[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15108-15111]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4766, AGRICULTURE, RURAL 
    DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005

  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 710 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution as follows:

                              H. Res. 710

       Resolved, That at any time after the 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 consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 4766) making appropriations for Agriculture, 
     Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related 
     Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and 
     for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be 
     dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of 
     the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the 
     bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and 
     controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on Appropriations. After general debate the bill 
     shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. 
     Points of order against provisions in the bill for failure to 
     comply with clause 2 of rule XXI are waived except as 
     follows: Beginning with the colon on page 3, line 25, through 
     ``out'' on page 4, line 6; section 717; and section 751. 
     Where points of order are waived against part of a paragraph, 
     points of order against a provision in another part of such 
     paragraph may be made only against such provision and not 
     against the entire paragraph. The amendment printed in the 
     report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution 
     may be offered only by a Member designated in the report and 
     only at the appropriate point in the reading of the bill, 
     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, and shall not be subject to 
     amendment. All points of order against that amendment are 
     waived. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the 
     Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may accord priority in 
     recognition on the basis of whether the Member offering an 
     amendment has caused it to be printed in the portion of the 
     Congressional Record designated for that purpose in clause 8 
     of rule XVIII. Amendments so printed shall be considered as 
     read. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for 
     amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the 
     House with such amendments as may have been adopted. 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 Georgia (Mr. Linder) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes 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 
purposes of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 710 provides for the consideration of H.R. 4766, 
the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and 
Related Agencies Appropriation Act of 2005, under an open rule, as is 
customary with annual appropriations measures. I am pleased that the 
normal open amendment process outlined in H. Res. 710 will allow any 
member to offer an amendment to the bill as long as it complies with 
the standing rules of the House.
  The rule provides 1 hour of debate in the House on the bill equally 
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of 
the Committee on Appropriations. The resolution waives all points of 
order against consideration of the bill. H. Res. 710 waives points of 
order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply with clause 
2 of rule XXI, which prohibits unauthorized appropriations or 
legislative provisions in an appropriations bill, except as specified 
in the resolution.
  H. Res. 710 also provides that the amendment printed in the Committee 
on Rules report accompanying the resolution may be offered only by a 
member of the subcommittee designated in the report and only at the 
appropriate point in the reading of the bill, shall be considered as 
read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally 
divided and controlled by a proponent and an opponent, and shall not be 
subject to amendment. H. Res. 710 waives all points of order against 
the amendment printed in the report.
  The resolution gives the chair the ability to provide priority in 
recognition to those members who have preprinted amendments in the 
Congressional Record. This procedure will help the House in considering 
amendments in a more orderly manner.

[[Page 15109]]

