[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 57 (Thursday, March 31, 2022)]
[House]
[Page H4021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ENERGY COSTS AFFECT FARMERS

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, President Biden has been promising recently 
empty shelves, food shortages in the United States of America.
  American farmers are the most efficient and the best in the world at 
what they do, but they can't do it very well with these high energy 
costs.
  Fertilizer takes energy to produce. It takes oil to produce. When you 
see the cost increasing 51 percent, this isn't just going to hit the 
farmers; it is going to hit all consumers.
  Energy costs ripple through everything: planting, harvesting, 
delivering, everything. So what are we doing? What is our focus going 
to be?
  In my home State of California, water is being taken away from 
agriculture. We need the Bureau of Reclamation and our own State water 
resources to be focused on producing food for people.
  In Ukraine, those farmers are trying to plant amidst bombs from Putin 
and Russia. In our own country, in my own home State, the bombs are 
being dropped by the government on farmers, having their water taken 
away, having their energy costs go through the roof.

  We have to focus on producing energy and food for Americans that is 
affordable instead of this direction that the Federal and my own State 
government are doing to the people and not for them.

                          ____________________