud.
But it would be absurd for any Member to join and to vote to
interfere with the legitimate settlement of legitimate claims that have
evidenced the pain and devastation and disregard and disparate
treatment and discrimination and unconstitutional treatment of farmers
who we claim on this floor today to love. Farming is part of the
American fabric. And if there's any
[[Page H4268]]
body of people who understands farms, it is the ex-slaves who worked
for 400 years without payment in the cotton fields of the South.
I ask my colleagues to consider opposing this amendment, and I rise
respectfully to oppose it.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chair, Pigford v. Glickman was a class action
discrimination suit between the USDA and black farmers. The suit was
filed by an estimated 2,000 black farmers who said that USDA
discriminated against them in loan programs. A settlement agreement was
approved in 1999.
The suit claimed that USDA discriminated against black farmers on the
basis of race and failed to investigate or properly respond to
complaints from 1983 to 1997.
The deadline for submitting a claim was September 12, 2000. However,
a large number of applicants filed late and reported deficiencies in
representation by class counsel.
Consequently, the 2008 farm bill (PL 110-246) permitted any claimant
who had submitted a late-filing request under Pigford and who hadn't
previously obtained a determination on the merits of their claim should
obtain a determination. A maximum of $100 million in mandatory spending
was made available for payments of these claims in the 2008 farm bill.
The multiple claims that were subsequently filed by over 25,000 black
farmers were consolidated into a single case, In re Black Farmers
Discrimination Litigation (commonly referred to as Pigford II).
On February 18, 2010, Attorney General Holder and Secretary Vilsack
announced a $1.25 billion settlement of these Pigford II claims.
The Pigford II settlement provides both a fast-track settlement
process and high payments to potential claimants who go through a more
rigorous review and documentation process.
Potential claimants can seek the fast-track payments of up to $50,000
plus debt relief, or choose the longer process damages of up to
$250,000.
Finally, our Nation's black farmers who were discriminatecl against
by their own government have received some modicum of justice.
Despite years of political gamesmanship that prevented us from
finding a fair resolution, thousands of families who have waited for
the settlements will now receive them.
We cannot deny them this basic justice.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Iowa will be
postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Engel
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used by the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug
Administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or
any other Federal Agency receiving funds under this Act to
lease or purchase new light duty vehicles, for any executive
fleet, or for an agency's fleet inventory, except in
accordance with Presidential Memorandum-Federal Fleet
Performance, dated May 24, 2011.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. ENGEL. On May 24, President Obama issued a memorandum on Federal
fleet performance, which requires that all new light-duty vehicles in
the Federal fleet to be alternate fuel vehicles, such as hybrid,
electric, natural gas, or biofuel, by December 31, 2015.
{time} 2340
My amendment simply echoes the Presidential memorandum by prohibiting
funds in the Agriculture appropriations bill from being used to lease
or purchase new light-duty vehicles except in accord with the
President's memorandum.
Two weeks ago, I introduced a similar amendment to the Department of
Homeland Security appropriations bill that was accepted by both parties
and passed by voice vote unanimously.
Our transportation sector is by far the biggest reason we send $600
billion per year to hostile nations to pay for oil at ever-increasing
costs, but America doesn't need to be dependent on foreign sources of
oil for transportation fuel. Alternative technologies exist today that,
when implemented broadly, will allow any alternative fuel to be used in
America's automotive fleet.
The Federal Government operates the largest fleet of light-duty
vehicles in America. According to GSA, there are over 660,000 vehicles
in the Federal fleet, with almost 38,000 belonging to the Department of
Agriculture. Supporting a diverse array of vehicle technologies in our
Federal fleet will encourage development of domestic energy resources,
including biomass, natural gas, coal, agricultural waste, hydrogen, and
renewable electricity.
Expanding the role these energy sources play in our transportation
economy will help break the leverage over Americans held by foreign
government-controlled oil companies and will increase our Nation's
domestic security and protect consumers from price spikes and shortages
in the world's oil markets. I ask that we all support my amendment.
The chairman, the gentleman from Georgia, and I cochair the Oil and
National Security Caucus, and we do it because we believe that America
cannot be totally free unless we're energy independent and while we
still have to rely on hostile foreign nations to get our fuel and to
get our fuel supplies.
On a similar note, I have worked with my colleagues, Mr. Shimkus, Mr.
Bartlett and Mr. Israel, and for many years with Mr. Kingston to
introduce the bipartisan open fuel standard, H.R. 1687. It's similar to
what I'm doing now.
