[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 81 (Thursday, May 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H4150-H4163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
    PROVIDING FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2, AGRICULTURE AND 
                         NUTRITION ACT OF 2018

  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 900 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 900

       Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule 
     XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for further 
     consideration of the bill (H.R. 2) to provide for the reform 
     and continuation of agricultural and other programs of the 
     Department of Agriculture through fiscal year 2023, and for 
     other purposes. No further amendment to the committee 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be in order 
     except those printed in the report of the Committee on Rules 
     accompanying this resolution. Each such further amendment may 
     be offered only in the order printed in the report, may be 
     offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be 
     considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified 
     in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent 
     and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall 
     not be subject to a demand for division of the question in 
     the House or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of 
     order against such

[[Page H4151]]

     further amendments are waived. At the conclusion of 
     consideration of the bill for amendment pursuant to this 
     resolution the Committee shall rise and report the bill to 
     the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. Any 
     Member may demand a separate vote in the House on any 
     amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole to the bill 
     or to the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute. 
     The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the 
     bill and amendments thereto to final passage without 
     intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or 
     without instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington is recognized 
for 1 hour.
  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Washington?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and 
reported a rule, House Resolution 900, providing for further 
consideration of a very important piece of legislation for America's 
farmers and ranchers: H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act, 
commonly referred to as the farm bill. The rule provides for 
consideration of H.R. 2 under a structured rule, allowing for 
consideration of 31 amendments that were offered.
  Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, I traveled to every county in my 
district for one reason: to listen, to hear, and to get the input and 
the concerns from farmers, ranchers and producers across central 
Washington State. I traveled to Pateros, where my constituents 
discussed the vital need for strengthening market access and opening 
new sources for exporting across the globe.
  I visited with farmers from East Wenatchee in Douglas County who 
discussed the importance of commodity sourcing and stressed the need 
for stronger education for the public about farming and where the food 
that lands on our tables comes from.
  I heard from constituents in Prosser and Benton and Yakima Counties 
who stressed the importance of agricultural research from producers in 
Quincy, who shared their personal stories of the impacts of crop 
insurance on their livelihoods, and from farmers in Othello who raised 
concerns regarding regulatory burdens on the agricultural community.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to say that this farm bill 
makes great strides in addressing these challenges that face America's 
farmers. The rule we bring before the House provides for further 
consideration of the underlying legislation, H.R. 2, the Agriculture 
and Nutrition Act, a bill that is critically important to my district 
in central Washington and to rural districts just like it across the 
country.
  As a farmer myself and as a former State agricultural director, I 
know how important these farm policies are when it comes to our 
agricultural economy. This farm bill strengthens the farm safety net to 
help America's farmers and ranchers compete.
  After 5 years of depressed prices, and a 52 percent drop in farm 
income, our farmers need us--they need Congress--to reauthorize these 
important programs.
  Mr. Speaker, while American farmers have faced these depressed prices 
and severe drops in farm income, we, luckily, have a robust safety net 
in place. Due to the previous 2014 farm bill, our agriculture community 
was able to hold on and continue to provide American consumers with 
food in our grocery stores, in our schools, and in our food banks.
  It is incumbent upon us to ensure these policies continue. We must 
pass this farm bill and ensure a steady food supply will be on the 
shelves and in our markets for the years to come.
  The underlying legislation includes the creation of a new 
international market program, which I would argue is more important 
today than ever before. Programs within it, including the Market Access 
Program and the Foreign Market Development Program, are incredibly 
important to producers seeking to maintain and expand their export 
markets for U.S. agricultural products and commodities. The Market 
Access Program, on its own, is a net positive program, which for every 
$1 spent, $28 is returned to the American economy.
  I know these critical trade and export resources are at the top of 
the minds of American farmers and producers across the country, and we 
must continue to ensure their availability and access for the 
agricultural industry.
  This bill also maintains and strengthens the Nation's nutrition 
programs to assist those who struggle to put food on the table, while 
providing critical training to help people attain the skills necessary 
to gain good-paying jobs, financial self-sufficiency, and better 
futures for themselves and their families. It supports the Supplemental 
Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, without any cuts in funding. 
Instead, this bill adds further funding and empowers States with the 
flexibility on how to best administer their respective programs.
  The State of Washington has done innovative work in their 
administration of SNAP through the BFET and the RISE programs to help 
some of the most vulnerable populations, and I am pleased that this 
farm bill will allow these programs to continue if the State so 
chooses.
  This legislation contains employment and education provisions for 
those who need a hand up due to falling on hard times.
  Mr. Speaker, the farm bill contains comprehensive approaches to farm 
policy, nutrition, trade, conservation, crop insurance, regulatory 
reform, rural development, animal health, specialty and organic crops, 
and provisions to help beginning farmers and ranchers.
  This rule provides for further consideration of amendments offered by 
our colleagues in the House on a great variety of these issues. I look 
forward to listening to the robust debate on potential provisions to 
strengthen this legislation.
  As this is the first farm bill I have had the opportunity to engage 
in since being in Congress, I welcome input from my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle and from every perspective. We must continue to 
bring forward solutions for America's farmers, ranchers, rural 
communities, and families.
  Mr. Speaker, this body, the people's House, is made up of many walks 
of life. We have physicians. We have attorneys. We have ordained 
ministers. We have engineers, school administrators, former State and 
local government officials, scientists, and law enforcement officials. 
Today, I am proud to come before you as a farmer. I am not the only 
one.

  There are maybe about 20 farmers, ranchers, and producers in the 
House, in the people's House. Among us are an almond farmer from 
central California, a blueberry farmer from the State of Maine, a 
rancher from South Dakota, a cattleman from Kentucky, a rice farmer 
from Minnesota, and, yes, a proud hops farmer from the Yakima Valley 
from the State of Washington.
  I am privileged to come before you in support of this rule and the 
underlying legislation, H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act. I 
humbly urge my colleagues to support the rule, support the bill, and 
strengthen the future for America's farmers and all of those who depend 
on them.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
Newhouse) for the customary 30 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I spoke yesterday about the big-picture numbers behind 
this cruel bill, how it would cut the SNAP benefits that families rely 
on to buy groceries by over $20 billion. That includes slashing 
benefits for vulnerable adults like veterans, the chronically homeless, 
and teenagers aging out of foster care by $9.2 billion.
  There is a provision in this bill that would rip benefits away from 
nearly 1 million people, mostly from working

[[Page H4152]]

families with kids, by eliminating an important State flexibility 
option called categorical eligibility.
  The bill even included a provision that would have constructed 
barriers to accessing SNAP for those with disabilities who have out-of-
pocket utility costs--that is, until Democrats shamed the majority into 
abandoning it as part of their manager's amendment unveiled late last 
night.
  But get this: this fix didn't come without a cost, Mr. Speaker. 
Tucked into the manager's package--which was, yet again, written in 
secret--is a provision that will kick over 600,000 vulnerable adults 
off of SNAP in the first 2 years after enactment of this bill--2 years 
before their misguided work bureaucracy goes into effect. Six hundred 
thousand vulnerable men and women will lose their benefits before they 
even have the opportunity to take advantage of the majority's new make-
work program.
  Really? What are you thinking?
  This entire bill is an embarrassment, and this manager's amendment 
only makes it worse. It should be scrapped and sent back to the 
Agriculture Committee, where we can have real bipartisan negotiations 
and craft a bill that actually helps people, because despite some 
changes around the margins, the Republican farm bill remains an 
unmitigated disaster.

                              {time}  1230

  Today I want to zoom in on that big picture and give telling examples 
of how this disastrous Republican bill would impact real people in 
their everyday lives, because that is what is at stake with the 
Republican farm bill. That is what we need to be focussed on, because 
it goes well beyond the numbers on a page.
  McClatchy reported a story earlier this month that put it succinctly, 
entitled: ``50-Something Food Stamp Recipients Could Face Tough Job 
Search Under Proposed Rules.''
  Take, for example, a woman named Sabrina, who was quoted in the 
story. She works side jobs, like cleaning houses and doing yard work, 
but has a difficult time finding steady employment at her age of 59. 
This bill will take away her benefits, because she may not meet its 20-
hour-per-week requirement. She is working. She is exactly the kind of 
person my Republican friends say they want to support. Do they think 
she purposely found jobs that pay so little and have so few hours? That 
doesn't fit so nicely into the majority's press releases, but that is 
the reality.
  Or take, for example, Thomas, a single dad who lost his wife a few 
years ago and is raising his preteen daughter on his own. He has worked 
diligently to find stable employment, but jobs are scarce in his 
community. Without SNAP and reduced-price school meals, Thomas said he 
and his daughter ``would not be able to survive.''
  These are the kind of people my Republican colleagues are demonizing 
during this debate, and it is deeply frustrating.
  Or take Lisa, a working mother of four kids earning about $14 per 
hour as a nursing assistant. Lisa has to stretch her monthly income to 
cover rent and utilities after-school care, clothing, and car costs so 
that she can get to her job. Currently, she receives a modest SNAP 
benefit to feed her family and her kids receive free school meals, but 
because her income is just over the 130 percent threshold for a family 
of five, she would automatically lose her SNAP benefits if this bill 
becomes law.
  For Lisa, SNAP makes an incredible difference in her ability to feed 
her children.
  Or take Elton, a U.S. Navy veteran who lost his benefits for 2 years 
because of the strict work requirements and time limits that are 
already part of the SNAP law. During the 2-year period he was unable to 
access SNAP benefits, Elton was hungry every day wondering what he 
could eat in order to get by.
  It wasn't that Elton chose not to work. He worked physically 
demanding jobs his entire life, but he lost his job after an injury. He 
continues to struggle with health conditions and doesn't have reliable 
access to transportation; issues that are exacerbating his job search. 
Under this bill, Elton may lose his modest food benefits entirely.
  These are real people, and if the majority on the Agriculture 
Committee actually took the time and did a hearing on the heartless 
nutrition title in this bill, they would have heard these and many 
other real-life stories.
  Take a moment to think about what you are doing here. My Republican 
colleagues are denying food benefits to veterans, single dads 
struggling to find work, and working moms. Why? Because Paul Ryan asked 
you to? Because of a myth that people aren't struggling? It is 
sickening.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is just legislation by sound bite; bad 
legislation. It demonizes the poor and trades in stereotypes, 
apparently just to help some in the majority with their next hit on FOX 
News.
  This bill has real consequences. It will hurt real people, our 
constituents, yours and mine, in every single congressional district in 
this country.
  Now, it is obvious that this isn't a serious attempt at legislating, 
because the process here was atrocious. The majority ignored the 
recommendations from Democratic and Republican witnesses during the 
Agriculture Committee's 23 hearings on SNAP. Controversial provisions 
were inserted into this bill without explanation on where they came 
from. I asked. I still can't find out. Democrats were left in the dark 
as this legislation was drafted, we were left to read about it in news 
reports; a total affront to the bipartisan tradition that has defined 
the farm bill for years.
  Now, the majority may be calling this a farm bill, but it is really a 
total transformation of our social safety net. It is a farm bill that 
doesn't even improve the farm economy. Let me state, our farmers work 
hard, they should be valued, and they certainly deserve a hell of a lot 
better than what is contained in this bill.
  If Republicans want to hurt our workers and denigrate the poor, they 
are going to have to do it alone, because, make no mistake about it, 
that is what this bill is designed to do and that is what it will do 
unless the responsible adults in the Republican Party join us in 
defeating it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Mr. 
Conaway, and I have worked together on many issues, and I know that he 
recognizes that the trade promotion programs that I referenced in my 
opening remarks are vital to our agricultural economy.
  For decades, USDA export development programs like MAP have helped 
American farmers create, expand, and maintain access to foreign 
markets. Throughout their history, this successful public-private 
partnership has cultivated hundreds of billions of dollars in exports 
and created millions of American jobs both in the agricultural sector 
and in support industries, as well as the program brings a return to 
the United States economy.
  In the findings of the underlying bill, it states: ``United States 
export development programs significantly increase demand for United 
States agricultural products . . . generating a return of $28 in added 
export revenue for each invested program dollar.''
  Additionally: `` . . . our global competitors provide substantially 
more public support for export promotion than is provided to United 
States agricultural exporters.''

