[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 81 (Thursday, May 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H4145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE FARM BILL IS A FLAWED BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the debate this week in Congress centers 
largely around the farm bill, the most important bill that most people 
pay little or no attention to.
  Currently, there is a mad scramble for votes for a flawed bill from a 
fractured Republican caucus.
  Now, we are going to have some minor discussions on the floor. There 
are some amendments that will be bounced back and forth, but they are 
basically beside the point, not the big-picture issues that need to be 
debated.
  There are fatal flaws. First and foremost, virtually everyone on our 
side of the aisle is adamantly opposed to the efforts to cut nutrition 
funding through SNAP, food stamps, rather than expanding opportunities 
to nutrition and healthy food.
  For example, they are cutting farmers market funding, for heaven's 
sake, projects that are popular across the country and connect 
consumers directly with farmers for fresh, healthy food.
  This is all while they are proposing to essentially hound people off 
food stamps with unnecessary restrictions for employment. The vast 
majority of people are already employed or have difficulty being 
employed or there aren't jobs available. They are going to have a job 
training program, about $45 per person, which anybody who works in this 
field will acknowledge that the bureaucracy and the trouble will be 
more than it is worth in terms of a benefit to people. Essentially, 
they will hound people off food stamps.
  This is at the same time where they are expanding subsidies for 
wealthy farming interests and expanding the ability to get those 
subsidies to people who aren't actively involved with farming. This 
bill is going to send subsidy checks to New York City and Chicago and 
San Francisco, people who are cousins and nieces and nephews, not 
actively farming.
  The second major problem with this bill is it attacks conservation 
funding, cutting a billion dollars from essential services, cutbacks 
with the Conservation Stewardship Program, $5 billion cut out of the 
Working Lands Project, and not strengthening the ability of 
environmental programs to produce results. There is no requirement that 
we have high-quality environmental outcomes.
  In fact, the EQIP Program has a wide variety of things that we pay 
farmers to do that actually don't enhance the environment. We are 
paying farmers for the cost of doing business: fencing, hog lagoons. 
That is decidedly the wrong step to take.
  The worst aspect that is not getting the attention it deserves is the 
so-called King amendment, the Protect Interstate Commerce Act, which 
would prevent State or local governments from regulating an 
agricultural product except to the extent it is already regulated by 
Federal law or the producing State.
  Think about that for a moment. States are moving to deal with the 
opioid crisis, and they would be prevented from having drug 
prohibitions that go beyond what the Federal Government does or other 
States.
  Food packaging regulations. Many States are concerned about BPA-free 
container requirements for baby food: prohibited.
  Fishing regulations. In my State, and I suspect in many others, 
people are serious about being able to protect fisheries, commercial 
and recreational, but under this bill, they would be prohibited if 
another State has looser requirements. My colleague from Seattle might 
have some concerns in her State about protecting the clamming 
operations, but some State like Nebraska that doesn't have them could 
come in and not observe those limits.
  The notion that we won't have invasive pest protections that are 
tailored to what our States want, product transportation laws, secure 
containers for animal carcasses and grease--lowest common denominator.
  Licensing and permitting of commercial enterprises, for example, 
professional licensing and pet sellers; you could not prohibit a 
convicted animal abuser from having a license to traffic animals if the 
other State doesn't have it.
  These are horrific provisions trampling on States' rights, consumer 
protection, environmental protection, agricultural protection.
  This bill should be rejected.

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