[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16493]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  0915
                    AGRICULTURE NEGATIVELY IMPACTED

  (Mr. SMITH of Nebraska asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the 
cap-and-trade bill we will be taking up shortly.
  Agriculture is one of the Nation's most energy-intensive industries 
and will be negatively impacted by this legislation. Even a small 
increase in operating costs could devastate rural farmers and ranchers, 
and this bill could prove to be a huge burden on our agricultural 
producers. U.S. farmers would also be at a severe disadvantage compared 
to farmers in nations which do not have cap-and-trade systems with the 
correspondingly high input costs.
  Yesterday I offered an amendment which would have helped defray 
increased costs of production and declining prices resulting from 
increased imports or decreased exports.
  It is simply not appropriate for allowances to be set aside for other 
industries heard by the cap-and-trade bill, but agriculture is left 
out.

                          ____________________