  We are at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to the rest of the 
world when it comes to agricultural trade.
  Mr. Speaker, without these private contributions and the private 
sector's resolve to support our export programs, it is very likely that 
the U.S. would not be the net agricultural exporter of the highest 
quality products that we are today. I think it is time that we look at 
our export promotion programs and take a serious look if we want to 
continue our exporting success.
  Mr. Speaker, I introduced a bill to grow the investment in the MAP 
and FMD programs and I also offered an amendment that would have made a 
smaller investment in the MAP and FMD programs, and while we are not 
considering those amendments today, I am grateful that Chairman Conaway 
has agreed to come and engage in this important issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Conaway), the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

[[Page H4153]]

  

  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Newhouse for his commitment to 
ensuring that American farmers and ranchers maintain the tools 
necessary to remain competitive on the global stage.
  As you well know, trade is of immense importance to the agricultural 
industry, with U.S. agricultural exports estimated at $140 billion per 
year and trade accounting for one of every $5 of agricultural 
production value.
  Through its extensive farm bill hearing series and listening 
sessions, the committee heard from every segment of the agricultural 
industry about the importance of maintaining support for our trade 
promotion and our market development programs, especially considering 
the uncertainty in the current trade climate.
  While I am confident that America's farmers and ranchers are 
incredibly efficient and can compete with anyone in the world on a 
level playing field, they simply cannot be expected to compete against 
foreign treasuries on their own.
  So in addition to maintaining and strengthening the farm safety net, 
H.R. 2 restores and increases funding for the popular and successful 
Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development Program.
  This was no small feat, considering the CBO zeroed out funding for 
FMD as well as the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops Program in 
its most recent baseline projections.
  But the committee worked together to get creative and make it happen.
  I certainly wish we could have come closer to answering the calls for 
doubling funding for MAP and FMD, but am proud of the work we did, and 
believe that the streamlined International Market Development Program 
will give the newly established USDA Undersecretary for Trade and 
Foreign Agricultural Affairs the tools necessary to continue tearing 
down barriers to trade and opening up new markets to U.S. agricultural 
products.
  That said, we can always do better, so I am committed to working with 
Mr. Newhouse and my colleagues in the Senate to continue searching for 
additional funding for these important trade promotion efforts while we 
move forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very appreciative of Mr. Newhouse's efforts and his 
support for these important programs. I look forward to working with 
him in conference when the Senate gets their work done after we get our 
bill passed.
  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Conaway for his 
commitment to continue working on this important issue, and I look 
forward to working with him.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Woodall), and I ask unanimous consent that he may control 
that time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Washington?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, as my colleague, the gentleman from Washington, is 
leaving, I would just urge him to read the bill, because if he did, he 
would realize that if this bill were to become law, there are 60,000 
people in his home State of Washington who would lose SNAP benefits 
just due to categorical eligibility changes alone; more would lose 
their benefits, but just for this one tweak in this bill.
  The majority of the people who would lose their benefits under 
categorical eligibility changes are working families, working families 
with kids. Children, Mr. Speaker, will lose their SNAP benefits and 
many of them will lose access to free school meals.
  So, again, for all the talk on the other side about how this bill is 
somehow a good bill for families, read the bill. It is a pretty cruel 
bill for working families and for children.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask that we defeat the previous question, 
and if so, I will offer an amendment ensuring that before the 
legislation can take effect, the President must certify to Congress 
that none of the administration's recent trade and tariff actions and 
negotiations will harm U.S. farmers, ranchers, and other agriculture 
producers.
  I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the 
Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote 
on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Massachusetts?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Mrs. Bustos), a member of the Agriculture Committee.
  Mrs. BUSTOS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
appreciate the time.
  Mr. Speaker, hardworking families across the heartland know firsthand 
what the negative impacts of trade can look like. They have lived 
through it in places like Galesburg, Illinois, when the Maytag plant 
padlocked its gates and sent every last one of those jobs to Mexico.

  They lived through it in Freeport, Illinois, when venture capitalists 
bought out the Sensata factory and sent every last one of those jobs 
over to China.
  And today, at the end of planting season, corn growers and soybean 
farmers and pork producers all across the heartland are getting hit in 
their wallet by the Trump trade war.
  Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago I rode in a John Deere tractor with a young 
soybean farmer named Jared Kunkle while he was planting his soybeans.
  You see, right now as planting season is wrapping up, our farmers are 
making a lot of tough decisions. That is because in Illinois and many 
of our neighboring States, our soybean farmers sell about a quarter of 
their crops to China. In fact, in Illinois, if our State was its own 
country, we would be the fourth largest producer of soybeans in the 
world.
  So when President Trump's thumbs got the better of him and started 
tweeting us into a trade war with China, there were very real 
consequences for the families that I serve. To be clear, those 
consequences and the harm and uncertainty that they are generating is 
being felt right now.
  In fact, just this morning, there was a headline in Bloomberg News 
that I want to read to you, I want to show to you: ``China Buys Record 
Amount of Russian Soy as it Shuns U.S. Growers.''
  That is this morning.
  The fact is, our farmers have been struggling in a tightening market 
with low profit margins. So in 2016, when President Trump stood at a 
podium in Iowa and proudly declared that he would ``end this war on the 
American farmer,'' they took him at his word. Midwesterners do that; we 
believe people when they say something, and we also believe that 
promises ought to be kept.
  For farmers like Jared Kunkle of Cameron, Illinois, and thousands of 
farmers like him, that promise has been broken.
  It has been broken by this President, and now, if you do not support 
this amendment, it will also be broken by this Congress.
  So I urge you, please keep your word. Support this measure to protect 
our hardworking farmers and ranchers from this Trump trade war. Let's 
work together. And as the President says, let's ``end this war on the 
American farmer.''
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I think that the gentlewoman from Illinois speaks on behalf of a lot 
of Members in this Chamber. Nobody wants to see a trade war. Nobody is 
advantaged by a trade war.
  I think so many of the provisions that are in this underlying bill, 
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2, are designed to create more stability for farm 
families.
  The gentlewoman is absolutely right when she references the 
instability trade war conversations create. So much more important, 
then, that we come together now to provide that safety net and that 
stability that is included here in H.R. 2.
  I appreciate the gentlewoman's encouragement that we get to the other 
end of these trade negotiations, and I do believe that is something 
that we all share.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Engel).
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to one of the amendments made in 
order

