[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9136]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               FARM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Richardson). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. MORAN of Kansas. Madam Speaker, today, the House of 
Representatives debated the conference report on what we in Kansas call 
the farm bill. Here in Washington, it's now called the Food, 
Conservation, Energy Security Act, and I note that the word ``farm'' is 
now missing from the farm bill.
  As I indicate to Kansans, there probably is no more important piece 
of legislation that this Congress will consider than the 2008 farm bill 
from a Kansas perspective. Certainly, not every Kansan is a farmer, not 
every Kansan is a rancher, but agriculture is the backbone of the 
Kansas economy, and policies that we determine here today in the House 
of Representatives and tonight later in the Senate affect the Kansas 
economy and a way of life that we have revered in our State for 
generations.
  Agriculture is not only a business. It's not only a way of earning a 
living. In fact, it's a very difficult way of earning a living. It is 
the opportunity that we have in our State for sons and daughters to 
work side-by-side with moms and dads. It's the opportunity for us to 
pass on values from one generation to the next.
  And today, Madam Speaker, I worry that the legislation that we will 
soon be sending to the President is inadequate to meet the needs of 
Kansas producers and American agriculture.
  In the 2002 farm bill, we passed a security net, a safety net for our 
farmers, and it's a three-pronged approach to making certain that our 
farmers are secure and have an opportunity to survive in difficult 
times, whether those times are difficult because of low commodity 
prices or difficult because the weather does not cooperate.
  And today, Madam Speaker, we chose to reduce that security, that 
safety net that provides Kansans a future.
  I had two criteria in trying to determine whether or not the farm 
bill was something I should vote for. One: Is this farm bill better? Is 
the 2007, now 2008, farm bill better than the one that was adopted by 
Congress in 2002? And clearly, the answer to that is no.
  And the second criteria comes from listening to farmers for the last 
2 and 3 years about what a new farm bill should look like. In fact, I 
listened to American producers from across the country. Since the 
passage of the last farm bill, I've chaired or been the ranking 
Republican, Republican leader on the subcommittee responsible for all 
farm programs and participated in 15 hearings across the country. And 
what I heard time and time again, especially from the folks back home 
is, whatever you do, Jerry, make certain that we don't lose the direct 
payment and make certain that crop insurance remains a viable option 
for us to protect ourselves from risk. And unfortunately, once again, 
those two criteria were not met today.
  So Madam Speaker, I pledge to my colleagues in the House of 
Representatives, and particularly my friends on the House Agriculture 
Committee, to continue to work in a very strong and bipartisan way to 
see if we can't improve the lives of farmers in Kansas and States 
across the country.
  I served on the conference committee that provided the report that we 
have had before us today, and I offered amendments and supported 
amendments that I think would make significant improvements in the 2008 
farm bill. They were rejected on straight, party-line votes, and it's a 
sad day for me because I've always enjoyed my work in the Agriculture 
Committee because I care about farmers and ranchers, and I care about 
their way of life. But never has our committee been partisan, and 
again, I pledge myself to work with my colleagues to see if we can 
restore the days in which we were in this together on behalf of 
American agriculture.
  Madam Speaker, it's my belief that if we're going to spend as much 
money as we spend in this farm bill, which is a significant sum of 
money, we ought to spend it in much more wise and prudent ways than 
this conference report provides. We owe it to farmers across the 
country, and we owe it to the taxpayers of this Nation.

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