I just wanted to briefly mention that our bill, not this amendment
but our bill, would require 50 percent of new automobiles in 2014, 80
percent in 2016, and 95 percent in 2017 to be warranted to operate on
non-petroleum fuels, in addition to or instead of petroleum-based
fuels. It would cost $100 or less per car to manufacture cars that
would be flex fuel cars.
Compliance possibilities include the full array of existing
technologies, including flex fuel, natural gas, hydrogen, biodiesel,
plug-in electric drive, fuel cell, and a catch-all for new
technologies.
I encourage my colleagues to support the Engel amendment and the open
fuel standard as we work toward breaking our dependence on foreign oil.
I thank Chairman Kingston for his courtesies, and I urge bipartisan
support of my amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, the chairman of the subcommittee informs
me that he will accept the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment Offered by Mr. King of Iowa
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used for mifepristone, commonly known as RU-486, for any
purpose.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is an amendment that comes and there's an Iowa focus on this
that affects the whole country. We have had a practice that began
experimentally in Iowa by Planned Parenthood of issuing telemed
abortions by distributing RU-486, the abortion pill, what is also known
as mifepristone, distributing it through a means of setting up a
television monitor and it circumventing the requirement in Iowa that
they be seen by a doctor. A doctor sits remotely on the other side of
the Skype screen, so to speak, and interviews the potential mother, who
if once she answers the questions that the doctor asks and they record
it under film that they've protected themselves perhaps from liability,
he clicks the mouse on the one end and it opens a drawer underneath the
screen on the other end and out rolls the abortion pill, RU-486.
I am very concerned about the robo distribution of abortion pills in
Iowa or anywhere else. Some of us signed a letter, 70 of us, to
Kathleen Sebelius and asked if they had distributed grants for
telemedicine to any of the abortion
[[Page H4269]]
providers, including Planned Parenthood. Their response came back in
the affirmative, that they had issued several grants to Planned
Parenthood; and these funds, as near as we can determine, are being
used to provide telemedicine for the robo abortions, robo Skype
abortions as I've described.
This amendment provides that none of the funds made available in this
$15 million telemedicine line item that's in this appropriations bill
shall be used for the purpose of purchasing, prescribing, dispensing,
procuring, or otherwise administering mifepristone, commonly known as
RU-486.
I would just urge the body to pay attention to what this means for
the country and understand that no one in America paying taxes should
be compelled to pay for abortions if they are doing that. Skype-robo
abortions are abhorrent. They're irresponsible. We have 14 deaths of
moms that have come from this; 2,207 adverse events; 339 blood
transfusions; and 612 hospitalizations.
This is a dangerous drug, and to distribute it through robo-Skype
abortions--I'm opposed to it philosophically for a lot of reasons, but
practical minds who might disagree on the abortion issue should
understand that this government should not be paying for it. This
amendment prohibits the use of these funds in the $15 million line item
from being used to provide telemedicine abortions.
Mr. FARR. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. FARR. Could you tell me where in the bill this has anything to do
with what you're talking about?
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I believe I did, but I would
restate that there's a line item in the bill that provides $15 million
to go to grants for telemedicine.
Mr. FARR. That's not in the amendment that we have.
Mr. KING of Iowa. The amendment that I have put out here says: ``None
of the funds made available by this Act may be used for mifepristone,
commonly known as RU-486, for any purpose.''
And so I've specified why I'm concerned and why I address this
language to the broader bill, but because there are grant funds
available for telemedicine in the bill, that's why I'm concerned that
this application that I've used could well go, and has gone according
to Kathleen Sebelius, to those grants.
If the gentleman doesn't agree, I would think he neither would
disagree with the amendment because, therefore, it wouldn't have an
effect by the gentleman's interpretation.
Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of my amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I know it's late, but I rise in opposition to
this, because, first of all, using telemedicine by FDA I don't think
is, one, illegal, or ill-wise. Secondly, I think what the gentleman is
going to talk about is a legal drug in the United States. It's been a
legitimate drug in the United States after it met all of the rigorous
FDA process in 1996 and has been available since 2000 in this country.
I remember vigorous debates in this committee about the
conditionality by which FDA would license this drug. It is legal and
available in all 50 States in the United States, in Washington, DC, in
Guam, and in Puerto Rico. It's a prescription drug which is not
available to the public through pharmacies. Instead, its distribution
is restricted to specifically qualified licensed physicians. To use it,
a woman must go to a doctor's office.
Whatever controversy surrounded the introduction of RU-486 in the
United States was settled years ago, and there's no reason for this
amendment other than to stir up the controversy over the reproductive
rights of women. I think by the gentleman's comments, you can see that
that's what he's trying to do.
I would urge us all to oppose this amendment. And frankly it doesn't
have anything to do with USDA funds, because we don't do telemedicine
abortions.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Iowa will be
postponed.