[[Page H4154]]

by this rule. The Foxx-Davis amendment would dramatically alter 
American sugar policy by eliminating the economic safety net for sugar 
producers.
  There is a Domino Sugar Refinery located in my district in Yonkers, 
New York, which has been a staple of the neighborhood for almost a 
century. According to their own figures, the refinery employs 280 
people and sustains an additional 138 jobs through trucking, terminal 
operations, cargo handling, and ship piloting. That is more than 400 
local jobs, most of them union jobs, supporting local families and 
pumping additional dollars into our communities.
  These are the men and women I represent, and they are the ones for 
whom I cast my vote. I will cast my vote against the Foxx-Davis 
amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same.
  America's sugar policy is working. It has operated at zero cost to 
taxpayers in 14 of the past 15 years, and the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture projects that sugar will run at a zero cost to taxpayers 
over the next 10 years.
  According to the International Sugar Organization, food manufacturers 
in the U.S. pay 10 percent less for sugar than other developed 
countries. Meanwhile, America's grocery shelf sugar prices are among 
the lowest in the world.
  Again, most importantly, the reason I rise is that the U.S. sugar 
industry provides good union jobs. Without the current sugar policy, 
142,000 American jobs are in jeopardy of being outsourced, and the U.S. 
stands to lose nearly $20 billion in annual economic activity.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just spoke about one of the amendments 
that is going to be offered today. In total, there are 51 different 
amendments that have been made in order both in the rule that we did 
yesterday and this rule that we hope that our colleagues will support 
today, 51 different amendments proffered by Members of this Chamber to 
try to make this bill better. If we pass this rule today, we will be 
able to move to the underlying bill for consideration of those 
amendments.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia 
for reminding us that there were 51 amendments made in order, but he 
forgot to mention that 54 were blocked.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Lawson), who is a member of the Agriculture Committee.
  Mr. LAWSON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to 
the House Republican farm bill. I really didn't think that I would have 
to say the ``Republican farm bill'' when we worked so diligently in 
committee.
  This bill would strip our Nation's most vulnerable of the necessary 
resources they need to feed their families. The farm bill would bring 
hunger and pain to children. The bill kicks 265,000 schoolkids out of 
free and reduced lunch, and I have attended a lot of those schools 
where I see the kids on free and reduced lunch.
  Florida will be the hardest hit State resulting from the removal of 
categorical eligibility. In addition, 130,000 hardworking Floridians 
will go hungry as a result of this farm bill.
  The farm bill doesn't just hurt Floridians. It hurts the entire 
country. It hurts seniors. It hurts college students and young adults. 
It hurts the disabled, and it even hurts our active military families.
  The farm bill also hurts rural communities. I represent several of 
those rural communities in north Florida, and it also hurts the 
communities that we border in rural Georgia that I receive calls from.
  Before voting on this bill, I want to remind my colleagues of the 
motto of the USDA, ``Do right and feed everyone.'' The farm bill does 
not do right, and it surely doesn't feed everyone.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to end with a quote from Isaiah 58:10.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. LAWSON of Florida. ``If you pour yourself out for the hungry and 
satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the 
darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.''
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
to associate myself with the gentleman from Florida in his commitment 
to public service. He is a relatively new Member to this Chamber, but 
he has been fighting for his constituents since he arrived, and I 
admire him for that.
  There are lot of men and women in this Chamber who fit that bill, Mr. 
Speaker. I wish we spent more time celebrating those good public 
servants among us.
  Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure at this time to yield 5 minutes to 
the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Poliquin), a gentleman who fits exactly 
that mold. The gentleman from Maine has come time and time again to 
this floor, to committees, every single opportunity he has, to build 
bipartisan support, to work together with his colleagues, to work not 
just on behalf of the citizens of Maine, but on behalf of all 
Americans. He really is a model for energy and partnership on something 
that everyone in this Chamber would agree on.
  Mr. POLIQUIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those kind 
words. I would agree with him, Maine is the greatest State in the 
Union. I know he didn't say that, but I know he meant that.
  Mr. Speaker, Maine is the home of the most honest, hardest working 
people you can find anywhere in this country. We grew up in a very 
resilient, independent time in the State of Maine, and we cared for our 
neighbors and friends because it is compassionate to make sure you 
extend a helping hand.

  Mr. Speaker, my 90-year-old mother was a terrific nurse. She had a 
career in nursing, caring for thousands of folks in nursing homes and 
hospitals throughout central Maine. My dad, who is now 88, was a 
beloved seventh grade social studies teacher and a coach and a 
basketball official for 30 years throughout the State.
  I was raised in a very big-hearted Franco-American family devoted to 
helping others, and that is why I work so hard to make sure government 
does the same thing.
  I have got some great news for folks across America who are looking 
to escape poverty and work their way up the ladder of independence. For 
2 years, I have been pushing very hard to include job training, 
commonsense job training, community service, and work requirements for 
able-bodied adults with no disabilities themselves, no young kids at 
home, no elderly parents they are caring for, in order to receive food 
stamps.
  We have got to be compassionate, Mr. Speaker, to help folks escape 
poverty instead of being trapped in a government program that has no 
end to it. The role of government, Mr. Speaker, is not to keep folks 
trapped in poverty and help make them comfortable living in it, but to 
try to give them a helping hand so they can learn a job skill, get a 
job, and live better lives with more independence.
  Now, my work requirement, against what the media has reported and 
continues to report, has no cuts to food stamps by imposing these work 
requirements. If the benefits are not used because someone got a job, 
they are simply recycled back into job training.
  And if you are pregnant or caring for young kids or you have a 
disability yourself, again, you are exempt from these requirements. But 
if you are able to work, we need to be compassionate and require people 
to work to lift themselves out of poverty.
  Mr. Speaker, there is one other part of the farm bill that I am 
really proud of that is included in the bill, and that is one that 
helps rural Maine and rural America. For the first time, locally grown 
fruits and vegetables can now be frozen or dried or pureed in order to 
qualify for school lunches and school snacks.
  That means taxpayer dollars are able to buy foods that are just as 
nutritious as those that are fresh, save a lot of money, and make sure 
our kids can eat in a healthy way year round, and it also helps our 
local farmers.
  I have one son, Mr. Speaker, who is 27, and I raised him from the 
time he was in diapers. Nothing was more important than making sure he 
had nutritious food on the table to eat. This helps us do that.

[[Page H4155]]

  Mr. Speaker, I encourage everybody to vote ``yes'' for this farm 
bill.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Maine coming here and 
giving a speech to the cameras, but I would suggest he read the bill. 
When he says that nobody will lose their benefits, no benefits will be 
cut from SNAP, he is wrong. The bottom line is that benefits will be 
cut. Benefits will be cut to support an underfunded, unproven, 
ridiculous excuse for a workforce and training program.
  I also should say I hope nobody wants to emulate the State of Maine 
when it comes to dealing with people who are struggling in poverty and 
who need food. I would instruct my colleagues to read an article that 
appeared in The Washington Post last year about what Maine's harsh 
policies have resulted in.
  A veteran who served this country with distinction lost his job due 
to an injury and, because of Maine's strict work requirements, was 
thrown off of his SNAP benefits, became homeless, and was skinning 
squirrels in order to be able to survive. That is not a compassionate 
policy that I think any State or, certainly, this country should want 
to reach toward.
  One of the things I am proud about the SNAP program is that it means 
that we recognize that we have an obligation to make sure that nobody 
in this country goes hungry. Why is that such a radical idea? Why has 
this program been so demonized?
  When the gentleman talks about a life of dependency, read the 
statistics from the USDA. The average time somebody is on SNAP is less 
than a year. That is not a life of dependency. I am not sure what he is 
talking about.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut 
(Ms. DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, the hypocrisy of this farm bill from 
President Donald Trump and the Republicans in this Congress means more 
subsidies for the rich and greater hunger for the poor.
  The food stamp program is one of the most important and successful 
antihunger programs in our Nation. Last year, it prevented 42.2 million 
people from going hungry, including 4.8 million seniors and 1.5 million 
low-income military veterans. And yet my colleagues in the majority are 
seeking to undermine food stamps as they shield farm subsidies for the 
rich.
  When you take a look at the number of people who are the farm subsidy 
beneficiaries and the millions of people who are the SNAP 
beneficiaries, what you will see is that the SNAP beneficiaries get 
$1,115 per year, and the farm subsidy beneficiaries get almost $10,000 
a year. Farms receive more than six times the benefit of a person 
receiving food stamps even though the vast majority of the farm bill 
beneficiaries are food stamp recipients.
  This farm bill would kick 2 million people off of food stamps, 
cutting benefits by more than $23 billion. Meanwhile, Republicans 
refuse to include limits on subsidies provided for crop insurance, one 
of the few Federal programs without any eligibility caps or payment 
limits. That is the untold story: who benefits.
  In the Republican tax scam for the rich, 83 percent of the benefits 
went to the top 1 percent. The Republican farm bill is rigged, as well, 
for the rich.
  Farm subsidies, which the CBO says will cost $12.6 billion more than 
planned, are so skewed toward the rich that the top 10 percent of 
farms, about 76,000 farms, received over 60 percent of all farm 
subsidies.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, SNAP recipients have income limits, asset 
limits. They get $1.40 per meal. Millionaires and billionaires who 
pocket farm subsidies do not.
  SNAP recipients have work requirements. Millionaires and billionaires 
who pocket farm subsidies do not, even though many of them do not work 
the land.
  Nearly 18,000 people in the 50 biggest cities received farm 
subsidies. They do not work the land. They do not till the soil. Where 
are their work requirements?
  In fact, 23 Republican Members of this Congress who vocally oppose 
SNAP have financial ties to farms that receive subsidies. They are 
poised to support this bill. They get theirs while the kids go hungry.
  The country needs to know this. In the land of food abundance, in the 
United States, no one should go hungry. The Republican farm bill is a 
massive giveaway to the rich, which will deny children in our country 
food. It is unspeakable. We need to eradicate hunger. We do not need to 
eradicate the antihunger programs.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The farm bill is a little different this year than what we have seen 
in years past. We would ordinarily have more bipartisan support here on 
the floor. We got sideways on a couple of issues early on in the 
process, but the arguments that we are hearing aren't different than 
the arguments we traditionally hear in a farm bill, as if we are 
pitting those families in need of food against those families who 
produce the food. We are not.
  This bill is H.R. 2 for a reason, Mr. Speaker. A lot of folks don't 
understand how bill numbers get handed out in this institution. They 
get handed out by order of priority.
  H.R. 1 was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That bill has brought 
unemployment down to the lowest levels in my lifetime and economic 
growth to the highest levels we have seen in decades.
  H.R. 2 is the farm bill, because if you want to know who benefits 
from American farm policy, it is anybody who eats--anybody who eats.
  I tell folks, Mr. Speaker, we don't need to give every child a 
laptop. We need to send every child on a mission trip around the globe 
to see how other families live, to see how other countries do it. We 
are so blessed in this country, and we take it for granted oftentimes.
  For example, I can put up charts about the distribution of farm 
policy until the cows come home, but the largest 15 percent of farms in 
this country produce almost 90 percent of all the food.
  I will say that again. Those folks who are doing it bigger and better 
than anybody else, those 15 percent of farmers produce almost 90 
percent of American food. And I will tell you something, Mr. Speaker, 
we can't afford to lose those 15 percent of farmers.
  What keeps food in this country available and affordable is a 
consistent farm policy, which is why, time and time again, Republicans 
and Democrats come together from across rural America to try to provide 
certainty to American agriculture.
  It is the largest part of the Georgia economy, Mr. Speaker: 
agriculture. That is true of so many districts, so many States across 
this land.
  This ought to be a partnership. It is not today, and I regret that. 
We are going to have opportunities to make that change going forward, 
but just understand, for folks who are here seeing this debate for the 
very first time, go back and see the farm bill debate from 5 years ago. 
You will see the same accusations. You will see the same 
recriminations. You will see the same fear and scare tactics used. Then 
you will see a huge bipartisan vote because this bill is so important 
to so many Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I include in the Record the article that I referred for you to read 
called ``Trump to Poor Americans: Get to Work or Lose Your Benefits,'' 
which talks about a veteran in Maine that basically was shut out of his 
food benefit because of Maine's policies.