Finally, H. Res. 710 provides for one motion to recommit with or 
without instructions.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by commending the work product of the 
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on 
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and 
Related Agencies, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). He has done a 
good job in crafting this funding bill, especially as we face budgetary 
limitations, and the bill deserves the support of the House today.
  With regard to the underlying legislation, I do want to briefly note 
that this appropriations bill provides for more than $83 billion in 
funding. Included in this bill is $43 million in higher funding levels 
for food safety and counterterrorism activities. Also included is an 
increase of $20 million for BSE, or mad cow disease, detection and 
prevention activities.
  We are also fulfilling the commitments to our food and nutrition 
programs with an increase in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program 
for Women, Infants and Children, the WIC program. This measure also 
provides an increase in funding for Agricultural Research Service, 
including full funding to complete construction of the National Centers 
For Animal Health.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule provides for an open amendment process for 
consideration of the agriculture appropriations bill. I urge my 
colleagues to support this fair rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 
minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule will allow for the consideration of H.R. 4766, 
the fiscal year 2005 agriculture appropriations bill. This important 
bill provides funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food 
and Drug Administration, select programs at the Department of Health 
and Human Services, and other agriculture and nutrition-related 
programs at various Federal agencies.
  Like the other fiscal year 2005 appropriations bills, this bill is 
grossly underfunded. The allocation for these important programs 
continues to be reduced each year. Even though this bill is 1 percent 
more than the amount requested by President Bush, it is still below 
last year's funding level; and, unfortunately, it is the farmers, 
children, pregnant mothers, and seniors who rely on these programs who 
are hurt by these low allocations.
  The gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla), the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), and the members of the Committee on Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration and Related Agencies have made the best out of a bad 
situation. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla) did the best he could 
by stretching the limited funds he was allocated to fund many of the 
programs that are important to the American people.
  While I am disappointed that the allocation is low, and I will urges 
the conferees, once appointed, to do what they can to increase the 
funding for these important programs, I want to commend the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Bonilla); the ranking member, the gentlewoman from Ohio 
(Ms. Kaptur); and the members of this subcommittee for doing the best 
they could with this bill.
  Specifically, I want to commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Bonilla) and the ranking member, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. 
Kaptur), and the entire committee for providing $75 million for the 
George McGovern-Robert Dole Food For Education and Child Nutrition 
Program. This important and successful program provides nutritious 
meals to hungry children around the world in a school setting. The 
McGovern-Dole Program received only $50 million last year, and I am 
very pleased that President Bush requested an increase for fiscal year 
2005.
  This program began as the Global Food For Education Initiative, a 
pilot program to use surplus American commodities to feed hungry 
children around the world. The pilot program received $300 million and 
provided school breakfasts, school lunches, and other supplemental food 
to 7 million children in 38 countries.
  The McGovern-Dole program, authorized in the farm bill, made this 
program permanent and subject to appropriations. While I support 
providing $300 million for this program, which would restore funding 
for this program to the original level of the pilot program, I am 
pleased that this bill increases funding for the McGovern-Dole program 
over last year's level.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not alone in supporting $300 million for this 
program. In December, 102 members of this body sent a bipartisan letter 
to President Bush requesting that $300 million be allocated for the 
McGovern-Dole program in fiscal year 2005.
  Mr. Speaker, that letter is as follows:

                                Congress of the United States,

                                Washington, DC, December 11, 2003.
     Hon. George W. Bush,
     President of the United States,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: We are writing to urge you to provide 
     $300 million in your Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Proposal for the 
     George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education 
     and Child Nutrition Program. We believe it is urgent to 
     restore funding for this program at levels similar to those 
     of the original pilot program.
       We strongly believe this funding is critical for sustaining 
     and expanding the McGovern-Dole Program in order to combat 
     terrorism and to help build and consolidate democracy in the 
     Middle East, southern Asia, the Near East, and in other 
     regions critical to U.S. national security. As you are aware, 
     the McGovern-Dole Program provides donations of U.S. 
     agricultural products, as well as financial and technical 
     assistance, for school feeding and maternal and child 
     nutrition programs in low-income countries. We note that 
     recommendations made by the General Accounting Office (GAO) 
     in February 2002 on how to strengthen and improve the 
     administration and implementation of school feeding programs 
     were fully integrated into the law establishing the McGovern-
     Dole Program, enhancements that we believe contribute to its 
     success.
       Both the initial pilot program and the current McGovern-
     Dole Program have a proven track record at reducing the 
     incidence of hunger among school-age children and improving 
     literacy and primary education, especially among girls, in 
     areas devastated by war, hunger, poverty, HIV/AIDS, and the 
     mistreatment or marginalization of women and girls. School 
     meals, teacher training, and related support have helped 
     boost school enrollment and academic performance. McGovern-
     Dole nutrition and school feeding programs also improve the 
     health and learning capacity of children both before they 
     enter school and during the years of primary and elementary 
     school.
       In February 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
     evaluated the McGovern-Dole pilot program and found 
     significant positive results. Specifically--``The results to 
     date show measurable improvements in school enrollment, 
     including increased access by girls. In projects involving 
     more than 4,000 participating schools, the WFP reports an 
     overall enrollment increase exceeding 10 percent, with an 
     11.7 percent increase in enrollment by girls. The PVO's 
     report an overall enrollment increase of 5.75 percent in GFE-
     participating schools. In some projects, increases in 
     enrollment were as high as 32 percent compared with 
     enrollment rates over the previous three years.'' (USDA, the 
     Global Food for Education Pilot Program: A Review of Project 
     Implementation and Impact, page 2 February 2003)
       We firmly believe that these programs reduce the risk of 
     terrorism by helping to eliminate the hopelessness and 
     despair that breed terrorism. American products and 
     commodities are directly associated with hunger alleviation 
     and educational opportunities, encouraging support and good 
     will for the United States in these communities and 
     countries.
       We strongly urge that you restore the capacity of this 
     critically important program by providing $300 million for 
     Fiscal Year 2005.
           Sincerely,
         James P. McGovern, Frank Wolf, Jo Ann Emerson, Marcy 
           Kaptur, Doug Bereuter, Tom Lantos, Earl Pomeroy, Amo 
           Houghton, Barbara Lee, Sam Graves, Edolphus Towns, Don 
           Manzullo, Vic Snyder, Jim Leach, Tammy Baldwin, 
           Christopher Smith (NJ), Marty Meehan, Doc Hastings 
           (WA), Dennis Moore, George Nethercutt, John Olver, 
           Jerry Moran (KS), Bennie G. Thompson (MS), Todd Tiahrt, 
           Adam Schiff, David Price, Maurice Hinchey, James 
           Oberstar, Betty McCollum, William Delahunt, Bob Filner.
         Jan Schakowsky, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Leonard Boswell, Gary 
           Ackerman, George Miller, Dale Kildee, Julia Carson 
           (IN), Albert Wynn, Carolyn Maloney, Bobby Rush, Diana

[[Page 15110]]

           Christensen, Raul M. Grijalva, Bob Etheridge, Pete 
           Stark, Jim McDermott, Jim Matheson, Jerry Costello, 
           Mike Capuano, Joseph Crowley, Susan Davis (CA), Rosa 
           DeLauro, Martin Frost, Rick Larsen (WA), Sander Levin, 
           Ed Markey, John Tierney, Lynn Woolsey, Donald Payne, 
           Hilda Solis, Mike McNulty, Elijah Cummings, Mike Doyle, 
           Joseph Hoeffel.
         Lucille Roybal-Allard, Bernie Sanders, Sam Farr, Neil 
           Abercrombie, Jim Marshall, Charles Gonzalez, Ruben 
           Hinojosa, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Earl Blumenauer, 
           Robert Wexler, Rob Andrews, Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Jose 
           Serrano, Maxine Waters, Lane Evans, Barney Frank, Ron 
           Kind, Sanford Bishop, Jr., Sherrod Brown (OH), Henry 
           Waxman, Steve Rothman, Nancy Pelosi, Dennis Kucinich, 
           Tom Allen, Jim Moran (VA), Rick Boucher, Brad Sherman, 
           Carolyn Kilpatrick, Lois Capps, Karen McCarthy, Patrick 
           Kennedy (RI), Jane Harman, Alcee Hastings (FL), William 
           Jefferson, Chris Van Hollen, Chaka Fattah, Stephen 
           Lynch, Charles Rangel.