{time} 2350
Amendment Offered by Mr. Clarke of Michigan
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. Of the funds appropriated by division B of Public
Law 111-117 under the heading ``Economic Support Fund'' for
assistance for Afghanistan, $7,700,000 shall be transferred
to, and merged with, funds appropriated by this Act under the
heading ``Agricultural Marketing Services, Marketing
Services''.
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan (during the reading). I ask unanimous consent
to dispense with the reading, Mr. Chairman.
The Acting CHAIR. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman
from Michigan?
Mrs. LUMMIS. I object.
The Acting CHAIR. Objection is heard.
The Clerk will continue to read.
The Clerk continued to read.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the
gentleman's amendment. I don't have a copy of it.
The Acting CHAIR. A point of order is reserved.
The gentleman from Michigan is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to let this Congress know and the American people know
that I've identified a funding source so that we can provide nutritious
food and fresh fruits and vegetables to those Americans who live in
areas around this country that the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson
Lee) so appropriately described as food deserts.
As a matter of fact, this government currently spends hundreds of
millions of dollars to build agricultural businesses, to help support
farmers, to help new farmers start new agricultural businesses in order
to address food desert issues. Unfortunately, that money is not spent
here to help Americans eat better. It's spent in the Afghanistan
desert. As a matter of fact, in this previous fiscal year, this
government spent over $700 million on agricultural aid in Afghanistan.
What I propose is to redirect 1 percent of that money that's going to
Afghanistan right now, send it back to the United States so people here
can eat nutritional food and have access to fresh fruits and
vegetables.
And I would like to say one thing. The argument on why we're spending
that kind of money to support farmers in Afghanistan is because we
don't want those farmers growing poppies to sell opium to fund safe
havens for terrorists. We understand that there are people around the
world that want to attack this country like they did many years ago,
but because bin Laden is now dead, it's time for us to reassess our
mission in Afghanistan. We don't need to spend $100 billion a year in
Afghanistan right now. We need to take a share of that money to help
the American people. So, if we took 1 percent of the money that we
spent last year, we would be able to fund the program proposed by the
gentlewoman from Texas.
Look, I've got young folks in the city of Detroit right now that
would likely not have to resort to selling drugs if they could make a
living in urban agriculture. We need that money that's going to
Afghanistan. We need it right here in the United States so we can help
our farmers here, so we can support farmers' markets, so we can provide
food and nutritional supplements to our pregnant mothers and to their
infants and children. Our people in the United States need a share of
their own money back here, and that's why I wanted to rise to raise
this point.
Now, I understand that the rules of this House may not allow me
tonight to redirect that money from Afghanistan back here to this
budget. And you
[[Page H4270]]
know what also, too? We could use a share of that money to help retire
our deficit and debt at the same time. I'd like to work with you on
that. But you know what we should do? We should change these darn rules
of the House so we can reduce the overspending, help create jobs here,
reduce health care costs--because people are going to be eating a lot
better, and help the American people right now during this economic
recession.
I'd like to work with you. I'd also like to work to change the rules
of the House so that we can do this, and I understand at this late date
this is not the time to act, but I'd like to pledge an agreement to
work with the majority so that we can save the American people money,
save us health care costs, provide better nutrition, address those food
desert issues, fund the initiative proposed by the gentlelady from
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) and help end this economic recession and return
us to prosperity.
With that, Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my
amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn.
There was no objection.
Amendment No. 22 Offered by Mr. Garrett
Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill, before the short title, insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to
promulgate any final rules under paragraphs (13) or (14) of
section 2(a) of the Commodity Exchange Act, as added by
section 727 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act, until 12 months after the promulgation of
final swap transaction reporting rules under section 21 of
the Commodity Exchange Act.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. GARRETT. This is a protect retiree pensions and jobs by ensuring
a well-functioning swaps market amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I ask for your support today for my amendment which
would do that--prevent unintended consequences from impacting literally
millions of pension plan participants and the beneficiaries that
follow. My amendment would simply require the CFTC to finalize
important data-reporting rules before they implement new rules for
certain swap transactions.
See, with this change, it would be able to collect the transaction
data that it needs to determine the reasonable standards for block
trade levels and real-time reporting requirements without first
disrupting the marketplace. You see, finalizing any numerical
determination of block trade sizes or setting real-time reporting
requirement timeframes prior to having necessary data, really, if you
think about it, would be arbitrary, would encourage litigation, and
will likely have the unintended consequences on those very same pension
funds I talked about--their ability to protect their investors, as well
as on the economic growth of our country and job creation.