                [From the Washington Post, May 22, 2017]

       Trump to Poor Americans: Get To Work or Lose Your Benefits

                    (By Caitlin Dewey and Tracy Jan)

       For a period last year after he lost his food stamps, Tim 
     Keefe, an out-of-work and homeless Navy veteran, used his 
     military training to catch, skin and eat squirrels, roasting 
     the animals over an open fire outside the tent he pitched in 
     frigid Augusta, Maine.
       The new additions to Keefe's diet resulted from a decision 
     by state authorities to tighten work requirements for 
     recipients of the social safety net--forcing the 49-year-old, 
     who lost his job at a farm equipment factory because of an 
     injury, off the food stamp rolls.
       ``I was eating what I could find, and borrowed from friends 
     and strangers,'' Keefe

[[Page H4156]]

     said in testimony to the Maine legislature. ``There were many 
     times . . . when I would go two or even three days without 
     food. If one was inclined to lose a lot of weight, I could 
     recommend this diet wholeheartedly.''
       Now the Trump administration in its first major budget 
     proposal has proposed more stringent work requirements--
     similar to those in effect in Maine and other states--to 
     limit eligibility for food stamps and a host of other 
     benefits as part of sweeping cuts to anti-poverty programs.
       The White House budget proposal, due to be unveiled on 
     Tuesday, would reduce spending on anti-poverty programs from 
     food stamps to tax credits and welfare payments by $274 
     billion over a decade, largely by tightening eligibility for 
     these programs, according to administration officials. With 
     additional reforms on Medicaid and disability insurance, 
     total safety net cuts would top $1 trillion over 10 in years.
       Making low-income Americans work to qualify for so-called 
     welfare programs is a key theme of the budget. ``If you are 
     on food stamps and you are able bodied, we need you to go to 
     work,'' said budget director Mick Mulvaney during a White 
     House briefing on Monday.
       He said the strengthened requirements in the budget focuses 
     on putting the 6.8 million unemployed or underemployed 
     Americans back to work. ``There is a dignity to work,'' he 
     said, ``and there's a necessity to work to help the country 
     succeed.''
       The White House did not offer details Monday on how the 
     work requirements would be implemented, other than saying it 
     would be ``phased in'' for able-bodied adults without 
     dependent children.
       The White House estimated the combined reforms to the 
     Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as 
     food stamps, would generate nearly $193 billion in savings 
     over a decade.
       In addition to SNAP reforms, Trump will propose taking the 
     earned income and child tax credits away from undocumented 
     immigrants working in the United States, many of whom pay 
     taxes or have American born-children. That reform alone would 
     save $40 billion over a decade, according to the White House.
       Anti-poverty advocates say the White House could implement 
     its desired reforms to SNAP in two ways: require recipients 
     to work more than the current minimum of 20 hours a week, or 
     cut the unemployment waivers in areas with high joblessness 
     rates.
       The influential Heritage Foundation, as well as a number of 
     House conservatives have championed a crackdown on waivers, 
     leading many anti-poverty advocates to conclude that is the 
     most likely way the White House would implement its proposed 
     reforms.
       Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage 
     Foundation who has asked the White House to prioritize work 
     requirements, said the Trump administration needs to ``go 
     after'' the four million able-bodied adults without 
     dependents in the food stamp program.
       ``You say to them, `We will give you assistance, but come 
     to the office one day a week to do job search or community 
     service,'' ' Rector said. ``When Maine did that, they found 
     almost immediately that their caseload dropped 85 percent.''
       Critics say such a change could endanger people like Keefe, 
     a veteran who has been unable to find a job after injuring 
     his wrist on the job at a plow factory in Rockland, Maine. As 
     a result, Keefe now is medically unable to lift more than 25 
     pounds--which disqualifies him from other work in 
     manufacturing.
       The Navy veteran was one of several thousand former food 
     stamp recipients who lost benefits when Maine, in 2015, 
     declined to renew its waiver and reinstated statewide work 
     requirements. He has spent much of the last year living in a 
     tent.
       ``I don't wanna worry no one,'' said Keefe, who recently 
     testified to Maine's Committee on Health and Human Services 
     about the impact the work requirement had on him. But, he 
     added: ``I hope they understand that people fall through the 
     cracks.''
       The Trump administration is considering other changes to 
     SNAP. While details remain sparse, Mulvaney said the federal 
     government would be asking states to share in the costs for 
     the food stamps program, through a phased-in ``state match'' 
     so they have a ``little more skin in the game.''
       ``We believe in, the social safety net. We absolutely do,'' 
     Mulvaney said. ``What we've done is not to try and remove the 
     safety net for folks who need it, but to try and figure out 
     if there's folks who don't need it that need to be back in 
     the workforce.''
       Suspending employment waivers would hit hard in areas with 
     high unemployment such as southern and central California, 
     where the unemployment rate can spike as high as 19 percent, 
     as well as cities such as Detroit and Scranton, Pa., where 
     joblessness remains rampant. The change would also hit hard 
     in large portions of New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Georgia, 
     Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Idaho and Michigan.
       ``It's unconscionable, cruel and ineffective,'' said Josh 
     Protas, the vice president of public policy at MAZON, a 
     national anti-hunger organization. ``I'm honestly not sure 
     what their goal is.''
       Critics say the changes in unemployment waivers would be 
     devastating for Native American families living on 
     reservations in North and South Dakota, Arizona and Montana 
     where there is chronic poverty and high unemployment.
       ``The President's budget proposal will force kids in rural 
     America to go hungry while wasting billions of taxpayer 
     dollars on misplaced priorities like a wall that won't keep 
     us safe,'' said Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), in a statement to 
     the Post. ``Parents in Montana and across Indian Country 
     should not have to choose between food for their tables, gas 
     for their cars, and shoes for their kids.''
       The number of Americans on SNAP remains high, however. In 
     2016, 44 million Americans receive the benefits, compared to 
     just 28 million people in 2008.
       ``They have not come down like we would expect them to 
     do,'' Mulvaney said. ``That raises a very valid question: Are 
     there folks on SNAP who shouldn't be?''
       Anti-hunger advocates argue that, generally speaking, there 
     are not. Because SNAP benefits decrease gradually with 
     increased income, there is no incentive for people to avoid 
     work to get benefits--a phenomenon economists call the 
     ``welfare cliff.'' And benefits are too small for people to 
     subsist on them without working: The average food stamp 
     benefit was $465 a month for a family of four in 2015. Most 
     people are on the program for between seven and nine months 
     on average.
       ``The notion that people would prefer not to work to get 
     that benefit, give me a break,'' said U.S. Representative Jim 
     McGovern, (D-Mass.) a longtime anti-hunger advocate. ``This 
     is a lousy and rotten thing to do to poor people. They look 
     at SNAP as an ATM to pay for their other priorities.''
       Additionally, three quarters of households using SNAP 
     contain children, seniors, or people with disabilities, said 
     Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow in the Income and Benefits 
     Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Without SNAP, the 
     country would have had 3 to 4.5 million more people in 
     poverty during the recession, she said.
       More than a quarter of able-bodied adults without 
     dependents on SNAP do not have a high school diploma, Waxman 
     said; another 57 percent don't have college degrees--putting 
     them at a disadvantage when it comes to finding work.
       A number are also veterans, young adults aging out of the 
     foster care system, and felons recently released from jail. 
     SNAP recipients who cannot find work, for these or other 
     reasons, are supposed to attend job training programs--but 
     they're not widely available because of lack of funding.
       ``This is the trick. On the one hand, you want people to do 
     something, when in fact a lot of folks may not realistically 
     be able to find a job,'' Waxman said. ``Most states don't 
     want to put the money in. This is a dilemma that we're in.''
       The evidence that stricter work requirements actually cause 
     people to get jobs is mixed, at best. In Kansas, which 
     reinstated the requirements in October 2014, 40 percent of 
     unemployed adults were still unemployed a year after being 
     kicked off SNAP. Among former SNAP participants who lost 
     benefits, the average annual income was only $5,562, 
     according to the Foundation for Government Accountability, a 
     right-wing think tank based in Florida.
       Progress has also been hotly debated in Maine, a state that 
     conservatives regularly hold up as evidence that stricter 
     work-requirements are effective. When the state dropped its 
     waiver in 2015, the number of unemployed adults in the 
     program immediately fell by nearly 80 percent.
       But a May 2016 report by the state found that nearly 60 
     percent of those affected individuals did not report any 
     income in the year after they left the program--suggesting 
     they were still unemployed or underemployed a year later.
       On the national level, Michael Tanner, a senior fellow who 
     focuses on social welfare issues at the Cato Institute, a 
     libertarian think tank, said he doesn't think similar 
     mandates will have a huge impact on moving large numbers of 
     recipients into employment or result in significant budget 
     savings. Most SNAP recipients who can work are already 
     working, and many of those who are not meet one of the 
     various exemptions such as being disabled.
       ``It's making a statement that Republicans think people who 
     are on public assistance should be doing all they can to get 
     off,'' Tanner said, ``and that means working whenever 
     possible.''
       McGovern, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee, said 
     he was surprised to learn about the White House proposal 
     given Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue's testimony before 
     the committee last week saying he did not favor any major 
     changes to the food stamps program.
       ``It's been a very important, effective Program,'' Perdue 
     said, according to a recording of the hearing. ``As far as 
     I'm concerned we have no proposed changes. You don't try to 
     fix things that aren't broken.''
       The Trump administration is advocating other ``fixes'' to 
     the safety net, as well. The budget will also propose 
     requiring people to have a Social Security number to collect 
     tax credits. Mulvaney said it is unfair that taxpayers 
     support immigrants working illegally in this country.
       ``How do I go to somebody who pays their taxes and say, 
     'Look, I want you to give this earned income tax credit to 
     somebody who is working here illegally? That's not 
     defensible,'' Mulvaney said.
       Rector, of the Heritage Foundation, said he also hopes 
     Trump will prioritize work requirements for those receiving 
     housing subsidies. Mulvaney did not address that on Monday.