  Mr. Speaker, I urge the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla) and others 
to work with the other body to further increase these funds as this 
bill moves into and through the conference committee.
  This program is important, I believe, not only to helping feed hungry 
children around the world. I also believe it is important in combating 
terrorism because it gets to some of the root causes where terrorist 
groups go to recruit people to be involved in some of the terrible 
events that we have seen unfold over the last several years.
  Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased that the fiscal year 2005 agriculture 
appropriations bill includes language blocking the FDA from spending 
money to enforce its ban on prescription drug reimportation.
  Mr. Speaker, it is clear that a bipartisan majority of our colleagues 
supports the reimportation of prescription drugs. It is even clearer 
that the American people support reimportation. They are being gouged 
by the high cost of prescription drugs, and they deserve access to 
these lower-cost prescription drugs. The current Medicare drug card and 
prescription drug plan are hardly a panacea for the high cost of 
prescription drugs.
  It is vital that we provide access, especially for our seniors, to 
these low-cost prescription drugs. Until we can repeal this misguided 
law and pass a genuine and real prescription drug benefit that will 
provide genuine and real relief for seniors who rely on these import 
medicines, reimportation in many respects is our only option; but it is 
also our best option.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is underfunded. There is no doubt about that. 
It is underfunded because of misguided tax cuts for rich people and 
wasteful spending adopted by this administration and I would say by 
those who are running this House of Representatives. It is underfunded 
because in 3 short years they turned record surpluses into record 
deficits. Now the programs that require Federal funds and especially 
the people who rely on these programs are paying the price for these 
misguided policies.
  The low allocation for this bill means that WIC, our most important 
nutrition and health program for pregnant mothers and newborn children, 
will not be fully funded. It means homeland security activities at 
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service are underfunded. And it means 
rural water and waste programs and the rural single family housing 
direct loan program are funded below even last year's levels.
  The policies enacted over the past few years, the tax cuts for rich 
people and the wasteful spending, are taking their toll on these 
programs. However, Mr. Speaker, having noted these concerns and 
reservations, I believe that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla) and 
the ranking member, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), have done 
the best they could with such an inadequate allocation. I commend them 
for this bill. I look forward to voting for it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa 
(Mr. Latham), a member of the committee.
  Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and the 
underlying bill. This is a good rule, and it is a good bill. The 
committee has worked to put together a bipartisan bill, and I believe 
that goal has been accomplished.
  The bill provides critical funding for basic agricultural programs, 
but it goes farther than that. It also supports rural and economic 
development, human nutrition, agricultural exports, land conservation 
and renewable energy, as well as food, drug, and medical safety. This 
bill will deliver benefits to every one of your constituents every day, 
no matter what kind of district you represent.
  I would say to all Members that they can support this bill and tell 
all of their constituents that they voted to improve their lives while 
maintaining fiscal responsibility. Support the rule; support the bill.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the ranking member on the committee.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. McGovern) for yielding me time and for all the attention that he, 
in particular, pays to this important bill on agriculture and the Food 
and Drug Administration. I also wanted to thank the representative of 
the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), today 
for this consideration under an open rule. We, therefore, support the 
rule. And to my good friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham), from 
the committee for as hard as he has worked along with all of us on both 
sides of the aisle in trying to bring this measure before the full 
House.
  This bill obviously has been put together under some of the most 
trying budget circumstances that we have ever seen. When last year's 
bill came before us, I said we were trying to stuff a size 10 foot into 
a shoe that was actually size 7. This in our country that needed more 
than we could provide in that bill. This year we have a size 6 shoe, 
and we have a size 11 foot. And so we have many more needs than we can 
accommodate in this bill.
  We literally had requests from Members from across our country, 
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of requests that we could simply not 
address. They are not addressed in this bill at all.
  The discretionary portion of this bill totals $16.772 billion, which 
is a reduction of $67 million over this year, and compared to fiscal 
year 2003, a reduction of over $1.1 billion. That is nearly a 6 percent 
reduction compared to 2 years ago.