So, what this amendment would do is require swap data-reporting rules
to be finalized and be in place before promulgating the final block
trade rules or those real-time reporting criteria rules.
Now, I do this because numerous market participants of all shapes and
sizes have sent to us public comment letters warning of the dangers of
getting block trades and real-time rules wrong. I will just give you
this one. I had others. I will just give you one of those letters, and
that comes from the American Benefits Council. Who are they? Well, they
and their members provide benefit services to over 100 million
Americans in the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets,
whose members include more than 100 of the country's largest pension
funds and manage more than $1 trillion on behalf of 15 million member
plan participants and the beneficiaries.
I will just give you one quote from this, not all the other ones: We
have concerns about the sequencing of proposed real-time reporting
rules in relation to the collection of swap market information. We
believe that they should first obtain market information via reporting
of trades of swap data repositories--which have to be set up, of
course--and then propose rules based on this data such as real-time
reporting, which necessarily would better serve the intended purposes.
So, in conclusion, by instituting a more commonsense approach to
these rule-makings, we're giving them the ability to collect that data
of the swap transaction information to determine those reasonable block
trade levels that they have to set, the real-time reporting requirement
as well, and to do so in a way that will not impair the well-
functioning of the marketplace.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment and move
to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Minnesota is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman and Members, this is part of the
continuing effort to delay the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act as
long as possible. We've seen some other examples of that. This section
deals with public reporting swap data.
What people need to understand, the people that are most afraid of
the public disclosure are not the people that are using this market.
It's the banks. What this is really about and what this end-user debate
that's been going on is about more than anything else is that the
public disclosure of this information will lower the spreads of the
Wall Street banks that do these swaps. That's what's the bottom line of
this whole deal.
{time} 0000
If the market participants know more, like what we do in the exchange
trading and so forth, the margins are going to come down and the
profits of these big banks are going to shrink. In fact, some people
have said that they think that once this is implemented that it's
probably going to reduce the profits of the Wall Street banks 40
percent. And they don't like it, and they want to delay it.
So some would argue that we need more data collection, and I guess
that's what you are arguing before this public reporting. I think for
some swaps, that is the case, and I will agree with that. But on other
swaps, the institutions are already collecting this data. They can go
forward with this public reporting. We have the information. There's no
reason to delay it. In other cases where we don't have the information,
it probably isn't appropriate to delay it.
But the CFTC has the discretion to do this, and it's right in the
law. It's on page 328 of the conference report. And we've put in there
the criteria to allow them to move ahead with the swaps where we have
the data and to delay it where we don't have the data. But what you are
trying to do is you are going to delay the whole thing, and all it's
going to do is ensure that these profits and these big bonuses that
they're paying on Wall Street can go on longer than they need to.
So I don't know any reason why we need to do this. If you read this,
they have all the discretion. All of the problems that people brought
up with the block trades and these other things that people were
concerned about are in there.
And the last thing it says: They have to take into account whether
the public disclosure will materially reduce market liquidity. And they
are doing that, and they are doing that as we're going through this
process. And I believe that at the end of the day, it's going to be
fine.
Mr. GARRETT. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. PETERSON. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. GARRETT. So the gentleman agrees that there is only partial
information at this point in time out there.
Mr. PETERSON. On some things.
Mr. GARRETT. On some things.
On other things, the gentleman would agree that there is no
information out there at all on certain--
Mr. PETERSON. Well, I wouldn't say there isn't any information. Some
of these are so thinly traded that you are never going to be able to
have real-time reporting. We understand that, and there is not going to
be a requirement on those. But there's no reason to
[[Page H4271]]
stop the real-time reporting where we have the information and where
that information will make these prices better for the people that use
it.
And this is the same issue with the end users. They're going to get a
better deal if we allow this disclosure. Why they're fighting us is
beyond me, unless they're in cahoots with the Wall Street banks. I'm
not sure. Do people think that the folks on Wall Street aren't making
enough money? Is that what this is about? I don't know.
Mr. GARRETT. I would appreciate if the gentleman would not make the
allegation that we make these applications here because anyone is in
cahoots with Wall Street banks, such as you've just made.
Mr. PETERSON. They are the people that are against this. They were
against it when we did it. So I just don't buy that the pension funds
are the ones that are concerned about this because the things that
they're concerned about are covered in the law, and they're being taken
into account by Chairman Gensler and the people at the CFTC as they
develop these rules.
Mr. GARRETT. If the gentleman will yield, I know I read through it
quickly because I was asked to move along things quickly at the end of
the evening, but one of the documents that I read was one of the
comment letters. It was not from the Wall Street bank but was from the
American Benefits Council, those very same pension benefits companies
speaking about this. They are the ones who are raising it. So it is
those end users. Those are the participants. Those people are
representing beneficiaries. They are the ones who are asking for this
delay. It's not the Wall Street banks that I'm making reference to.