[[Page H4157]]

       Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing 
     Coalition, said the majority of Americans receiving housing 
     subsidies are elderly, disabled or already include someone 
     who works. Of the remaining households, nearly half include a 
     preschool child or an older child or adult with a disability 
     who needs the supervision of a caregiver.
       Establishing work requirements for the remaining six 
     percent of households who are `work able' but not employed 
     would require state and local housing agencies already facing 
     funding shortfalls to establish cumbersome monitoring and 
     enforcement systems for a very narrow segment of rental 
     assistance recipients, she said.
       ``This is neither cost effective nor a solution to the very 
     real issue of poverty impacting millions of families living 
     in subsidized housing or in need,'' Yentel said in a 
     statement to the Post.
       Correction: This story incorrectly stated the average 
     annual income for SNAP participants in Kansas who had lost 
     and then found jobs was $5,562. That figure applied to all 
     SNAP participants who had lost the benefit.

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia suggests that 
we all take a mission trip around the world to see hunger and see how 
lucky we are here in the United States.
  Let me tell the gentleman, you don't have to go halfway around the 
world to see hunger. I can take you halfway down the block, and you can 
see hunger right here in our Nation's capital and in every 
congressional district in this country.
  There are over 41 million Americans who are hungry or food-insecure 
in this country. We are the richest country in the history of the 
world. We all should be ashamed. We ought to do something about it, and 
this farm bill makes hunger worse.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from the Virgin 
Islands (Ms. Plaskett), a distinguished member of the Agriculture 
Committee.
  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  I would posit to my colleague across the aisle who said that we are 
trying to pit farm producers against food recipients, I believe that it 
is this bill that has done that.
  We have worked in a bipartisan manner for, I understand, years before 
this bill was put through without being discussed, without the hearings 
on both sides of the aisle.
  I try to think about what it would have meant to impose the massive 
system of new SNAP requirements under the bill during the time 
immediately after the islands were hit by two Category 5 hurricanes. 
How would families submit their monthly paperwork? How would they go to 
jobs at businesses that were shut down? How would job slots be provided 
when localities must focus on providing receipts?
  There is no accommodation for disaster-impacted areas in this bill. 
And if the majority did not think to exempt out these communities, what 
else was overlooked in terms of reasonable standards?
  Unfortunately, we didn't have the opportunity to work with the 
majority to get answers to such key questions before this bill was 
unveiled and rushed to the floor.
  This doesn't add any help to farmers facing record-low income and 
commodity prices or hardships due to trade retaliation, as my colleague 
from Illinois discussed earlier. It does not support farmer mental 
health, appropriate funding for broadband, or tackling the opioid 
epidemic.
  This bill cuts hundreds of millions out of rural development and 
energy initiatives and falls short on assisting beginning, underserved, 
and veteran farmers. Why? Because it is not a bipartisan bill.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  My colleague has gone through some really challenging times in her 
community, and this Chamber has stood with her in those times. She has 
been a great advocate for her community in the face of some really 
extraordinary disasters.
  We can make accusations on this floor all we like, but we could also 
spend some time bragging about those things that bring us together. 
There are already disaster provisions in law--disaster provisions that 
provide specifically disaster SNAP, for example, when communities are 
so hard-hit. We do have these conversations, we do have these concerns 
for one another and our communities, and we do work together to address 
those concerns.
  We are not always successful, Mr. Speaker, but I promise you we are 
less successful when we don't work together than when we do.
  My understanding--I don't sit on the Agriculture Committee, but my 
friends across the aisle do--is that not a single Democratic amendment 
was offered in committee.
  It is my understanding--and, again, I don't sit on the committee. I 
don't mind being corrected. I won't be embarrassed at all to have the 
Record corrected. But my understanding is there were 5 hours of markup 
in the Agriculture Committee, and not one idea for improving the bill 
was offered.
  Now, that is a legitimate, strategic position to take if folks want 
to take it, Mr. Speaker. I just don't understand it as someone who 
wants to get the job done and make a difference in a collaborative way 
on behalf of the American people.
  This bill is getting better every single day. It has gotten better 
through every conversation. As you heard my friend from Washington say 
in his opening statement, so many farmers with real-world experience--
we heard yesterday from Members who have real-world labor and workforce 
development experience. This bill is getting better every time.
  If we support the rule that we are discussing at this time, Mr. 
Speaker, it will make 31 additional amendments in order so that we can 
improve the bill even further.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I am just trying to think of a response to 
the gentleman from Georgia, who is trying to defend the process in the 
Agriculture Committee as that somehow, with this bipartisan process, 
Democrats didn't want to participate.
  But you know what? It is just not worth it. We have been explaining 
it over and over and over again. This process is indefensible. It 
really makes a mockery of the Agriculture Committee, and it makes a 
mockery of this institution.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. 
Moore).
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I have not had the privilege to serve on the 
Agriculture Committee, but, given the comments of the gentleman there, 
I would suggest as an amendment that, since this bill is about work, we 
have work for 12-year-olds. Maybe boys could be shoeshine boys and the 
girls could be shampoo girls at the beauty salon so that they can help 
subsidize families.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that is appropriate for 
this discussion: ``If you aren't at the table, you are on the menu.'' 
And children are definitely on the menu and at the tender mercies of 
the job market.
  This bill will cut access not only for SNAP but kids who go to school 
every day. This means in my State there will be 23,000 kids who will 
not get school lunch and breakfast because of this bill.
  I am going to turn in, Mr. Speaker, some of the stories of people in 
my district who need SNAP, real people, single people like Jana, who 
has worked on a job for 11 years, lost her job, and has been looking 
for work for 3 months and couldn't find it.
  I would ask that we reject this bill for people who need SNAP to 
survive. This bill is not about work. It is about taking food out of 
the mouths of babes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, can I inquire of the gentleman from 
Georgia: Do you have any speakers over there or anybody who wants to 
talk about this bill? Because we have a ton, and we just want to----
  Mr. WOODALL. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McGOVERN. It is an inquiry. I don't want to take it on my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. I would be happy to answer the inquiry, or we could just 
leave it as an inquiry.
  Mr. McGOVERN. As long as it doesn't come out of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McGOVERN. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Georgia, but it is not coming out of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, we do have additional speakers remaining, 
and, of course, if we make this rule in

[[Page H4158]]

order, if we pass this rule, we will have 31 different amendments and 
speakers coming down on each one of those as well.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Reclaiming my time, I am just taking note of all of the 
excitement on your side of the aisle on this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. 
Pingree).
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague Mr. McGovern 
for yielding me the time and doing such a wonderful job on a very 
challenging bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my strong opposition to the 
current version of the farm bill. There are many reasons why--among 
them, the unrealistic challenges to food assistance programs that will 
have a big negative impact on my State in Maine.
  What I want to focus on in my limited time is how much this 
legislation does a disservice to the farmers in rural communities we 
represent.
  The public is very clear. They want greater access to healthy, 
locally grown food. They want more of it grown organically, and they 
want to support local farmers in rural economies. But Federal policy is 
way behind the times, and this legislation would make it much worse.
  Farmers aren't ignoring the trends that consumers are asking us for. 
They are capitalizing on them. In my State, the changing market and the 
demand for locally grown and organic food has reinvigorated the State's 
agriculture economy.
  Josh Girard, who is pictured here, is one of those farmers. After 
earning a master's degree, working abroad in the Peace Corps, and 
apprenticing at local farms, Josh decided to return to his hometown to 
start his own farm.
  The small sources of Federal support available to farmers like Josh 
pale in comparison to what commodity farmers receive, but it can make 
all of the difference.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poliquin). The time of the gentlewoman 
has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from Maine.
  Ms. PINGREE. For instance, Josh uses the Organic Certification Cost 
Share Programs to help cover the cost of certification, which helps him 
get more for his product. The funding for this and many other programs 
is endangered in this farm bill.
  Over the next 5 years, consumers will continue to change their buying 
habits in our food system. The question is whether the Federal 
Government would make good policy to help farmers like Josh.
  Ask anyone in this Chamber if they support rural America, and they 
will say, yes, absolutely. So I ask that we put our money where our 
mouths are.
  We should send the message to those keeping our farming communities 
alive that we believe in their potential, we value their service, and 
we will help them succeed by voting down this terribly partisan 
legislation and start over on making a good bill.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore) talked about how we are 
literally taking the food away from children. I want to make it clear 
to my colleagues, there should be no mistake: This bill is going to 
hurt kids.
  First, it cuts 1 million people off of benefits through categorical 
eligibility challenges alone. These people are working families with 
kids. And once these kids lose their SNAP benefits, CBO, the 
nonpartisan group of experts that we rely on, expects 265,000 children 
will lose access to free school meals.
  I ask my colleagues: Is that what you want out of a farm bill? We can 
do so much better.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Georgia is a rural State, like so many jurisdictions represented in 
this Chamber. Sometimes you have a big city in one part of the State 
and the rest of the State is rural. The conversations we have in 
Georgia are often not Republicans against Democrats politically; it is 
Atlanta against the rest of the State politically.
  Folks often don't connect the dots between the food that they are 
buying on the shelf at Kroger being directly related to whether or not 
farmers are producing that food in the field.
  We have made huge strides in terms of trying to bring more fresh 
produce not just into our school systems but into our local farmers 
markets, huge strides into making sure that electronic benefits aren't 
just able to be used at the local convenience store but are able to be 
used in farmers markets so that higher quality produce can end up on 
families' tables.