                              {time}  1745

  That means that all the Members who came to us for water and sewer 
projects, rural water and sewer projects, we just simply could not meet 
the requests.
  The Women, Infant and Children's food program, though, we have raised 
it from last year, is probably $150 million short in view of the rising 
need around our country, the unevenness, of the economy and lackluster 
job creation. We just simply do not have adequate money in these bills 
to meet all needs.
  At the same time, our country is now spending over $100 billion in 
Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine if we were able to take and divide that 
up and give every State in our Union an additional $2 billion, $2 
billion that they could share with our localities that are short on 
funds. We seem to be able to find money for some things around the 
world. But then we do not find money for very other worthy needs across 
this Nation.
  For example, in our Commodity Supplemental Food Program, we want to 
take surplus food commodities and give them to our food banks and to 
people who need them. We are about $15 million short in that account, 
despite all the need across this country and the greater and greater 
numbers of people coming into our soup kitchens and our feeding 
kitchens all over this Nation.
  Meanwhile, in this budget, we have been forced to put money into 
accounts to take care of what we call invasive species, that is, all 
these little critters that are coming into our country for

[[Page 15111]]

which there is no known biological control. The cost of this now totals 
hundreds of millions of dollars compared to 10 years ago. Whether it is 
the Asian Longhorned Beetle eating all those trees in Chicago and New 
York City or whether it is the Emerald Ash Borer in States like 
Michigan and Ohio, those invasive species are just eating their way 
through all the forest lands, with those cost burdens now being put on 
the taxpayer. We basically take this money from a very inadequate 
allocation and divert it in order to try to prevent additional damage, 
and really these costs should not be the responsibility of the 
localities and of the Federal Government but those commercial interests 
that caused the damage in the first place.
  I just want to say that agricultural America, and rural small towns, 
are trying as hard as they can. They have always demonstrated a real 
vision toward the future. We hope that as this bill moves towards the 
Senate we will be able to fix some of the inadequacies that currently 
exist in this bill.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla), the 
chairman of our subcommittee, for his willingness to work across the 
aisle and to do the best we could, again with a size eleven foot bill 
when, in fact, we only have a shoe about size six. We just cannot meet 
all the needs that are being asked of us. But we have done the best we 
can.
  I rise in support of the rule and ask the Members to vote for the 
rule and ultimately for the bill.
  I will also say that when the bill comes to the floor for full 
consideration tomorrow we will be offering amendments in the area of 
biofuels, trying to help to generate new industry across this country, 
a renewable fuels industry in ethanol and biodiesel and some of the new 
alcohol based fuels we have not even invented yet.
  We will have an amendment on Iraq and will bring to the attention of 
the country the misuse of the Commodity Credit Corporation back during 
the 1980s and 1990s which has led us to have to bail out banks in the 
Middle East as a result of what was done back then and potentially what 
could happen again by what is being proposed in this bill now.
  We will have an amendment dealing with outsourcing of call centers by 
the Food Stamp Program, trying to bring those call centers back to the 
United States, to our own people who need work.
  Finally, we may have amendments dealing with the reimportation of 
prescription drugs, and we want to keep the base amendment that we were 
able to insert at the subcommittee level, which is to allow the 
reimportation of drugs from nations like Canada so that our people can 
buy them at affordable prices. We want to be able to keep that in the 
bill.
  We will have an amendment on the Farmers Market Promotion Program, 
trying to bring it to a level where it can serve a majority of our 
people.
  So, again, I ask for the support of the membership on the rule, and I 
thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me just close by again saying I want to commend the work of the 
gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla) and the gentlewoman from Ohio 
(Ranking Member Kaptur) for doing the best they could with the low 
allocation. It is not their fault they had a low allocation. The fault 
lies with the President and the White House and the leadership of this 
Congress.
  I think that during this debate I think we will hear a number of 
Members question their sense of priorities when, in fact, the need, 
especially in this area of agriculture, is so great, and yet we do not 
have the resources to be able to address all those challenges.
  They have done a good job with not a lot of resources. They deserve 
to be commended.
  We have no problem with this rule, and I would urge adoption of the 
rule, and I also will vote for this bill and hope that in conference 
that Members will be able to get the allocation up to a more reasonable 
level.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues support both the rule 
and the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________