It's the pension funds.
Mr. PETERSON. There are hundreds of thousands of comments. I haven't
read them all. I don't know what they all say.
Mr. GARRETT. We can supply you with the ones.
Mr. PETERSON. Well, I have end users coming into my office arguing
against their own interests. So I can't figure it out.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. PETERSON. But all I'm saying is this is an unnecessary amendment.
It's in the statute. These things are covered. It makes no sense to
delay the entire situation. You have maybe a few things that are of
concern, and they are going to be taken care of.
Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. FARR. What Ranking Member Peterson is talking about is that this
is an ag bill that is to help agriculture, producers of agriculture.
What this amendment does is hurt them. It supports the banks by
delaying transparency. So it's going to cost the end user more money.
The end user is all the customers that this bill is all about.
If the gentleman really wants to help the banks, maybe his amendment
ought to be in the Financial Services bill. But this is going to hurt
our people that we, in this committee, work for all the time. And I
don't think that's a very good amendment.
I ask for a ``no'' vote on the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New Jersey
will be postponed.
Amendment No. 29 Offered by Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Page 80, after line 2, insert the following (and make such
technical and conforming changes as may be appropriate):
Sec. 747. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used in contravention of the Food and Nutrition Act of
2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I hope my colleagues will
join me in recognizing the value of emphasizing the importance of urban
gardening. My amendment would prohibit any of the funds made available
by the appropriations from being used in contravention of the Food and
Nutrition Act of 2008.
Forty-seven million American families live in poverty that restricts
their access to healthy food. The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008
supports numerous programs aimed at reducing hunger throughout the
country. Seventeen million children struggle with hunger every day,
affecting their ability to learn and develop in a country so full of
resources. It is unconscionable that millions of children do not have
enough to eat. We cannot consider proposals that would contradict
existing legislation aimed at improving food security, such as the Food
and Nutrition Act of 2008.
In my home State of Texas, where I represent the 18th Congressional
District, 17.4 percent of all households struggle with food security.
Community Food Projects Competitive Grants are a vital aspect of the
Food and Nutrition Act and must be preserved. Community Food Projects
Grants have helped thousands of people in low-income communities combat
food insecurity by developing community food projects that encourage
healthy habits and self-sufficiency. These grants increase the self-
reliance of low-income communities that have historically encountered
difficulties in providing foods. Programs funded by Community Food
Projects Grants have been successful in cities and towns. And, in fact,
more than 550,000 Harris County residents relied on the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program to buy food.
But one of the important aspects of this is the urban garden. The
People's Garden School Pilot Program will develop and run gardens in
high-poverty schools. Teaching students about health and nutrition and
increasing access to healthy foods are invaluable benefits of schools
where more than 50 percent of the student body qualifies for free or
reduced-cost lunches.
I rise to encourage support for this particular part of the bill so
that we can continue to support urban gardening. And I want to salute
Veggie Pals, a gardening program that does just that. It finds patches
of land wherever it might be, and it makes sure that we provide healthy
food.
This amendment would ensure that nothing in this legislation, nothing
in this appropriation would prohibit the growth and continued expansion
of this very important concept of urban gardening. The number of
Americans who suffer from poverty and hunger is unacceptable.
{time} 0010
Reducing or redirecting funding meant to increase food security and
nutrition is simply not an option. Join me in recognizing the value of
urban gardens. And thank you to the Veggie Pals gardening program that
has educated how many thousands of children and emphasized the value of
good and healthy food.
This program, Veggie Pals, urban gardening, educating people about
nutrition, meal preparation, physical activities, cookbooks, Olympics
and others, promotes healthy behavior.
I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. Chair, I rise before you and my colleagues today to take the
opportunity to explain my amendment to H.R. 2112, ``Making
Appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies Programs for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes.'' My amendment would
prohibit any of the funds made available by the appropriations from
being used in contravention of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008.
47 million American families live in poverty that restricts their
access to healthy food. The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 supports
numerous programs aimed at reducing hunger throughout the country.
17 million children struggle with hunger every day, affecting their
ability to learn and develop. In a country so full of resources, it is
unconscionable that millions of children do not
[[Page H4272]]
have enough to eat. We cannot consider proposals that would contradict
existing legislation aimed at improving food security, such as the Food
and Nutrition Act of 2008.
In my home state of Texas, where I represent the 18th Congressional
District, 17.4 percent of all households struggle with food security.