                              {time}  1315

  Again, Mr. Speaker, we can find disagreement in every bill that comes 
to the floor, but we can also find progress. There is a lot of progress 
in this bill. We will support this rule, we will get to the underlying 
bill, and we will spend the rest of the day discussing exactly that.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Nevada (Ms. Titus).
  Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I rise in opposition to this rule and the underlying bill which, much 
like the Republicans' tax measure, comforts the comfortable and 
afflicts the afflicted. It will have devastating impacts on SNAP 
recipients across the Nation, including one in seven in Nevada who are 
on this program. It will take away food assistance from some of our 
most vulnerable: young children, seniors, and the disabled. It will 
also force families to jump through extra hoops in order to access 
other needed benefits like assistance with their electricity bills.
  We can and should be doing more to lift families out of poverty and 
end hunger in the United States. Shamefully, this bill does just the 
opposite.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Alabama (Ms. Sewell).
  Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in opposition to 
this cruel and mean-spirited farm bill, a farm bill that will leave 
working families and our children out in the cold.
  The farm bill we are debating today cuts $23 billion from SNAP, the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That would leave 2 million 
Americans without the support that they need to put food on the table.
  Mr. Speaker, I represent both rural and urban, from Birmingham to the 
Black Belt of Alabama, and I can say definitely that every community in 
my district will be worse off under this bill.
  For children and working families in my district, SNAP means the 
difference between a hot meal or going to bed hungry. For farmers and 
grocery stores in my district, SNAP is an investment in our food system 
that creates 50,000 agricultural jobs across the country.
  After the Republicans have shoved down a tax bill that gives the cuts 
to the wealthiest Americans and adds $2 trillion to our deficit, they 
now want to cut the benefits for hungry children and working families.
  I believe this is morally wrong. You see, Mr. Speaker, the face of 
SNAP in my district is not the welfare mother trying to get over. No. 
The face of SNAP in my district--where 70 percent of the people who are 
beneficiaries in my district are children under the age of 17 years 
old--the face of SNAP in America are needy children.
  We must and can do better. I am going to vote ``no,'' and I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we feel very passionately about issues on this floor. I 
want to give my colleague from Alabama an opportunity to retract the 
accusation that this is a mean-spirited and cruel bill. I know the men 
and women who serve on the Agriculture Committee, and they don't have a 
mean-spirited or cruel bone in their body. They care about farmers, and 
they care about families.
  We can argue about whether or not if you are a working aged, able-
bodied, childless man in this country whether or not we ought to try to 
get you a job while you are collecting Federal benefits. We can talk 
about that. I don't

[[Page H4159]]

think that is mean-spirited at all. I don't think that is cruel at all. 
I think that is exactly what we ought to be doing to lift families up 
out of poverty.
  But I would say to my colleagues with their passion--which I know is 
heartfelt--feeding hungry children is a shared priority, and we see 
that every single day in the bills that are passed here; and we do 
damage to this institution and we do damage to the very honest and 
needed debates we have in this Chamber when we characterize one another 
in ways that we know are not accurate.
  I know the men and women on the Agriculture Committee. I know why 
they chose to serve on that committee. I believe in the work they are 
doing. I regret that we are having this disagreement today, but we 
don't need to question each other's motives or integrity in order to 
make this debate of value.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  I rise in opposition to the rule and to the underlying bill because 
it is a missed opportunity. I had offered numerous, fiscally 
responsible reform amendments to improve the bill, all of which were 
rejected last night.
  For instance, why is a farm entity with an adjusted gross income of 
over $500,000 a year still receiving taxpayer subsidies under this 
bill? Why can't we at least track the crop insurance premium subsidy 
payments to the individual entities?
  Right now, that is currently prohibited under the bill. That is not 
right. The American taxpayer deserves to see how their tax dollars are 
being run.
  Why are we eliminating the entire Conservation Stewardship Program 
when three out of every four farmers applying for conservation funding 
assistance today are denied because of inadequacy of funds?
  This farm bill should be about helping our family farmers succeed, 
not a sop to powerful special interests here in Washington. That is why 
this is a missed opportunity.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), who is one of my classmates in the class of 
2011. We were once Budget Committee mates together back in the day.
  Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in favor of the 2018 farm 
bill.

  Missouri farmers work hard every day to feed the world, and they need 
the certainty that this legislation provides. This bill strengthens 
safeguards for our food supply and improves public-private risk 
management programs that are vital to American agriculture.
  In addition, the farm bill makes significant investments in broadband 
infrastructure in rural America by setting a minimum speed for Federal 
investment.
  This bill contains historic improvements to SNAP which helps 
recipients break the cycle of poverty by improving work opportunities 
for able-bodied adults receiving Federal nutrition assistance. This 
bill also promotes work and individual success while empowering those 
dependent on government assistance.
  These reforms will reduce unemployment and instill a sense of pride 
and work ethic by helping people move from dependency to independence 
and self-sufficiency. These are commonsense improvements that we are 
discussing today.
  The 2018 farm bill is a responsible and effective piece of 
legislation which maintains safety net programs in crop insurance for 
America's farmers while making investments in job training programs to 
lift those in need out of poverty.
  This bill has my full support, and I thank and commend Chairman 
Conaway for his hard work on moving this legislation forward.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Kildee).
  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I am here to speak against an amendment included in this 
rule, the Foxx-Davis amendment, in defense of the 2,300 factory workers 
and 900 family farmers who grow sugar beets in my community.
  The sugar program in this country supports family farmers. The 
company that is formed is a co-op formed by local family-owned growers 
who come together, and all they ask for is a fair chance to compete, to 
grow their high quality product, and to not have to compete with state-
subsidized foreign sugar that is dumped if we don't have a program that 
protects our local growers.
  The question is really simple. It comes down to marginally increasing 
the profits of large corporations or supporting family farmers who 
support their families by growing high quality sugar beets and 
sugarcane in this country.
  This is a program that does not cost the taxpayers a dime according 
to CBO.
  It comes down to a simple question: Are we going to support our own 
growers, or are we going to support foreign-produced sugar and 
moderately, if at all, increase the profits of large companies?
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan. He actually 
spent a good deal of his time just the other day in a Budget Committee 
hearing trying to help get us some bipartisan solutions.
  He got grilled by both the Republicans and the Democrats. Everybody 
wanted their ounce of Michigan flesh in that day. But at the end of 
that conversation--and I don't say this flippantly--I felt more 
optimistic about our coming together and doing some very difficult 
infrastructure investments in this country than I did when I walked 
into that room.
  Those things don't happen without people investing the kind of time 
and energy that Representative Kildee has invested over his career. I 
want to tell the gentleman how much I appreciate that.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman how many 
more speakers he has remaining.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I would advise my friend I am prepared to 
close when he is.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I have to give credit where credit is due. This majority 
can't balance a budget; they can't even pass a budget. They can't fund 
the government without first shutting it down. They are so busy cozying 
up to the big banks and passing tax cuts for the wealthy that they 
ignore virtually every major issue facing our Nation. Right now as we 
speak, this Republican majority is trying to jam through a farm bill 
that won't even help most farmers.
  But the one thing this Republican majority is incredibly good at, and 
the one thing that they do with ruthless efficiency is stick it to poor 
people. This majority is Robin Hood in reverse. They are master 
legislators for the megawealthy. They might want this Chamber to look 
out solely for those at the top, giving them more tax breaks, making it 
easier for them to pollute our planet and systematically attacking the 
safeguards we put in place to stop another financial collapse, but 
while they work with unflagging, unshakeable, and dogged determination 
to give a helping hand to the fat cats, they tell those struggling to 
get by and those begging for an opportunity and a living wage that they 
should just work harder.
  Never mind that they didn't grow up in nice neighborhoods or in a 
stable home with good nutrition and a quality education. Maybe they 
started out in life having to play catchup. Maybe they need just a 
little help from the Government to make the American Dream a reality in 
their life. Or maybe they were born with advantages but have fallen on 
hard times and they need a little bit of help.
  I am standing here today--Democrats are standing here today--giving a 
voice to our workers, the middle class, and those trying to break into 
the middle class. If my Republican friends actually listened to their 
voices, they would join us and vote against this monstrosity of a bill 
that attacks working American citizens and takes lunch money away from 
children.
  It is disgusting, Mr. Speaker.
  Now, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and the rule, and 
I urge all of you--no, I plead with all of you--to vote ``no'' on this 
bill.

[[Page H4160]]

  I grew up in a family where helping those who were struggling was the 
right thing to do, the decent thing to do. Please send this bill back 
to committee. Surely we can do better. Let's demonstrate to the 
American people that we are here to help, that we care, and that we are 
decent.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia commented that we are all so 
emotional on this side of the aisle when we are debating this issue. 
You are damn right we are. We are emotional. We are angry. We are 
frustrated because people are going to be hurt.
  Mr. Speaker, if you have ever met a hungry child, it should break 
your heart, and there are millions and millions in this country who are 
hungry. We are the greatest country in the history of the world and the 
richest country in the history of the world, and tens of millions of 
our fellow citizens are food insecure or hungry.
  Why isn't that a priority? Why isn't that a bigger priority than 
another tax cut for a big corporation? I know my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle deep down inside care about those who suffer in 
this country. Here is an opportunity to prove it. Let's do a farm bill 
that actually doesn't make hunger worse in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not even asking you to eliminate hunger, although I 
wish that were a priority. I am just saying: don't make it worse. This 
bill will throw millions of people off of a food benefit, and millions 
of children will be impacted.
  Mr. Speaker, they are not just people who aren't working. You know 
better than that. Many of these people are working families, people who 
are working hard but can't make ends meet. You are taking away a food 
benefit. What is wrong with this institution? We can do better.
  Mr. Speaker, vote ``no'' on this rule, and vote ``no'' on this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1330

  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia has 3\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friends on the Agriculture Committee 
for the work they did on this bill. It is not easy to do big pieces of 
legislation. We do a farm bill every 5 years. It is always a hard thing 
to do, and my friends on the Agriculture Committee have taken the 
slings and arrows. You have heard the accusations that have been made 
just here on the floor today.
  The unemployment rate in this country, Mr. Speaker, is as low as it 
has ever been in my lifetime, and the number of childless, working-age 
men who are sitting it out is as high as it has ever been in my 
lifetime.
  We can argue about how to care about people more, we can argue about 
how to love people more, but I will tell you, helping someone to find a 
job matters.
  Historically, Mr. Speaker, it is one of those things we agree on. For 
whatever reason, we have made it the topic of something we are going to 
pretend to disagree on today.
  There are more jobs available in this country than ever before. I 
think we owe it to families that haven't been able to connect 
themselves with that job market to help them to do better.
  Mr. Speaker, so often, we talk about all the lawyers in Congress, all 
the lawyers who are bureaucrats, all the folks who are working on 
policy that they just don't understand. I want to close with where my 
colleague from Washington State began. Of course, he is a former 
agriculture commissioner from Washington State. He said this.
  He said he is not the only farmer in this House. There are 20 
farmers, ranchers, and producers serving here in the people's House: an 
almond farmer from central California, a blueberry farmer from Maine, a 
rancher from South Dakota, a cattleman from Kentucky, a rice farmer 
from Minnesota, and a hops farmer from the Yakima Valley in Washington 
State.
  Mr. Speaker, this body really does reflect working Americans, folks 
out there trying to be the breadbasket to the world, trying to put 
fresh produce on the shelves for every American family to benefit from. 
This bill continues our commitment to serving the hungry, and it 
continues our commitment to being the finest agricultural production 
nation that this planet has ever seen.
  Vote ``yes'' on this rule. Let's consider some amendments to make 
this bill even better, and then let's send it to the Senate and give 
the American people a bill they can be proud of.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule 
governing debate, and the underlying bill, regarding H.R.2, the so-
called ``Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018,'' the House 
Republicans' failed attempt to produce a Farm Bill that is good for 
America.
  A more fitting name for this terrible and bitter legislative pill 
would be the ``Let Poor Families and Children Starve so Billionaires 
Can Get Fatter Act.''
  Going back to 1962, beginning with Senators Hubert Humphrey, Bob 
Dole, and George McGovern, Farm Bills have always attracted bipartisan 
support and engendered an enduring alliance between urban and rural 
legislators in the common cause of ensuring livable incomes for farm 
families and an affordable and nutritious food supply.
  With this purely partisan bill, House Republicans have turned their 
back on this 56 year heritage.
  Mr. Speaker, St. Augustine, the great Catholic theologian, said: 
``Without justice, what else is the state but a gang of robbers?''
  There is no justice in this Farm Bill, but there is harm--lots of 
it--inflicted on the most vulnerable, so much so that many people are 
saying that the House Republican majority has produced a bill that is 
worthy of a gang of robbers.
  I oppose this rule and underlying legislation for several reasons but 
most of all because of its abject cruelty to American's most vulnerable 
families and children.
  H.R. 2 slashes $23 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance 
Program (``SNAP''), a lifeline depended upon by millions of families 
and children to provide for their daily nutrition needs.
  But who among us can say they are truly surprised?
  Since taking office sixteen months ago, the President has made 
abundantly clear his indifference to the most vulnerable citizens in 
society.
  And he has been aided in his endeavors by a feckless House Republican 
majority.
  The President began his presidency with a concerted and determined 
push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a law which has helped over 17 
million individuals gain health insurance; reduced the uninsured rate 
by 40 percent and, provided 89 percent of Americans with the security 
and peace of mind that comes with access to affordable quality 
healthcare.
  When that effort failed, the President next turned his efforts to 
passing the massive Trump-GOP Tax Scam, which slashed taxes for the top 
one percent and multi-national corporations, but the negative 
consequences of which the Trump-GOP Tax Scam have been devastating for 
the average American.
  The GOP Tax Scam has now been revealed not to generate broad-based 
economic growth but instead to create annual trillion dollar deficits 
as far as the eye can see.
  Mr. Speaker, if we are to be honest about creating an environment 
where individuals have an opportunity to emerge from poverty 
conditions, there must be access to nutritious food.
  SNAP is a critical component to providing food security to lower-
income Americans.
  SNAP sets children up for success.
  Children on SNAP achieve higher test scores and are more likely to 
graduate from high school, helping to break the cycle of poverty and 
build a stronger economy in the long term.
  SNAP is temporary.
  The average family spends just ten months on SNAP, receiving 
assistance only during difficult times.
  (SNAP is critical for poor and working families.
  Most participate in SNAP when they are between jobs.
  Among households with at least one working-age non-disabled adult 
roughly 8o percent of SNAP households work in the year before or the 
year after receiving SNAP.
  Close to two-thirds of SNAP recipients are children, elderly, or 
disabled.
  The vast majority of those who are required to work, do work.
  The average per person benefit is $132 per month, or about$1.60 per 
meal.
  Mr. Speaker, if this bill were to become law, it would cut $23 
billion from SNAP and would kick one million households off the 
program.
  That means 83,000 Texas families would see their benefits cut, 
impacting more than 96,000 individuals.
  In Texas, over half of all SNAP beneficiaries live below the poverty 
line so cutting access to SNAP would be devastating.
  Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that we not increase food security for 
the least vulnerable among us.

[[Page H4161]]

  If our children are not adequately and safely housed, they are not 
protected from life's crueler elements.
  If they are not fed, they lack nourishment and preparation for school 
and all its challenges.
  Mothers know this and their children know this.
  Everyone knows this, with the apparent exception of the President and 
House Republicans.
  The House Republicans' eagerness to sacrifice poor and working 
families and children by cutting SNAP and other food assistance 
programs for up to 23 million people by $23 billion is an accurate 
reflection of their priorities and values, which favor tax cuts for 
multinational corporation and the top 1 percent at the expense of the 
poor and working class and those striving to enter the middle class.
  Mr. Speaker, there are other major insults, injuries, and cruelties 
inflicted on working families by this callous legislation.
  This so-called Farm Bill changes SNAP from a food program to a work 
program by imposing new draconian work requirements on adult SNAP 
participants between 18 and 59 years old, requiring documentation 
showing 20 hours per week of work or participation in a job training 
program.
  The changes include severe, harsh penalties if the paperwork is not 
filed on time, ignoring the reality of low-wage work, which is plagued 
by unstable, uncertain work schedules, unpredictable hours, and few 
benefits like paid sick or family leave.
  This mean-spirited legislation threatens free school meals for 
265,000 children and SNAP eligibility for 400,000 households by 
eliminating Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE), which allows 
states flexibility to link their social service programs to SNAP.
  The bill also severs the connection between SNAP and Low Income Home 
Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps families pay their 
energy utilities, adversely impacting working families and people with 
disabilities.
  Mr. Speaker, this wretched legislation is an equal-opportunity 
catastrophe because it also inflicts serious damage on farm families 
and rural America at a time of great challenge and economic 
uncertainty.
  Farm prices are plummeting amid the self-inflicted damage of 
President Trump's tariffs yet this bill instead of providing relief 
exacerbates the economic and social pain in rural America by killing 
good-paying rural jobs, cutting a gaping hole in the critical farmer 
safety net and shifting opportunity away from America's small towns 
with cuts to vital rural development, sustainable conservation, and 
energy initiatives.
  Inexplicably, H.R. 2 fails to address the 52 percent decline in farm 
income and eliminates the Conservation Stewardship Program, the 
nation's largest working lands conservation program, by merging it with 
the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, resulting in $800 million 
less for investments in preserving working lands and sustainable farm 
practices.
  The legislation hurts rural families in several additional ways by:
  Failing to increase funding for USDA's trade assistance programs that 
help farmers stay globally competitive through initiatives that help to 
develop and expand their business in overseas markets;
  Abolishing the entire Energy Title, resulting in lost investments in 
jobs of the future in renewable energy and biofuels;
  Adding onerous fees to rural development guaranteed loans;
  Curtailing broadband assistance in remote areas by adding 
administrative burdens and fails to boost USDA's telemedicine 
initiatives that help combat opioid abuse in rural America;
  Underfunding the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, 
which provides funding to organizations that educate, mentor and 
provide technical assistance for new and veteran farmers; and
  Betraying the next generation of farm and food leaders by failing to 
provide mandatory funding for scholarships at 1890 land grant 
institutions.
  This so-called Farm Bill is so bad in so many ways to so many people 
that it is little wonder that it is strongly opposed by leading 
organizations and associations from all sides of the political 
spectrum, including: National Farmers Union, National Sustainable 
Agriculture Coalition, Environmental Working Group, National Young 
Farmers Coalition, Union of Concerned Scientists, Agriculture Energy 
Coalition, American Biogas Association, Institute for Agriculture & 
Trade Policy, AARP, American Academy of Pediatrics, AFSCME, Alliance 
for Retired Americans, American Psychological Association, Center for 
Law and Social Policy (CLASP), Child Care Aware of America, Child 
Welfare League of America, Children's Defense Fund, Coalition on Human 
Needs, Every Child Matters, Families USA, Feeding America, First Focus 
Campaign for Children, Food Research & Action Center, Hispanic 
Federation, Lutheran Services in America, MAZON: A Jewish Response to 
Hunger, Meals on Wheels America, MomsRising, NAACP, National Consumers 
League, National Council on Aging, National Employment Law Project, 
National PTA, National Urban League, National Women's Law Center, NOW, 
Partnership for America's Children, Sargent Shriver National Center on 
Poverty Law, SEIU, Share Our Strength, UnidosUS, YWCA USA, Heritage 
Foundation, R Street Institute, and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
  I urge all Members to join me in voting to reject the rule and this 
cruel, heartless legislation.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows

          An amendment to H. Res. 900 offered by Mr. McGovern

       On p. 2, line 2, insert ``The amendment specified in 
     section 2 of this resolution shall be considered as adopted 
     in the House and in the Committee of the Whole.'' after 
     ``purposes.''
       At the end of the resolution, add the following new 
     section:
       ``Sec. 2. The amendment referred to in the first section of 
     this resolution is as follows:
       `Add at the end the following:

            Subtitle H Protections From Retaliatory Tariffs

     SEC. 11801. EFFECTIVE DATE.