Community Food Project Competitive Grants are a vital aspect of the
Food and Nutrition Act that must be preserved.
Community Food Project grants have helped thousands of people in low-
income communities combat food insecurity by developing community food
projects that encourage healthy habits and self-sufficiency.
These grants increase the self reliance of low income communities
that have historically encountered difficulties in providing for their
own food needs. Programs funded by community food project grants have
been successful in cities and towns across America, and would certainly
make a difference in the 18th Congressional District. In December of
2010, more than 550,000 Harris County residents relied on the
Supplemental Nutrition Access Program to buy food.
Hunger and food insecurity have grave impacts on children. Students
do not have the opportunity to succeed if they are hungry. The People's
Garden School Pilot program will develop and run gardens at high
poverty schools. Teaching students about health and nutrition and
increasing access to healthy foods are invaluable benefits at schools
where more than 50 percent of the student body qualifies for free or
reduced cost lunches.
Community food project grants and other initiatives such as the
People's Garden Project represent practical and long term solutions to
ending food insecurity in America. We must be committed to funding
programs that encourage self-sufficient food sources, highlight the
importance of nutrition, and reach children at an early age.
The number of Americans who suffer from poverty and hunger is
unacceptable. Reducing or redirecting funding meant to increase food
security and nutrition is simply not an option. We must continue to
fund programs like the community food project grants and the People's
Garden.
It is the responsibility of each and every Member in this chamber to
work for the well-being of our constituents and to ensure that the
basic needs of constituents are met. I urge my colleagues to think of
those who are affected by hunger in their districts and support this
amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Texas will
be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Scalise
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to implement the Departmental Regulation of the
Department of Agriculture entitled ``Policy Statement on
Climate Change Adaptation'' (Departmental Regulation 1070-001
(June 3, 2011)).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Louisiana is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment prevents any taxpayer funds
from being used to implement the Department of Agriculture's new rule
and regulation titled Policy Statement on Climate Change Adaptation.
Mr. Chairman, we've had this debate on cap-and-trade in the last
Congress. In fact, there was a bipartisan coalition of Members that
voted and ultimately defeated the cap-and-trade proposal by President
Obama brought in the last Congress. And yet here we now have a new
regulation that was just issued by the Department of Agriculture less
than 2 weeks ago to implement, in essence, a back-door attempt to put a
cap-and-trade program in place in the Department of Agriculture.
And if you'll look at some of the details laid out in this policy
statement, this is a regulation that was just implemented by the
Department of Agriculture. It gives new powers to the Department to go
into areas where right now we, as a Congress, have said we don't want
the administration to be going.
In fact, if you'll look at what agencies like the EPA are doing in
trying to implement other forms of cap-and-trade, global warming,
carbon emission-type programs, we've been rolling those agencies back.
We've been having hearings that have showed how this is not only bad
policy but this will kill jobs in America.
And so if you look at some of the provisions in this, the policy
establishes a USDA-wide directive to integrate climate change
adaptation planning into USDA programs, policies, and operations.
Mr. Chairman, it further goes on, it actually gives new powers to the
agency. It says every single office shall identify for USDA's Office of
the General Counsel areas where legal analysis is needed to carry out
actions identified under this Department regulation.
Now, what does that mean? Well, if you just look at what these types
of policies and regulations are being used to do at EPA, what it does
is give the authority for USDA lawyers to go and issue findings that
can then be used against our farmers, findings that will cost our
farmers jobs, increase the price of food.
And don't just look at what this policy does. Look at what's
happening in some of the other agencies where they're already trying to
carry this out, and Congress has been trying to roll them back.
And so at a time when we're broke--42 cents of every dollar we spend
is borrowed money--this new regulation creates and references all of
these new offices, the Climate Change Program Office. It says they've
got to develop a USDA climate change adaptation plan. It references the
USDA's global change task force.
In fact, if you look, after they released this new regulation, they
issued $7.4 million to implement a bunch of new grants that are being
used to do things like study carbon credits.
Well, again, that was all brought up in cap-and-trade and rejected by
Congress. And yet here they come with a de facto, back-door attempt at
another cap-and-trade-type of program.
We've got to stop this attack on our job creators. We've got to stop,
in this case, the attack that's being proposed on our farmers. They
actually are now spending millions of dollars, the USDA is, to study
how farmers can grow crops in 2050, based on what they think the
climate will be under these new regulations.
Look, our local weatherman can't tell us what the weather's going to
be this Saturday, within a 50 percent margin of error. And yet the
Department's spending millions of dollars to tell us what the climate's
going to be in 39 years to determine how our farmers should be growing
crops. This is ludicrous. We rejected it here in Congress. We shouldn't
be allowing these kinds of regulations to be implemented. And hopefully
this amendment will get adopted.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Louisiana
will be postponed.
Amendment No. 28 Offered by Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the
desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Page 80, after line 2, insert the following:
Sec. ___. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used in contravention of section 310B(e) of the
Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act (7 U.S.C.
1932(e)).
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. As I discuss my amendment, I want to
indicate to my friends on the other side of the aisle, for the life of
me, I can't understand why you would oppose an amendment that costs no
funds and only emphasizes the importance of urban gardening. There lies
the ludicrousness of
[[Page H4273]]
the lack of collaboration and understanding when there are amendments
that would help all of us. So I do express my great disappointment that
you didn't understand the amendment and, rather than ask what the
amendment meant, you voted loudly ``no.'' That's unfortunate for the
American people. We do that all the time.
But I rise today to emphasize the importance of making sure that we
implement the judgment that has already previously been discussed that
helps the unfortunate farmers that experienced proven discrimination at
the Department of Agriculture and to credit Members on both sides of
the aisle for recognizing it and recognizing the importance of not
infringing upon a judicial decision, a settlement that could help a
number of farmers in all categories that were acknowledged by many
Members of this body.
I thank a number of my colleagues who worked on these issues for a
number of years. They worked on it with great sincerity and, as well,
they recognized that it is important for us to continue to produce
food, but, as well, we need to ensure that all farmers, small farmers
and certainly minority farmers, have the opportunity to engage in their
trade.
My amendment would ensure that the agricultural appropriations are
effectively and promptly made available as necessary through this
process and, as well, to work with cooperatives supporting small
socially disadvantaged producers.
The amendment would make the allocation of funds to cooperatives
supporting the work of minority and socially disadvantaged farmers as
provided in section 310(b)(e) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural
Development Act a priority.
Again, this particular amendment requires no money. It just indicates
that we should follow through on the provisions. However, this funding
is vital to support the many farmers and their families that work
tirelessly to make sure that other hardworking families have food to
eat. It would be hard to deny the vital role that American farmers play
in our society.
It is also important that this significant group of American farmers
not be overlooked, not be marginalized. And I would, frankly, say that
we support their continued existence. They have a long history, and I
believe it is important to do so.
As a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, I remember the
long journey we took in order to ensure that African American, Latino
and Native American farmers would not be shortchanged of grants, loans,
and programs. This amendment simply seeks to reinforce that.
Finally, I would make the point that I hope that we would have the
opportunity to find the necessary collaboration again to settle claims
of discrimination from those farmers who had not yet come under the
particular recent settlement. The President had requested some $40
million to provide settlements for discrimination claims filed under
the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
{time} 0020
It is unfortunate that those resources apparently were not able to be
included.
The USDA anticipates that 600 claims will need to be settled under
this action. The estimate of funding needed to settle these 600 cases
is based on the average settlement cost for claimants under other civil
rights class action law suits, most notably the already settled Pigford
discrimination lawsuit.
This request was only of $20 million. It is not in this bill. This
amendment does not address the fact that it's not in this bill; it
simply says we are fair when we understand the issue. I hope that we
will have the opportunity to understand the issue. The more farmers we
can have producing the good food that has made America great--the bread
basket of America--is the better way to go.
So I hope my colleagues will support this amendment that simply
reinforces the importance of creating equal access to resources so that
we can produce the food necessary for the American people. I showed
just a moment ago that of a healthy child and a military family. We
need to make sure that all Americans have access to food, and we should
extinguish the concept of food insecurity. We can do that by helping
the many different farmers and small farmers that rely upon these very
important programs to help them produce the food for America.
Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I rise before you and my colleagues today to take the
opportunity to explain my amendment to H.R. 2112, ``Making
Appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies Programs for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes.'' My amendment would
ensure that agricultural appropriations are effectively and promptly
made available to minority farmers and cooperatives supporting small,
socially disadvantaged producers.
This amendment would make the allocation of funds to cooperatives
supporting the work of minority and socially disadvantaged farmers as
provided in Section 310B(e) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural
Development Act a priority. I believe by considering cooperative
development grants for farmers for the fiscal year 2012, we as a
Congressional body have already taken a step in the right direction.
This funding is vital to support the many farmers and their families
that work tirelessly to make sure that other hardworking American
families have food to eat. It would be hard to deny the vital role that
American farmers play in our society. The benefits of their labors are
immediately visible in our schools' cafeterias, our local grocery
stores, and even on our dining room tables. American farmers and
farming programs should be appreciated, supported, and funded.