       This Act and the amendments made by this Act shall not take 
     effect until the President transmits a certification to 
     Congress that the following Administration efforts will not 
     result in adverse trade or tariff impacts against U.S. 
     farmers, ranchers, and other agriculture producers:
       (1) the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade 
     Agreement;
       (2) the application of tariffs and/or quotas on steel and 
     aluminum imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act 
     of 1962;
       (3) any enforcement action taken pursuant to the 
     investigation into China's acts, policies, and practices 
     related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and 
     innovation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974; and
       (4) the application of global safeguard tariffs on imports 
     of large residential washing machines and solar cells and 
     modules under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974.''
                                  ____


        The Vote on the Previous Question: What it Really Means

       This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous 
     question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. 
     A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote 
     against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow 
     the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a 
     vote about what the House should be debating.
       Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of 
     Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the 
     previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or 
     control the consideration of the subject before the House 
     being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous 
     question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the 
     subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling 
     of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the 
     House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes 
     the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to 
     offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the 
     majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated 
     the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to 
     a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to 
     recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: 
     ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman 
     from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to 
     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous 
     question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an 
     immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no 
     substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' 
     But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the 
     Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in 
     the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, 
     page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous 
     question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally 
     not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member 
     controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of 
     offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by 
     voting down the previous question on the rule....When the 
     motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the 
     time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering 
     the previous question. That Member, because he then controls 
     the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for 
     the purpose of amendment.''
       In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special 
     Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on 
     such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on 
     Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further 
     debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: 
     ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a 
     resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control 
     shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous 
     question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who 
     controls the time for debate thereon.''
       Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does 
     have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only 
     available tools

[[Page H4162]]

     for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and 
     allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer 
     an alternative plan.

  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule 
XX, this 15-minute vote on ordering the previous question will be 
followed by 5-minute votes on:
  Adopting the resolution, if ordered; and
  Agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal, if ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228, 
nays 189, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 190]

                               YEAS--228

     Abraham
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Amash
     Amodei
     Arrington
     Babin
     Bacon
     Banks (IN)
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Bergman
     Biggs
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (MI)
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blum
     Bost
     Brady (TX)
     Brat
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Buchanan
     Buck
     Bucshon
     Budd
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Carter (GA)
     Carter (TX)
     Chabot
     Cheney
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Comer
     Comstock
     Conaway
     Cook
     Costello (PA)
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Culberson
     Curbelo (FL)
     Curtis
     Davidson
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Donovan
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Dunn
     Emmer
     Estes (KS)
     Faso
     Ferguson
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Flores
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Frelinghuysen
     Gaetz
     Gallagher
     Garrett
     Gianforte
     Gibbs
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (LA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffith
     Grothman
     Guthrie
     Handel
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Hice, Jody B.
     Higgins (LA)
     Hill
     Holding
     Hollingsworth
     Hudson
     Huizenga
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurd
     Issa
     Jenkins (KS)
     Jenkins (WV)
     Johnson (LA)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jordan
     Joyce (OH)
     Katko
     Kelly (MS)
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kinzinger
     Knight
     Kustoff (TN)
     LaHood
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Latta
     Lesko
     Lewis (MN)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Loudermilk
     Love
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     MacArthur
     Marchant
     Marino
     Marshall
     Massie
     Mast
     McCarthy
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     McSally
     Meadows
     Messer
     Mitchell
     Moolenaar
     Mooney (WV)
     Mullin
     Newhouse
     Noem
     Norman
     Nunes
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Palmer
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Pittenger
     Poe (TX)
     Poliquin
     Posey
     Ratcliffe
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Rice (SC)
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney, Francis
     Rooney, Thomas J.
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Rouzer
     Royce (CA)
     Russell
     Rutherford
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smucker
     Stefanik
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Taylor
     Tenney
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tipton
     Trott
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walker
     Walorski
     Walters, Mimi
     Weber (TX)
     Wenstrup
     Westerman
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (IA)
     Zeldin

                               NAYS--189

     Adams
     Aguilar
     Barragan
     Bass
     Beatty
     Bera
     Bishop (GA)
     Blumenauer
     Blunt Rochester
     Bonamici
     Boyle, Brendan F.
     Brady (PA)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capuano
     Carbajal
     Cardenas
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu, Judy
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Cooper
     Correa
     Costa
     Courtney
     Crist
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Demings
     DeSaulnier
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle, Michael F.
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Espaillat
     Esty (CT)
     Evans
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Gomez
     Gonzalez (TX)
     Gottheimer
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hanabusa
     Hastings
     Heck
     Higgins (NY)
     Himes
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Jackson Lee
     Jayapal
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Khanna
     Kihuen
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Krishnamoorthi
     Kuster (NH)
     Lamb
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lawrence
     Lawson (FL)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lieu, Ted
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham, M.
     Lujan, Ben Ray
     Lynch
     Maloney, Carolyn B.
     Maloney, Sean
     Matsui
     McCollum
     McEachin
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Moore
     Moulton
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Nolan
     Norcross
     O'Halleran
     O'Rourke
     Pallone
     Panetta
     Pascrell
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree
     Pocan
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Raskin
     Rice (NY)
     Richmond
     Rosen
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Smith (WA)
     Soto
     Speier
     Suozzi
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Titus
     Tonko
     Torres
     Tsongas
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters, Maxine
     Watson Coleman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Beyer
     Blackburn
     Brown (MD)
     DeGette
     Gohmert
     Labrador
     Polis
     Rogers (KY)
     Walz
     Webster (FL)

                              {time}  1356

  Ms. TSONGAS changed her vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  So the previous question was ordered.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Weber of Texas). The question is on the 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This is a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 228, 
noes 188, not voting 11, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 191]

                               AYES--228

     Abraham
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Amash
     Amodei
     Arrington
     Babin
     Bacon
     Banks (IN)
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Bergman
     Biggs
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (MI)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blum
     Bost
     Brady (TX)
     Brat
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Buchanan
     Buck
     Bucshon
     Budd
     Burgess
     Byrne
     Calvert
     Carter (GA)
     Carter (TX)
     Chabot
     Cheney
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Comer
     Comstock
     Conaway
     Cook
     Costello (PA)
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Culberson
     Curbelo (FL)
     Curtis
     Davidson
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Donovan
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Dunn
     Emmer
     Estes (KS)
     Faso
     Ferguson
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Flores
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Frelinghuysen
     Gaetz
     Gallagher
     Garrett
     Gianforte
     Gibbs
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (LA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffith
     Grothman
     Guthrie
     Handel
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Hice, Jody B.
     Higgins (LA)
     Hill
     Holding
     Hollingsworth
     Hudson
     Huizenga
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurd
     Issa
     Jenkins (KS)
     Jenkins (WV)
     Johnson (LA)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Joyce (OH)
     Katko
     Kelly (MS)
     Kelly (PA)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kinzinger
     Knight
     Kustoff (TN)
     LaHood
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Latta
     Lesko
     Lewis (MN)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Loudermilk
     Love
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     MacArthur
     Marchant
     Marino
     Marshall
     Massie
     Mast
     McCarthy
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     McSally
     Meadows
     Messer
     Mitchell
     Moolenaar
     Mooney (WV)
     Mullin
     Newhouse
     Noem
     Norman
     Nunes
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Palmer
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Pittenger
     Poe (TX)
     Poliquin
     Posey
     Ratcliffe
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Rice (SC)
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney, Francis
     Rooney, Thomas J.
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Rouzer
     Royce (CA)
     Russell
     Rutherford
     Sanford
     Scalise
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MO)
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smucker
     Stefanik
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Taylor
     Tenney
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tipton
     Trott
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walker
     Walorski
     Walters, Mimi
     Weber (TX)
     Wenstrup
     Westerman
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Womack

[[Page H4163]]


     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (IA)
     Zeldin

                               NOES--188

     Adams
     Aguilar
     Barragan
     Bass
     Beatty
     Bera
     Bishop (GA)
     Blumenauer
     Blunt Rochester
     Bonamici
     Boyle, Brendan F.
     Brady (PA)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capuano
     Carbajal
     Cardenas
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu, Judy
     Cicilline
     Clark (MA)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Cooper
     Correa
     Costa
     Courtney
     Crist
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Demings
     DeSaulnier
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle, Michael F.
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Espaillat
     Esty (CT)
     Evans
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Gomez
     Gonzalez (TX)
     Gottheimer
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hanabusa
     Hastings
     Heck
     Higgins (NY)
     Himes
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Jackson Lee
     Jayapal
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kelly (IL)
     Kennedy
     Khanna
     Kihuen
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Krishnamoorthi
     Kuster (NH)
     Lamb
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lawrence
     Lawson (FL)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lieu, Ted
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham, M.
     Lujan, Ben Ray
     Lynch
     Maloney, Carolyn B.
     Maloney, Sean
     Matsui
     McCollum
     McEachin
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Moore
     Moulton
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Nolan
     Norcross
     O'Halleran
     O'Rourke
     Pallone
     Panetta
     Pascrell
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree
     Pocan
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Raskin
     Rice (NY)
     Richmond
     Rosen
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Smith (WA)
     Soto
     Speier
     Suozzi
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Titus
     Tonko
     Torres
     Tsongas
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters, Maxine
     Watson Coleman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--11

     Beyer
     Black
     Blackburn
     Brown (MD)
     DeGette
     Gohmert
     Labrador
     Polis
     Rogers (KY)
     Walz
     Webster (FL)


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes 
remaining.

                              {time}  1404

  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________