However, in this significant group of American farmers, it is
important that we not overlook the too often marginalized population of
minority farmers. As many of you may know, the history of minority
farmers and government programs is a long and tumultuous one. Minority
farmers have faced years of institutionalized discrimination when
applying for Federal Government funding. This is a fact that is
discouraging for many minority farmers, and quite frankly embarrassing
for many government institutions.
As a Senior Member of the House Judiciary Committee, I have been
actively involved in the fight to ensure that minority farmers receive
justice for the many discriminations that they have faced and a fair
chance at achieving the American Dream. Too often African American,
Latino, and Native American farmers have been shortchanged on
agricultural grants, loans, and programs. This injustice has prevented
minority farmers from being as successful as they could be. It has also
prevented American society in general from reaping the benefits of
their labor. It is with this very saddening fact in mind that I propose
the immediate distribution of funding designated for cooperatives whose
primary focus is to provide assistance to small, socially disadvantaged
producers.
By accelerating the disbursement of this funding, minority farmers
and cooperatives supporting minority farmers will have earlier access
to the resources that they need and deserve. The results of this
funding--technological advances and agricultural sector growth--will
benefit not only farmers, but American society as a whole. The benefits
will be evident on our local farms, in our neighborhood supermarkets,
and in our national economy. If we want our agricultural sector to
grow, thrive, and compete, we must consider this amendment to make the
distribution of these funds urgent and effective.
The time has come for the United States to take a proactive role in
upholding the standards of equality and fairness in the agricultural
sector. I believe it is of the utmost importance that we make use of
every available opportunity to acknowledge the work of all Americans
whose labor contributes to the health and welfare of society. All
agricultural workers, minority farmers in particular, should be
provided the necessary assistance to ensure that the fruits of their
labor can continue to fuel our daily work. This is not just because the
government has historically done such a poor job providing equal and
fair support to minority farmers, but because it is the right thing to
do. With this in mind I urge the adaptation of my proposed amendment to
H.R. 2112. Thank you for your time and consideration in this imperative
matter.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Texas will
be postponed.
[[Page H4274]]
Amendment Offered by Ms. Hirono
Ms. HIRONO. I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. For preventive measures authorized under the
Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act (16 U.S.C. 1001
et seq.) and the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act
(16 U.S.C. 590a et seq.), including research, engineering
operations, methods of cultivation, the growing of
vegetation, rehabilitation of existing structures, and
changes in use of land, there is hereby appropriated, and the
amount otherwise provided by this Act for ``Agricultural
Programs--Agriculture Buildings and Facilities and Rental
Payments'' is reduced by, $3,000,000, to remain available
until expended.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentlewoman from Hawaii is recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of my amendment
to restore $3 million in funding for the Watershed and Flood Protection
program. Funding for this program was eliminated in fiscal year 2011,
and no funding is provided in this bill.
My amendment provides $3 million for this program, just 10 percent of
the $30 million provided in fiscal year 2010. I am taking funding from
the agriculture buildings and facilities and rental payments to offset
the cost of my amendment. Under my amendment, the Natural Resources
Conservation Service, NRCS, would make the determination on where to
direct the funds.
The Watershed and Flood Control Program provides for cooperation
between the Federal Government, States, and localities to prevent
erosion, flood water, and sediment damage. This is also a vital program
to further the development, utilization, and disposal of water. It also
helps to further the conservation and utilization of land and
authorized watersheds.
Watershed improvements under this program are cost-shared between the
Federal Government and local governments. I think that's a good thing.
The program is being zeroed out despite the fact that we have an
unfunded Federal commitment of more than $1 billion for 297 cost-shared
projects in 39 States, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands. These projects would help to reduce flood
damage in 320 communities, improve agriculture water supply in 80
communities, and improve water quality in 132 streams.
Clearly, the national reach of this program is apparent from the
numbers I just cited. In fact, I have a list of the 41 States and the
Pacific islands that have been helped by this program, including Iowa,
Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas--the list goes
on.
States and the local governments have worked together with NRCS, and
they put up their own funds to construct flood control and water
development projects. I don't think it is fair to leave these local
governments holding the bag while the Federal Government just walks
away from these commitments. Even shutting down projects of course
costs money, and we can't leave them just halfway done on these
projects. How can we just walk away from these projects before
realizing the economic and environmental benefits they were designed to
deliver?
I urge my colleagues to support funding for this important program.
It affects 40 States plus Pacific islands.
I will submit for the Record a list of unfunded Federal commitments
to authorized watershed projects in so many of our States.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Hawaii
will be postponed.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Conaway) having assumed the chair, Mr. Dold, Acting Chair of the
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2112)
making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes, had come to no
resolution thereon.
____________________